Chapter One
2 YEARS LATER.
I walked down the hallway with my group of friends surrounding me, celebrating the beginning of the last year of our high school lives.
"WE'RE SENIORS BABY!" We cheered to ourselves. On both my sides stood my two best friends, Jamie and Chris. We were all holding hands, and I lifted them up and laughed, cheering again. After this year, our lives would be completely different. Chris and I were going to head off to New York next fall, and Jamie would be staying behind in California.
"Oh my god, why do you have to scream so much? Shut the hell up!" Chris whined, but I knew he was joking. Jamie and I stuck our tongues out at him and I pulled them both forward, focused on going straight to our lockers. Unfortunetly, I didn't pay much attention to where everyone one else was and smacked straight into some guy.
When I looked up his face was filled with irritation. He was definitely a familiar face. "Woah! Watch where you're- oh. Well hey Ricky."
"Ericka. It's Ericka now." I corrected him, trying to keep my head held high. Memories of our old friendship flooded back to my mind and I struggled to look strong. Calm down, Ericka. Get over it. I chanted to myself.
“But you used to love the name Ricky…” He mumbled, confused.
I shook my head. “Used to. So can you move?” I tried to make my voice sound hostile, but it just came out as desperate. I tried hiding my neverending hope that he would come back to me, and flip all those people that hate me the bird. Yeah, it's been two years, that's not happening.
“Oh um yeah. It was nice seeing you, I guess. Sorry about—“
“Yeah. It’s okay.” I tried cutting the conversation short, but he kept talking to me. Does he not remember what happened? He’s the one who chose not to be friends with me. He’s the one who stopped talking to me. He’s the one who completely abandoned me in my time of need. He’s the one who befriended the boy who had hurt me so much. He doesn’t deserve to converse with me. The kid doesn't even deserve to look at me, and he never deserved my trust. I'd forgotten about it for so long, but now I'm thinking back to it and the anger is building up again.
“So maybe we could catch up sometime?” He asked, hopefully. Before I could give him a shaky rejection, I felt Chris’s arm snake protectively around my waist and he pulled me closer. Most people would mistake this for a gesture of jealousy, but there was never a romance between Chris and I. He was simply protecting me from potential harm, like a brother would.
“We’re hanging out that day.” He butt in.
Jake raised his eyebrows. “But we didn’t even plan a date yet?”
Chris scoffed, glaring right into his eyes. “Yeah, well whatever day it is, we’re busy. So fuck off.”
Jake looked from me back to Chris. I could tell what he was thinking. He was thinking that this used to be him, protecting me. He was the one who was supposed to be bitter towards the ones that hurt me, he wasn’t supposed to be the cause of my pain. I hope he's jealous and upset. I hope he regrets everything he's done to hurt me.
Jake
"Hey man, what's up?" My friend Drake greeted me, Conner and Josh. We exchanged our handshakes and stood there looking around, leaning against lockers and the other students scurrying around with the first-day-excitment.
"So there's a party tonight. Josh thought it would be fun to make everyone drunk and hungover for the second day of school. Yeah, I don't know what that's about, but it's going to be epic. You going?" Conner asked me. I almost rejected the offer because I was feeling so down about seeing Ricky today. I don't know why, the thought of her hadn't bothered me for two years. But then again, somehow we haven't had any classes together and I haven't seen her in the hallways. Seeing her again brought all the guilt back.
"You know dude, we have school tomorrow. The kid's an idiot for having a party on a Wednesday night." I shook my head like it was a ridiculous idea to go to a party on a school night, like I'd never done it before.
"Well he obviously knows what everyone would pick. Do you think a bunch of seniors are going to pick school over a party? Especially his epic parties. Yeah, funny joke. You're coming."
It wasn't until I saw her that I realized how much I've been missing out on. Before I bumped into her she looked so happy. It hurts knowing that she's gotten over our friendship. Not that I wanted her to hold onto it and be scarred or something. I don't know, I just didn't expect her to replace me with that guy Chris so easily.
I understand, though. He was there when I wasn't. He deserves her more then I do.
"Mr. Bruno, are you okay?!" Mrs. Jacoby's rather harsh tone implied that it was highly unlikely that she cared for my well-being.
"Why wouldn't I be?" I asked like she was stupid.
She crossed her arms across her chest. "Well, you've been standing here for 2 minutes looking at absolutely nothing, you look like you're about to have an emotional breakdown, and you're late to class, which never usually happens."
Yeah, I'm still a goody goody. Being with my friends and them all being slackers and smokers and drinkers, they haven't rubbed off on me. I drink a cup or too at parties and I've smoked once, but I prefer my guts inside of me rather then me coughing them out.
