ღ Finding Cinderella- 41 ღ
-Kylie-
Three days later. I didn't feel like a human being anymore.
I felt so numb but so filled with a gnawing, burning pain that had grown from my chest. I didn't even know it was possible to feel that way.
"Dammit." I rubbed the bridge of my nose between my eyes as I hung my head down to avoid the bathroom mirror.
Tristan and I had seen each other through our bedroom windows just a moment ago. The first eye-to-eye contact we had since that night. He only had a blank facial expression, but I had seen by the set of his mouth that all he felt was contempt. It was better that way. After all the things I had said to him, he had the right to feel that way about me.
I'd be fine soon... at least that's what I told myself. Deep down I knew that this kind of ending disappointed me. And I hated myself for feeling so since I was the one that pulled away. I wanted him to let go of me.
I hadn't given my heart to him, but I wished I could bury it somewhere. Deep in the ground so I wouldn't hear it beating for him.
-Tristan-
I wished those songs that I used to binge-listen didn't apply to my life as well as they did now. I just wanted to enjoy the adrenaline rush that those songs gave from the crazy guitar solos and sharp vocals, but goddamn, I didn't know their lyrics could hit that hard. So, I switched to a playlist that I didn't usually listen to and turned the volume of my speakers on full blast. Mom began yelling, "TURN THE VOLUME DOWN, TRISTAN" from downstairs, but I couldn't barely hear her amid all the noise of the drums and the vocalist screaming about anarchy. Was it actually about anarchy? Not sure.
But I needed the noise. I needed to wake up. I needed to get distracted.
My friends had told me that a few shots of beer would help me forget what had happened, but I'd taken several last night, and her words were still eating me alive. Distance was one of the necessary things to move on, but I'd developed a habit of glancing at her bedroom window, and just a moment ago, she'd happened to be looking at my bedroom window, which led us to have an eye-to-eye contact for two seconds. Now, I wanted to hurl my speakers out the window out of frustration and remorse.
Was this a right-thing-but-wrong-time kind of relationship? I knew I had done many wrong things in the past, and I'd been trying so hard to make up for those mistakes, but what else should I do to make her trust me? I was already vulnerable to her. Did she want me to take my skin off just so she'd know how much it hurt? I didn't even know it could hurt this much. That's really fucking cliché to say, but—fuck, man, it felt like I was buried alive and I was clawing and kicking the coffin to get out.
I had lost her once, and now I lost her again? I refused to believe that. I had given my heart to Kylie, but how far should I chase a person who kept running away from it?
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"Are you thinking about giving up on her?" Lacey asked. We were back again at the bleachers next to the football field. The place where I'd first disclosed my feelings for Kylie and she'd revealed Cinderella's real identity. I needed to talk to Lacey because she was the only person who could tell me the inner workings of her sister's mind.
"I've tried explaining things to her but she's not having it. I thought she trusted me a little more each day and that I was becoming a better person for her, but... I guess not," I said.
She offered me a smile of understanding. "That's the difficult thing about her. Once something challenges her trust and faith—no matter how big or small it is—, she immediately runs back to her castle of emotions and builds the high walls around it again. That's why, when she saw you with Ronnie, she fell back into her defensive mode."
"Breaking her walls down and rebuilding it... Feels exhausting if you think about it."
"That's why she avoids feeling too much."
I put my hand on my mouth, letting her words sink in for a bit. "Okay, but she didn't have to take a giant shit on my face."
"Ew."
"No, not literally. Jesus. I mean, this whole thing is really messed up. She said that she's scared I might get bored with her. That's ridiculous. When did I ever get bored with her? Hell, every time I see her, I feel thrilled. I see the world in full color, but when she's there, it becomes more vibrant. She's like my freakin' energizer bunny, you know? Wait, that sounds weird, but you get what I'm saying, right?"
"Right."
"Tell me, what else is she scared of? What else is making her reluctant to drop her guard down? I'm sorry, but I just really wanted to understand her better."
"Well, she told us—Julianne and me—that she's scared you might drop her once you see all corners of her personality."
