Chapter 6
(Summer's Point of View)
The dress I picked out for dinner was not one I would have worn had I chosen to prepare the outfit before school. It was not that the dress was ugly, far from it. I thought the dress to be beautiful.
It was a cocktail gown. Slim fitting, and tight, it had a narrow skirt of dark gray-greenish taffeta, bunched up in places, and in some cascading down in ruffles, fabric in layers over others.
The bodice was black and short, but not too tight with two wide taffeta straps, and a neckline which caused the top part of the fabric to look like the upper part of a heart; a sweetheart neckline with a tank bodice.
Around the waist a small taffeta ribbon was wrapped, which allowed the dress to be more flattering to what little curves I had, and I couldn't help but think when I saw myself in the mirror this dress was perfect for me so... why hadn't I worn it before?
"Oh yeah..." I mumbled to myself as I peeked at my closest through the wide open door, a closet which had been clearly divided into two sides; the 'Max Approved' side and the 'Everything Else' side. This dress had NOT been on the Max approved side.
After I made the promise to him not break up, Max had just come to my house one day and bought me all this new stuff and made sure to keep away from my old stuff. The stuff that he'd bought was Max approved; in other words that was what I wore on formal dates that included dinner with any of his rich friends or his parents.
At the time, no, even now, I thought it was a huge waste of money. I mean, I had perfectly good fashion sense, but he didn't even give me a chance before he splurged on all these fancy designer dresses and clothes for me. He was somewhat worried I'd embarrass him I could only guess, but I wasn't going to.
Not for him though, for me. I may not care what I look like to other guys, but in front of people who it matters, I did, and I wasn't about to make a fool out of myself just to make a fool out of Max.
I fingered at the dress. I had bought it a year ago, when I had saw it hanging on a clearance rack. It was the only one, and it was a little big at the time, but I had wanted it. It was probably the only spontaneous purchase I had ever made, since I didn't need to go clothes shopping much thanks to Max.
Speaking of Max, I had never shown the dress to him. I hadn't had a reason, since it was to big, the skirt to long, areas filled out in wrong places or left empty in some. So I had put it in the back of my closet and slowly forgot about it... until now, when after frantically searching for a dress I had found it and... I gave a small twirl. The dress fit like a glove. It was perfect, and Max may not like it but...
Screw him. I was going to feel pretty tonight if I died trying.
With a quick flick of my wrist, I snatched up the mascara container, and removed the wand. Letting it dance across my lashes, I made sure there were no clumps that would detract from the overall appearance. I applied a teeny-bit of black eyeliner on my upper lid, than smudged it to give a smoky appearance. Then on the lower lid, I did the same but only took the liner halfway across the edge of the lid, as it made my eyes look more open and fresh.
A dash of blush, a hint of lip-gloss and one pair of heels later, I was done, and I as I turned to look in the mirror I couldn't help but gasp. The girl that stared back at me radiated happiness and girly excitement at getting done up to go out. Was this what Max had stolen from me? This bright cheery girl, with eyes like stars and lips that couldn't stop smiling?
I touched the reflection; my finger resting upon smooth glass, as I checked to make sure this was real. That this girl was there and was me. "I never realized," I whispered, and that's when a small flame of anger began to burn inside of me. A very small flame, actually not even a flame, just a spark.
But a spark can be dangerous when there's a deep pool of cold, black gasoline nearby.
Max and his parents picked me up at exactly 8:00, I watched through the window by the front door of my house, barely able to see them through the tinted glass of the stretch limo. At first the idea of riding in such an extravagant car had shocked me, but now I was used to it.
Max got out first as usual. He was wearing a tux, which under the dim lights of the evening made him seem dark and mysterious, and in way he was. To this day, I couldn't help but feel that while Max knew everything about me (when his family performs a background check, it found out the hard way that it's EXTREMLY thorough) I knew nothing about him.
Nothing except he was a jerk, with love for every girl in the world but me. Oh and he was rich thanks to a company he was eventually going to inherit. Everything else, his childhood, his fears, his hopes, his dreams, where he wanted to go to college, everything a girlfriend should know... were a mystery to me.
He walked hurriedly up the stone path, his head ducked low against the biting wind of the chilly Fall evening. Now were he a regular boy, I would have met him halfway, so he wouldn't have to walk all this way in the cold, but Max was a 'gentlemen' and though I use that very sparingly, I knew I was supposed to wait for him.
So I did, and I saw through the glass window near the door as he pressed the doorbell with a roll of his eyes. I knew he was bored with this kind of thing, and he probably missed whatever girl he had hung out with today.
