Finding Beauty

[22] - Chapter Twenty-Two

After school, I was now pulling up in front of Mary Anne’s house and thankfully she allowed me to come over since so much drama has happened to me today. My right cheek still ached and I felt like someone just ripped out my heart. I lost everything, my trust and friendship in Dean, my supposed relationship with Kale, and his friends liking towards me. It all just turned out to be one big lie and my insecurity ghost strangely wasn’t here to say, “I told you so.”

Sighing, I parked my car, took out my car keys, and opened the door. As soon as I closed the door behind me and went to throw my keys into my backpack, something went off inside me. Suddenly, tears slowly fell from my eyes and I felt all of the pain overcome me.

I tried to comfort myself by taking deep breaths and wiping my tears, it only worked halfway for the paining feeling was still uncomfortably strong. After throwing my car keys into my backpack, I zipped it up and walked towards Mary Anne’s house.

As soon as I made it on the porch, the door swung open. “Oh you poor thing,” Mary said sadly as she glanced at me, “come here.” And with that, I stepped closer to her until she was embracing me. Strangely, I didn’t cry again since the hug was actually comforting.

After she released me, I stepped inside of her house and she closed the door behind me. Turning to me she smiled, “Would you like some Peppermint Tea dear?”

“Yes please,” I said politely as I walked over to her comfortable beige sofa.

Mary Anne nodded at this and followed me as she called, “Gregory can you please spare me two cups of Peppermint Tea?”

“Of course, it’ll be ready in a jiffy!” Gregory called back. 

After her husband replied, Mary Anne sat in her usual seat and faced me with a reassured smile. I smiled back, thankful that I felt actually better now. “So, is everything okay? If it isn’t, you can talk about it when Gregory is done getting our tea.”

“No it’s okay,” I replied to her as I shook my head. “Can we talk about it now?” I really wanted this day to just get off of my shoulders already and even if I was feeling a bit better, it still pulled me down.

“That’s fine, go ahead,” She said with a nod, “I won’t interrupt you.”

“Okay,” I told her with a sigh and then I continued, “I found out that my boyfriend Kale was having an affair with my um…chemistry teacher on the night of the dance. The next day, I found out that my close friend Dean knew about it too so I felt really betrayed and then Kale found out that I knew and threatened me to not tell anyway. He even slapped me which is shocking and it get worse, he was only dating me so he could keep his relationship with Mrs. Rial a secret.”

Mary Anne looked at me and once again, she didn’t look at all shocked. Instead, she leaned over and put her hand on my knee. “Oh baby, I’m so sorry about Kale. He seems like a jerk and this must mean you’re getting closer to find out what human your insecurity ghost created.”

As soon as she said this, I suddenly thought of something. “Is it Kale? I mean, he tricked me and played with my insecurities—

“It might be,” She told me with a nod, “however, you cannot always be sure. Usually, when they have found them, they’ll know for sure. Do you?”

“Well, he is a jerk but I don’t know if he really is a ghost that my insecurities created,” I explained to her. “I mean, when you said that they play tricks on you, it’s what Kale did to me.”

“Hmm, well dig deeper honey. Find out why he started to date your teacher, I cannot honestly tell you if it’s him or not but I can tell you this: this isn’t easy, they are tricks along the way, and no one is to be trusted.”