"Corners? Like what, her stubbornness? Her selfishness? Her short temper? How annoying and cruel she is? Sure, she gets unbearable sometimes, but despite this... this volatile personality of hers... I'm in love with her. And she smiles for me. Like, I'm actually making her happy, and that's what I live for." My mind turned back to our time at the amusement park. Her loud, sunny laughter that was mixed with the noise of the rides rang as clear as a church bell in my ears. "I want her to open up to me and be comfortable in confiding in me. She doesn't have to be afraid to show me all corners of her personality because I'll still love every fiber of her being—the good and the bad."
"Oh, that's sweet!" Lacey exclaimed with a happy smile. "I wish she was here so that every word you said would get through her skull."
She laughed afterward. I smiled, wishing the same thing as well.
Then, a pensive look took over her features. "You know, even for me... it's hard to get her to open up."
"Really?" I asked.
"Yeah. I remember—when our dad passed away, she didn't cry as much as most kids would. Just a quiet sob and a few sniffles. And then the following day, she was back to being perky. She did random stuff just to avoid talking—or even thinking—about what happened to him."
I hadn't known that, so it greatly surprised me. "Is that normal?"
Lacey thought about it for a bit. "I don't think so. Between the two of us, she was the one closest to Dad, and normal people don't react like that when they lost someone special, right? It wasn't a healthy grieving process, as Mom put it, but Kylie was forcing herself to look okay because she wanted to be the strong one in the family. I knew this because every time I asked her how she was feeling, she'd say, 'I'm fine. Don't worry about me.' Or she'd avoid the topic by doing something else. But... one night, after the burial, I heard her crying in her bedroom. It... it was the loudest cry I'd ever heard her let out that it made me break down, too."
She paused, breathing in the afternoon air. I must've looked like a dumbass gaping at her. I didn't know what to say. That was too personal. I felt sorry, and I couldn't imagine the pain they'd gone through. I'd never experienced a loss like that. That's not to say my family never lost someone special. My maternal grandmother had passed away, but that had been before I was born so I didn't have the same emotional connection to her as Kylie had to her father. There's a saying that goes silence is the best response; I should probably go with that. I only nodded to let her know that I was listening and I understood her.
"And, um, with me being a 'creep magnet,'" Lacey said while making air quotes and doing an eye-roll, "she became the Kylie that everyone knows."
"I'm curious," I replied, "what was she like before... before... he passed away?"
"Still your stubborn, overprotective, hot-headed chick." She made a smile of amusement. "But more optimistic. More welcoming. So, when we moved here and you guys started hanging out, I was relieved. She was returning to her old self, and she started being cheerful. She didn't really have any real friends back in Maryland."
"She... she didn't?"
"Yup. A lot of kids back then were too scared of her."
I was amused. "To be honest, when I first saw her, I thought she was a bully. But that impression changed when she started selling lemonade at the park to pay for my window that she broke."
Lacey squeezed her cheeks with her hands. "Oh my God. I'm having flashbacks. The summer of 2008. It was sooo much fun... Even though I spent the majority of it reading books at the public library."
"Yeah, it was," I said with a chuckle.
"I think you were her first real friend, T. As much as she'd like to deny it, you made her very happy."
It was such a relief to know that I'd had that impact on Kylie, but that relief quickly faded when I realized that I'd been the one that cut my friendship with her because of my selfish, arrogant reasons. "But then I screwed her over by being an asshole," I said. "That explains her skepticism."
Lacey made a 'tsk' sound and spoke in a lecturing tone, "Then don't be an asshole next time. It's okay to admit that you are, but it's better if your apologies are paired with action. I'm pretty sure I've told you this before."
If we were climbing up a staircase, I would've missed a step. "Wait, did you just—"
"Say 'asshole'? Yeah. I did."
Her saying it twice and saying it proudly stunned me even more. It was like hearing a baby say their first word. "Does your sister know you can say that?" I asked.
"Ugh. Why do you guys keep treating me like a child? It's unfair!" Lacey stomped her feet and pouted like a child. "I can talk like a grown-up, too! For example, I can say pen—"
"Okay, all right." I waved my hand to stop her. Clark had better not be teaching her these things. "Let's go back to back to the topic. I can't do anything now but wait for her. She made it clear that she needed space."
