“We enjoy warmth because we have been cold. We appreciate light because we have seen darkness. By the same token, we can experience joy because we have known sadness.” ― David Weatherford
{Chapter Eleven}
Pain.
That’s what my head was feeling right this second. Pain. It was throbbing through like there was no tomorrow. My head banged softly on the pillow underneath my bed. So many questions rose in my head. Where was I? How did I get here? Why does my head feel like it’s about to explode?
Slowly, all of the memories slowly came back to me. I stretched my hand and felt around. It smelled like…boy. Nate’s room. Of course.
“Hey, who are you?” A voice asked from across the room. I turned around to see a little girl in a white shirt. Her voice sounded like so sweet. It definitely matched her personality as far as I could tell.
Her dirty blond hair was tied up into a tight ponytail with a bright red ribbon on top. She kind of reminded one of the twins from the Olsen twins. Her bright blue eyes were wide open, curious to see what I was doing.
“Umm, who are you?” I pointed to her chest.
“I’m Nate’s sister,” she said broadly. She held up two crayons as if to prove that she was related to Nate. I took a long stare at her and realized she wasn’t joking around. My god. She looked like a little girl version of him.
This brought me back to reality. Since when did Nate have a little sister? Did his parents adopt her or something? She looked small enough to be under five years old, but old enough to be at least three. My attention snapped back to her face as she said, “So who are you?”
“Oh. I’m just uh-you know, his girlfriend. Err, Nate’s girlfriend that is.” I felt really awkward around her now.
“So why are you sleeping on his bed?” She sounded very curious. After a moment, she added, “Oh my god! Are you Goldilocks?”
I smiled a little at her assumption. “No, I’m not Goldilocks. I’m Scarlet.”
She smiled back. “That’s a pretty name.”
I got up and started straightening out the pillows, almost knocking over a Gatorade bottle down. I was starting to like this girl. “Thank you. What’s your name?”
“Her name is Natalie,” Nate answered for the girl. He came into the room with a towel wrapped around his waist. His hair was spiked from the shower in a disheveled way. “Hey.” He turned to me.
My eyes drew from Natalie to his abs. “Err, hey.”
He walked into the room and opened one of his drawers. With his back turned to me, he mumbled, “So I see you’ve met the brat.”
Natalie tightened her grasp on the crayons. “Shut up, Nate. You’re a meanie head.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, smirking, “you’re a very big meanie head.”
Natalie smiled wider. “See? Even your-what’s she called? - girlfriend agrees. I hope a dog eats you.”
And with that, she left. Nate turned around and grinned. “Hear that? She hopes a dog will eat me.”
I rubbed my head. “I heard.”
He held up a pair of socks and boxers. “So I see you’re awake.”
“No shit?”
He rolled his eyes. “How are you feeling? You kept throwing up all night. Did I mention you were drunker then Snooki?”
I flopped back down in his bed and groaned. “I kinda figured that out. And I’m fine-ish. My head feels like it’s about to explode, but I think I’ll be okay.”
“I knew you were going to have a wicked hangover.” Why did those words sound so familiar to me? Nate seemed amused by the fact that I actually did end up with a hangover. He glanced at me for a moment before pulling on his boxers. He was starting to say something but was interrupted by a deep, loud voice.
“You better not be letting your girlfriend watch you change.” A tall figure leaned over the door. My eyes almost bulged out when I saw Roger-Nate’s dad- standing there.
He obviously was working out again. His muscles were basically ripping through is over-sized shirt. A shaved mustache was starting to grow over his pale face. The last time I was him was well, the last day I saw Nate. He was talking to a neighbor-saying goodbye, I guess. I remember him laughing at something his neighbor said before turning back to me and Nate. I wasn’t prepared for this. Roger was like the dad I never had. Even then, neither my dad nor my mom was there to say goodbye to Nate’s family.
Roger was the like the father I never had. Expect he was much cooler. He let us do almost everything from bungee jumping to going into clubs underage. So I was just as much as devastated to leave him as I was to leave Nate.
“Scarlet…what the hell are you doing here?” He frowned. Well this was not what I expected from him. But a minute later he added, “Joking! Ha. You should’ve seen the look on your face.”
I relaxed a lot more. “Jerk.”
He grinned, matching the look on Nate’s face. “I know. Now come here and give big old Roger a hug!”
I gladly ran over to him and gave him a big hug. He smelled like a combination of beer, heavy smoke, and laundry detergent. I had to put my head up to take a good look at his face. I felt like an ant looking up at a giant.
