lola | may-a
❝ acting like i don't know ya, know ya
givin' me the cold shoulder, shoulder
c'mon, look at me, lola, lola ❞
THE REST OF the school day goes as expected; with more sad gazes and 'oh girl, I'm so sorry that he did that to you.' 'I wouldn't know what to do if Amos cheated on me.'
I'm surprised I don't actually peel out of my own skin at the uncomfortableness that lingers with the constant smothering.
You'd think I broke my leg with the amount of empathetic glances.
When the school day does finally come to an end, I'm practically scrambling to leave. I shoot Ames a text saying I'll call her after school and then I decline yet another mass of calls Amos shoots my way.
Does he really think I'm going to let him go after the whole display him and Tate had caused earlier?
Absolutely not.
I order myself an uber to Anthony's school and then make another pitstop to home. All in all I arrive in my bedroom with ten minutes to spare before Micaela picks me up for work.
I rush into my bedroom and pick out black leggings and the ugliest work top known to man.
Frolic Strand's logo consists of a coffee cup with an italic 'F' and 'S' pouring out of it. The top is a cinnamon brown and has 'Frolic Strand' written on the back with a list of countries that venues exist in.
I fix up my ponytail and note down the fact that I should probably wash my hair today. That's if I'm not too lazy after my shift, I doubt I will be because i'm only working for five hours.
After I've stripped out of my school clothes, I stare down at Tate's large hoodie that contrasts against my bed. I should probably wash it...I'll put it in later.
His scent still lingers all over it and for some reason it brings odd comfort to me.
"Don't open the door for anyone!" I call out to Anthony as I leave my bedroom and enter the kitchen. I swing the fridge doors wide open and grab out the pasta that I've pre-packed for the next three days.
"I'm not a dumbass!" He yells back, before getting sucked back into his game.
I move seamlessly around the kitchen to pack a fork and some tissues into a plastic bag that I place on top of the tupperware. When I'm done with the food, I fill up my water bottle with the ice-cold water from the fridge.
A few minutes before I'm supposed to head out I take out my phone and check to see if Mom or Dad have called me.
When neither have, I send them a quick text updating them on how Anthony and I are. I attach a bunch of emojis at the end and then a 'miss you' which does extend my emotions.
The sound of Miki's car pulling up, has me scurrying out of my bedroom and I balance my phone, my food, my water bottle and the house keys. I wobble over to her white Volkswagen convertible
The driver seat window rolls down, which reveals a grinning Micaela. "Get in, loser." She yells over the blasting of Lauryn Hill's discography.
I slip into the passenger seat at the same time that the music changes to 'Killing Me Softly With His Song.'
"That kind of mood, huh?" I ask, buckling into my seatbelt as I shift in the leather sits until I find a comfortable position. "The music," I elaborate after a moment.
"Oh you are not turning this onto me," Micaela laughs, putting her car into drive. "What was that whole thing today?"
My gaze flickers out of the window, and I press the container of my pasta closer up on my lap as I think of a response.
Micaela drives so fast the trees start to blur into eachother. The green and yellow leaves that cling to the trees create all kinds of shapes as they fade into each other.
"What thing?" I ask.
I can feel Micaela's eyes stare daggers into the back of my head. "The whole Tate and Amos thing."
With a groan I'm definitely exaggerating I throw my head back against the seat, "Can we not talk about this? I'm already pissed off as is."
"What? Why?"
Why? Is she serious? I rip my eyes off of the window and eye the dark-haired girl next to me. Unlike me, Micaela's wearing the Frolic Strand's hoodie with the matching cap. Her long straight hair is pulled back into a ponytail that weaves its way through the peephole at the back of the cap.
"Amos completely embarrassed me and Tate and Brooke were riling him up. It's like...I don't know," I finally sigh, unable to finish my thought.
"I don't think it's like that at all." Micaela disagrees, rolling out her shoulders. "Tate kept his cool the entire time, and Amos was being such a dick. He kept on saying 'do you know who I am?' to him. And then he stalks over to Tate as if he was about to deck him or something."
"But Tate said 'are you going to fight me?' Miki, is that not riling him up?"
"What was he supposed to do? Stand there and let Amos try and intimidate him? Loles, Amos was with his whole entourage. Tate was with Johnny and Brooke. And you know Johnny, he's not fighting and Brooke is well...Brooke. He's just there for a good time."
"Tate fights though," I retort. Not that he's being doing it recently, but his records aren't clean. He plays dirty. He fights dirty. Well, he used to anyway.
We pull up to a red light and I can hear Micaela's body rubs against the leather car seat as she turns to face me. Her nearly-black eyes bore into mine. "Lola, are you seriously defending Amos right now?"
I run a frustrated hand down my face, "Shit," I breathe out, "I don't know why I'm doing that." Am I that much of a loser that I'm defending my cheating ex-boyfriend?
A jarring beep from the car behind us, has Micaela rolling down her window and flipping the car of teenage boys off before she speeds down the street. "It's not your fault," Micaela reassures me, with lingering anger. "He was your boyfriend of two and something years, you obviously still feel a love for him."
"But he cheated, Mik," I whisper. "Why am I defending a cheater?" I always thought I'd be tougher than this. I thought I would never let cheating affect me. Hell, I never thought I'd get cheated on.
"I know," she frowns. "Do you think maybe something else is also upsetting you that has you...I don't know...wanting to defend Amos?"