She gave me two pats on the back. "She'll come around. Someday."
Hopefully. "She's going to London, isn't she? For college."
It made her pause. "Yeah..."
"She wouldn't shut up about going there and becoming a doctor when we were kids," I said, briefly smiling at the memory. I had teased her about it, saying she'd cause further injury to her patients because of her klutziness, but she continued to hold on to her dream like she was holding on to the safety handle of a Ferris wheel. It had been funny back then. It hurt now.
"There's that challenge, indeed. The long-distance relationship.," said Lacey. "But I like to believe that if you guys are meant to be together, nothing can stop it. Not even time and distance."
Ever the romantic. I wouldn't call myself as a believer of meant-to-bes or stuff like that, but it wouldn't be bad to like her idea. I was at the point where I was holding onto whatever tiny piece of hope.
"That's nice, but I think it will only work if we help each other to work it out," I said.
"Well, in any case, I'm rooting for you guys," she answered.
"Have you ever thought about taking psychology?" I remarked flippantly.
"Mm-hmm, though I like designing houses more."
"Ah, of course."
We sat in silence for a while, just gazing at the students practicing in the field and at the sky that was taking on an orange hue. After a bit, she took out her phone from her bag to check the time.
"Oh, I have to get back to Clark. He's done with his practice."
I told her sure, and she hopped down the bleachers with a wave of goodbye.
As she went, I recalled a question Grey had asked me when I was fifteen. He had wondered if I'd ever thought about going out with Lacey, and I remembered shuddering and saying, "No, man. Jeez. That's like dating your little sister." It was beyond weird. Plus, I was sure Clark (and Kylie) would have murdered me if I had gone out with her.
Lacey and Clark were great for each other. I had witnessed firsthand how he'd fallen in love with her (school library, tenth grade) and how he'd worked hard to win her heart (he'd once made a PowerPoint presentation on why Kylie should approve of him, for real). While I was assured that he'd take care of her, I couldn't help hoping he wouldn't do anything stupid that would hurt her.
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Six days had passed, but it felt like I'd been sealed in a glass coffin for decades, watching Kylie getting emotionally distant while waiting with the hope that she would change her mind and want to get back. I knew that a call or text from her would never come, but I was still waiting by the phone.
Sometimes, I'd wish there'd be a cosmic occurrence like some nearby star would explode and it would shift the balance in the solar system. Then the Earth would spin out of control, gravity would zero out, and I'd have a way to float back to Kylie. Or that robots would take over the world, leading the city to the brink of destruction, and she and I would forget our problems to save each other.
I was becoming a boy on his knees, praying to God to make the impossible things possible. I really couldn't think about giving up on her. I needed to be patient as Lacey had said, but this was like crawling through a desert.
It was free period now, and half of the gang decided to kill time by eating junk food and exchanging homework answers at the cafeteria. The others were not around as they were in their classes. Except for the circumstances between Kylie and me, things were back to normal. Ryo and I were cool after I explained things to him. (Not sure, though, if his feelings toward Ronnie had changed after knowing that his dream girl had done such a dirty thing.) The picture remained on the school's Facebook page, and I was still hearing whispers about it. But I didn't care anymore.
"Jeez. You're still moping." Grey pushed a box of licorice to me. "Take one. Maybe the sugar will help you get back into a good headspace."
I probably looked like the narrator in Fight Club whose face was in a constant half-asleep state. At this point, I didn't care how I sounded or looked. "She likes sweets." The words left my mouth before I could process them. "Which is funny because her personality is the total opposite of it."
"Ooh, the saltiness in that one is so strong you make the Dead Sea a freshwater pond, my dude." Grey draped his arm over the back of his chair. "You know, this thing between you and Kylie has always been as messy as a soap opera." He bit into his licorice stick and munched. "And it's gotten even messier now that Ronnie and that Erik Taylor dude are involved, so just fuck it, man. Join the singles club."
