It had been four weeks. Four weeks since I broke up with Darren. A lot has happened within this short period. Firstly, Darren had changed. He was no longer the same Darren I knew. He was more quiet now. He didn’t talk to me much but wasn’t hostile or bitter to me as I had expected. We talked, but not as often as we used to. Things soon turned awkward if we had a conversation exceeding more than three minutes.
Secondly, Claire and Jake were dating. I was so shocked when they told me. They started dating a week ago. I thought it was too early for Claire to be in a relationship already when less than four weeks ago, she broke up with Jesse. Not that I didn’t like them dating, it was just that I felt that this escalated too quickly. But nevertheless, I was happy to see Claire happy again.
And if you were wondering, no I was not dating Brian yet. I didn’t know why, but we were still not dating. But I dif love him and we had kissed a few times. It was just that I thought I should wait till Darren adjusts to the situation.
Gemma and Brian had broken up too. Gemma threw a fit and almost punched him but then she told him to get lost. And I was right, she wasn’t in love with Brian so she moved on from him pretty quickly. Now she was dating Blake, the football captain of our school who was a year older to her and who’s party we attended. She no longer hung out with us, and neither did we wanted her to. I didn’t know about the others, but I was the happiest when she left. I was a bit jealous of her as she was dating Brian at that time and was hanging out with our group just because Brian was with us.
Sam’s flavour of the season was the blonde neighbour of his. Tyler was single. And Josh, well he came out of the closet. He revealed it to us right after my break up. He even admitted to having a small crush on Sam.
We were currently crowding our small table at the cafeteria. Everyone except Claire and Jake were at the table. They were probably sucking each others faces off in the janitor’s closet, the hot spot for the school’s playboys to get a quickie from the girls who kissed the ground they walked on.
Sam was presenting a camping trip before us. He wanted all of us to go. Some of us were hesitant but they agreed in the end. I had always loved camping and I was quite excited about the trip. We arranged to go camping next Saturday. While we discussed the plan, we heard a loud slap. We immediately whipped our head towards the source and my eyes almost bugged out of their sockets when I saw Claire glaring at Jesse.
“You want some more?” I heard her ask Jesse. Jesse’s left cheek was red, so he was the one who got slapped. Internally, I was just cackling evilly. “I’ve had enough of you! You useless piece of shit, you were just using me all this time I was with you! I’m not stupid!” She shouted in his face and taking Jake’s hand, she walked towards us.
We were all staring at her. All the other students were staring at Jesse. Jesse was staring at the floor. He finally moved and got out of the cafeteria.
I couldn’t control my laugh anymore and a few strangled giggles left my lips. I quickly composed myself but ? my friends were already staring at me.
“Sorry,” I said, coughing a few times to mask my laughs. “But that was brilliant Claire!”
Claire smiled at me, “I wish I could kill him.”
“Sure, go ahead.”
~~~
“Mom!” I called out. As soon as I reached home, I smelt a sweet smell wafting from the kitchen.
I entered the kitchen to find mom setting up the oven. “What are doing?” I asked as I grabbed an apple from the fruit basket. Damn, I was always hungry. I just had two burgers at McDonald’s with Claire.
“I’m trying to bake a cake.”
“Cool. I hope you won’t burn down the house,” I commented.
She gave me a glare, “I’ll try not to.”
I told my mom about the break up a day after it actually happened. I was worried about Darren, but mom assumed that I was depressed because of the break up. So she told me about the guys she dated before dad and how after a break up, all she needed were chocolates and cake. So now she had declared that she would try to bake a cake or other sweet delights for me to help me get over Darren. Honestly, it was not needed at all because I was quite happy about the break up. No more lies, no more cheating and no more grief! And I was so happy for Darren because he deserved someone much more better than me. Maybe he could date that quiet girl with glasses in my History class who went by the name of Finn, or he could go out with Rita who was very sweet, or maybe Danielle who was like, super smart and beautiful, or if he was more into girly girls, he could see if he had a chance with Madison “Mads”, the sweet queen bee of our school. Actually, Breeze, one of the loners of our school was pretty cool too.
I left the kitchen to see that Ryan had just entered. He was removing his shoes. As he met my eyes, a huge grin made it’s way on his face.
“Brooke,” He jumped off the couch and ran towards me.
“Whoa! What’re you doing?” I asked as he stopped in front of me.
