Lola
Something was wrong; call it intuition or whatever you want to call it... I knew there was something wrong.
I had been running late this morning since I had stayed up late thinking about the day before. It had been so many thoughts and emotions in one single day that I had a headache by the time my eyes finally closed and I fell asleep. Kevin woke me up but the moment he stepped out of the room I fell asleep again. He came to wake me up again and this time I made it to the bathroom before curling up in the bathtub and falling asleep again. The third time someone woke me up was Eric and I glared at him through my sleep filled eyes. He had barged into my bathroom since I had forgot to lock it and when he saw me sleeping in the bathtub he thought it would be funny to turn on the cold water. Needless to say I had one hell of a cold shower and made it to school before the tardy bell.
When I walked into my English classroom I knew something was up; Bee wasn't in her seat. It may sound as if I stalk her or something, but it's nothing like that. The thing is that ever since I realized that I do in deed have the slightest of crushes on Bee, my body and mind seem to be really aware of her presence at all times. In other words, if I was a guy and Bee was to walk into a crowded room I would pop a boner right then and there. It's not that just seeing her turns me on or anything, it's just that I swear I can smell her delicate perfume from across the fucking school. Is this love? Oh god, I sound like a girl!
Mr. Silva brought our attention to the front of the class, but my eyes were glaring holes into Bee's desk. Where was she? In the months I've known Bee she has never ditched or stayed home for any reason. The only time she ditched was on my first day at this school, and that was close to half a year already. I wasn't paying attention to anything until the intercom called for my teacher to go to the principal's office and I almost jumped out of my seat and ran to Chrissie's desk.
"Hey, you know where Bee's at?" I raised a brow and Chrissie shook her head, furrowing her eye brows together in a worried manner.
"I'll ask Monica, "she mumbled as she fetched out her phone and texted Monica. Since when had they become close enough to exchange phone numbers? Oh well I shall investigate that later, right now I needed to now where the hell was Bee.
I fetched out my phone and texted Bee and she replied quickly, saying she was ditching. What the hell? The feeling that something was wrong made my stomach feel funny. I asked her where she was and she told me she was at the park near the school. I walked back to my desk and grabbed my backpack; thank god Silva hadn't taken roll yet. I was almost out the door when a small hand wrapped around my arm and turned me around to meet a glaring gaze coming from Chrissie.
"Where do you think you're going?" I bit the inside of my lip. Chrissie wasn't part of the 'it' crowd which meant she was a 'geek' and that meant that if I were to tell her that I was ditching school that she would want to follow and then she would be in huge trouble because of her religious freak of a mother. Damn it; I cursed under my breath and shrugged.
"Didn't feel like staying," it was half the truth. Without Bee in school the day would feel to go on forever; was I sprung on a straight girl?
She rolled her eyes, "Don't be an idiot, Lola; I know this is about Bee."
I raised a brow, "you don't know anything, Chrissie."
Chrissie crossed her arms over her chest and glared at me. When I met Chrissie she was a sweet girl who people took advantage of, now after hanging out with me most of the time the girl seems to have found her ovaries and stands up for herself. I had taught her how to stare someone down and she had been a quick learner. I would say she surpassed the teacher by the way her glare was making me want to look away... I think I've created a monster!
I shrugged, "Whatever, just so you know if we get caught I'm not going to defend your ass."
Chrissie giggled and we sneaked out of the classroom and run to the back lot, "it's alright, I've learned from the best."
I smiled and ruffled her hair as we took off for the gate that had a faulty lock. The janitors had been told about the faulty lock but they were too lazy to cross the football field to fix it so it was left as it was. I had found the gate while getting to know the school and had run to get some burgers from time to time. The food in the cafeteria was good but a cheese burger from Burger King sure beats their funny looking mac-n-cheese.
We made it to the park and I called her to see where exactly she was. Chrissie was telling me that I was attracting too much attention to myself with my very colorful getup; dark blue skinnies, neon green shirt, and white converse. Was it too colorful? And here I thought it could use a little more color.
When I spotted Bee, Chrissie and I ran towards her and the look on her face told me that in deed there was something wrong. Chrissie told us that we needed to get rid of the backpacks and I nodded, grabbed their bags and my own I ran back towards the school. Thank God I had been in the track and field back in middle school! Once I was inside the school, I ran towards the janitors lounge and talked to Jim, the coolest dude in this hell hole. He and I played poker whenever I didn't feel like going to class. So far I have won close to $300 because the man doesn't know when to quit.
"'sup, Lola, shouldn't you be in class?" He pulled the zipper on the navy blue jumper he wore for work.
"School wasn't made for me, Jim, and we both know it."
