Chapter 11: The Mess I Made
I woke up in an unfamiliar place. In a bed I’d never slept in before surrounded by things that weren’t mine. And I was all alone…in an apartment I’d never been to before. To say I was confused would be to put it lightly. Inwardly, I was freaking out like never before.
My heart (and head) pounding, I sat up in bed and took a quick look around, trying to remember how exactly I’d gotten here. Or more importantly, who had gotten me here. The last person I remembered seeing was-
Tyson.
I remembered him pulling me up to my wobbly feet, taking my hand and taking me away from the college party Hannah and Margot had taken me to, but everything after that was a bit of a blur.
A total blur, in fact.
As I glanced down at myself, I all but sighed in relief when I realized I was still wearing my last night’s clothes, so nothing that bad could’ve happened to me…except I didn’t really remember much about last night. When I looked outside though, I realized it was still dark, which meant I couldn’t have been out for long.
I swung my legs over the side of the bed and slowly got up, hoping I wouldn’t get dizzy from the effort. Then I started walking around, straining my ears to hear something…or someone, anything to let me know I was not alone.
There was a framed photo of Tyson and what assumed to be his family sitting on the nightstand next to the bed so that made me feel a little better, knowing that at least I knew who I was with.
If only there was any sign of the boy in question.
I’d dreamt of finding myself in Tyson’s bedroom back when I was a freshman, but it was never under such circumstances.
The reality was that I was freaked out of my mind and scared witless because my memory was shot.
I stepped out of his room and walked into his living room, turning on the lights.
“Tyson?” I tentatively called out, but got no response.
Where the hell was he?
But what was more, where the hell was I?
I’d just picked up a photo from the bookshelf that had him posing with a pretty girl with light brown hair that fell over her shoulders and the biggest, most expressive hazel eyes I’d ever seen as they both smiled at the camera when the front door opened.
Tyson froze, his hand still on the doorknob as he saw me standing in the middle of his living room, obviously snooping around his things.
I flushed and quickly put the photo down, hoping he wouldn’t comment on it.
“Oh, good,” he sighed in relief as he closed the door behind him and I realized he was clutching my black leather jacket in his left hand, “you’re up.”
“Where are we?” I blurted out, blinking back at him.
“My place,” Tyson confirmed, then came towards me and held out my jacket, “I would’ve taken you home,” he started to say, then shrugged sheepishly at me, “but I didn’t know where you lived and you passed out the moment you got into the car…so I took you here. I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you woke up. I washed your jacket and went to the pharmacy to get you aspirin,” he explained, smiling warmly down at me as I took my jacket from his hands and flushed deep red, thinking about all the trouble he’d gone through, all because of me.
“Do you want some?” he asked and I snapped my head back up to look at him, having not followed what he’d said to me.
“What?” I asked confusedly.
“Aspirin,” he said slowly, holding my gaze. “How’s your head? You were in a pretty bad shape when we got here,” he told me, concern lacing his velvety voice and those blue eyes of him were doing wonders to my heart. I even forgot that I meant to ask him about the pretty brunette he kept a picture of.
“I’m good,” I assured him, although he didn’t look too convinced I was telling the whole truth, “thank you for…taking care of me and I’m sorry for the mess I made,” I said, scratching the back of my neck and avoiding his gaze as I remembered racing to his bathroom earlier with him following after me to make sure I was okay…and then I remembered falling to my knees before I threw up in his toilet. During which time he patiently rubbed my back and held my hair back, so that I didn’t get puke stains on my clothes, although my jacket hadn’t been so lucky. My face, in turn, only got redder as some more memories came flooding back in.
“Don’t mention it,” he waved me off with a smile, as if he did this on a daily basis, “you didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Except,” I couldn’t help myself but point out, “puking my guts out in front of you. Sorry you had to see that,” I said, cringing at the thought. Now he’d never want to kiss that mouth again. Who could blame him? I definitely couldn’t.
“Stop apologizing, Sav,” he told me and what was more shocking was that it sounded like he meant it. “It happens to everyone.”
“Maybe, but still,” I cut in, “I don’t know how I’ll ever repay you.”
“You’ll think of something,” Tyson laughed before he winked playfully at me and my cheeks reddened, again.
“I need to go,” I suddenly said, glancing around frantically and trying to find my shoes, which were by the front door, “my dad will kill me if I’m not home when he wakes up,” I said, biting my lip until I tasted blood on my tongue.
“Yeah, of course,” Tyson nodded his head in understanding as his face grew serious, “I’ll give you a ride home.”
***
“I saw you leave the party with Tyson last night,” Hannah said to me the next morning as I was walking towards school and she jumped out of the nowhere, nearly giving me a heart attack.
“Jesus, Hannah, you scared the shit out of me,” I said with a shaky hand poised over my heart as I blew a hiss through my front teeth.
