by R B Hilliard
Are all girls insecure ninnies or is it just me?
Max and I fooled around in his truck after we left Kurt’s house. I didn’t want to leave him since I knew I wouldn’t see him until Sunday or Monday but I had to get some sleep.
The next day I kept myself busy so I wouldn’t think or worry about Max. Finally, I was out the door and heading to Joss’ house for the night. I couldn’t wait to see Piper.
Piper showed up around five but she wasn’t alone. She had her boyfriend Tom with her. From the second I laid eyes on her I could tell that something was off.
After all of the squealing and hugging, she sheepishly introduced us. “Tom really wanted to come home with me and meet my family and friends,” she explained in this pitchy fake, so not Piper, voice. She introduced me as Ellison and Joss as Josselyn.
What the hell?
Joss and I stood there dumbfounded. “Hi,” we both awkwardly said.
Tom was not someone I had envisioned Piper dating. He was about six feet tall and super skinny with beet red hair, bright blue eyes, lackluster skin and a face like a really pretty girl. I couldn’t believe that out of the hundreds of times that I had talked with Piper this summer, she had never physically described Tom to me, other than the one time she referred to him as ‘different.’
I’ll say…
Eyeing us up and down and obviously finding us lacking, Tom said, “So sorry to intrude upon your girly get together this weekend.” Joss’ eyes bugged and I had to turn my head away to keep from laughing.
Girly get together? Who is this guy?
Piper was clearly enthralled by Tom. I had never seen her act this way before and it was disturbing…to say the least. After watching her gaze adoringly at him, I cut my eyes back to Joss. She was staring at the two of them with a strange look on her face.
“You guys make yourselves comfortable,” she said and then, after mumbling something about phone calls and changing clothes, she grabbed my hand and bolted off to her bedroom, pulling me behind her.
“What in hell was that?” I asked.
“You’d be amazed how people change when they think they’re in love.”
Was she referring to me? “Have I changed?”
“I wasn’t talking about you, Ellie,” she assured, “I was just speaking in general terms. It’s normal to want to please the person you love, but sometimes people will bend over backwards and completely change for someone else. If I ever do that, tell me.”
“Only if you do the same for me.”
“Deal,” we both agreed.
We spent the next half hour frantically trying to call Kurt and Max with hopes that they would let us tag along with them for the evening.
“What am I not getting?” I asked.
“Huh? Damn it, Kurt is not answering his phone.” She started dialing another number.
“Who are you calling now?”
“Harry. Why don’t you try Max?”
“I already got his voicemail and left him a message. I still don’t get it,” I repeated.
“What? That Piper is clearly in love with a guy who looks like a Chucky doll?”
My breath hitched when she said this. We had spent a long weekend back in March watching the Child’s Play series. It took me weeks to stop having Chucky nightmares.
Holy shit, Piper is dating a life-size Chucky.
I tried to hold back my full body shudder. “This is bad.”
She threw me a sarcastic eyebrow raise. “You think? Okay, I’m making an executive decision here. Get changed. We’re going to that party. There is no way in hell that I am staying here with those two all night.”
I hadn’t properly planned for this so the only thing I had to wear was a pair of old jeans. I was going to have to raid Joss’ closet for a top and, not only was she shorter than me, but her cup size was miniscule compared to mine.
Nice.
I spent what seemed like forever trying to find something that didn’t look obscene. Finally, I settled on a white v-neck sweater that had a little stretch to it.
If I don’t get cold or bend over, this will work.
I knew that Max would be seriously unhappy if he saw me in this top but what choice did I have? Plus, he was out with his friends. My gut told me to get in my car and go home. Did I listen?
No.
We drove up to the party and, of course, it had to be at someone’s house who had just graduated with Max.
Please don’t let Max be here.
My heart was thumping out of my skimpily clad chest. “Joss,” I said, through gritted teeth, “does Kurt know about this party?”
Her face broke into a grin. “How do you think I heard about it?”
I jerked to a stop. “Max is going to kill me. I told him we weren’t going out and if he’s here, he’s going to think that I either lied to him or that I am stalking him.”
“Yeah, but once he sees you in that get up, Chesty La Rue, he’ll forgive you anything,” she winked. “Come on, Ellie. Where’s your sense of adventure?”
I shot her the bird and she laughed.
“Don’t worry about it, Elsie, just follow Pips and me. We’ll protect you,” Tom said, patting me on the back.
“Ellie,” Piper corrected.
Joss raised her eyebrow and chuckled. “Elsie and Pips?” she mouthed at me and I couldn’t help but laugh. This scene was beyond comical.
We watched them disappear through the door.
“Chucky doesn’t protect people. He humps them and then kills them,” Joss whispered in my ear. Then, grabbing my hand, she dragged me through the door and into a room full of sweaty dancing bodies.
While I was taller than most, I couldn’t see a thing in front of me except for wall to wall bodies. It reminded me of the last party I had been to.
We all know how that night turned out.
Blink 182’s Violence was blaring throughout the house and I couldn’t help but think that if Max was here, there was about a three percent chance that he would run across me in this crowd. We mulled our way through the mass of people and into the kitchen.
“Do you want a beer?” Joss asked, handing me a cup.
“Is it imported?” Tom asked. His whiney voice grated on my nerves.
We both looked over at Piper, waiting for her to answer in her sarcastically funny way, but she just stood there acting like a doorknob.