"Weren't you the one who told me not to give up?" I asked. I could only guess that Julianne, who had rejected his prom invitation twice, caused his change of heart on everything.
"Well, you've been miserable as shit these days, so why push it?" he said.
"Yeah," Justin cut in. His hand was busy copying my math homework. "As what the famous quote says, 'Fuck it, dude. Let's go bowling.'"
"And pick up chicks." Grey bobbed his head. "Use that face of yours."
"Are you guys seriously talking me back into my old ways?" I shook my head in disbelief. "No. I can't replace Kylie just like that. Try getting into a serious relationship and see if it's easy to move on."
Justin laughed. "Bro, when you say stuff like that, it takes me to the fifth dimension."
"Technically, you weren't a couple," Grey pointed out.
"That hurts even more!" I snapped.
"Just get a damn pet, then. Maybe that'll distract your mind from her."
"Grey, did you just mention Erik Taylor?" Monique asked me from across the table. She and Will had been busy in their own little bubble the entire time, which made her five conversations late.
"Yeah?" Grey replied.
"So... let me get this straight, there's something going on between him and Kylie?"
Grey darted his look to me, cueing me to answer it, and I stared at Monique, who had this clueless expression. Knowing her, it would take time to break the situation down for her. Plus, I didn't know how to do it without feeling annoyed. Will, seemingly sensing the awkwardness, gave her hair a little tug.
"Why you askin'?" he told her.
"I just thought it was weird." Monique shrugged, looking at all of us. "I mean, why would Erik be involved with them when he's dating Fiona in the first place?"
In a snap, my mind went dark and the muscles in my face slackened. Everyone else stopped what they were doing to gape at Monique: Justin stopped his writing, Grey paused his munching, and Will stopped playing with her hair.
"What did you just say?" I asked slowly.
"Um, that Erik and Fiona were dating," Monique explained, getting a little fretful under my glare. "It's been a month and a half, you guys. How come you didn't—oh. Ooh." She nodded; her gaze was distant. "It was a secret."
Gotta thank her slow thinking for being useful this time.
"Holy shit," Grey mumbled, his eyes huge.
"Babe, are you joking?" Will asked.
"I'm not. Why would I joke about that? I was even the one who gave..." Her voice waned as she peered at me. "T, are you okay?"
Far from it. My blood was beginning to boil. The puzzle pieces were starting to coalesce in my head, like numbers and variables forming a mathematical equation.
"Tell me... are Fiona and Ronnie still friends?"
Monique gave me a questioning look as if trying to guess what was behind my question. "It's pretty hard to tell," she answered. "Kinda? I think they made up a long time ago because I saw them talking in the bathroom hallway. And, like, two weeks ago, during one of our friends' birthday, Ronnie was there chatting Fiona. I think they're just not chummy in public because they still want people to think they're enemies. As you may know, they just love to stir up interest and drama."
I felt all of my senses heighten like I just made a breakthrough.
"Do you happen to know where Fiona is right now?"
Monique seemed to shrink in her chair. "Um, I'm not sure if I'm allowed to share this..."
"Please. I need to talk to her."
"Well, it's Thursday, so she's most definitely hooking up with Erik at the greenhouse right now," she answered, which made the guys pull up a face as if to say, really, of all places.
Slamming my hand on the table, I stood up. Grey quickly threw his arm out in front of me, but I told him not to stop me and not to come after me. As I stalked out, my temples pounded like drums and my fist began to hurt from clenching so hard.
Through the glass walls of the greenhouse, I saw two figures behind the silhouette of plants. They were so close to each other that they could be making out. With fury racing through my nerves, I strode inside. The noise of my shoes against the gravel caused Erik to open his eyes and break apart from her. Fiona whipped her head around. Instead of looking shocked, a smile slithered across her face as if she had been waiting for me.
"Hey, Tristan," she said saucily, getting off him.
I slid my look from her to Erik, who was propped against a wooden table, then back to her. "You fucking assholes," I spat. "You set me up with Veronica and took that picture."