Some song by H.E.R rings out from the speakers of the car filling the unexplainably tense silence. Micaela reaches out a manicured nail — her infamous coffin French tips and taps away at the screen in her car to lower the volume.
The growing silence has the thoughts in my mind racing seven hundred miles per minute.
"They laughed at me," I finally admit the thing that's been bothering me this entire time. I'm the new pity party for the school and I've accepted that, although not happily, there isn't much I can do. But when Brooke and Tate were laughing at the fact that I got cheated on? In front of everyone?
Yeah, it stung.
I know Tate and I aren't friends like how we used to be, but I just thought that with this plan and maybe the lack of animosity between us he didn't feel so little towards me.
Brooke being a dick? I'm fine with it. I mean, he is the guy who posted the photo so I don't have any standards for him.
But Tate? There's a weak tug in my chest that I'm such a little bitch for feeling. He doesn't owe me anything, his going along with the plan is nice enough but of course, I don't find that enough.
I'm a little selfish like that.
"That was shitty of them." She agrees as we pull up into Frolic Strand's parking lot. The cafe is on the side of some freeway so we're always getting traction from drivers who need top up on the gas in their car. "Dicks," she builds on, as she puts the car in park. "Well, at least you know every guy sucks."
"True," I agree with a calmness I don't quite feel.
🀦
The shift is slow. Not many people come in, but the few regulars who do are sweet enough to make some conversation before leaving a few dollar tips.
Every time they do, Micaela and I make eye contact and grin.
"I bet you the next person will leave a bigger tip," She speaks over the loud machine that whirls all over the place as she froths the milk for some order.
"No you two should count your blessings with the money we've already made, " Celeste, one of the other working girls cuts in, overhearing the end of our conversation.
Even though the dark auburn-almost brown-haired girl is our age, Celeste seems so much older than us. It's probably because she's been working here since the joint first opened up. Her cousin's the manager.
"Nuh-uh, I'm feeling oddly lucky right now." I smile, walking past the shorter girl as I go to reach for my water bottle.
Celeste's eyes flicker up to me and she eyes me dubiously as she fixes the headset that makes her already smaller head look tiny. She resembles some type of fairy with her elf-like features. Her ears are tiny and always red at the tips and she's got a cute little button nose that is littered with tiny freckles.
"You know what, for your sake, I do hope you get a tip. Lord knows you need the luck."
"Hey!" I scorn.
Celeste's elfish face shrivels up. "Too soon?"
"Way too soon," I gulp, chasing down my thirst with my now half-empty bottle. When I'm done knocking back water, my half-hearted frown is revealed to Celeste.
Micaela's too busy finishing up the drink she's making to pay attention to us.
The melancholy from earlier has slowly begun to dissipate. I'm not foolish enough to think it's completely gone but I'm not feeling entirely consumed by it, so I count my wins where I can.
The distant sound of the jingle at the front of the store doesn't even tear my gaze away from Celeste's.
"You scared me," She sighs out of relief when I shoot her a grin.
"Who makes a joke about a girl being cheated on the day after she finds out?" I refute.
"I did."
The familiar voice has whatever serenity in my body drip out of me until I'm all but skeleton and muscle. I turn around on my heel to come face to face with Tate.
He's standing at the front of the cafe in basketball shorts and a jersey. There's a towel slung around his neck so I assume he must've come straight from Basketball tryouts.
His hands are limp by his sides, and my eyes trail up the visible blue-green veins that pop out against his fair skin.
"What are you doing, here?" I ask, not meeting his eyes.
"I felt shit about earlier. I was going to call you but..."
"You don't have my number." He used to, but then I changed phones last year and I reached out to a handful of people to let them know about the new development.
Tate never made the list.
"Yeah."
The thought of him having to find that out tonight by possibly ringing me, only for me not to answer has me internally cringing. My heart constricts in my chest.
"I'm working."
He scans the empty café and spends extra time on the booths and seats that clearly have no one sitting there. "With no customers?"
"I have to clean the back."
"I already did that," Celeste sings-songs from beside me.
Behind the counter, I strike her leg with my own. The whimper that leaves her lips has me straightening up.
"Come on Lola," He approaches closer, "Don't give me the cold shoulder."
Cold-shoulda-Lola. That's what he used to call me whenever we got into arguments when we were younger.
I don't know when Amethyst and the rest of the world started calling me that but it's stuck ever since the first time he said it. I wonder if he knows that. I bury the desire to tell him.
"I'm not doing that."
"Then come talk to me," His voice is smooth, and comforting like.
It's deceptive.
"I can't, Samantha," Celeste's cousin and our manager, "Is probably watching us through there," I gesture over to the camera in the top corner of the store that's been collecting dust more than footage. I'm still not sure if it even works.
"You can't get off for a minute?"
"I finish in an hour," I say in a clipped tone. I finish in twenty minutes but if it means not speaking to him today, I'll work overtime. I don't care.
Tate takes a seat in one of the booths, he slips in and makes eye contact with me the entirety of the time.
"I'll wait."
____________________________
a/n
so...i turned eighteen (omg i'm having a
quarter life crisis. help.) (but also march pisces rise uppppppp)
i am now officially the same age as the characters i am writing about, which is crazy considering i've been writing about seventeen/eighteen year olds since i was like ten.
fun fact: lola's original name was supposed to be mazzy (like the band) but not only does it sound like 'mozzy' but i heard the song at the beginning of the chapter and changed it cause i liked it so much.