“Wow. You grew up a lot.” It was a stupid thing to say, but it was very true. His hair was even starting to get gray.
“You’re looking at my gray hair, aren’t you?” He caught me.
“Yep,” I admitted. “Pretty soon you’ll be a grandfather.”
His eyes widened. “You better not be pregnant, Caraway. Because I swear to god if you’re dad finds out, you’re in trouble.”
I played along. “I’m extremely sorry.” I patted my stomach. “It’s due in March, I think. You’ll never believe who the father is.”
He dramatically put his hand across his heart. “Oh no. Nate?”
Annoyed, Nate shot us a look. “What do you want, dad?”
Well, Nate was clearly not paying attention to anything we were saying. So it was no surprise how he reacted when Roger asked, “Did you get Scarlet pregnant?”
Nate looked like he was about to choke on his own spit. “A-Are you kidding? Scarlet? W-what the fu…Jesus Christ. I-I didn’t do anything.”
Roger and I couldn’t help it. We both burst out into a fit of laughter. It was the kind of die-hard laughter too. Nate gave us each a death glare before joining in. “I hate you both.”
“Love you too,” Roger and I said in unison. That made us crack up even more. “Just like the good times.”
I sighed. “I miss those times. Remember that time when Rachel almost caught her hair on fire? She totally blamed that on us. Speaking of Rachel, where is she?”
“In the kitchen,” Roger answered. I excitedly jumped up and ran to the door. I couldn’t wait to see Rachel again. Like a lot of things, we had many memories. She was like my second mom.
I made it down to the hall when someone grabbed my arm. I turned around to see Nate with an amused look on his face. “What?” I asked, annoyed.
“Well first of all, I’ve never seen someone this excited to see my mom. You act like the president’s downstairs.”
“You know, you’re really starting to annoy me.” I jabbed a finger in his direction, hoping he’d get the hint. “Besides, she’s like my second mom. You know that.”
“Oh yes, I do know.”
I crossed my arm and looked over at him. He had already put on a pair of shorts and a gray t-shirt. His hair was flopped over to the side, making him look even cuter than usual. I suddenly realized that I was gawking at him.
“I also know that you’re thinking that I’m so hot,” he stated in a matter-of-fact way.
“Do not.”
“You so do. Would it helped if it took my shirt off? That way you could see the sexiness under all these abs. Feel free to take a picture too.” He started to take off his shirt, but I slowly raised his arms down.
“Umm I don’t think so.” I pretended to look disgusted. “Anyways, what was your second reason?”
He gave me a confusing look. But after a few seconds, he got back on track. “Oh yeah! Secondly, take off my t-shirt. My mom will freak if she sees that on you.”
I blushed and bit my lip, surprising Nate and me. It wasn’t everyday when you got to see Scarlet Caraway blush. In fact, I rarely blushed. “Right. Sorry about that.”
He shrugged, handing me my party clothes. “Don’t worry, I already cleaned them. Totally puke-free.”
“T-thanks.” I eagerly grabbed the clothes, wanting Nate’s clothes off of me. I went into a nearby bathroom and starting to strip down. As strange as it sounded, I actually sniffed his shirt before taking it off. I didn’t know what I was doing.
Ben’s shirts always smelled like spilt beer or wood. Nate’s smelled much cleaner; like laundry detergent and aftershave. I felt a ping of sadness as I took it off and put on my original clothes. I carefully placed them on the bathroom counter right next to the lavender-scented candles.
Even from miles away, I could tell that those candles belonged to Rachel. She loved to collect candles. Big or small, she loved them. Especially the scented kinds.
After I got out of the bathroom, I followed the smell of bacon and eggs. I made it down to the kitchen. There was Rachel, with a messy bun on her head, cooking something. It smelled like omelets. She was standing on the corner of the kitchen, chopping up onions. Every now and then she wiped stray tears from her eyes.
It wasn’t until a minute after I watched her that I realized the tears were coming from the onions, not emotions.
“Chewing gum helps the tears,” I suggested to her.
She whipped her back around and stood face to face with me. She was shocked to see me. The color drained from her face as she stuttered out, “S-Scarlet? Oh my goodness…is that really you?”
I didn’t feel like joking around so I just nodded. Rachel collected the color from her face and grinned widely. Before I could blink, I was embraced into her arms. She pressed her head against my shoulder.
“You grew up so much,” she whispered, stroking my hair. And at that moment- that’s exactly what I needed.
“You did too.” It felt like a repeat of what I said to Roger. “Mmm, it smells good! What’cha making?”
