Kit Kat & Katie Did

by Lauren T. Hart

  “That’s disturbing,” Dominic said.

  “Yeah. Put’s a serious kink in my kinks too.”

  “Dude,” Dominic laughed. “Gross.”

  “Too soon?” Ryan’s dimples showed. He looked at me, I wasn’t smiling. I was still too busy being traumatized by all of it. “Too soon,” he concluded.

  “Oh Dude,” Dominic blurted. “I forgot to tell you, I slept with your girlfriend last night.”

  I wasn’t sure who he was talking about until I saw his thumb pointing at me over his shoulder. “What?” I gasped.

  “Is this true?” Ryan looked at me with wide eyes.

  “No!”

  “Don’t lie,” Dominic tsk’d. “Slept like a baby. Comfy and sound, and for almost three full hours.”

  Ryan laughed.

  “Sleeping. There was sleeping.” I interjected.

  “Well,” Ryan lifted a shoulder. “Maybe next time.”

  Dominic chuckled. “Nah. Those were uniquely unique circumstance.”

  Dominic drove us to the same restaurant we’d eaten at after the whole ‘stole his own truck’ thing, the one with the giant slices of cake. The place is called Lett’s Eats. The name is grammatically painful unless you know it’s owned by Mark and Paula Lett.

  As soon as we sat down at the table Dominic blurted. “My Valentine’s Day was an absolute shit-storm, thanks for asking.”

  Ryan chuckled. “I’m just going to assume there was literal shit, and a cow involved.”

  “I wish. Annabelle needed a date to some Valentine’s Day thing her church was putting on, and I sort of owed her one, after she helped saved my ass during the whole ‘stole my own truck’ debacle.”

  Great, another thing I was indirectly responsible for. I flashed a guilty glance toward Ryan. He slipped his hand under the table and set it on my thigh, giving me an ‘it’s gonna be okay’ pat.

  “You would think Saint Valentine’s Day, at a church, would be pretty benign,” Dominic shook his head. “It was a fucking crazy train. It started out with a lecture about purity, gratitude, saving yourself for god and marriage or whatever. I don’t know, standard church stuff I guess? I tuned it out pretty early on. Then they lined up all the guys in chairs while the girls danced in front of them in jeans and t-shirts with hula skirts and coconut bras over top. It was weird and creepy.”

  “I’m getting the weird vibe, why creepy?” Ryan asked.

  “That came from the dude trying to convince us that this shit was sexy.”

  Ryan made a face and I said what we were both thinking, “Gross.”

  “Oh yeah,” Dominic continued. “And we were just getting started. After that it was dinner, and everything’s covered in white paper. The floor, the chairs, the tables, it’s all been wrapped in white paper. Everything else is white too, the napkins the plates, the plastic utensils, all of it. Even the girls have to put on these white aprons and then serve the guys dinner. It’s spaghetti. And also some kind of object lesson about sin.”

  “No way,” Ryan laughed.

  Dominic put his hands up in surrender. “Basically, anytime sauce gets anywhere that isn’t a noodle, it’s like a permanent stain for God to be upset about. And we’re all encouraged to point out everybody else’s spaghetti sauce sins and yell at them for it. I thought it was kind of funny at first. I’ve never wanted to start a food fight more in my entire life, just because it was so messed up. And then after all that fun with the sauce shaming the guys were given these boxes to give the girls that had like chocolate and stickers in them, and some scripture thing about how a man who loves God more than he loves you is the ideal guy.” Dominic laughed, but it wasn’t a ‘haha’ laugh it was more of a ‘you’ve got to be kidding’ laugh. “And then,” his voice pitched, “the girls actually had to thank the guys for this absolutely BS gift they had nothing to do with. And the guys had to say, ‘You’re very welcome.’ Oh, wait,” Dominic waved his hands in front of him. “I’m not telling this right. Guys, there was literally a horde of adults hovering over everything we were doing the whole time, telling us what to do and say while trying to persuade us that we’re having fun, and that this shit was romantic.” Dominic shook his head as he took a breath and blew it out. “So after the not gifts, and the ‘you can never escape your sauce sins’ it’s time to clean up. So they bring in these big black trash bags, and we roll up all our spaghetti sins and take them out to the trash like none of it ever happened. But nobody says anything about that,” Dominic rolled his eyes. “Next, I think it was supposed to be a dance. The music was all slow Christian power ballad like stuff, but anytime anybody tried to dance there’d be an adult with a bible making sure we were the proper god-length apart. And then there was this mock wedding thing with these chintzy gold rings they made everybody do where they have the couples walk down the aisle together and make chastity vows to each other. And then— And then—”

  Our server arrived and asked if we were ready to order.

