last resort

t h i r t y t h r e e

I roll my eyes, but figured he can't see, since his eyes are fixed in the clouds and I'm down between the grass blades. Or sandy concrete bumps.

"Wha's tha'," I scrunch my nose at his crude simile, "like a code name?"

"Yeah," Casey shrugs innocently. "See, Ash is the left ball, Braxton is the right, you're the boot and I'm the sole of the boot."

"Why d'ye ge' to be the sole?" I pout when he finally brought his cobalt spheres back to me. "Tha's the par' tha' hurts."

I want to hurt her, I don't want him to hurt her.

I want to stand up for myself. I want to show her that I'm the better, bigger person. I don't want her affliction upon me, I don't want to feel her thundering words collide with mine, I want to be the dominant, strong one.

I'm sick and tired of being weak.

"What? Do you want to eat dick?" His retort is crude, but I learnt to let it slide. "And in anyways, how could you tell what hurts? You've never felt the pain of balls smashing up your ass."

My fist takes a handful of his abdomen flesh, through the thick, flappy blazer material.

"And ye' kiss ye' mothe' with tha'  mouth?" I snap teasingly, making him wiggle his eyebrows suggestively.

"No shit, Sherlock. I kiss my mom with my nostrils."

I reply in a heavy eye roll, gagged by my own laughter. Maybe I should've never accepted his sorry ass.

It didn't take the snail-pace as long as I desire before we reach the beehive of popularity on the steps.

"The flies have set on the dung," Casey whispers as Ashlynn approaches us flashing her glamorous Hollywood-whitened toothy smile.

"So now we're shi'?" I deadpan, knitting my brows together at his logic. He's starting to make me anxious—his anxiety rubs off on me.

"The shit. Good for soil," he shrugs. "You know, for growing plants in. So we're basically healthy to the shrubs. And weed."

"Hi," Ashlynn lilts. I wanted to reply on Casey's statement, but I sense it's too late now—and I'm momentarily dazed in Ash's skin bronzer catching the weak fluorescent light, blinding me.

"Bye," Casey gushes sarcastically.

She shoots him with a narrow-eyed glare, puckering her red tinted lips together. She returns her attention to me, clipping Casey out.

She's only highlighting the inevitable: he's the latter to their equation.

"You look pretty," she gushes, glazing her eyes over my dress longingly. "What dress is that? It's gorgeous."

"It's Chanel," I mutter confused, defeated by irony. My jaw opens and closes like a fish before I eventually grab onto some words I can hurl back to her. "An' thanks. You too."

"Thanks for your ignorance, but I came to spend some time with my beautiful girl." Casey dangles his arm around my waist loosely—as if he's steadying himself drunkenly.

He leads me away from Ashlynn as if I'm on a leash, her gaze loosely following us as we stampede into the hall [that's how Casey made it feel].

My girl.

I am not that girl. Or the girl. Or a girl. I am his beautiful girl.