I made my way to the stove to see a fluffy omelet on the pan; sunny side up. I breathe in the aroma rising from it. “Since when did you become a cook? Last time I checked, Roger was the cook.”
Rachel let out a quick chuckle. “I took cooking classes. I could now feed a whole house. I know, I know. It’s surprising, eh?”
“Very.” I smiled, taking a bite. As soon as I got it into my mouth, I realized it was a big mistake. I grabbed my tongue and started screeching out in pain. “OW! Hawt, hawt, hawt!”
Rachel immediately filled up a cup with cold water and starting splashing it at my mouth. I anxiously grabbed the cup from her and downed the whole cup down. I wiped the drops that dribbled down my chin, making Rachel laugh.
“Still clumsy,” she commented.
I shook my head. “I should’ve waited. Sorry, I had to eat something.”
Rachel smiled. “You think? Don’t worry, I don’t think it’s burnt.”
She pulled me over to the round wooden table and made me sit down. “How’s it going? I felt like I haven’t talked to you since forever.”
“Well, I have this major hangover right now. Like, I feel like there’s a rock being thrown at my head. And my stomach, oh god, my stomach…it’s killing me.” I spoke out the truth to her.
She nodded. “Tell me what you remember from last night.”
“W-we, Nate and I, were at a party. It was loud and obnoxious. There was drunken teenagers everywhere. I remember getting drunk. Tequila, I think.”
Rachel frowned. “How many shots did you take?”
I let out a breath. “About two…maybe six or seven. I don’t know. I just remember taking a lot. Then I saw Ben and Nate arguing-”
“Who’s Ben?”
“Ex- boyfriend,” I answered. “Anyways, they were arguing about something really stupid. So I left and starting roaming around the house. And the house was freaking gigantic.”
I left out the part about the make-out session with the red-haired kid and continued on, “And then I played some sort of truth or dare game with a bunch of random people. It was really fun. The dares were crazy and-”
I stopped myself in the middle of the sentence. Then I put my head onto the table and kicked my legs. “Holy crap! Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god! I am SO goddamn stupid. So stupid.”
Rachel put her hand on top of mine to calm me down. “Scarlet honey, it’s okay. We’ve all done stupid things.”
“Not as stupid as this,” I mumbled.
“It’s okay. Now calm down and tell me what you did.”
“I…I k-kissed…” I couldn’t bear myself to say it out loud. Gathering out my strength, I blurted out, “I kissed a girl!”
Rachel raised an eyebrow, clearly not that surprised. “That’s it? Honey, that’s nothing. I thought you put the house on fire!”
“Ugh.” I groaned into my hands. “Still. I kissed a freaking girl.”
Rachel rubbed my back. “Hey, look at me. It wasn’t your fault. You were drunk. I still remember my high school years.”
Surprised, I looked up. “You use to get drunk?”
She sighed. “Oh yes, all the time. But you’re not telling anyone. Drinking is very bad, you know that, Scarlet. Just don’t do it again.”
“I won’t,” I promised. “But I couldn’t have done it without Nate. He fed me, kept me hydrated, and even put me to sleep. Did you know that?”
“Who do you think cleaned up all that vomit in the bathroom?”
I bit my lip. “Hehe. Sorry about that.”
She shifted in her seat and starting picking at the tablecloth. “It’s okay. But we still need to talk about the sleeping part. As a mom, I think I should be concerned about my son sleeping with his girlfriend-err, girl. I don’t know if you two are back together yet.”
“I don’t even know if we are.”
“Ahh, I see. Let me put it this way then. A boy wouldn’t exactly be happy to see his drunk girlfriend making out with some other girl. So are you back together again?”
I paused for a moment. “Well, I guess-”
“Oh, yes. We’re definitely back together again,” Nate finished for me. He walked into the kitchen with a flat look on his face. I held back the urge to punch him in the face for interrupting me. I was getting quite tired of people doing that to me. He walked over to the now cooled omelet and popped a piece in his mouth. “Oooh this is good.”
“I hope you’re not being sarcastic,” Rachel told him.
“Nooo of course not.” Nate rolled his eyes and put another piece in his mouth.
I got up from the table. “You were eavesdropping! You little twerp, you don’t listen to other people’s conversation.”
He smirked. “Sorry. Couldn’t help myself.”
“Scarlet’s right,” Rachel scowled. “You shouldn’t be eavesdropping on other people’s conversations. That’s very rude.”
He shrugged. “I heard my name so…”
Rachel put on a smug look. “We were talking about how you and Scarlet slept together.”