  “Cake,” was the first thing out of Dominic’s mouth. “I need cake. And a pot of coffee. And a turkey sandwich with chips.”

  “I’ll have the same,” I pitched in.

  “Cake first,” Dominic added.

  Ryan looked at me a little surprise. “Okay, me too,” he said. “And also, two avocado salads with chicken, dressing on the side, and two sides of sautéed summer squash, and lots of water for the table. For when the reality of cake kicks in and some of us remember sugar isn’t really our thing.”

  Ryan so got me.

  As soon as our server had gone Dominic picked up where he’d left off. “So we do the stupid chastity vow thing, and it’s more of everybody just standing around wishing we were anywhere else and finally some guy flashes the lights off and on, there’s a prayer, and we’re all free to go. Kind of amazing none of us were running out of there. Not even ten seconds out of the parking lot—” Dominic’s voice pitched and then he suddenly stopped talking and sat back in his seat, shaking his head.

  “What?” Ryan prodded.

  Dominic grumbled. “I know everybody knows Annabelle has issues. But we were in group therapy together for a while, so I know a lot of the details. It sort of doesn’t feel right to talk about her — and how totally messed up she is.”

  “You don’t have to tell us anything, Dominic.” I leaned toward him. “But if you do, I promise I’ll keep her secrets too.”

  “Yeah me too,” Ryan said. “Of course, man. Always. Everybody has stuff they’d rather not be public fodder. We all get that.”

  Dominic nodded while he considered. “Let’s wait for the food,” he said.

  Once all the food arrived Dominic tucked into a huge forkful of cake. Ryan and I both went right for the summer squash.

  “Okay,” Dominic sighed with a mouth full of cake “But this has to stay between us,” he stressed. We both reassured him again that it would and he continued. “So we’ve just left the weird church thing, I’m driving her home…” Dominic leaned forward, his voice low. “She takes off her shirt and says, ‘Well that was wholesome, we should have sex now to balance it out.’”

  This was the moment my eyes became as wide as dinner plates.

  “I made that same face,” Dominic nodded toward me. “And I was like ‘Uh, no. No, we shouldn’t.’ And she’s like ‘Yeah, we totally should.’ This basically turns into a ‘yes no’ argument while I drive her home. And then the second she realizes we’ve stopped in front of her house she loses her mind completely. She gets out of the truck yelling about how I’d misled her, and betrayed her trust, and ruined her whole day. And because just screaming at me isn’t enough, she’s also taking off the rest of her clothes, shoes and all, and throwing them at me, one by one. Neighbors are coming outside and watching through windows. I’m just trying to think of a way to tell her she needs to calm down without actually using the words ‘calm down’ so she doesn’t freak out even more, if that’s even possible. Once she’s completely bare-ass naked, she starts screaming even loude
r, that she ‘hates my guts’ and ‘hopes I die’ and she ‘never wants to see me again’ and eventually she runs into the house. I gather up all her shit, take it to the front door and hand it to whoever answered. Annabelle’s still screaming like a banshee,” he shook his head. “How the hell she showed up at school today, acting like none of that happened is beyond me,” Dominic stuffed a couple of chips into his turkey sandwich and took a big crunchy bite.

  I could definitely see that being in the top ten of Dominic’s worst days ever, especially considering that wasn’t even the end of his day.

  “Maybe they were different personalities,” Ryan offered.

  “That would kind of make sense,” Dominic said as he chewed.

  I pushed my cake over onto it’s side so I could get at the cakey part between the frosting layers. “And then I came over and just added to the crazy.”

