I awoke the next day to the sound of my phone vibrating next to me. I reached over and saw it was a text from Addie which read:
SHOPPING TODAY WITH THE GIRLS. MEET AT THE MALL FOR 12. XOXO
I replied with a simple “OK” text. I really didn’t feel like going but I’d rather not have to explain the reason why I didn’t want to go.
I checked the time on my phone, 9:30. Great I had two and a half hours until I had to be at the mall. I slowly got out of bed and made my way downstairs to the kitchen where I could smell bacon and eggs. As I entered the kitchen I saw my dad leaning over the stove cooking breakfast in his bathrobe.
“Morning dad.” I said, as he turned around noticing my presence.
“Morning sweetheart. Do you want some breakfast?”
“Sure.” I replied.
A few minutes later my dad had placed a plate with bacon, eggs and toast right in front of me.
“Thanks,” I said after he had placed the plate on the table. “Do you think you could drop me off at the mall today around noon?”
“Do I have to?”
“If I say yes are you going to take me?”
“Fine, I’ll take you but I’m going to have to drop you off at 11:45 because I need to be at your aunt’s house for 12, okay?”
“Yeah, sure. Whatever time works for me.” I said in between bites. I quickly finished up my breakfast and went upstairs to shower and get ready.
I had a tendency to get ready pretty fast and I didn’t dwell on my appearance when it was just going to be us girls. I put my hair up in a bun and put on a bit on concealer and mascara. My outfit was plain, black leggings with a white tank top and cardigan.
I grabbed my bag and phone and headed downstairs with a few minutes to spare. I noticed my dad already waiting at the door, so I slipped on my Toms and headed out towards the car. As I got in the car, I pulled out my phone to text Addie:
LEAVING A FEW MINUTES EARLY. BE THERE SOON.
Not even a minute later she replied with:
OKAY. WE’RE MEETING IN FRONT OF TASTY JUICE, IN THE FOOD COURT.
I didn’t even bother texting her back. I’d be seeing her in a few minutes anyway. We pulled up to the mall and I unbuckled my seat belt.
“Thanks for the lift.” I said to my dad as I closed the car door and started walking toward the entrance of the mall.
I was twenty minutes early, but I decided to just head towards Tasty Juice and take a seat at one of the tables. As soon as I sat down I noticed Sarah and Beth walking towards where I was sitting. Sarah Millney and Beth Lopez we’re apart of our girl crew.
Sarah and Beth are complete opposites. Sarah is all into sports and is on every single sports team at school. While Beth doesn’t even know what a sport is and she’s on every single academic team in school. Even though they’re completely different we still love them the same.
“Stella!” Sarah cried as she approached the table where I was sitting.
“Hi.” I said as I got up to give both of them a hug.
“How have you been? We heard about your little encounter with Zach yesterday. It must be hard for you to see him with Emily.” Beth said sympathetically.
Even though I knew they were only trying to be there for me in my time of need. I really didn’t want to talk about it. Hell, I’d be glad if I never saw Zach ever again. I was totally and completely over him.
“Not really, they’re really cute together and I wish them all the best.”
“What?” they both said in unison.
“You need to fight for him, get him back!” Sarah said.
“Are you kidding me? Zach and I are the least ideal couple, and anyway he has Emily. I’m sure they’re perfectly happy together.”
“Well, that’s not what I heard. I heard a few of Emily’s friends talking about it in English yesterday. Apparently, Emily deleted your number off of Zach’s phone and made him spear he’d never speak to you again.”
“That’s insane!” I yelled, not realizing how loud my voice had actually gone. “But, if that’s what they decided then… good for them. Who am I to stand in their way?”
“True, I guess we’re just going to see how everything plays out.” Beth said in a dismissing tone.
At that moment Addie and Jen came into view a couple meters away. Right away I saw a bruise on Jen’s cheek, and a bruise on her arm that looked like someone had been holding her hard enough to leave an imprint of their fingers. Addie gave me a look, warning me not to ask, but that didn’t stop Beth.
“Oh my god, Jenny! How did you get those bruises?”
“Yesterday in gym I elbowed her in the face as I went for the ball.” I said before Jen could come up with anything else to say. Jen looked at me, giving me a thankful look, but she knew there was going to be a long conversation about this later.
“Yeah, you know how Stella isn’t good at sports.” Addie added to make the story more believable.
“Next time you should be careful.” Sarah said turning to me. “You could really hurt someone.”
“I know I feel horrible about it.” I replied, trying to sound apologetic.
“It’s okay.” Jen said, speaking for the first time. “Anyway, we should start shopping; I need a new pair of jeans.”
***
Five hours, seven shopping bags and four hundred dollars later, I collapsed onto Addie’s bed.
“I don’t think I’ve ever shopped this much in my life” I said trying to catch my breath from lugging my bags all the way up Addie’s millions of stairs.
“No, remember that time we went to New York and you bought twelve bags worth of stuff? You had to drag all that crap with you to the Broadway play and there was hardly any room between seats so we were all squished in between your bags.” Addie said.