"Fine. Let's get this over with then." I thought to myself, as I opened the door with a smile plastered to my face. "Hey there." I said to Max, who just shrugged, and responded with a very weak, "Hi."
Max then stuck out his arm. Without looking at me, he said, "Let's go." And though every time I knew he was doing stuff like that to make his parents think he cared about me, it sort of made me feel happy.
I took his arm, and we started moving to the car. It wasn't until I could clearly see my reflection in the car window that Max really got a good look at me. Of course, his eyes weren't on me, but the reflection, and I watched as his eyes widened as he and then finally, he looked at me.
There was a moment of silence before he asked, "Where did you get that dress?"
"From my closet." I told him, with an absent twirl of my hair, and Max just kept staring at me. "I didn't buy it for you." He finally said, and I resisted giving the obvious answer, which was, "Duh."
"Yeah, I know. I bought it a while ago..." I told him with a shrug, trying to gauge his expression, "So what do you think?"
Max was still for a moment, and then his mouth opened to say something, but I never got to learn what it was. For at that moment his parents, who had gotten tired of waiting in the classy limo apparently, were upon us.
"Oh Summer," Mrs. Williams cooed, "You look stunning. Where did you get this perfect dress?" I turned to watch Max's face to see if he agreed with his mother, but it didn't betray his thoughts as he was now in full 'perfect boyfriend mode' and I knew that I would get nothing but compliments out of him for the next 3 hours. I sighed.
Then, realizing that Mrs. Williams was still waiting for an answer, I smiled politely, and said, "Oh, you know, one of those places." Mrs. Williams nodded like she understood, and I say 'like' she understood, because I didn't even understand what I had just said so how could she understand me? It wasn't even a real response; I just hadn't wanted to admit the dress wasn't brand. No brand was very bad when it came to dealing with Mrs. Williams and her tastes.
We got back into the car, and Mr. and Mrs. Williams kept complementing me, occasionally joined by Max, and when we got to the restaurant, most of dinner was exactly like that. Smooth sailing, or so I thought.
Of course, I messed up that 'smooth sailing' near the end of dinner, by responding in the worst way when Mrs. Williams asked, "So how was school today?" A simple question. Perhaps that was why I let down my guard and let the words slip past my lips, "We got a new student today, and his name is Will."
Max's knife fell with a loud clatter on his plate, and when I dared to look at him sitting next to me out of the corner of my eye, I saw he was practically foaming from the mouth, his eyes bright with furry and remembrance.
"Would you excuse us mom?" Max asked, quietly, pulling his napkin from his lap, "I have something I need to discuss with Summer." Max wanting to talk to me, when he was angry and after Will was mentioned? Not good.
Mrs. Williams smiled happily, unaware that she was sending me off to my doom, and nodded. "But of course, it's your special day, why shouldn't you two have 'private talk'?" She put air quotes around 'private talk' as though instead of talk, what we were really going to do was go make out in the parking lot.
If only she knew.
"Save some desert for me, Mrs. Williams!" I called over my shoulder, as I got up. There. Now if Max tired to kill me he would have to explain why I didn't come back for the desert I had asked for. It was a flimsy excuse, I know, but I felt a little bit safer thinking that.
I followed Max through the restaurant, up a flight of stairs, and through a door that landed us on an empty rooftop, surrounded by railing, under a starlit sky. Max's eyes were stormy as we walked onto the abandoned area. I a chill went through me, that I knew wasn't just from the cold air and wind.
Suddenly he whirled around, his arm's searching for and then gripping my shoulders roughly. Though gritted teeth he hissed, "You lied to me." I blinked slowly, unsure what he was talking about, "What?"
He shook my shoulders; "You lied to me about being sick. You were with Will the whole time." Not good, when I talked about Will I must have reminded him about something that had happened. Not only that, but Max looked pissed, really pissed, I had never seen him this angry before and it somewhat frightened me.
Now I knew what I was supposed to say, I was supposed to say, or ask really, whom he heard that from. Then when he said Will (because I had no doubt that that idiot had told him and probably gotten himself killed) I was supposed to say that Will was just messing with him, and I had been home in bed, sick as a dog.
But as my lips parted to form these words, I realized that though I was supposed to say that, that wasn't what I wanted to say. I was so sick of this hipocracy, and how Max kept telling me I couldn't do once, what he did all the time.
And maybe it was because of the chat I had with Deanna or Will, maybe that was what empowered me, because for some reason, I asked, not what I was supposed to ask, but what I wanted to ask, "So?"
