In the morning she called my house phone which my mom picked up and ordered me to talk to Janice because she didn’t want the house phone ringing again and again. I did talk and now she’s coming for God knows what.
“Hey bitch.” Janice said, opening my door and inviting herself in.
I washed my mouth and wiped it with a napkin. “Why are you here Janice?” I asked, coming out of the washroom.
She fake pouted, “Why can’t I be here, aren’t I your best friend anymore?”
I rolled my eyes at her drama. “I am fine, you know.”
“Of course I know. But you are my favorite bitch to bitch about bitches with.” She stated, snuggling into my blanket.
I raised my eyebrows at her. “Which bitch are we bitching about?”
“Why? Alicia of course.” She said, grinning at me.
I grinned back, my mood lifting up comparatively. Bitching about bitches always helps.
We all want to talk about someone who is worse than us, just to lift up our self-esteem.
For the next two hours, we bitched about Alicia, made assumptions about Max and Brittany’s story, ate breakfast and revived every past happy memory. Actual gossip girls.
At that moment I once again I realized why she is my best friend.
“Where did your mom go?” Janice asked as she made popcorn.
“Some meeting with Dad.” I answered, debating on which to movie to see Frozen or How to train your dragon 2. I sighed as I selected Dragon 2, Toothless is too hard to resist.
For a few minutes I heard her low voice, she was probably talking to her mother on phone.
“Joanna, how much do you love me?” She shouted in a sing song voice, coming with the popcorn.
My eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Enough to throw you off a cliff and then write a suicide letter in your handwriting.”
She grinned guiltily. “Liar, I know you love me a lot.”
“Janice, what did you do?”
She cleared her throat, settling on the chair farthest from me. Oh this is not good!
“So I may or may not have invited Max and Dylan over who may or may not have forced Ace to come as well.”
It took me a few seconds to register her words before I blew up. “What the Fuck Janice? After all what happened yesterday, you still invited them? How am I even going to face him? My God he tried to kiss me and I slapped him. I just hope those rumors about him killing people aren’t true. Because if they are, I am sure he has already selected a place to bury me.”
“Joanna breath. Deep breaths.” Janice ordered, stopping my tirade.
I obeyed her and breathed a few times. Breathe in, breathe out.
“It’s going to fine. You two have some misunderstandings and I suggest you sort it out. Also if Sean wanted to talk to you he would have messaged you so just forget about him, okay?”
I sighed. “Okay.” Okay my foot.
After exactly 10 minutes we heard the bell ring. Janice went to open the door while I tried to calm myself in the kitchen.
“Joey baby!” Max’s shout made me chuckle.
“Maxie!” I welcomed back.
He came in the kitchen with a disgusted face. “That’s the worst pet name ever.”
“Suits you.” I teased.
“You know Ace didn’t mean to kiss her.” Max said, tapping on the table uncomfortably.
“I don’t want to know Max.” I lied. I wanted to know why he kissed her, but I would rather watch a sad movie ending than admit it.
“You can lie to others but not to yourself Joanna.” He scolded, making me scowl. “He was beyond furious when he saw you with Sean and then he saw him holding your hand that added fuel to an already raging fire. When you ran off, he punched Sean and walked off to the pool to calm himself. And then Alicia came. You have to understand he wasn’t in his right mind when he kissed her. He was angry -.”
“Oh he was angry? Damn how did I not figure that out?” I snorted sarcastically.
Max rolled his eyes, ignoring my sarcasm. “Yeah he was enraged, he isn’t that stupid to kiss her without a reason.” He paused and then added sincerely. “He wouldn’t hurt you intentionally.”
“Could have fooled me. That piece of burnt marshmallow. I am going to kill him. And I don’t care he kissed her but I am not forgetting it for a long long time.” I growled, pushing Max away and stormed into the living room. If he was angry he could have told me, not shared saliva’s with someone. I don’t kiss other people when I’m pissed.
I scanned the room, they were all busy watching the movie I was supposed to see, Logan, Alan and Brittany were there too. When did they come?
“Bryan.” I called tersely.
All eyes fell on me expect Bryan’s. Oh joy!
“Bryan.” I tried again.
This time Dylan punched his arm and whispered something. Slowly Bryan turned to me with an annoyed look. “What?”
“Come out.” I ordered, turning to go.
“No.” His clipped answer stopped me. I gritted my teeth, resisting the urge to punch him. How many years in jail for murder?
“Shut up and come. Now.” I hissed bitterly.
He glowered but got up.
“Horny.” Logan snickered. I threw the nearby plastic bottle at him. I basked in his yelp of pain at the bottle hit his head.
“What is it?” Ace asked once we were out and walking towards the park.
I licked my lip wondering what to say. Finally I asked the question that had been troubling me since last evening. “Why were you angry when you saw me with Sean?”
He face turned bitter. “I don’t like him.”
“But isn’t he your step brother?”
He shrugged, “So what? I didn’t ask my dad to marry that bitch.” His tone turned to distaste at the end, making me wince. Why did he hate his stepmother so much?
“Look how about this, next time you are angry come and tell me that not kiss some girl and prove you are a certified jerk.”
His response was a simple grunt. I fisted my hands almost punching him. I instantly regretted calling him to talk. He clearly wasn’t interested.