I hadn’t even seen her approach me from behind until it was too late and it was way too early for me to be having anxiety attacks, especially since I’d barely gotten a couple of hours of sleep. Sneaking back home had never been so nerve-wrecking. I thanked my lucky stars my late night rendezvous went undetected by my dad, but who knew if next time I was going to be so lucky.
“Well,” Hannah prompted me, taking off her sunglasses to give me a pointed look, “what do you have to say for yourself? You left me to the wolves!” she exclaimed dramatically and I couldn’t help myself but roll my eyes at her.
“Don’t be overdramatic,” I told her, deadpanned, “Margot was there with you.”
“Aha!” Hannah exclaimed, a bit too loudly for my liking and I flinched at the volume of her voice. “So you admit that you left with him?”
I kept silent as I kept on walking, which was all the incentive Hannah needed.
“Is that why you even came to the party? To see him?” Hannah wondered, puckering her pink-glossed lips.
I rolled my eyes once more, then I got scared that they’d be stuck in this permanent position if I kept doing it, but I tended to roll my eyes quite a lot around Connor and Hannah, they did have that in common. “Don’t be ridiculous,” I said to her, “I had no idea that he was going to be there. You invited me, remember?”
“Oh, right,” Hannah sighed, sounding a bit disappointed that she was wrong and her shoulders visibly slumped. “So,” she prodded, “what happened?”
She was literally bouncing as I opened my locker and put my books inside before slamming it shut and sighing inwardly.
Here we go again with the twenty questions.
“What do you mean?” I shrugged as I faced her once more, my face blank of any emotion as I pushed back the memories of last night. “Nothing happened.”
Hannah literally groaned out loud upon hearing this, attracting the attention of the students around us, but she paid no heed to them or their confused stares.
“You keep saying that,” she said to me and I had to be deaf, or an idiot to miss the warning undertone lining her voice, “and I keep not believing you. I thought you liked the guy.”
“I did,” I replied immediately, then backpedalled. “I do. There’s nothing to tell. You’d be the first one to know if there’s anything to be told,” I assured her, but Hannah kept sulking over this. “He found me at the party. He saw the state I was in, offered to drive me home, I accepted. I got into his car, then I passed out soon after and didn’t wake up until we were at my house, that’s all that actually happened.”
Okay, so this wasn’t precisely what happened last night, but it was close enough to the truth. I’d just tweaked it a little bit, keeping some parts to myself. Like the part where he took me to his place, I threw up over myself and… the pictures of him and the mystery girl that I saw and couldn’t stop wondering about, but until I had him all figured out, I wasn’t going to speak of any of this.
“I feel like you’re hiding something,” she observed, which was too deep an observation so early in the morning, especially coming from Hannah, “from me.”
“I’m not,” I insisted, getting exasperated with her as I started walking towards my history class, which was in the opposite direction of Hannah’s French class, but even so, she followed after me like a lost puppy. “I’ve got nothing to hide. Why would you say that?”
Or even think it, I silently added to myself.
You don’t keep things from your friends, I reckoned, even though I was too breaking the rule.
Hannah shrugged. “We just don’t talk like we used to.”
I opened my mouth to rebut her when I realized the girl actually had a point. We really hardly spent any quality time together, especially in a while. We were always either with the boys or at school and things weren’t always like this.
“Well, yeah,” I said lamely, running a hand through my hair.
“Let’s do something after school today. Just us, girls,” Hannah said excitedly, jumping up and down, eyes shining, “let’s go shopping. Spending money has always made me happy,” she quickly added, clasping her hands together, ecstatic by her plan.
When she looked at me like that, like I held her world in my hands, how could I say no?
“Yeah, why not? Sounds like a good plan to me,” I agreed, nodding my head in approval and Hannah’s face lit up with excitement. She seemed pleased by the news and the prospect of a shopping spree.
“Excellent,” she gushed, “I’ll see you at lunch,” she said next before she quickly squeezed my hand, let go and started walking in the opposite direction I was going in without saying another word, literally running people over to get to class on time, which judging by the rapidly emptying hallways was not going to be an easy feat. I shook my head at her antics before I slid into my classroom just as the final bell rang.
I saw Margot sitting in the back of the room and the moment she noticed me, she waved me over.
“I saved you a seat,” she said to me once I’d walked over to her, pointing to the desk on her left. I smiled at her gratefully before I slumped down in my seat, my bag dropping to the floor with a dull thud.
“Thanks,” I said, not looking at her as I pulled my textbook out of my bag and set it on the top of my desk, getting ready to take notes.
“So,” she started, dragging out her words, but I could feel the implication behind them, “how did the rest of your night go? Had any fun?” she asked, a small smile plastered on her face.