Max blinked slowly, his mouth hanging open slightly. "What did you just say?" He finally asked, barely managing to keep the rage out of his voice, as I could hear it along the end of the sentence, and it cut into me like a knife.
I had gone a done it hadn't I? I had gone and defied him for the first time ever and... and... I liked the feelings that now surged through me; the power, the excitement and the self-confidence raced through my veins at the speed of light empowering me to dare to repeat myself. "I said 'so?'" I told him as calmly as I could, "As in, what does it matter?"
"What does is matter?" Max scoffed, throwing his hands up in the air. "You're my girlfriend! You shouldn't be going out with other guys, and hanging out with them, and then LIEING to me about it!"
"Hypocrite." I spat.
"Excuse me?"
I rolled my eyes. "Are you just choosing to be deaf today? I called you a hypocrite ok. And just in case you don't know what that is, since you NEVER pay attention in class and always have to cheat off me, it means you tell me one thing not to do and then you go and do it." I said crossing my arms and trying to stay and look confident, when really I was worried I had said more than I should have.
I couldn't help it, it was like an explosion; the small spark in me, had met the cold, black gasoline that was Max's heart and had blown up. And once something began to blow up it couldn't un-blow up, it couldn't be stopped. Not only that, but once the explosion was over, you could fix everything but it would never be the same. And I knew that, that would happen to Max and I's relationship. We might pretend this never happened tomorrow, but no matter how much we pretend it didn't, it did.
But I didn't have time to think about future consequences now, things were going to be said, and I was going to say them and Max was going to listen. He owed me that much, if not more.
"How am I a hypocrite?" Was Max's oh-so-intelligent response, which he gave through gritted teeth, with his eyes narrowed in a glare that could kill, aimed at me.
"Are you kidding me!" It took all my self-control not to scream that last sentence as I pushed away from him, "Max, you are my boyfriend and you are doing worse things than talking to other girls. Not only that, but you don't even have the decency to take it somewhere else, all of it is in front of me!"
"But I didn't lie about it." Was that all he cared about, the lying part? He was hopeless.
"That's not the point Max!" There, that time I did scream that. Max shrunk back as if slapped before resuming his previous stance and looking me dead in the eyes. "Then what is?" He asked, fiercely.
I swallowed, "I'm tired. Of this. Of ALL of this stupidity, it's not fair that you get to see other girls and I can't even TALK to ONE other guy."
"Don't change the subject!" Max cried, and I walked over to edge of the roof, allowing my hands slapped down on the railing. "I'm not!" I shot back, "Don't you get it Max? This is the only subject! This has only ever been the subject!"
"You didn't care before about what did with other girls... this is all that Will kids fault isn't it? If he hadn't gotten involved..." Max trailed off, and I resisted the urge to slap him.
"It. Is. NOT. Will's. FAULT! Will has only been here for one day! Feelings like these... feelings like mine... they don't just appear in, technically, less than 24 hours. I've felt like this forever, it's just... well Max, you've never been the best listener." I said softly, looking away. Suddenly Max's thumb and pointer finger were grabbing at my jaw, and my gaze and jaw were pulled forcefully back to Max's face.
"Well I'm listening now." He said, his fingers still maintaining their solid grip, his eyes cold as ice sending chills through me, "What is it that you want to say?"
I thought about it for a moment, trying to put the words together in mind carefully, I'd only get one shot. And finally, knowing Max was waiting for something I said, "You destroyed my innocence Max."
Max's eyes grew wide at my words. "How could I have DESTROYED your INNOCENCE?" He demanded. "I never even TOUCHED you."
I pushed his hand away from my face, allowing my frown to fully show as I glared at him. "And maybe that's the problem." I stated, clenching my fists so tightly it turned my knuckles a pale-white color.
"For five whole years," I continued not giving Max a chance to talk, "I've gotten to hear girls talk all about you! And all the things they've DONE with you! And you've never ONCE kissed me, or even took me on a real date, it's just...
"At first I thought you never did anything because you respected me, because at the time I was one of those people who saw a bit of light in everyone so thought you had to have a good reason for practically ignoring me... then that whole thing with Molly happened and you know what I thought... I thought she seduced you. I was so in love with you, and thinking that there was a part of you that would never do that to me, that I was blind. So I stopped being friends with Molly and I gave you a second chance.
"I hoped with that chance, you'd change, and you'd love me. And you did change but in the wrong way. You stopped hiding your true nature and suddenly I realized that the Molly thing wasn't her fault... it was yours. And I also realized that you never loved me... or would love me.