“Hugging you,” He said, throwing his arms around me. I wrinkled my nose as I felt his sticky, sweaty body against mine. Ew.
“Get off!” I said as I detached his arms from me and shoved him away. “Jeez, why do you do that all the time? You know I hate it when you hug me when you’re all sweaty and smelly,” I glared at him as I rubbed my hands on the side of my jeans to get rid of the sweat.
Ryan, on the other hand was laughing his head off seeing my disgusted expression. “I know. That’s why I do that.”
“You’re so going to regret that one day!” I threatened.
“Really, what’re going to do?” He smirked at me as he plopped down on the couch and threw his head back.
“I don’t know, maybe I’ll tell Cassi about your annoying, disgusting habits, shall I?”
His eyes widened. “How do you know about Cassi?!”
Now it was my turn to smirk. “Your phone is quite useful when I need to get revenge on you, oh my dear brother.”
“Shit!” He said as he dove for his phone which was lying on the ground. “Did you read our texts?” He asked, panicking as he scrolled down their texts to see if he gave something important away about their relationship.
“Yup! I know what’s going on between you two. I wonder how mom would react if she knows you slept with-”
“Shut up,” Ryan skipped to me and slammed his hand on my mouth, muffling my words.
I slapped his hand away. “What the hell! I was so close to licking your sweat. Ew, Ryan you’re so disgusting,” I said, picking up a pillow and throwing it at him. He wasn’t able to catch it and it instead stamped on his face.
I trudged up the stairs, in a desperate need to take a shower to wash off the sweat and grime off of me.
After a refreshing shower which I was reluctant to leave, I went down for dinner. Apparently, my mom being the terrible cook she was, messed up the cake. She made it bitter. I didn’t? know how the hell she managed to make it bitter but I really didn’t like it. I hated the bitter stuff in food, as well as in life.
I didn’t eat much of the cake, it wasn’t exactly edible because it tasted so bitter and burnt. But I placed a few pieces in my mouth to see my mother smile. Eating a crappy cake was worth the smile my mom was sporting right now.
I was currently sprawled on my bed, scrolling through my Instagram. It was a school night and I usually went to bed at around twelve. It was currently 11:34 am but I was not sleepy. My mom was probably sleeping because there was no sound from downstairs.
Suddenly, my phone started ringing its annoying ringtone that of a cackling baby. It was creepy. I didn’t know how Brian got hold of my phone and cracked the password. He changed my caller tune and when I heard the sound of a cackling baby (the jerk was calling me) at two in the morning a few days ago, I was near to shitting bricks. I still hadn’t changed the tune, I forgot.
I quickly picked it up without looking at the caller ID, not wanting to wake my mom up. I thought it was Brian because he was the only one, stupid enough to actually call me at one in the morning.
“Hello?! Brian, you asshole. Why did you ca-”
“Brooke!” It was not Brian as I had expected. But instead, I heard Claire’s voice. It sounded slightly scared and urgent.
“Claire,” I jumped out of bed, slipping on my flip flops. “Why are you calling me so late? Is everything alright?” I asked as I trudged down the steps and entered the kitchen.
“Brooke, I don’t know how I got here,” I heard a thud on the other end.
“Hey, are you okay? You fell or what?” I asked as I filled a glass with water.
“Yeah… there’s a big mess on the floor. My foot got stuck and I… fell,” She said as I heard some further shuffling.
“You’re okay, right?”
“Um… yeah.”
“What were you saying where you are?” I asked as I brought the glass to my lips and took a big sip.
“Right, Brooke I don’t know how I got here, but I woke up and I’m at Jesse’s place,” Claire sounded frantic nkw. At the mention of Jesse, I threw up the water which was in my mouth, thankfully into the sink.
“What?! You’re with Jesse? Why are you there? Did you break up with Jake and are back with Jesse again? Jeez, how more stupid could you be?!” I fired questions at her without giving her a chance to reply.
“Stop shouting! You’ll probably wake your mom up. And no, I’m still with Jake. What I’m telling you is that I’m at Jesse’s place and I don’t? freaking know how I landed up here. I’m trying to get out of this hellhole but it seems like Jesse has locked his bedroom door from outside. I’m stuck in his bedroom!”
“What?! How did Jesse take you there? What were you doing when he got you locked up in his room?!” I started to panic.