He chuckled, "That's right, girl, so you're here for a rematch?" Jim smirked and reached into his pocket where he kept his 'lucky' card deck.
"Nah, not today Jimbo, I'm going to need a favor. Keep these backpacks till after school?" Jim chuckled and nodded and I handed them to him. He opened his locker and shoved them inside and closed the door.
"See you later, Jim, and remember I still got that pair of aces!" I yelled as I ran out of the lounge and towards the gate with the faulty lock. Once I made it back to the park and saw Bee's smiling face I felt better.
We played in the playground for a couple of hours and then walked towards the library that was opposite of the park. We walked into the library and Chrissie took off for the manga section while I followed Bee to the romance and fiction section. She looked at the different books, her fingertips caressing the side of them. She would stop every now and then to grab a book and read the description. She would look my way and I would look away as I was looking at the books too, but truth was that I couldn't stop looking at her. The way her long slender fingers caressed the hard cover books, the way her long hair stayed in place behind her but would caress her back every time she would turn quickly or stop all of the sudden.
But what I loved the most were her eyes. They were so brown yet almost honey and big. With such big eyes I doubted she missed many things. I giggled as I pictured her like one of those anime girls in Chrissie's manga books. Bee grabbed a book from high up and stretched to get it, letting me get an eyeful of her slender figure in the tight wife beater. I tried to look away but when she caught me looking I just laughed it off.
"I'm jealous that you're taller than me," I pouted, praying that she would believe my lie.
"I'm not that tall, Lola," she rolled her eyes and moved onto another bookshelf. I shrugged and Bee smiled, dropping the subject and looking at more books while I gazed at her like a creep.
I was a creep.
Even from my peripheral vision I could see her completely and I felt my chest tighten a bit. I loved her big honey brown eyes, her defined cheekbones, the fullness of her lips, her small and very cute nose, the paleness of her skin with a slight redness near the jaw... wait.
I stopped talking to myself and turned to look at her. She was examining a book that seemed to be close to eight hundred pages and was completely ignoring me. I walked closer to her and turned her to face me. Bee raised a brow and cocked her head slightly to the side. It was completely adorable but at the moment I was feeling the urge to bite someone's head off.
I hadn't noticed it before but it had been there the entire time. While we played in the playground and laughed and cracked jokes, it had been there! But I had tried to not look like a freak, a creep, so I tried to avoid as much eye contact as possible seeing as I would get really nervous and probably blush. How stupid could I have been?!
"Lola, what's wrong?"
I glared, my eyes never leaving her jaw, "Who did that? Was it Memo, I will kill him." I said in a low tone of voice, adding the threatening tone I had been trying to use.
"What are you talking about?"
I reached out without realizing what I was doing until my fingertips were tracing the red bruise that was forming on her jaw and a bit on her cheek. The bruise looked like fingers too thick to be a woman's hand. She had been slapped... Bee had been slapped and here I had been going all goo-goo eyes over her perfections.
Bee gasped and took a step back, her hand covering her bruised cheek.
"Who hurt you, Bee?" I said softly.
Bee shook her head and walked away. I followed her until we reached the bathrooms and I closed the door behind me. She was looking at herself in the mirror, her eyes gone wide with a mixture of fear and anger. She cursed under her breath and slammed her hands down on the sink.
"What happened, Bee?"
She shook her head, "Nothing, don't worry." The fuck I'm not going to worry. Someone slapped Bee and they weren't going to get away with it.
"Was it Memo?"
Bee looked at me, an incredulous look on her face, "What?"
"Did Memo slap you? He did, didn't he? I will make him regret ever touching you!" I yelled the last part as I pried the door open and stormed out of the bathroom and ran through the library towards the exit. The librarian had been yelling something but I ignored her. I needed to hurry to school and make that bastard pay for what he had done to Bee. How dare he slap her? Why would he fucking slap her? Had he tried to take advantage of her and when she fought him off he slapped her? Needless to say I was seeing red by the time I was half way through the park.
"LOLA!" I turned to look at a very pissed off Bee running after me. I stopped on my tracks and waited for her.
"Where in the fuck do you think you're going?" She glared at me and crossed her arms over her chest; her breathing was ragged from running.
"I'm going to go make Memo pay for what he did to you!" I glared back and mimicked her stance.
Bee yelled up at the heavens in frustration, "It wasn't Memo, Laura, so calm the fuck down! I don't even know why you're so mad!"
I furrowed my eyebrows, trying to ignore the small blush that covered my cheeks, "Then who slapped you? Tell me, Beatriz, who fucking slapped you? And don't tell me that you fell down and hurt yourself because that's bullshit."
