It Started with a Bet... (Watty Awards 2011)

TREVOR: "I'm a horrible person."

TREVOR: "I'm a horrible person."

I sit on the couch and wait. It takes maybe…fifteen minutes? half an hour? before Corey comes out of the bedroom. His eyes and nose are red, as though he just cried. I stand up, only to have him clap my shoulder and give me a weak smile before leaving. I don't know what to say. What did Haley do? I jump suddenly. Haley! Is she okay? I tentatively knock on her door, but there's no answer. Instead, the door swings open slightly at my touch.

Haley is sitting on the ground, her knees pulled up to her chest. She looks remorseful, but there are no tears.

"I'm a horrible person," she says in a small, choked voice. Her head buries itself in her knees. Before I know what I'm doing, I'm sitting down beside her.

"I wasn't thinking! How could I not think he'd get hurt? Even if I never liked him, I still..." she trails off and lets out a deep sigh. "I still cared about him a little. Like a friend or a brother." It makes sense. Dating someone for a month will bring the two of you closer together no matter what.

I sit there next to her while she berates herself. I don't say anything. What she did was pretty terrible, but even if I could turn back the clock for her, I don't see how she could have done things any differently.

That's not all, a voice in my head smirks. You don’t want her to have done things differently, do you?

It's true, I guess. I can't help but feel ecstatic that they aren't together any more. I listen to her continual berating. It kind of hurts that she doesn't feel the same. Soon her words fade to silence. My stomach grumbles.

"Come on," I nudge her with an elbow. "Let's eat something." She shakes her head and laughs.
"That's your big statement of comfort?"

I scratch the back of my neck.

"I'm a guy. I'm not good with all this..." I wave my hand around a bit. She laughs again, bitterly.
"Oh, yes, because I'm such an expert in self-comfort." I shift my weight awkwardly. She doesn't look at me. "I-uh, I'm not that hungry. I think you should leave."

Damn it, I messed up. I go to pat her on the back, but she shrugs away. I get up and leave, shutting the door behind me. Why am I such a screw up? Why am I so screwed up?

I make pasta on my own, knocking on her door and leaving a plate for her just outside of it. I reach into the freezer and pull out a tub of ice-cream, but the celebration seems...wrong, somehow. Empty. I knock on Haley's door. The now empty plate is sitting there.

"Let's go do something!" She shakes her head.

She spends a good week that way. At school she acts normal, though neither she nor Corey look at one another. Then at home she goes back to her quiet self. Spike calls sometimes, asking if she wants to hang out with him and Clarice, but she always declines. Why is she so oversensitive?
Finally, the following Friday, Clarice bursts through the front door. She walks into Haley's room and drags her out.

"We're going somewhere!" she yells as she exits. I'm home alone, so I call Matt and Spike over for some videogames.

"What's up with you and Clarice?" Spike asks Matt midway through Call of Duty.
"What are you talking about?" Matt asks.

"Oh, come on," I say with a laugh. "We know something's wrong." Matt just shrugs.
"I've just been thinking lately that maybe she's not for me. And I wasn't really able to tell her until..." There's a silence. I don't know what to do. Neither does Spike.

"Missing Janice?" he asks finally. Sometime last week, around Haley and Corey's breakup, Janice stopped coming to lunch with us. She stopped talking to anyone, especially Matt. Despite this, Clarice and Matt's relationship seemed to continue to deteriorate. Matt shakes his head.

"Janice was kinda...clingy. And easily jealous. But she was a little more...physical than Clarice."

"More than we needed to know," I say suddenly, picking my controller back up. Spike makes a kind of strange face at the paused game.

Matt lets out a deep sigh. "Maybe I should go home." Spike looks over at him.

"Not until I've kicked some ass, pal." And just like that the tension is gone. We start yelling at one another over little men on the screen, forgetting all about our issues. Why can't girls be this simple?

The doorbell rings. "I invited Corey over," Spike explains quickly. "He's kinda been in a slump since, you know." I do know. And since his slump is partially my fault, I welcome him to the club.

"Haley and Clarice went out," I explain quickly. He just nods and smiles back. He seems better off about all this than Haley.

We go back to our screaming and video gaming, ordering pizza and stuffing ourselves with popcorn while watching random movies. It's a good guys' night out. But about 11, I start looking at the clock. As if he can read my mind, Spike whips out his phone.

"Hey, where are you?" He pauses. "Are you okay?" He nods. "Sounds brilliant. I think we all need it. Yeah." Another pause. "All the guys. Matt, Corey, Trevor, me, the whole gang." His eyes flit over me and then to Matt. "Janice? She's kidding." We all look at him. "Whatever floats your boat, sweetheart." His eyes flick to Matt and he turns slightly red again. "Yeah, I'll tell Trevor. Bye."

"Well?" I ask.

"Haley's sleeping over with Clarice and possibly Janice." We all turn to stare at him.

"Is she looking for a punching bag?" Matt asks finally. Spike shrugs. I recall his use of the word 'sweetheart.'

"Who were you talking to, anyway?"

"So are we sleeping over?" Spike blatantly ignores my question but no one else notices. It makes sense. If he's talking to Haley he risks pissing me and Corey off and if he's talking to Clarice then Matt would be upset. I look at Matt again, who takes his phone out and starts pushing buttons. He lets out a long sigh, shuts his eyes, and hits what must be enter. Or delete. Spike is watching, too, his eyes wide. What's going on?

"I-I'll be right back," he says quickly. I look from Corey to Matt, each with a look of 'it sucks but it had to be done' on their faces. Ugh. This is going to be a tough night. I try to smile as I unpause Scary Movie 4.

"More popcorn?"
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All right, is Haley overreacting to this whole thing? Who was Spike talking to on the phone? What is Matt doing on his phone? What are Haley and Clarice doing and why is Janice involved? All very good questions. Well, what theories do we have?

In other news, I've decided that even if I don't have two chapters to post I can still do voting challenges, right? So, if we can reach 120 votes, I'll be posting tomorrow, all right? If not, I'll post the day after. Make sure to vote, because it usually takes two days for us to get 100 votes, and I'm challenging us with one day. So don't leave it to someone else.