"When I figured that out, Max, I prayed to every greater-force I knew of, wished on every shooting star, waited 'till every 11:11 to make a wish, just one wish; all I wanted was to be, at the very least, your friend. If you couldn't change, then I wanted you to be able to confide in me, so at least I could feel I had a place in your world. But I couldn't even be that. And by the time I became aware of the fact that you were just using me and my heart started sinking lower and lower..."
"And what does this have to do with me destroying your innocence?" Max asked, with a glance over at me and a bored sigh.
I shook with anger as I formed the words on my lips. "I used to be innocent enough to believe that there was a little bit of light, a little bit of goodness in everyone, but with every girl you've ever cheated on me with, I've come to realize that isn't true; there isn't a single bit of goodness left in that dead heart of yours Max Williams, and I'm no longer innocent enough to pretend that there is.
"And I want it back," I continued, my voice rising in volume, "give it back to me Max! Give me back my innocent beliefs of romance, and fairytale endings, and Mr. Right! Give me back my hope for even the worst people! And most importantly give me back the five years of my life that I wasted on YOU!"
Max looked a teeny bit phased, but kept up his cool demeanor, "Oh just be quiet!" He demanded with a glance over his shoulder, "Someone might hear..."
"Someone like you parents?" I asked with a sarcastic laugh, "Well la-te-da, see if I care! I'm tired of lying to your parent's Max! I'm tired of lying to mine! And I'm tired seeing you cheat on me every which way I turn-"
"You cheated on me with Will today!" Max shot back, and I didn't hesitate before snapping back with, "No I didn't Max! Nothing happened... nothing except that for the first time ever a guy my age listened to me, and spent time with me in a way that didn't leave me feeling like I was missing something when compared to him. The only thing he ever did was make me happy, and the last time you ever did that was when you asked me out, and it's all been downhill from there. So no Max, I will see Will again since I was not cheating, and even if I was, what's it matter to you?"
The words were barely out of my mouth before Max gripped my shoulders and pushed me up against a nearby wall. Max's stare was cold as he asked in a low voice, "Deanna Sanchez is happy with her life is she not? She likes her multi-colored bedroom? And two story house? And how her mom is a successful lawyer, and her dad one of the best doctors in the state? Doesn't she?"
"How do you...?" I trailed off, and Max laughed. "When ever someone gets close to my girlfriend," he said, a satisfied smirk slowly appearing on his face, "I make sure I know everything about him or her. Now, answer my question, doesn't Deanna like her life?"
His nails stabbed into my skin, and I nodded weakly, flinching as his nails dug deeper. "Answer me with your voice." He hissed, and I cried out, "Yes she does! She does like her life!"
"Well Summer," Max said sweetly, declawing himself from my arm, so that he could trail a finger across my cheeks, ending in a stand still at my lips, "let me say, that if I ever catch with Will Marks again... Deanna won't like her life as much as she used to. Ok?" He removed his finger from my lips, his grin parting to reveal a toothy smile.
Max was threatening me. He was threatening me! I swallowed. "You make me sick." I spat, and Max's eyes glittered with amusement. "What did you just say now? You want me to destroy Deanna's life by calling her parents bosses and paying them to fire them? Well alright..."
"I'm sorry!" I rushed to say, "Please forgive me for that!"
"I will," Max said, his voice still sickly sweet, "And just to be nice, I'll forget this whole conversation ever happened." Then, out of nowhere, his lips touched my forehead, and he pulled me close into a tight embrace.
And while I was thinking 'just bear with it Summer', he leaned in and whispered in my ear, his voice regular, "There, I've touched you, your innocence is restored." Then he released me from his embrace, and said, "You can go home now, and I'll tell my parents you weren't feeling well."
I blinked unsure of what to say. My sudden previous self-confidence had disappeared, and I knew that in a way he was doing me a favor... but he still made me sick. I watched as he walked over to lean against the railing, looking towards the evening sky.
"See you tomorrow Max." And as quick as my feet could carry me, I left that rooftop, and the man who made me sick yet was my boyfriend, starring up at the stars. But before I proceeded down the steps, I too looked at the sky, and made one wish, on one star that outshone all rest.
"I wish, everything would change." I said quietly, looking at the star. Where that wish would get me I didn't know, but anything was better than this existence. Yet maybe, I decided as I left the restaurant that night, I hadn't needed to make that wish, because with that one fight, I could already feel the winds of change in the air.
And I don't know what it was, but I couldn't help but feel that those winds were carrying good fortune. The only question was, whom was that good fortune destined to be delivered to?
Me?
Will?
Or Max?
Only time will tell.
<End of chapter 6>