I woke up the next morning with a headache. A raging headache.
I only had enough energy to go into my bathroom, swallow a few Aspirin, and then go back to bed. I wasn’t sure if my head hurt from the alcohol that I had last night, although I didn’t think that I really had that much, or if it was from all of the crying, which usually did make my head hurt if I did it too much. And I really did it too much.
Flashing back to feeling Will’s lips on mine and then just hours later, seeing him pressed against that girl by the house, it makes me want to vomit. I had thought that Andy was the creep who would easily hook up with a girl that quickly but I never thought that Will would do something like that. Especially only a few hours after kissing me.
Sure, we weren’t dating but it still hurt. It hurt a lot more than I was willing to admit.
I was just about to nod back off into a deep sleep when there was a loud knock on my door. I wasn’t sure if I should answer it or not because the idea of it being Will made my stomach cringe. I didn’t really want to talk to him at all at the moment. But then, it could be somebody bringing me food if I already missed breakfast.
The idea of food made my stomach grumble and I knew that I had to take the risk. I got up from my bed with my blanket acting as a burrito shell over my shoulders as I travelled to the door and swung it open. It would have been very convenient if these doors had peep holes.
When I saw that 1. It wasn’t Will and 2. the person had food, I let out a small yet tired relieved sigh. “Hey. What’s up?” I ask Carter, leaning against the frame of the door.
He handed me the stack of pancakes and bacon. “I thought that you might be hungry.”
“I am, thanks,” I said, sitting the plate down on the table beside the door and nibbling on the bacon.
“And I wanted to see if you were alright,” He added as I was about to shut the door.
“Me? I’m fine,” I assured him but then I wondered if my eyes were red, which they probably were. I still didn’t want to admit it though, so I stood up straight and admitted to nothing. “Really, I just overslept.”
“Did something happen last night?” Carter asked me, ignoring my ‘I’m fine’ comment completely.
“No, not really,” I shrugged. “Honestly, it’s no big deal.”
“Well, I heard you crying through the wall until like, three in the morning, so I know that’s not true but it’s none of my business so I’m going to pretend like I believe you,” He said to me, motioning in the direction where his room was right beside mine and I started to blush furiously, looking down at my feet and not up at him. “But if you want to talk about anything, I’m around.”
“Thanks,” I murmured quietly, feeling oddly grateful for Carter’s offer although I was sure that I wouldn’t take him up on it. I could handle things on my own, just like I always had. I was going to be fine. “So, what-“
I got cut off when the door down the hallway swung open and I could hear somebody giggling which was weird because in a house of all guys, nobody ever giggled. Both Carter and I turned to face the voice and when I see Sophie coming out of Andy’s room wearing Andy’s clothes, my jaw slackens.
“Sophie?” I sputtered out, remembering all of the times that she had insisted that she absolutely hated Andy and his egotistical existence. I was no expert, but I didn’t think that this was how you acted with people that you hated.
“Oh! Maddie, hey,” She jumped at my voice and then turned to face both me and Carter as Andy followed her out of his room with a grin the size of the moon on his face. “Last night was pretty crazy, huh?”
“Apparently,” I muttered, still trying to comprehend the scene unfolding in front of me.
“Good morning, Madison,” Andy said and for the first time since the spider incident, he smiled at me. With a rotting feeling in the bottom of my stomach, I had a feeling that I knew what was going on. I wanted to tell myself that Andy wouldn’t be so awful as to sleep with one of my friends just to get back at me for the spiders but there was an uneasy feeling in my stomach that told me that I had to at least ask.
“Yeah, well I guess I judged Andy too quickly. You were right, he really isn’t that bad,” Sophie chirped, giving him a flirty glance before turning back to me.
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” I muttered.
“Maddie, can I talk to you for a moment?” Andy asked but without waiting for a response, he grabbed my wrist and started pulling me into my room while simultaneously shoving Carter and telling him to go away.
When the door was shut, barricading me with Andy in my room, I turned to glare at him. “What the hell are you doing?”
“I know what you’re thinking,” He said quickly. “But it’s not that, I swear.”
“You don’t know what I’m thinking,” I said, fuming. “I’m thinking that you’re scummy and gross and pathetic and mean and a douche and-“
“I didn’t do it to get back at you,” Andy interrupted my furious rant. “I know that it looks like that, but I wouldn’t just sleep with a girl for a prank. I’m not that awful.”