"Oh, sorry. I'll go then." I mumbled, speed-walking to class. I made up an excuse about my locker being jammed and hurried to my seat, not even taking a look at Macy, the girl that was head over heals for me. Usually I gave her a smile or wink on the way to me seat but today I just wasn't in the mood. Because I finally realize why I pay so much attention to her.
She's just like Ricky. She's smart and sweet, and she definitely knows what she wants but she doesn't step on people to get it, she walks around them and helps them on her way. I don't know if that makes sense, but you get the gist of what I'm saying, right? She's a good person. And I suck for leading her on.
--
I walked into the party wearing a light blue button-up that's cuffs I'd rolled up. I fiddled with them while walking in until I was noticed and greeted by basically everyone at the party. Yeah, everyone wants to be friends with the popular guy. Even if they know he's a horrible person, who back-stabs to get where he stands now.
About an hour later, I'd only had a cup and I was already feeling sick. The woozy feeling in my stomach wasn't from the alcohol though, it was more from my thoughts. I haven't been able to get Ricky out of my head, and I don't know why. My stomach sloshed around and made my heart pick up when I thought about our old times. What didn't help was that Josh had made a new friend over the summer, being Chris. The same Chris that has my Ricky now; he brought her with him.
It hurt just to look at her. Remembering everything we used to have and say, and all the secrets we used to share. All our secret hiding places and the language we'd once made up. Of course, we hadn't gotten farther than "I love you" because once we made that up, we just kept repeating it to everyone. I still remember how to say it. That made me feel horrible about myself. So horrible I felt unhealthy. She completely trusted me, and I betrayed her. I tossed her like she was trash and now it's coming back and making me feel like trash.
"Hey, meet us in the backyard. The way back of it." Conner said, moving along before I could ask any questions. After a minute of standing there, I headed outside.
Nobody was outside, so my friends and I were alone. I figured they just wanted to hang out but smoke at the same time, so they invited me out. But when I approached our group there were no cigarettes in hand.
"What's going on?" I asked, taking a seat on one of the lawn chairs we were all settled on.
"Don't act like you don't know. It's senior year, which means it's your turn." Drake said.
Oh dear god. I knew this was coming. Every year one of us have had the other three pick a girl to make fall in love with us, then to give the others and everyone in the school a good laugh, we had to embarrass them publicly at the winter ball. It's an asshole thing to do, we know. But nonetheless, we'd all agreed to do it. They made the pact freshman year, and I joined in sophomore year.
Josh did it to Nelly Corcoran freshman year. Drake did it to Jill Harvey sophomore year, and Conner did it Kelly Gearson last year. In the middle they'd all fallen for the girl and wanted to stop the stupid prank, but in the end they'd always picked us over the girl. It ended up okay though, they'd suck it up for about a month and a half then moved on. A little too long if you ask me, but I guess they were in love or something.
"Oh, crap. Right." I sighed.
"Don't worry, man. You may not be looking forward to it now, none of us were. But you'll get into and think it's funny soon enough."
I glared at them like a stubborn child before asking. "Whatever. So who am I doing this to?"
"Well," Conner started, "we haven't completely thought about it yet, so we're going to do it randomly. The next girl that walks through that door will be your girl."
I shrugged. "Okay." We talked for a little while, and the backyard stayed vacant. After about a half hour, we heard the glass door slide open. All our attentions snapped to the direction. Out came the most sweetest, innocent girl in the whole world.
Ricky. It was Ricky. She stepped out softly, not noticing us from all the way off the other side of Josh's huge ass yard. She walked up to the front of the deck and rested her elbows on the banister, gazing up at the black night. I followed her stare and realized that the night wasn't so black after all. The sky was filled with stars, either big sparkles or tiny dots, they were everywhere.
When I looked back down I observed Ricky. Her natural waves sat obediently at her sides and her cheek bones were as high as ever. She's progressed over the years. I moved down her body and took in her tan skin and the curves of her body.
"That's your girl." Josh whispered in my ear.
A horrified expression came across my face. "Oh no, Ricky. It can't be Ricky. Anyone else."
"No, dude. This is what we decided. It's her." Conner said. I took in a breath and looked at her once more before turning back to the boys.
"So? Are you in?" Drake asked. Again, I took in a breath. I can't believe this. Why her? I should've expected this. She was never one for parties. I should've known she'd come to the one place she thought she'd be alone. I'm so stupid.
"Fine. It's a deal." I sighed. Then I got up and walked up to her, putting on a signature smirk.