Bad Luck with Love

Chapter 37: Memorable

Jo answered, smiling hugely at me. “Hey Ivy!”

I didn’t even bother to greet her, instead brushed right past her. I was still mad, and I knew I was acting like a spoiled brat, but I didn’t care. I could live my life however I chose and who were they to decide if it was wrong or right?

“So what’s up?” she asked, sitting on the couch opposite of me.

“Everyone clearly thinks I’m unstable and can’t take care of myself,” I returned bitterly.

“We’ve always thought you were unstable,” she shrugged. “Now’s no different.”

“So what to do first? Pj’s?” Leena asked.

“Sorry I don’t have any. I guess I should leave.” I started to get up but Jo waved me down with an eye roll. “Don’t be ridiculous; I can lend you some.” She got up and ran downstairs quickly, her room was in the basement, then came back up, tossing some clothes at me. I caught them and went to the bathroom first, changing into the Hello Kitty black tee-shirt and rubber ducky pink pants she’d given me.

“Next order of business…junk food,” Jo grinned mischievously, and the three of us trooped to her big, clean kitchen. She pulled out a large tub of chocolate ice cream, several spoons, chocolate bars, chips, candy, cookies and a million other things that normally would have excited me, but now just made me sick to think of it all. We brought it all, taking several trips, to the living room and pushed the table and couches out of the way so we could spread out sleeping bags on the floor in front of the TV.

Leena and Jo were talking animatedly about something, eating gummy worms and chips happily as if nothing at all was wrong.

When they noticed my silence, they both exchanged glances and Leena sighed.

“You need to have fun, Ivy. Jake would hate for you to stop living because of him,” Leena said gently, a yellow and green gummy worm between her fingers. “I can’t imagine how it must feel to be in your place right now, but to stop everything is no way to deal with this.”

“Look, I don’t need a lecture guys, so if that’s all you were going—”

“A lecture is exactly what you need, young lady,” Jo said sternly, glaring at me now. “You are acting ridiculous. Jake is your best friend and your boyfriend and yeah, what happened sucks. But do you think sitting around, sulking and being a loner is the way to deal? You are very, very wrong. Jake would be so mad if he saw you like this; always ditching us and your brother, that you stopped dancing, especially that all you ever do is homework! I can understand being upset, but it’s been almost three months and you need to get your rear in gear and wake up to the reality of the situation, and then maybe Jake will too.”

“What do you want me to do then? Go out, hang out with you guys and dance again? Do you not understand that I don’t want to? You have no idea what this feels like!” I thundered. “It’s my life not yours!”

“No duh we have no idea what it feels like, it’s never happened to us and you aren’t exactly telling us anything either.” Jo shot back, her blue eyes sharp. I’d never seen her look this angry before.

“Ivy we’re your friends too. All we want is to make sure you’re okay and happy, but we can’t do that if you won’t talk to us. Tell us how it feels, lean on us. You don’t need to go through this alone," Leena said, sliding off the couch to sit by me, gummy worm lying forgotten on the cushion. “We want to help you, but you need to stop being so stubborn. I get that it was awful, but well…no one really knows exactly what happened except for the accident.”

“You want to know what happened? Fine. That asshole tricked me. Again. He sent me a letter telling me to meet him at that stupid restaurant, pretending to be Jake. Jake got one too, thinking it was me inviting him. But it was Chad. It was always Chad,” I said furiously, my hands clenched in front of me. “He kissed me just for Jake to see! And you know what happened? Jake left. He didn’t even wait for an explanation, he didn’t do anything. He just drove off and got into that stupid accident. That was the last time I saw him.”