“You didn’t?” I clarified with raised eyebrows, tossing my blanket back onto my bed because I was getting tired of holding it around my shoulders and I had to express my anger toward Andy with both hands. “How do I know for sure?”
“You don’t,” He sighed. “You just have to trust me.”
“Even if you didn’t do it for the prank, I’m still mad at you for doing whatever you did with Sophie,” I told him with a scowl. “You’re still manipulative and wrong because before last night, Sophie hated you so you had to have done something to make her think otherwise. Is she still drunk? Did you roofie her or something?”
“No, and I didn’t do any of that. Come on, Maddie, give me some credit here,” He said with a small laugh.
“You get no credit.”
“Fine,” Andy sighed. “But I didn’t trick her into bed. We just got to talking and we talked for a long time at the party and one thing led to another. I didn’t expect it to happen. I didn’t drug her or manipulate her or seduce her. It just happened.”
I was still unhappy about it but his argument did seem very sound. “If you hurt her, Andy Fisher, fake spiders will be the last of your worries.”
“Assuming that you’re intimidating, which you aren’t and it’s adorable that you try, I’m not going to hurt her,” He assured me even though I knew that it was impossible to guarantee something like that. You never knew what could happen in a relationship, in any type of relationship. You could never be positive that you wouldn’t hurt the people that you loved. But I understood what he was saying and I appreciated it.
“Fine,” I mumbled. “But I don’t like it.”
“I know,” He said, a smile twisting at the corner of his mouth. “And I’m still planning the ultimate payback for the spiders. It’s way worse than sleeping with Sophie.”
“You still don’t scare me,” I told him with a roll of my eyes. I was still reeling with the idea of Sophie and Andy hooking up because it just seemed so bizarre to me and my headache had barely faded and I was still crabby about the whole Will situation so I just didn’t want to talk anymore. “Get out of my room now.”
“Yes, ma’am,” He joked and then he was gone. He shut the door behind me, leaving me alone again and I decided that the only way that I’d feel better is if I got up and started doing something. Anything, really. Usually, when I was this upset back home, I’d just go to the gym to work out and although I know that they have a home gym here, I figured that I’d just run. Maybe the beautiful lake would help brighten my crappy mood.
I ate my pancakes and bacon first and then I got dressed in yoga pants and a razor back tank before putting on my jogging shoes and then I grabbed the arm band that kept my phone on my arm so that I could listen to music while I ran. Last time I ran around the lake, I didn’t need it since I was running with Will but that was obviously not the case this time.
When I got downstairs, I passed Tommy and Anna in the living room and went straight into the kitchen to grab a bottle of water before I went out. I leaned against the counter and started guzzling water just as I heard Will’s voice in the living room.
“Have you guys seen Maddie?” He asked, I assumed that he was talking to Tommy and Anna.
I had half of a mind to just run out the back door and keep running so that he wouldn’t be able to catch me but I thought better of it. I should be more mature than that. A moment later, Will was walking into the kitchen and our eyes met before I quickly looked away, taking another swig of the water before I put my ear buds in my ears. I knew that he wouldn’t let me leave without saying what he wanted to say but I could at least pretend like I didn’t care.
“Hey,” He said, walking over to me and pulling one of the ear buds out of my ear. “Going for a run?”
Is it that obvious? “Yeah,” I confirm.
“Well, hey, wait here and I’ll go get dressed so I can go with you,” Will offered.
“I’d rather just run alone today,” I said to him with the most polite smile that I could fake.
“Come on, Maddie,” He sighed pleadingly. “Can we talk about last night?”
“What happened last night?”
“Seriously.”
“Seriously,” I repeated, trying to sound as nonchalant about the whole thing as I could. I kept telling myself that I didn’t care and I hoped that maybe, if I said it so many times that it would eventually become true.
“I’m talking about the kiss,” He said but I could tell that he knew that I already knew that.
“Really?” I can’t hold back a small snort. “Which one?”
“I know that you’re upset about it,” Will stated the obvious. I tried not to make it obvious but I could just tell that my acting was awful. “And I’m so sorry. I really am, I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“If we’re talking about when you kissed me, it’s fine. It won’t happen again. It obviously wasn’t all that special so no harm done there,” I stated. “And as for the kiss that did not involve me, that’s none of my business so if you want to talk about that one, you should probably find the girl that you were kissing and converse it with her.”