  “That’s not what happened.” Dominic scoffed. He looked at Ryan while he recapped. “I was having a nightmare about being trapped in a padded white room with Annabelle when this tiny, soft knocking noise wakes me up. I thought it sounded a little bit like the time a couple of chickens jumped the rail and decided to drop in, so I figured that was probably what it was again but it was this one,” he pointed his fork full of cake at me. “And that meant I didn’t have to go outside into the cold dark night and chase chickens, plus no more nightmares, so I was actually super grateful,” he shot me a smirk. “And then you stayed, and we slept together, and you can never take that back,” he rambled, “and I haven’t been that warm at night since…” Dominic rubbed his hand across his cheek. “Since Bix, died.” He abandoned his next bite and went for one of the waters instead. “Bix was my dog,” he explained.

  Not only did I feel like I was about to burst into tears, but I had this crazy idea that now would be a good time to declare to everyone in earshot that I was Katarina Franks. In an equally as crazy moment I decided the best way to avoid doing this was to stuff a huge piece of cake — with frosting — into my face. It sort of worked. But it was so sweet.

  And I realized, this is probably how people become emotional eaters, and that the combo of stress and sugar might actually make me hurl, so I spit it all out into a napkin.

  At least, this was the last day of being 16. Tomorrow was a whole new year for me. And I was giving myself the gift of putting everything I didn’t want to think about in the past and starting fresh.

  ・❀・❀・❀・

  Dear Brand New Diary,

  Today is my birthday. Officially, I am 17. I feel 107. I’ve always had this idea that diaries were a place to bare your soul and record all your most intimate thoughts and most secretest of secrets.

  I don’t think that way anymore.

  This past week I’ve learned that there are experiences I don’t want to share. I don’t want to look back on them or re-read them or relive the memory of them, and I honestly don’t think anyone else should have to either.

  Another, more important lesson I learned this week: Playing dirty feels dirty because you are dirty, and that kind of dirty doesn’t wash off so easy.

  Pond scum floats on top of water.

  I should have stayed in the boat

  -Me at 17

  Chapter 31

  Nothing really happened on my birthday. And that made it one of the best days ever. After school I drove to Julian’s, he made me dinner while I talked to Mom and Erik on FaceTime. We watched movies and I spent the night curled next to him and somehow managed to forget all the unhappy, scary, horrible, confusing, ugly, things that I’d been exposed to recently.

  Julian knew I’d been avoiding talking about something, but he waited until Saturday morning to bring it up. I gave him the ten minute, drenched in sugar, completely anorexic version of all the things that had been stressing me out. He listened like he always did, then hugged me close and reassured me that high school wasn’t forever.

  I felt like such a liar. Pretty sure Julian knew I was lying too, because it was a really long, extra comforting, all-the-cozy-snuggles kind of hug. Maybe he thought he could hug the truth out of me, but at least for now, I was keeping the more F’d up details to myself. Mostly because I knew it would have turned our Saturday morning breakfast into a Saturday morning standoff between Julian’s desire to protect me from evil and my desire to help my friend. And besides never wanting that to happen, I also had plans with Jayla to get to.

  I picked her up at her place a little before 10am and we went to this little out of the way coffee shop near the mall.

  When I told Ryan about what had happened in the lunchroom and that Jayla had agreed to talk he basically insisted that he be there. I thought it best if Jayla and I cleared some things up before he got there, so I told him to meet us at 10:30. It was almost 10 after 10 when we arrived and Ryan was already there, looking conspicuously inconspicuous in a Parkwood Panthers baseball hat, dark sunglasses and a large newspaper he was hiding behind.

  It was mostly the newspaper that gave him away. Of the few people who still read newspapers, nobody reads them fully open. And just in case the paper crafted word wall wasn’t obvious enough, he was sitting at a table with a handwritten sign made from a napkin and hung over a tabletop advert that read: Reserved for K&J. I thought it was a nice gesture on his part considering how crowded the place was, but it also made me wonder just how long he’d been sitting there.