“What?” We both exclaimed together.
“He was only taking care of me,” I said. At the same time, Nate spoke out, “I was just helping her, mom.”
Rachel started laughing. “Did you see the look on your faces? One word. Hysterical.”
I crossed my arm and gave her a glare. “You have a dirty little mind, Rachel. You know I’d never do anything like that with your son.”
Nate looked at me. “You say that as if I’m a bad thing.”
“You kind of are,” I pointed out.
“Brat.”
“Loser.”
“Retard.”
“Moron.”
“God, I swear you two act like you’re five year-olds sometimes,” Rachel remarked. “Seriously. Act more like a couple. Just not a married one.”
“We are not a couple,” Nate informed, surprising both Rachel and me. “What? Why do you look so surprised? Like my mom said, it’s not exactly pleasant to see you’re girlfriend making out with another chick.”
I started feeling really uncomfortable. I took this as my cue to leave. Ignoring Nate’s comment, I said, “I’m going to go now. My parents are probably worried. They’re going to get really upset when I don’t answer the video chats. I don’t wanna get them worried.”
I forced myself to stop blabbing and made my way to the door. I didn’t notice someone was following me until I head footsteps.
“Look I’m sorry about that,” he said honestly.
“No, I should be the one sorry. You’re right. I wouldn’t be pleasant to see you making out with some other guy either.” We both laughed at that. “And you’ve done so much for me, Nate. I can’t think of a way to thank you.”
“You don’t need to thank me.”
“But I do,” I protested. We walked by Natalie, who was coloring in a Jumbo Princess book. I squatted down next to her. “Hi.”
She looked up at me and smiled. “Hi. Where are you going?”
“Home.”
She frowned. “But I don’t want you to leave. I want you to play with me! Come back again?”
I could hug her right then and there. “I definitely will,” I promised.
“Okay. Bye!” She waved as we walked away from her. I smiled and waved frantically back at her.
There was an annoyed look on Nate’s face. Curiously, I asked “What’s with the look?”
“Oh nothing,” he mumbled. “It’s just that she likes you.”
“Is there something wrong with your little sister liking me…?” I blinked.
“No. It’s just annoying.” He had his grasp on something pink in his hand. I ignored him and focused on the object in his hand.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“What’s what?”
I pointed towards the pink object in his hand. “That.”
“Oh, that. It’s nothing.” He moved it nervously around. “I was just going to give it to you for your, you know, hangover.”
He tilted his hand forwards and placed an Advil in my hand. I was too confused to say anything but, “T-thanks.”
He shoved his hands in the back of his jean pockets. “It was nothing.”
I titled his chin up and made him look into my eyes. “Seriously. Thank you. I don’t know how I could’ve done this without you.”
“It was nothing.”
I breathed in his air and leaned forward. Instead of kissing him, I gave him a hug. I wrapped my arms around him and breathed in his familiar-scented detergent and aftershave. My hand was placed firmly on his back.
“Thank you,” I mumbled again. “No boy has ever done so much for me.”
He started stroking my hair as he laid his head against my small back. “Scarlet, if a boy can’t do that for you, then they’re not worth keeping.”
My mind instantly flashed back to Ben. It was true. Ben had never done this much for me. Maybe that’s why it felt so nice. It was because no boy has ever treated me like this for a while.
“Besides,” he added, “I know you’d do the same for me.”
A hole in my heart started to grow bigger and bigger. It was probably the size of Texas right now. Pounds and pounds of guilt came gushing out of it. It was weakening me every second. I couldn’t hold in the truth anymore.
“I know you’d do the same for me.”
If only he knew.
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A/N-
Long filler chapter. I know. I'm sorry.
ANYWAYS! I HAVE A FEW IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENTS TO MAKE-
First of all, I am so sorry for the late upload. I literally re-wrote this chapter like 5 freaking times. No lie. And then when I finally liked the chapter I wrote- I accidentally delete it. Can you say stupid? Yeah, I'm a idiot. So I had re-write this whole thing all over again.
Another thing- I'm entering this for the 2012 Watty Awards. So it would make my week if you could please click on the VOTE button on the top right over there>> (: Thank you!
Now back to the story. Sorry for those of you who are on Team Ben xD Hehe
I promise (Or at least I'll try) to upload a chapter every 2-3 days over spring break. But it's going to be extremely hard because I have....writers block!
-_____________- I know. I hate it too.
Anywhoo sorry for the long note, I just had to get that out there. Thanks for reading!<3