No one spoke anything until we reached the park, mostly because we didn’t know what to say. I was way too pissed and he seemed to be in his own arrogant thoughts. The silence just hanged around us as we disappeared in our own thoughts. We walked to the end and sat on a bench.
I cleared my throat, getting his attention. “Why do you hate the female race?” I reluctantly asked, not sure if I would get an answer.
He didn’t reply, just when I thought of changing the topic he spoke up. “Don’t get too close, I have demons.”
I blinked at his somber face, fascinated that he just quoted from a famous song. “We all have.”
He sighed. “All the women in my life left me or treated me badly. I grew up hating them. Every time I thought a girl would be different, she would prove me wrong. To protect myself I started to stay away from them.”
“Oh.”
He chuckled with no emotion. “Oh indeed.”
I played with my fingers nervously, staring at the green grass. “Who left you?”
I heard his hesitant sigh. “My real mother.” A pause. “When I was six years old she cheated on my father, when he came to know he asked for a divorce. My mother was never the perfect mother, she drank, gambled, had sex with every good-looking guy but she always treated me like a prince. So I always loved her but after the divorce, she cut off all ties form me and dad. I waited, hoping she would come to meet or at least call me on my seventh birthday but she didn’t. Every time the bell would ring, I would go to open the door hoping it was my mother or something from her; instead it would be some bills or something for dad. Finally when I was nine, I realized that she would never come back, she was gone for good. That was the first day I cried after she went.”
The image of a small hurt crying six year old Bryan was enough to hurt my heart.
“Unfortunately my dad saw this and came to the conclusion that I needed a mother figure, he married his assistant, Claudia, a gold digger. She was divorced too and had a son of my age. I thought she would be good but I was terribly wrong. After about five months, she started showing her true colors to me. She left her job, saying she had to handle a house and two sons now. All she would do is paint her nails and watch porn while her son would be playing games on his iPhone and I had to do all the work, one mistake and I would be slapped hard.”
“She broke my dad’s favorite vase while attempting to do Harlem shake and blamed me for it. Every bad thing she or Sean did, I would be blamed. It was gruesome. I was slapped, tortured and accused for things I never did. But my dad thought his second wife was some Disney princess, never wrong. Eventually my dad got so caught up in his wife’s false accusations that he threw me out. His real son. I was just 14 then. Are you crying?”
I blinked and realized there were a lone tear rolling down my cheek. I coughed abashed at myself. “No! Something went inside my eyes.” I answered lamely.
He grinned. “Oh yeah? Should I continue or something more would go in your eye?”
I nodded immediately. “Nah nah continue.” This would be the only chance to know him, and he wasn’t the one to say life stories every day.
Ace continued. “After that I started living in the cottage with my gran and got involved in drugs and guns. There I met Max and Dylan, there were a part of it too, for their own reasons. After seven months my dad apologized and wanted me to come back with him, I agreed because to be honest I missed him and my home too. But things didn’t get well, Sean somehow came to know about my job and told his mother who blackmailed me. I was fed up of the blackmails so I went and told dad the truth about me being in a gang, it led to another long argument and once again I was on the streets.”
I bit my lip, feeling incredibly woeful at the fact that he had no family when he really needed it. At a tender age he was on the streets, facing things no 14 year old should be facing. Verbal accusing at times hurts more than physical. Words are sharper than a sword.
Life has weird ways to testing us.
He continued, “Women are devious, deceitful and fiendish, I grew up thinking it. At sophomore year end, I went back home to concentrate on studies.” He gave a dramatic pause. “Remaining later.”
“What?” I shouted in dismay. “No no, tell now.”
He grinned at me. “Are you enjoying my sob story?”
“No! It’s sad but at least I am getting to know you.”
His smiled shyly. “You already know quite a lot muffin.”
I blinked, momentarily smitten by his rare smile. “I would like to know you better.”
“Back at you.” He whispered.
Suddenly I noticed the proximity, out thighs were touching and my head was almost on his shoulder, his hand held mine. When did he do that? Or was it me?
“Tell me about your life.” His voice distracted me.
I gulped nervously; I couldn’t talk about my life. It was melancholic.
“Some other time.”
“I am intrigued now.” He said in a low voice, staring at me, analyzing me. Trying to read me.
I smiled weakly, “I am not comfortable talking about it.”
“Alicia knows it?”
I nodded, “We were good friends in middle school.”
His eyebrows rose in shock. “What happened?”
“People change.” I shrugged.
7 billion people, 14 billon faces.
I felt my throat clogging at the emotions buried inside me. They wanted to come out but once again I refused. I couldn’t allow my wall to break, it would never be made again. I swallowed my tears and the emptiness, forced the rejuvenating memories into a corner. I didn’t want to think about old memories and wish that I could change the past. It was over, I had to move on, no matter how difficult it is.
Behind every locked door lies a forbidden secret.
“Hey are you okay?”
I smiled at Bryan ruefully, “I will be.” I promise.
I glanced at him. “Bryan not all girls are like that. It’s just that bad experience leads to negative thinking.”
He smiled back at me. “I don’t know about other girls but I know you aren’t like that.”
I smiled back and rested my head back on his shoulder as we saw the green trees and blooming beautiful flowers as children ran about them, laughing merrily.
And in that moment everything seemed perfect.