  “The fuck is this?” Jayla asked, her tone casual, as she waved toward the not so mystery man in the corner, peering over newsprint with surreptitious intent. “If we’re not here to kill him and dump his body in the woods, I’m not interested.”

  “Actually, he wants to apologize.”

  Jayla scowled at me and then ordered a latte. And then she asked if they could make it extra large and extra hot.

  I ordered mine iced, just in case she decided to weaponize her frothed espresso, I’d have a counter measure of some kind.

  Jayla stood next to the pick-up counter, glaring in Ryan’s general direction until our drinks were ready. I stood with her. Jayla was taking a lot of slow measured breaths, but neither of us were saying anything.

  “Can you stop this? Whatever this is that you’re doing here, please,” she snipped as she sat down across from Ryan. “It’s embarrassing. You look like you’re about to call in a bomb threat.”

  Ryan ditched the sunglasses and the newspaper and then, with eyes on her giant latte, said, “Please don’t scald me with burning hot coffee.”

  “No promises,” Jayla smirked, sweeping her long ombré locks over her shoulders.

  Ryan frowned and nodded, accepting that a lap full of hot coffee just might be his fate. “I can’t take back how awful I was to you, and I know an apology doesn’t count for much now, but I am sorry for what happened between us and for how I treated you after. You deserve better than that.”

  Jayla nodded. “I agree. So why now? Please tell me this isn’t some sort of 12-step thing. Or do, that might actually be kind of interesting.”

  The corner of Ryan’s mouth lifted into almost a smile and he glanced at me. “Super boring answer I’m afraid. I met someone who reminded me that I want to be a better person than I’d become.”

  “Uh-huh,” Jayla considered her manicure. “Why her?” she waved at me, showcase display style, with her flawless french tips. “What makes her so different? So special?”

  “She uh…” Ryan looked to me, and then to Jayla. “Please don’t be mad at me for this. She’s different because she wasn’t interested. At least, not like every other girl has been anyway. She wanted to pass Calculus, and be my friend, and that was it. Girls that chase are easy to catch.”

  Jayla shifted in her seat, her lips pursed.

  “I swear I’m not calling you easy,” Ryan put his hands up. “I don’t think that. I never have. I’ve always thought you were gorgeous, and sweet, and funny, and really really cool actually.”

  “Don’t exaggerate,” Jayla scolded. “It makes everything else you sa
y sound like a lie.”

  “Okay. Gorgeous, sweet, funny, and just really cool,” Ryan amended.

  Jayla rolled her eyes. “So you two are just friends then?” She pointed a doubting finger back and forth between us.

  Ryan nodded. “Yeah, actually. She’s one of my very best friends, except we go out places together, like dates, and we kiss sometimes.”

  “Is that all?” Jayla sipped her latte. “I’ve heard something a little different.”

  Ryan shrugged. “You should know sometimes I lie; and sometimes other people do. Besides, what we do alone is really nobody else’s business.”

  “Why did you lie about us, and tell everybody we weren’t together?”

  “Because I messed up and I didn’t want to make things worse than I already had. I freaked out. I liked you but I wasn’t really thinking about you when we were together, I was thinking about the score. That sounds awful because it is awful. I knew you deserved better even then. I freaked out, and then Evil Incarnate entered the mix… and things got complicated.”

  Jayla nodded, remembering, agreeing, knowing exactly who he was referring to without having to say her name. “I heard some pretty raunchy shit about what Alexa did to you too. Allegedly,” she ground out the word. “Any of that true?”

  “I don’t know what you heard,” Ryan stiffened. “Maybe,” he choked back his emotions. “Doubt it. Probably not,” he stammered. “She murdered my car,” he offered, folding his arms tight across his chest. “Took a dent out of my parent’s house.”

  I knew none of this was about his car. I offered Ryan my hand. He shook his head at it and then took it.

  “I’m sorry,” Jayla offered.

  Ryan just shook his head, like he couldn’t hear it, couldn’t accept it, couldn’t think about it.

  “So what is this some kind of new leaf you’re turning over? You’re done with all your man-whoring ways?”

  “Completely,” Ryan promised.

  “And that’s it?” Jayla asked. “That’s all there is to say?”