“I don’t know. I only remember drinking something at school and then I started feeling dizzy right after that. And when I woke up, I found myself in his room. But I don’t know where he is…” Claire trailed off.
Oh my gosh, I didn’t trust Jesse. Claire’s? drink was possibly spiked by Jesse so that he could bring her to his place. But why would he do that? What was Jesse planning on?
And now, she was locked up in Jesse’s room at freaking one in the morning. Being the school’s player fuckboy, I knew that he was going to do something bad to her. And she even slapped him today at school, in front of everyone. Was he doing this to get revenge?
Oh. God. This was not good.
“Claire, give me Jesse’s address. I’m coming there right now.”
“Oh no, Brooke. Go back to sleep. I’ll just shout in his face and get home. I’ll text you when I’ll reach hom-”
“Shut up, Claire give me the address right now!” I ordered as I took a piece of paper and a pen.
“Um… okay. But that’s really unnecessary. I’ll be fine.”
“Address!” I demanded impatiently.
“Oh, okay. You don’t need to shout. Write? it down,” Claire gave me his address and I instantly knew where he lived. It was only about twenty minutes away from my house.
I heard a bang from the other side. “Claire! What was that?”
“I-I don’t know. I think Jesse’s here. I’ll talk to you later,” She said and hung up.
I slipped the paper in my shorts’ pocket and grabbed my jumper. I thought of calling Jake and so I immediately dialed his number.
“Hello?” A sleepy voice, which I was pretty sure was Jake’s answered from the other side of the line.
“Jake, get up. Jesse has locked Claire up in his room. She’s in his house currently.”
“What? Why is she there? Are they together? I swear to God if that son of a beehive hurts Claire again, I’ll rip off his-”
“Shut up, kill Jesse later, we have to get Claire first. Come to this address right now!” I said as I gave him Jesse’s address.
“I’ll be right there.”
I hung up and grabbed my car keys.
“Brooke?” I heard mom’s voice and I instantly froze. “Where are you going?”
I turned around to face mom. “Hi, mom. I-I just have some work. I have to… um, complete a project with Claire,” I lied. I knew if I told her the truth, she wouldn’t let me go.
“Really? Okay, now tell me the real reason,” She demanded, crossing her arms over her chest.
I sighed. There was no point in lying to her. She was my mother.
“Claire is in a bit of trouble. I’ll go, help. I’ll be back as soon as possible,” I said, backing away towards the door.
“Brooke, it’s one in the morning. Don’t go now.”
“Mom, there’s nothing to be worried about. I’m going to be with Claire?. I’ll be fine. Please let me go.”
She sighed. “You’re not going to listen to me anyway. Do you have your pepper spray?”
“Yes, mom,” I said as I slipped into my shoes.
“You have enough balance in your phone, right? Call me when you need me.”
“I know, mom. Nothing will happen to me,” I reassured her.
“Drive safe! Be safe, okay? I don’t want you in danger.”
Why was she acting like I was going on a battlefield? That was freaking me out.
“I won’t be in danger. Love you!” I said as I kissed her cheek before bolting out the door towards my car.
My phone vibrated in my shorts’ pocket and I took it out to see it was Brian.
“Hey, babe,” He greeted in that sexy voice of his. “Can I come tonight? I’m not able to sleep alone. I want you beside me,” I could almost hear him pout from the other side.
“Brian, I’m going to Jesse’s place. He has locked Claire up in his room. I feel like… like something’s bad going to happen.” Why did I feel like I was in a Final Destination movie.
“What? I’m coming right now,” he said immediately.
“No, and you don’t even know where he lives.”
“I do. Whenever Jake was feeling low, we’d go to his place to prank him. Usually we’d just throw eggs at him without him knowing it was us, cut his hair when he slept, make the water boiling hot or freezing cold whenever he wanted to take a bath, or mixed a hair dye with a shampoo so he ended up dyeing his hair in pink, green or yellow. So yeah, I do know where he lives.”
Even though I was panicking for Claire, I couldn’t help but crack a small smile at this.
“I’m coming right away,” he said when I didn’t say anything.
“Okay,” I said, starting up the car and driving to the moron’s place. I even attempted to exceed the 25 miles per hour speed limit of mine. It was exhilarating but also scared me.
I just hoped this night wouldn’t end badly.