She Was Ugly

Chapter 13: The Birthday Party

^^The picture above is Athena's outfit for the party.

Leo's dad's birthday party is tomorrow night, meaning tonight is the Friday before the party. I still have a couple things left to do before the party. Leo told me on Wednesday that I needed to bring some sort of dish to the party. It has to be something that everyone likes. The only thing I can think of is fries.

So, that's what I'm doing on a Friday night, instead of out partying or getting drunk or something. I'm making some homemade cheese dip and chili to go over the fries, which I plan on warming up tomorrow before I leave so it's nice and warm for the guests. Nobody likes cold dip.

For the cheese dip, I warm up a block of cheddar cheese and mozzarella cheese in a crock pot. It takes about 2 hours to melt to the point where I can stir it. Once I completely mix the 2 cheeses, I add in some bacon bits that I cooked this morning for breakfast. Making the cheese dip is the easy part. The chili dip I have to add in multiple kinds of beans and a couple cans of sauces, like tomato.

Then, I have to mix it all together. Actually making it isn't that hard, it's the measuring and making sure you have the right ingredients that is hard. I learned this recipe from my brother when he was still here. I haven't made it in years, but it still tastes exactly how I remember it. Once the chili is done, I set aside both dips and direct my attention to the potatoes.

They need to be cut up in medium length, skinny rectangles. That's the best way to cut potatoes for fries. They're not too skinny or too fat and not too long or too short. It takes about 45 minutes to cut up all 30 potatoes into the correct shape. After I put all the uncooked fries in a bowl, I heat up some oil in a pot on the stove.

We don't have anything to cook the fries in, so my brother and I always used a pot filled halfway with oil. It makes them taste a little better and a little bit less greasy than fast food fries. It takes 20 minutes for all the fries to cook, so once I dump them in, I pull out my phone and scroll through Instagram.

A post on Jenny's account caught my eye. For some reason I follow her on Instagram. I'm not sure why, maybe it's because I wanted to see how the popular's live their lives. The picture was from a party that somebody had thrown tonight. The picture was Jenny sitting in the lap of some guy passed out in a recliner with her lips pressing against his cheek. A couple seconds later, it registered that that boy was Leo! I didn't even know he was at a party tonight. I wonder if Via knew.

What was he doing with her? I mean, I knew that they both went to a lot of parties, but Leo didn't strike me as the type that would hook up with Jenny. Of course, Jenny was the queen bee and Leo was the "bad guy," so it is only natural for them to get together. For some odd reason, the more I stared at this picture the it felt like somebody was stabbing me in the heart. Why, I don't know.

I've never seen Leo like this with a girl, although I should expect this. I don't know why it makes my heart hurt. Maybe I'm just jealous that Leo's been back for a little more than a month and he already has a girlfriend, when I've been here for 17 years and have never even had my first boyfriend yet. That has to be it. There's no other explanation to as why I would be jealous.

I went to bed that night thinking of Jenny's Instagram post.

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The next morning was the morning of Via and Leo's dad's birthday party. It was going to be in the park a couple minutes from our houses, and it would start at 12:00 pm.

I woke up and the first thing I did was go downstairs and plug in the crock pots that were filled with both dips. They needed to be warmed up a couple hours ahead of time so they would be warm enough for the party.