I shrugged, thinking that she was probably imagining scenarios in her head that definitely didn’t happen the way people supposed they did. “It was alright,” I responded breezily, then politely asked, “how was yours?”
“Sam told me that Tyson have been talking about you,” she went on, ignoring my question, “so I guess this means things are going good between you guys, huh? He must like you if he told his friends about you,” she stated, but the way she phrased it, it sounded more like a question to me. I finally turned to her, gave her a puzzled look and made sure to keep my voice low because Mrs. Thomas had started taking attendance already as I said, “I guess we’re good. It’s still pretty new to me,” I answered honestly because what Tyson and I had was pretty hard to explain in a few words.
“I’m just asking,” Margot began, then paused as she tried to pick her words carefully and then met my eyes again once she felt ready, “because, well, there’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about,” she admitted, nibbling down on her lower lip subconsciously. Then I heard my name being called and lifted my hand.
I raised my eyebrows at Margot and gave her my full attention, urging her to go on and tell me what was it that was obviously bothering her and making her so flustered and eager to talk to me about.
She took a deep breath, as if to pluck up the courage, then let it all out. “You don’t still have feelings for Connor, do you?” she asked, the words literally tumbling out of her mouth and I blinked at her blankly a few times before I made a sense out of them, then laughed at the absurdity of it all.
“Connor?” I echoed, my eyes going wide as her words sank in. “No, of course not,” I said, finding that idea silly at best and shuddering at the thought. “We’re broken up,” I pointed out for what felt like the millionth time since that happened, but it was something people needed to be reminded of all the time, it seemed. Even Margot, apparently.
“Just because you break up with someone, it doesn’t necessarily mean you get over them,” Margot remarked cleverly.
“In our case,” I explained, “it does.”
“Good,” Margot sighed, as if in relief, so I knitted my eyebrows together, “that’s good.”
“Why are you asking?” I queried, curious to find out where was this coming from.
“Well, that guy…the one I told you and Hannah about the other day, remember?” she whispered, glancing around furtively to make sure no one was listening in. I nodded my head in affirmative, confirming that I knew what she was getting at.
“The one you like?” I asked and it was her turn to slowly nod her head.
Then my heart skipped a beat as a sudden realization dawned on me and it was like a light bulb went off over my head. How come I didn’t know?
“Oh,” I exclaimed, not really knowing how to react. “You like Connor,” I stated and when she nodded her black-haired head with that earnest look in her big blue eyes, I knew it had to be true and that I’d hit bull’s eye.
“Yeah, I really do,” she replied eagerly, “but I wanted to make sure that you’re truly over him and that there are no unresolved feelings around you guys before I did anything about it, but now that I know that things between you and Tyson are working out-“
“Oh, my gosh, you like Connor,” I blurted out once again, sounding much like a broken record no one had bothered to fix, cutting Margot off as she shot me a quizzical look, probably wondering what was up with me. I clapped a hand over my mouth and only removed it when I knew I wasn’t going to blurt anything else out. Then I mouthed sorry to her.
“Does that bother you?” Margot asked quickly, then continued before I had a chance to either agree or disagree with her. “If this is making you uncomfortable, I’ll-“
“No, no,” I stopped her before she got any more nervous and waved her off with a flick of my wrist, “that’s okay. I’m just surprised, is all,” I told her, trying to smile at her reassuringly, but I was pretty sure it came out as a grimace instead, which was not what I was aiming for.
“So you’re cool with it?” Margot asked, looking at me through those big blue eyes of hers, that would make any guy go out of his mind, but then just as I opened my mouth to reply-
“Ms. Vaughn,” our history teacher called me out, forcing me to look at her in surprise and sit up straighter in my seat, as if I hadn’t been doing anything wrong all along, “is there something you’d like to share with the class?” she asked, her strict voice making my blood go cold as twenty-odd pairs of eyes turned to look at me.
I shook my head negatively and kept silent, hoping she wouldn’t give me detention for talking in class and tried to block out those stares fixed on me that made my skin itch.
“Then,” Mrs. Thomas continued after a short pause, “I suggest you turn around in your seat and pay attention if you don’t want to get detention,” she warned me, not sternly, just straightforwardly and I didn’t need to be told twice.
She went on with her lecture as I faced the front of the class, sighing inwardly and ignoring the apprehensive looks Margot kept sending me, begging me to give her anything, any sign that we were cool, that I was cool, but instead I stayed glued to my seat with my eyes fixed straight ahead.
A/N: So THAT cat is out of the bag. :D Margot's after Connor. Sorry, guys. :D Let's see what Savannah does with this information, haha. Anyways, hope you enjoyed! :)
P.S: Dedicated to Entice_, aka Trish, who's crazy awesome and crazy talented, so I encourage you all to check her stories out, you won't regret it :)