“Eternity, are you sure that this is a good idea?” Ivy asks for probably the millionth time. I sigh, letting go of the makeshift ponytail I had made of my hair. “Ivy, I can’t just stay here moping around the house. It’s not getting me anywhere, and I need to get back into the real world, you know? Maybe getting back into things will help me.”
“It’s just that—“ She starts, “Are you sure you’re ready to see him?”
My eyes darken. “Well, I can’t just keep hiding in my bedroom. I will have to come out some time; what’s the difference between tomorrow and next week? It’s not like what he did will be any less real,” I mumble the last part, pulling my hair into a messy bun. “Umm…closure?” She muses before I turn around and sling my bag over my shoulder. Her eye brows shoot up as she stares at my bun. “What…the hell…is THAT?”
“It’s called a messy bun, duh.”
She face-palms, “Dear god help me,” She mumbles into her hand, and shakes her head before grabbing her own bag and leading me out of my house. “Have you talked to Angel lately?”
I shake my head, “Not since she said she was going to talk to—“ I look down.
“The man responsible for the bloodline whose name shall not be spoken.” Ivy says solemnly, and I crack a small smile. “I’m really worried about her; This man just scares me.” I shudder.
“Oh, you mean you are scared of the man who beat his wife into a coma, pushed his daughter into committing suicide, and got his own son to commit arson and murder? That doesn’t make any sense at all.”
***
My profound speech about moving on notwithstanding, I’m already dreading Biology class the minute I walk in and Mr. Honeycutt greets me with a curt nod, before handing me some worksheets. Luckily, Ivy has given me a copy of her notes so I have a general idea of what we are doing. Something to do with microorganisms, and how much of them are swirling in our food.
Starvation, here I come.
I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding upon seeing the empty seat. He is not here. I dump my bag on the floor and slide into my seat, thinking how much this feels like old times. Looks like I’m back to where I started, empty lab table and all. I’m even bleeding from visions all over again.
I am barely done writing my name on the sheet when I hear the creek of a chair being pulled back, then someone sitting next to me, his familiar presence calling on to me. Every cell, every bone, every nerve ending in my body is aching to be in his arms.
My hand clenches around the pen as I write the date and try not to look at him. I hear him clear his throat, then he reaches out to pull the other sheet from underneath the one I’m holding, “Eternity,” He whispers, and right at this moment, I want nothing more than to be reduced to the size of E. Coli. Think of how simple my life would be! And I would be able to get him sick too!
“Mr. Honeycutt said we should work on the sheet as partners.”
I clear my own throat before responding, “It’s, uh, it’s fine. I will work on this one; you work on the other,” I tell him, not once looking up from my sheet until the letters start to swirl together.
“I don’t know much about this, do you?”
“It’s an open book.”
“It involves discussing the answer together.”
“Then write your answer and I will gladly discuss it with you.”
“Will you please just look at me?”
I turn to him, “Will you just stop?” I snap, “Just stop trying, stop talking as if everything is normal, as if this is just an ordinary couples fight. You didn’t cheat on me with some stripper called Sleezy Titties; you manipulated me, Ace.”
For the rest of the class, I am barely aware of the answers I’m scribbling. Once the bell rings, I all but throw the paper at him as I gather my things and hurry out of the class.
The rest of the day passes comparatively uneventful. I sit far away from him in the two other classes we share together, yet I still feel his blue gaze on me. I’m changing out of my P.E. clothes in the girl’s room when I realize the only people left are Chloe and I. Deciding I have had enough tension today, I shove my T-shirt in my bag and opt for sticking with my tank top. I slam my locker shut and start to scurry out of the room, hoping I emitted a ‘don’t disturb’ aura.
“I saw you yesterday,”
So much for that.
“Sorry?”
She lifts her head up to look at me, her brown eyes peering at me with evident suspicion. “I saw you yesterday at Squisito. And Ace was with you,” She repeats impatiently.
“And that is somehow illegal because…”
She rolls her eyes and looks away, and something tells me the words she is about to say are difficult for her.
“Alright listen, I don’t know how the hell you knew, but I saw Malia heading toward that electricity box, so I came out to warn her, and there you were, talking to the electrician,”
My eyes are as wide as saucers as she talks. Oh my god, could this get any worse?
“And you and I have schemed enough together for me to know when you are distracting someone,”
That was a rhetorical question, you cruel universe!
“Next, Ace comes in and stops Malia.”
“So what?” I say in a flat voice, trying to appear nonchalant, when honestly, sweat was forming on my forehead. “I saw an open electricity box and I warned the guy about it,” She ignores me, “Listen, Eternity. You aren’t my favorite person in the world these days, and I have no idea how the two of you knew to be there, but the point is: You saved my cousin and I—“ She presses her lips together, “I wanted to thank you for that.”
