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XOXO,
LOSALINI
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If you could ever forgive me, I hope you will come for the present I have for you for the six months of putting up with a sorrowful and undeserving idiot like me tomorrow.
Forever and hopefully always yours,
Nate.
I clutched the roughly patched up paper in my hand tightly against my chest after rereading the words imprinted on it for what could sadly be counted as the fortieth time. But then again, I had lost count after reading it for the twentieth time. For all I knew, I could very well have read the bloody thing a hundred times and not have known the difference.
The first time I'd read it when I was in the student parking lot, I thought it was a joke. In fact, I'd looked around once or twice more just to make sure I wasn't starring in my own version of Punk'd or something else.
The second time, I was still stumbling over the words, wondering if they were real. In fact that happened for a couple more times after that. I read the words in the letter, but I still refused to believe they were from Nate, despite it having been written in his neat, blocky handwriting.
Then after, came the emotions. Anger, disbelief, contempt, sorrow, sadness, and undeniably a slight chance of butterflies enveloped my stomach. But then anger won out in the end.
'...all because of me,' he'd written. All I could do rather than go to his house and decapitate his family jewels was tear up a picture of him.
Of course it was because of him that I was hurting. It was because of him that I couldn't really laugh out loud at Alyson's jokes and it was because of him that all I wanted to do after that shocking revelation was curl up in a corner and slowly waste away.
After one rush of anger had run through me, I swiftly tore the page in half and threw it to waste away in the far corner of my room, just like how I once wished I would. Then I went about starting on my four-page essay on Nikola Tesla. But halfway through my essay, when I'd just finally started on my third page, my eyes landed on the paper as if it was physically screaming out, 'Look at me! Look at me!'
A couple of minutes later, I found myself rereading the now memorized words on the paper I'd sellotaped pathetically back together.
Sad to say, the words ran through my mind over and over again, like they were some annoying indie song I couldn't help but sing absentmindedly.
"Elizabeth!!"
I sat up on my bed after having read the letter again and cursing Nate once I heard my mother's voice. I couldn't help but smile as her usually loud presence returned.
Usually, or whatever had become a norm over the past few months, the only sound at this time on Saturday morning, or any day of the week for that matter, was from the loose board at the landing of the staircase or was from me trying to sing along to BTS's Dope in the shower with the out of tune, scratchy voice.
My mom's presence was limited and unknown. She could've been an ant with the amount of noise she made.
"Yeees," I answered, my voice drowsy as I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes.
"Are you ready yet?" she asked, her voice coming from just outside my door.
"For what?" I got up from my bed, leaving the letter on the bed as I did some small stretches.
"Do you really want to risk the wrath of Zoe?"
Shit!
It finally dawned on me what was happening today. I must've been too invested in that stupid piece of paper that I'd totally forgotten about the barbie at the Blackstones'.
How could I have forgotten about that? What did I plan again, on how to get out of going there?
Sadly, I came up lacking because I still hadn't thought up of a plausible excuse in order to get out of going to the Blackstones', thanks to Nate.
"Isn't it too early for lunch?" I asked; hopeful I could come up with an excuse by the time we were supposed to leave.
"We're actually running late," she replied just as my eyes landed on my wall clock where Cinderella's glass slipper told me was already twelve ten. "Zoe's been calling me nonstop, already."
How the hell did it become twelve ten already? I was sure it was nine.
"Is it really twelve?"
"Yes, silly. Now hurry up. I'll be downstairs and I expect you to be there in ten, okay?"
She left without waiting for an answer while I flung myself against my bed again, muffling my shrieks into my comforter.
It looked like I was on my sad way to the Blackstones'.
Twelve minutes and three wardrobe changes later, I slid into my mom's Ford Focus, having settled with a pair of jeans Alyson had gotten for me last year and a polo shirt from last year's annual squad camping trip.
Mom had, whilst I was still in dreamland dreaming about having received a Nobel Prize, whipped up a black-forest and a pineapple turnover, which she tasked me in looking after.
"Make sure you're holding them tight, sweetheart," mom advised before she pulled out of our garage and drove towards the last place I would want to be heading to right now.
I nodded as my brain ran through whatever it could to get me from getting there. "Mom..."
"Huh?" She didn't turn to face me, but I knew she was listening.
"You remember how you always told me that education comes first, no matter what?" I began, trying to make my voice come off as convincing as it could.
I saw her give me a nod, urging me to continue. "Well, there's this project... thing that counts for about twenty percent of my grade and it's due tomorrow and I haven't started and I was thinking-"
"For what class?" she asked, cutting me off.
"Uhmm... Geography?" I coughed as my words came out sounding unsure, seeing as how I'd dropped the class last year. But then again, mom wouldn't remember, given the events since then. "Geography. Definitely Geography."
"And it's due tomorrow?"
"Yes." I smiled as I noticed no sign of suspicion in her voice.
"And it's worth twenty percent of your grade?"
"Yes, twenty percent. And I really need it in order to maintain an average of a B+."
I saw her nod slowly as she processed whatever it was I was telling her.
Just when I expected her to pull over and tell me that I can go back and do my nonexistent project, the unexpected happened.
Mom laughed. "Nice try, honey, but you're not taking Geography anymore and tomorrow's Sunday, if you haven't noticed." Her eyes fleetingly rested on me. "Did you really expect me to just let you out and say 'Happy studying!'"
I bit my lip guiltily before gritting out, "Yeah."
She smiled at me as she continued driving to hell. "I guess you wouldn't be you if you didn't try getting out of heading over to the Blackstones'."
"You know?" I asked, surprised at the prospect that she could know of what had happened between me and Taylor.
I hadn't told her about it. I was no less of a 'chicken' to not tell her because I knew very well what would happen once I told her about what I did to Taylor. It didn't matter that I wanted to take it back once I did it; the only thing that mattered was the fact that I had done it in the first place. Especially to someone she adored, sometimes even more than me.
So, on that fateful, stupid day, when she walked into my room just a few minutes after Taylor had walked out of my room, never to be seen again until now, when she asked, I'd answered, "Frank wasn't feeling so good."
Her eyes landed on me as we stopped at an intersection. "I know something happened between you and Frank," she paused, smiling sadly, "but I don't really know the details."
At the same time, as soon as she spoke those words, I released a sigh in relief but still felt like there was a tonne resting on my shoulders.
"You can tell me whenever you're ready to talk, Lizzy." She smiled reassuringly at me. "You don't have to of course, but know that I'm always here for you."
I couldn't stop the smile that squirmed its way onto my face at her words.
"And..." she added just as we pulled over, "I'm sorry I wasn't there for the past few months. But remember, I'm always on your side."
I nodded to assure her I knew despite the thought that crossed my mind. Not in this matter.
"Let's go," she said, just as I heard an all too familiar voice scream from outside.
"Finally! I thought I was going to have to come down there and yank your asses over here myself."
Instantly, I wished I could disappear, as I looked outside my window and spotted Zoe Blackstone standing outside their house. A big, big house for that matter.
"Hurry up, Elizabeth." Zoe fervently stared at me. "Everyone's waiting."
I guess now was the time to, as cliche as the line was, 'face the music'.
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