Bee shook her head, "I said nothing happened and to not worry, Lola, so just drop it."
I shook my head, "You got hurt and you want me to fucking drop it? Why would I drop it, Bee?!"
"Because you wouldn't understand!" she yelled, "You wouldn't fuck understand."
We stood there facing each other, our chest rising and falling rapidly, and our eyes glaring at each other. My gaze softened and I looked down, trying to understand her words.
"Then explain it to me so I'll be able to understand, Bee."
She shook her head, tears pricked at the corner of her eyes, "You wouldn't understand even if I explained everything from the beginning, Laura."
I bit the inside of my cheek, "So this isn't the first time this happens. You've been slapped before by someone you refuse to tell me about. I thought we were friends!"
"We are friends, Laura, but that doesn't mean I have to tell you everything!"
I went back to glaring at her, "I thought you trusted me."
She yelled in frustration again and shook her head once again, "It has nothing to do with the fact if I trust you or not. It's just that there are things I keep to myself the same way you keep certain things to yourself."
That was true. There were things about my life that she still didn't now and one or two of those things she would NEVER know. I understood that but I couldn't stop feeling as if she was shoving me out once again.
"You're just too perfect, Lola," she said in a soft voice.
That caught me off guard, "The fuck is you talking about? I am so not perfect, Beatriz, shit I think I'm the furthest from perfection in this damn forsaken place!" Bee looked at me and at that moment she looked so fragile that I feared a strong wind would blow her into a million pieces.
"You're just so... strong, Laura." The tears were now making their way down her cheeks and my chest tightened painfully. I closed the gap between us and hugged her to me. She was right; she wasn't that tall for me to feel jealous. I tightened my arms around her and after a minute she tightened her arms around me. I could feel her warm tears soak my shirt but I didn't mind, I just tightened my hold on her as if my arms were the only thing holding her together.
"Let me be strong for the both of us, Bee," I whispered and I felt her relax against me. It was as if those words were the ones she had been waiting to hear. The quiet tears turned into sobs and soon she was full blown crying in my arms. I looked around to see a few people staring at us as they walked around the park but I paid them no mind. I had a girl crying in my dreams that needed some strong glue to keep her together.
I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket and reached for it. It was Chrissie asking where we were. I sent her a text telling her we were at the park and if she could pick up a couple of coffees for us. Chrissie replied that she would and asked if everything was alright. I replied to her truthfully... I don't know.
After a while and a lot of crying later, Bee and I were sitting on the slide just staring up at the clouds. She hadn't uttered a word and I had tried hard to keep my mouth shut but of course being me isn't the easiest thing ever.
"Don't you think that cloud looks like a bunny with a bloody knife? The maniac, I tell you."
Bee stared at me with a raised eye brow and then burst out laughing. Ah, I had missed the sound of her laughter. She was holding her sides from laughing so hard and every time she thought she was going to calm down I would come up with another shape in the clouds making her almost piss her pants.
"Thank you," she said after she had calmed down and smiled at me.
I smiled back, "That's what friends are for, right?" Did... did I just friend-zoned myself? Gah fucking damn it!
Bee smiled and she waved her hand at someone and I noticed that it was Chrissie walking our way with two cups in a board container and another in her other hand. She climbed the slide stairs and sat next to Bee, handing Bee her coffee and me my own. We spent the rest of the time just joking around and later we went to buy some pizza since we were starving. From time to time when my eyes would meet Bee's, she would give me a gentle smile and I smiled back. I hadn't brought up the subject about who slapped her but I wouldn't forget that easily.
I would make whoever slapped her see the error of their ways.
After school, we walked back to school and we made our way to the janitors lounge. Jim was eating a big sandwich and when he saw me Jim smiled.
"Hey, little lady, you here for the bags?" I nodded and he got up and walked to his locker. He handed me the bags and motioned to Chrissie and Bee who were standing by the door.
"Who're they?" Jim raised a brow.
"Jimbo, my man, these two are my best friends. Bee and Chrissie, "I introduced them, "Girls, this here is Jim, better known as Jimbo. He and I play poker sometimes and it goes without saying that I win every time." I smirked and Jim rolled his eyes, ruffling my hair in the process. He told us that we best leave the lounge before his boss came and we get him in trouble.
We walked to the front of the school and went our separate ways. Chrissie and I would sometimes walk home together and today was that day. I glanced back to see Bee walking towards Memo and his friends. When I saw Memo wrap and arm around Bee's shoulders, I felt an urge to run over there and smash Memo's head in. Bee had said that it hadn't been Memo the one who slapped her, but I swore that I would find out who it had been... and if Memo had had anything to do with it I wouldn't hold back.