Mess

Chapter Twenty Two

A cool bottle of spring water is my reward for practically flying home. I’m hot as fuck. It is eighty-two degrees here, and if there’s anything I hate more, it’s being hot and sweaty and icky. It makes me so tired, which is why I was surprised I actually had the energy to run home. Being in clothes doesn’t help either. Once I’ve finished downing the reviving contents of this water bottle, I am going to take the longest and most enduring shower ever. I sit on the kitchen chair for a while, panting helplessly partially due to the marathon I pretty much just took part in, and because I’m not sure if I even seized a miniscule moment to let oxygen into my lungs. I was that thirsty.

I climb the stairs feebly, my limbs feel like burned out rubber. I don’t even feel as though I am maneuvering my own body anymore. I feel detached from everything apart from the incessant thought: shower. I throw my bags onto my floor carelessly, thinking, Can’t, put away now. Too. Weak.

And my demanour elevates slightly as I finally reach my bathroom, mustering up the sufficient amount of energy required to reach out and turn the faucet on. I strip sluggishly, the conscious connection between my brain and my limbs numb and disjoined, before stepping in, the water not too warm and not too lukewarm. The Glorious Inbetween of Shower Temperature.

I am completely elevated now, because I feel far less groggy. I feel clean, fresh, comfortable. The conscious correspondence of vigour within my actions are restored, and I finally remember something I have been trying to remember to ask Evie for the past six days. Putting my wet hair up into a towel, I dial her number.

“I remember!” I exclaim, and she sarcastically praises me and I hit a witty line back at her before continuing, before I forget again. “When Hannah was speaking to you after school last Wednesday. What was it that she wanted you to tell me?”

“Oh,” her tone changes slightly. “It was about how Wanda and Serena got to be…well, whatever the hell they are. I don’t want to class them as friends.”

“Right,” I say. I don’t either, it’s all too fucked up. “So how did it happen?”

Evie clears her throat. “Well, after that incident at lunch when I realised she’d told everyone about me and Kit, Hannah said she saw Serena walk over towards Wanda to see if she was okay or whatever, and they sat down and started taking. Like forever.” She pauses. “Apparently Serena wanted to turn Wanda against us or something, to form some sort of alliance. Like there’s some fucking rivalry. Tell me, since when was this a goddamn war?” She sighs. “I don’t know.”

“Oh.” Is all I can say. And shake my head even though Evie cannot see me.

Okay. Granted, I did not treat Wanda as justly as I know I should have. But Serena’s being a bitch. And a child. A child-bitch. Honestly, turning my own friend against me because she herself dislikes me for unjustifiable reasons? She is the definition of child-bitch. It’s ridiculous.

Evie and I idly discuss the matter before soon after coming off the phone because we both have ‘things to do’. Which is code for, ‘I don’t want to talk about this anymore’. Because I don’t, social affairs stress me out, and I don’t like being stressed, not when my main focus should be on these end of year tests unfortunately coming my way too soon. Serena just isn’t worth it.

So I study. Until my door bell sounds.

Thankful to get a distraction from freaking Precalculus equations, I race down the stairs, but not too fast because I don’t want to get hot again, admittedly eager to see who’s at my door. I beam when revealed to me is my boyfriend. This is perfect because he is the one person I want to see most right now. Pretty much everything that encompasses him and his being is perfect.