“If you’d just let me explain,” He told me. “I think that you’d understand.”
“You don’t have to explain anything to me, Will,” I said to him with a forced laugh as I pull my hair into a pony tail. “I’m not your girlfriend.”
“Just hear me out.”
“Fine. Five minutes,” I say, leaning against the counter as I crossed my arms over my chest to look up at him to see what he had to say.
I really wanted him to say something magical, something that I couldn’t say no to. Something that was so amazingly worded that I could just smile and kiss him right there and forgive what I saw last night. I wanted to forgive him so bad. I wanted there to be an amazing reason as to why last night happened. Which was why I was incredibly disappointed when the only explanation he had was, “Okay, I can’t explain it.”
With that, I rolled my eyes at him and put my ear bud back in my ear and started for the door without another word but he caught me before I went.
“But, look, I’m sorry,” He said and I could hear him since my music wasn’t playing yet.
“You don’t have to be sorry,” I reminded him. “Again, we weren’t in a relationship, remember? You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Well then let me kiss you again,” Will told me with a pleading look in his eyes. “I’ll get it right this time, I swear.”
Instead of doing what he asked, I just turned my music on and put it in the arm band that was already on my arm. “I’m busy,” Was my brilliant response before I turned and left the kitchen through the backdoor and this time, he let me leave. I jogged down the path that circled the lake and I remembered to breathe. Because if I breathed in and out in and out and I looked at the water and saw how beautiful it was, I wouldn’t remember to cry.
I would forget that last night, Will had decided that I wasn’t worth it. Or maybe he’d known all along. Maybe he was just stringing me along or maybe he thought that I was doing the same to him and he was tired of it. Finding a reason for why Will would have kissed me and then turned around and kissed another girl is about as impossible as trying to explain why I was so upset about it.
Thankfully, the jog helped clear my mind a lot and I didn’t even cry. When I got back to the house, nobody was anywhere and I went straight to my room to take a shower so that I didn’t run into somebody else while I was in such a crappy mood. The jog helped a lot with getting my mind off of things but it didn’t rid me of my craptastic mood so that was disappointing.
It would fade though, I knew that it would. I would get over this. I just wish that it’d happen a lot quicker.
After my shower and then checking my email (still no response from my mother), I wasn’t sure how I wanted to spend the rest of my Sunday. I didn’t want to just sit in my room and wallow but I didn’t want to leave my room either to deal with either the whole Andy/Sophie thing or to run into Will, who would probably just try to talk me into giving him another chance, which I wouldn’t do. I wouldn’t put myself through this twice.
The only thing that crossed my mind that didn’t include threatening to run into any of those people while also not moping around my room was to go next door to Carter, who had offered to talk about things. I didn’t have any better ideas, so I tossed my wet hair into a messy bun and then left my room and I stepped to the left where Carter’s door was. I knocked three times and waited for the response.
A few moments later the door swung open and he offered me a small smile. “Hey.”
“Hey,” I muttered. “I was kind of hoping that the offer to talk was still on the table.”
His smile widened just a little bit. “Absolutely. Come on.”
“Where are we going?” I ask him as he leaves his room and shuts the door behind me as he starts walking down the hallway so I just follow him.
“You haven’t actually explored the house yet, have you?” He asked me.
I thought about it and I was surprised that he had a point. This house was huge with so many rooms and yet, I never even explored any of them. “No, I guess not.”
And then he led me to a room that seemed to be on the complete opposite side of the house but still on the second floor. “Well, this one is pretty cool for just getting your mind off of things.”
And that was exactly what I needed to hear.
The room was a game room full of old arcade games and table games like ping pong, pool, and a foosball table. The left side of the room had all of the arcade games lining the walls and then the right side of the open room had all of the table games with a few cupboards to hold the supplies, I assumed. The large window on the back wall overlooked the lake and the view was just amazing.
“Which one?” Carter asked me, motioning around the room to all of the different games.
I examine each of the arcade games- a racecar one, PacMan, a hunting game, and a few others. After some close consideration, I point to the ping pong table and grin over at Carter- the savior of my sanity. “I’m going to take you down.”