I stare at her for long time, before pressing my mouth in a thin line, “I didn’t do anything,” I brush past her and start to leave when she says, “I never turned my back on you because I was ashamed of you, you know?”
Looks like this is gonna be a long day, “That is not what it looked like,” I mumble. “Well, I guess I owe you an apology.”
I’m gaping, “You’re apologizing? As in, contrite guilt and acknowledging what you did as wrong? ” She glares at me, and the Chloe I know is back, “Don’t let it go to your head; you deserve most of what I did to you, so I guess you can consider it more of an explanation than an apology,” This should be interesting. “Remember that time when you and Alex first started getting close? How excited and giddy you were?”
I nod, raising an eye brow at her as if to ask ‘What does this have to do with anything?’
“I was really happy for you, which is mostly why I never told you how I really felt. I mean, it’s not like it would’ve mattered anyway; he was always too busy making goo goo eyes at you to notice anybody else, so why cause myself the pain?”
Her words are buckets of ice cold water being splashed all over me. Was this a week of crazy revelations or something?
“You…” I trail off, not wanting to speak the truth out loud. I try to go back, look through every memory, every time we all went out together, searching for a sign, a confirmation of what she is saying. A moment when her eyes glaze with a sad look, or even her looking at him from the corner of her eyes the same way I looked at him. I come up empty handed. “No, that is impossible. You are lying. You never showed it—“
“No, Eternity, you were just too blinded by your epic little romance to notice. Ivy did though, and she asked me about it.”
“Ivy knew?”
“I never told her the truth.” Chloe shrugs. “I was in love with him since the moment we became friends. I wanted him, but he just goes and picks you! And you never even tried! There was never an option for him but you,” She says the last word venomously. “So I settled for being his friend; Honestly? I couldn’t stand seeing you with him. I mostly stayed your friend just to be around him.”
My eye brows shoot up, “You were pretending to be my friend.” Hearing that her betrayal stretches far longer than I thought has me shattering all over again, reopening old wounds. Going back to every happy memory and wondering how I never noticed the snake pretending to be my friend. “Come on Eternity, aren’t you over it already?” She says flippantly. “Then that fire happened.” Her voice grows frantic, “I hated you so much after that; I couldn’t stand to look at you anymore.”
I shake my head at her “I almost died.” I say incredulously.
“And when you didn’t I figured I should make you pay for what you’ve done,” She says this in an eerily cool voice. Actually, except for the part when she blamed me for killing him, her tone has been mostly flippant through all this, “And then Ace comes along, and of course, he chooses you over me. Somehow, even when you are a ruined loser, he still picks you.”
“This isn’t some sort of competition, Chloe!” I snap at her, “Do you think I asked for this? Do you think I wanted this? The guy I fell in love with died? And you are blaming me as if I haven’t suffered enough from it already? Don’t you think I blamed myself too?! See, Chloe, death doesn’t just happen to that person; it happens to everyone around him left behind to figure out how to go on with their now fucked up lives without him, so if you’re looking to blame someone, maybe you should start with the son of a bitch who lit the match,” I take a deep breath before I carry on, “You know, I thought we would stick together through it. You abandoned me during the worst summer of my life, and when I went back to school, you treated me like a pariah. And for a second there, I thought I got a second chance, then Ace betrayed me too. So, you could have him now,” I trade her a look of scorn, “You two deserve each other anyway,” I’m half way into the corridor leading to the gates when she grabs my arms and pulls me back, for the first time I see tears glistening her beautiful brown eyes. For the first time in a year, she looks like the sweet loyal Chloe I thought I knew.
“We were once really good friends, Eternity. Until my envy got to me.”
“I loved him too,” I whisper to her, my own eyes glistening with tears.
She takes a deep exhausted breath, “Listen, Eternity. It is none of my business; I don’t know what broke you and Ace up, but I saw you with him, and even I can’t deny that you two glowed when you were together. I watched him yesterday after you walked away from him. He is broken, Eternity. If that is not a guy who is madly in love with you, I don’t know what is.”
“It’s complicated—“
“Isn’t it always? Look at me, I fell in love with a guy who didn’t love me back. So when you find something that is real and worth hanging on to, you can’t walk away. Isn’t it time all of us stop living in the past?” I can tell the last part goes beyond just Ace and I.
I nod at her, and she smiles. “I really hope we can fix this, E. I would really love to have my friend back. Thing One and Thing Two as you called them aren’t exactly that bright, you know?” The two of us giggle at our inside joke, and I’m surprised at how much lighter I feel. “You know Chloe, someday, you will find a guy who will love you the way everyone deserves to be loved.” She nods and shrugs, then we both say our goodbyes. She and I probably have a long way to go before going back to what we once were, if it is even possible, but it is a shred of hope I’m willing to hold on to. Maybe…maybe people who do bad things aren’t always how they seem (So Chloe isn’t Lucifer incarnate). The things they do will never be justified as right, but in the end, they are only human.