Fiona made a hum of affirmation. "You know, I was really mad when I found out that she was in love with you, but it's amazing how quick we were to resolve our differences in order to carry out our intention. Sometimes, I have to thank my ex-BFF for being a desperate little slut. I didn't have to put so much effort into getting her on board with this."
"So your intention was to break Kylie and me apart?" I supposed. But that didn't quite make sense. It was clear that Fiona was no longer into me because she had found someone else to give her attention, but why did she have to mess with my relationship with Kylie? Was Erik not satisfying her enough? I wouldn't be surprised if this was true. That guy's personality was fake as hell.
"No. That was just part of it. Remember when we had a fight in the hallway?" said Fiona. "You insulted me, so I had to punish you. I told you that you wouldn't be laughing when I made my move, T."
My eyes widened as my memory wound back to the day she'd interrupted my search for Cinderella in the cafeteria. "I'll destroy you, Hartford. You have been warned." Fuck. I'd been careless. But that had been a month ago or so. I couldn't believe she'd been hung up on that.
I clamped my jaw shut and glared at her. "That's fucking petty," I said.
"I don't care!" She let out a curt laugh; her eyes weren't smiling. "You hurt me, Tristan. You broke my heart. You dumped me for that fucking transfer student—who was that? Tracy?—and you treated my feelings like trash. I think it's just fair if I broke your heart, too."
I couldn't deny that she and I were the same in this regard. I deserved to pay the price all right, but Fiona couldn't act like she wasn't partly responsible for this mess.
"He deserves it," Erik said, straight-faced.
With my eyebrows knotting, I took a step forward, pushing Fiona aside. Before the bastard could open his mouth again, I socked him squarely on the cheek. He staggered back, hitting the potted plants on the table behind him.
Thank fuck he spoke up or I would've forgotten to deck him.
"What the hell, Tristan?" Fiona screamed, grabbing my shoulder and yanking me away.
"Shut up," I growled at her. "Don't start acting now like you're the good guy here. I might have disrespected your feelings, but it was only because you'd been so obsessed with me to the point that you were controlling my decisions and hating my friends. You may have hurt me, but that doesn't mean you won, Fiona."
She took a sharp intake of breath, her gaze sharp and unflinching. "Oh, I'm sorry. I think I just did," she said with such coldness that even her voice trembled. "I love the look on your face right now, Tristan. That look of hate and despair. But what I love the most is the fact that I'm the one causing it."
She pursed her lips in a smug smile before walking out. And that was when I realized something about her. Something that I should have suspected from the start. Fiona had never been in love with me. She had been—and still was—in love with controlling everything around her. I'd been just her badge to show people that she was a perfect and likable yet fearsome figure in this school. It wasn't just because I'd ended our relationship or that I'd broken her heart that she had concocted this plan. She was terrified of losing her dominance, and that fear had struck her on the day of our dispute.
Well, she's the fucking drama club president. All the world's a stage, and all the boys and girls are her puppets.
With my lungs burning and my throat dry, I turned back to Erik, who was pressing the bridge of his nose. And here's her new consort to make her feel in control again.
"You've never liked Kylie, haven't you?" I asked.
Erik bared his teeth in an ugly snarl. "She's not my type at all. I'd rather pick girls who are less weird and more attractive." He repeated the words I'd overheard him say in ninth grade. The exact words that had made him as this two-faced jerkass in my mind. And I'd always been right about it.
"Then why were you stringing her along, trying to take her away from me? What made you think this would be funny? Did Fiona brainwash you or you just volunteered to make a pass at her?"
"Hey, she's gorgeous. Couldn't help it," he said with nonchalance. "And it just so happened that we both wanted the same thing. To give you a little payback for what you did to us."
I frowned. "What the hell's your problem with me? What did I do to you?"
There was a weighty, reluctant pause before he replied. "Cyrene."
"What? Cyrene? What does she have to do with this? I thought she's history."
A vein popped out in his neck, and I steeled myself while I watched as his face flush red. "She is. But she would have still been with me today if you didn't show up. We were happy together, but she left me because of you. And the worst thing that you did? You just played her."