“Oh yeah, I remember that. That was a great day.” I said thinking back to that trip we took, a smile appearing across my face.
“Did you guys both check with your parents if you could sleep over tonight?” Addison said, breaking my thoughts about New York.
“Yeah, mine were okay with it.” Jen replied.
“Yeah, mine too.” I replied quickly.
“So tonight I was thinking that we could have a movie and pizza night.” Addie chirped.
“Yes, sounds good to me. We haven’t done a girls night just us three since before the end of summer.” Jen said answering Addison’s question.
“I know, it seems like forever ago. I’m going to go order the pizza. I’ll be back in a few minutes.” Addie said as she slowly walked out of her room and walked downstairs.
I turned to Jen and gave her a look.
“What?” she replied with a puzzled look on her face.
“You know what. Spill it.”
“Spill what?” she asked still confused as ever.
“Where did you get those bruises? And don’t lie to me or try to make up some story about you falling or tripping over a rock.”
“It’s n-nothing. I don’t want to talk about it” she replied tears forming in her eyes.
“Come on. You can tell me anything. I’m always going to be here for you” I said trying to reassure her.
“Okay. Well lately Alex and I have been getting into a lot of fights.” She said slowly.
“About?” I asked.
“About Finn.”
“Finn? But you don’t even talk to him anymore.”
“Well… He’s been texting me lately and I’ve been texting him back. But I swear nothing has happened between us. I haven’t even seen him for the past 6 months.”
“Okay. I’m guessing Alex found out?”
“Yeah and he just went off on me.” Jen said tears streaming down her face. “He started yelling, calling me a whore and saying all these horrible things to me. I tried to tell him what was really going on but every time I tried to say something he would hit me or push me and that would only make things worse.”
As my best friend was saying these words, my heart began to break. How could all of this been going on with her and I had absolutely no idea? Oh, no wait, I knew why. Because I was so self involved with my own problems, I was oblivious to hers.
“Go on.” I said in a soothing tone. “What happened after that?”
“After a few minutes, he would calm down and realize what he had done. He would apologize and apologize until he was blue in the face and then he would say that it would never happen again… but then I did happen again, and again, and again. He always says he sorry and then he buys me presents and takes me out to prove to me that he loves me and he would never hurt me again. But then it does and I don’t know what to do anymore.”
“Jen” I said, giving her a comforting hug. “It’s going to be okay. But now that I know, we’re going to have to tell Addie about this.”
“I know.” She replied wiping, wiping the tears off of her face.
As if on cue, Addie walked in.
***
“I’m going to kill him!” Addie screamed. “He can’t do something like that and get away with it. Press charges, get him arrested Jen!”
“I c-can’t.” Jen replied softly.
“You know, Will can round up a few of his guys and go beat him up if you want.” Addie continued, oblivious to Jennifer’s last comment.
“If it were only that simple.” Jen said with a sigh.
“Well the only simple and sane thing to do is break up with him.”
“I want to, but what if he does something to me… physically. I don’t want to get hurt anymore.” Jen whispered while wiping away a tear.
I reached over and grabbed a Kleenex off of Addie’s nightstand and handed it to Jen.
“It’s okay, we’ll go with you if you want, he can’t do anything while we’re around.” I told her reassuringly.
“Yeah, true but I don’t know if I can do it.”
“You can.”
Now more and more tears were streaming down her face. I managed to reach over once again to retrieve a few more Kleenex’s.
“I always knew something was sketchy about Alex, he seems a bit off. And he was way out of your league. I have no idea how you fell for him.” Addie said without thinking.
With that last statement Jen got up, grabbed her bags off the floor and started running down the stairs towards the front door.
“Jen! Come back!” I yelled standing up.
I started walking towards the stairs when Addie grabbed my arm.
“Let her go. She just needs some time alone, to think about things.”
“No thanks to you.” I said rudely. “What the hell was that about? You’re supposed to be comforting her, not telling what a big mistake she made by going out with Alex.”
“I know I was a bit harsh, but sometimes you need a reality check to realize what a big mistake you made. She made a mistake by going out with Alex and now she needs to fix it.”
“Yeah, by breaking up with him.”
“… and going out with Finn.” She added slyly.
“You really are horrible you know that!”
“What did I say?” she said with a fake hurt expression on her face.
“She didn’t even break up with Alex yet and you’re already talking about her going out with Finn! On top of that she’s probably scarred for life because of what Alex did to her.”
“Don’t worry; she’s going to be fine.”
I slumped back down on Addison’s bedroom floor and thought to myself. What if everything isn’t fine? Not only with Jen, but with me and Addie as well. I just couldn’t shake the feeling that this was going to be a long year. I just hope everything turns out right in the end.
After the pizza arrived, we popped a movie in Addie’s dvd player and began to wolf down slice after slice of pizza. Halfway through the movie, my phone began to buzz from across the room. I got up and headed towards Addie’s dresser where my phone was placed. It was a text message from Jen, I clicked it and it read:
I BROKE UP WITH ALEX.