Aberrant

Chapter Eleven

If anyone wants to make me a cover...that'll be great ;)

Chapter Eleven

Weeks pass as I finally get used to the new routine of going to school and training with Quinton. The once warm air started to have a cold bite to it as September and October end and November begins. And no, I didn’t go trick-or-treating like I used to every year, or even go to a high school party (that I was never invited to) where every girl there dressed up like they were in the Playboy mansion. Quinton had me train with him all night.

“It’s Halloween; don’t you want to go trick-or-treating?” I asked on my fortieth pushup. Quinton looked at me like I grew a second head.

“Cassidy, you’re fifteen, and I’m sixteen. Trick-or-treating is for seven year old fat kids that have nothing better to do than watch Halloween specials on Cartoon Network.” He scoffed at me as he placed another weight on back.

And that was the end of that conversation for the whole night. Weeks before that was Quinton’s birthday. I decided that as a good student, I should give him a birthday present. But then the problem of not know what to get him was in my way. So I finally went with a cheesy Hallmark card and some pain-relief cream (because lately, I’ve been kicking his ass pretty hard.)

“You’re a beary good friend and I want to wish you a beary special wish on this beary special day.” He read the lines on the card with distaste. I stared at the pink stuffed teddy bear printed on the pink card with a smirk on my face. He closed the card while pressing his lips together in annoyance. He tossed the card on the floor and I handed him the present (wrapped in High School Musical wrapping paper, the only one I could find at such a short notice.) He took one look at the paper and groaned.

“This is going to be great.” He muttered as he tore open the wrapping paper. He inspected the tub of cream and looked at me.

“You’re so funny! I want five hundred pushups.” He commanded and then went off to do his own thing. It was totally worth it even if I had to do five hundred pushups.

And even after two months, Xander hasn’t spoken a word to me. He will always give me dirty looks and glares every time we crossed paths. It hurts to know that my best friend now hates me even after all we’ve been through. And Taylor is starting to side with Xander and distance herself from me too.

So all I really have is Quinton, and that’s just sad.

And so now, I’m waiting at the back seat of a sweat-smelling school bus for everyone to board. The whole tenth grade class is going to a random museum in the next town over. The school board demanded that Plomiting should have at least one field trip a year.

I watch the bus door as Xander steps into the bus with Taylor trailing behind him. Xander catches my glance and glares back. He sits in the seat two away from mine. I look at Taylor as she sits in the seat behind him. She gives me a desperate look and mouths the word ‘sorry’. She turns to Xander and they start talking.

Next is a clique of girls talking about the newest brand of lip gloss, with Quinton following behind them. “Like I kind of like the sticky kind, not the real oily kind. The oily kind makes my face break out.”

“I like the kind with little paper stars in it. Oh! And the kind that smells like strawberry! Sometimes it makes me want to eat it!”

“Didn’t you have to go to the hospital to get your stomach pump after you ate that tube of chocolate lip gloss, Becca?” Audrey asks as she sits down in the seat across from Xander’s seat. Rebecca or ‘Becca’ frowns.

“Yeah, daddy still working through suing the company. I wouldn’t have had to go to the hospital if the lip gloss didn’t taste so good.” She replies sheepishly. Quinton sits in the seat next to me as the girls converse on the importance of having a backup lip gloss just in case the first isn’t ‘juicy’ enough.