His words slowed down the gears in my head and turned in reverse, making me recall some of my memories. My relationship with Cyrene had been short that it might have only been an experiment for us. If I thought about it now, perhaps I had only entered a relationship with her for the experience. Most of my friends back then had been a few years older, and so I had tried what they had done just to be cool. But I had liked Cyrene. She had been one of the genuine people I knew, and I had enjoyed hanging out with her.
And she had told me—I remembered this one with so much clarity—that she was glad that I was her first boyfriend. First.
So what was this guy spouting about? I knew they'd been friends, but why was he acting as if they'd been together?
"What are you talking about?" My rage had simmered down as pure curiosity took over me. "Okay, first, I never played her. And for the record, she broke up with me because her family was not okay with her having a boyfriend at the time. Now, what did you mean when you said that she left you?"
"She dumped me for you, you dipshit."
I frowned even deeper. "But you'd never been together. She'd never been romantically involved with you."
Erik stepped forward, his face darkening like an accumulating storm cloud. I stood my ground.
"Don't try to twist things. She'd always invited me to go with her. She'd always been by my side. Compared to you, I was there for her first!"
Kylie's image popped into my mind's eye. Again, same case. I'd been furious and deprived of good judgment because she had chosen him instead of me, and I had known her before he had. This realization made me lose my will to get into a fistfight with him. This guy could have been hallucinating his relationship with Cyrene, and I needed him to think about it.
"But did that mean anything?" I said. "You might have only twisted those invitations into dates because you wanted them to be. Think about it carefully. You and I both know that Cyrene wouldn't make up something like that. This is pure speculation, man, but it could be that you lead yourself on the most."
Before I knew it, he had punched my cheek. Pain shot all over my face as I fell back against a plant rack behind me. I forced myself to stand up straight, spitting out the metallic taste in my mouth.
Fucking hell. What a textbook example of denial.
"We could've been something more if you weren't there. I've never forgotten what you did. How does it feel now, huh?" He pulled up a crooked smile. "To be left by the one you care about?"
We could settle things by just talking, but this guy was losing his senses. Scratch my first plan. If words wouldn't knock some sense into him, maybe a few punches would. Besides, the needle in my temper gauge went from 'calm' to 'pissed off' again as he reminded me of the stupid plan that he and Fiona had made.
I swung a roundhouse. It was light but it was quick, and it slammed against his neck, making a popping sound. He stumbled against a table, clasping the red skin of his neck. Before he could recover, I kicked him in the stomach, harder this time, and the impact sent him to the ground. He muttered an oath as he tried to sit up but fell again. I stared at him. We were both sweating like pigs, our chests heaving as we gasped for air.
"I hope that snaps you out of your obsession," I said and wiped the sweat from my chin. "It wasn't because of me that Cyrene left you. She was scared of you. You kept following her around and calling her every night, for God's sake. And look at that"—I gestured at the identification bracelet around his wrist. Her "lost" bracelet—"you even stole her stuff and still carry it around. Jesus, Erik, you need help."
"She didn't say no to me." He seemed too tired and angry and dismayed to do anything.
"I can't be certain why she didn't, but her avoiding you should've been an answer. You can't assume people will respond exactly as you expect."
Just when I thought he was giving up, another one of his malicious smiles showed up. "Ah... but Kylie did. I was surprised how gullible she was when it came to me."
My face hardened. I crouched down to grab his collar, twisting it and lifting him from the ground until our faces were several inches apart. He winced. I was about to warn him to stay away from her when I heard footsteps approaching.
"What a mess," Grey commented out loud.
"T, come on. Get a hold of yourself," Will said as he tried to pull me off Erik.
"Finally, your friends are here." As if he got no more fucks to give, Erik continued to smile as he slowly pulled himself to his feet. "You're missing one, though. The swimmer, Clark Young? I forgot to thank him for setting the trap for us."
I froze.
Another set of footsteps came, but they sounded distant in my ears as millions of thoughts raced through my mind.
Clark? He's also behind this?
"Hartford, Taylor, enough!" our gym teacher, Coach Condor, thundered. I snapped my head around and saw Fiona behind him, smiling in sadistic glee. "Come with me to the office right now and explain yourselves!"