“Uh, it’s just regular old Bud Light, Tom,” Joss sighed, clearly disappointed.
After thirty minutes of standing around in the kitchen staring at each other, Piper started telling us about some play that Tom had taken her to recently. Joss kept making funny faces behind Tom’s back and I just wanted to know what had happened to my best friend.
The kitchen window looked out onto a large deck. I was watching the people outside, while formulating my escape plan, when I saw what looked like Bobby McManis walk by.
Max said he would be with Kurt, Harry, Tyler and Bobby tonight. Shit, this means that Max is here.
Right as I turned to tell Joss, Kurt and Tyler appeared. Tyler was holding hands with Missy Landry, one of Jennifer’s evil minions.
Snapping my finger at Joss, I nodded my head at the window.
“No way,” she moaned when she saw what I was staring at. “Can this get any worse?”
My thoughts exactly.
We watched Tyler lean down and plunge his tongue into Missy’s mouth. Kurt and Bobby were shaking their heads and laughing at him.
“Yep, it just did,” I said.
“Shit. Do you think that…”
“Yep.”
Max is here somewhere and so is Jennifer.
Turning to Piper and Tom, I announced, “I’m feeling a bit claustrophobic and need some air. I’m going outside for a minute.”
“I see Kurt. I’m going outside to say hi,” Joss said.
I followed Joss across the crowded deck. When she jerked to a stop I barely avoided running over her.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
She stood there staring open mouthed at something. I felt her hand grab mine in a tight squeeze and I knew. Still, seeing it with my own eyes was a shock. Sitting, relaxed back in a deck chair was none other than Max. That would not have been so bad if Jennifer Tilson hadn’t been sitting on his lap with her hands in his hair and her lips on his neck.
I was floored. The pain that I felt as I stood there staring at my guy, with her, was indescribable. Max knew how much I despised Jennifer, yet there he sat. His words ran through my head.
She was a distraction. I need for you to trust me when I say that I will take care of you. …you are a game changer.
It was all a lie, every last word of it and I was…such a fool.
“Ellie,” Joss whispered, her voice full of pain, “come on, we’re leaving.”
I couldn’t take my eyes off of Max.
Why would he do this to me?
“Joss!” I heard Kurt shout from across the deck.
Was this all one big joke and I’m the punch line?
“I’ll catch up with you later!” she shouted back.
Max’s head shot up. His beautifully traitorous eyes connected with mine and flared in surprise.
Surprise asshole, you are busted.
Sick to my stomach and desperate to get away, I bolted off the deck.
“Fuck!” I heard someone shout and then, “Ellie, wait!” But I was already halfway across the front lawn and not stopping for anyone.
I can’t believe it, I can’t believe it, I chanted in my head as I sprinted down the street. How could he do this to me? Why would he do this to me? I gave him all of me. Everything…I… had.
My heavy panting and internal dialogue were taking up so much space in my head that I wasn’t aware that Max was right on my heels until I felt his hand yanking me backwards.
“Ellison, stop,” he said.
I heard a gut wrenching sound, somewhere between a wail and a keen, and realized that it was coming from my mouth.
He wrapped his arms around me and for the first time the smell of leather and spice did not comfort me. “Ells, baby, it’s not what you think. Let me explain.”
I reared back and yelled, “No!” I couldn’t stop the tears. I was heartbroken and having a hard time catching my breath. “I saw yyyou.”
“You need to let me explain,” he stressed, also breathing heavily.
“I saw her hands and mouth on you.” I was having trouble voicing the jumbled up thoughts in my head.
“It’s not what you think,” he whispered, pulling me in closer.
I couldn’t get the visual of them together out of my head. “Liar!” I shrieked, pushing him away. “She was sitting in your lap! I…Saw…Her…Lips…On…You. It is seared into my brain now,” I said, slapping the front of my head, “and you were just…Sitting there, letting her touch you! Why?” I cried. “Why?”
By this time Joss, Kurt, Bobby, Tyler, Piper and Tom had all caught up with us.
“I think you’ve done enough damage here, Max,” said Piper, who had managed to grow her spine back for the moment.
“You don’t know the half of it,” I heard Joss mumble. If it had been any other situation but the one I was in, I would have laughed.
“Fuck you Piper! You weren’t even there,” Max said.
“Now, now, no need for vulgar language here,” Tom calmly said with his hands in the air as if he were talking down a fugitive.
“Who… the fuck… are you?” Max growled.
Before Tom could answer, Joss cut in. “Well, I was there Max and from where I was standing it looked pretty bad.”
“Joss,” Kurt warned.
“Do not even tell me that you are going to take up for him?” she hissed.
“I want to go home,” I said, trying to get myself together.
“Baby, let me take you home and we can talk,” Max said. His eyes flicked down and narrowed when he noticed what I was wearing.
“Don’t call me that,” I said, ignoring his scowl. “You don’t get to call me that or anything else ever again.”
I turned to Joss, the one person I knew I could count on. “I need to be alone. I need to get out of here. Please get me out of here,” I implored.
“I’m asking you….please,” Max begged, “don’t do this.”
Don’t look at him….Don’t give in…..
Hearing the pain in his voice made me want to give in. Instead, I leaned in and whispered, “You told me to trust you. So, like a stupid, naïve little girl, I trusted you with everything. You know what I’m talking about. You could have stayed with her doing….whatever you were doing. Why couldn’t you just let me be?”
“I’ve heard enough,” Joss said. “Let’s go.” She put her arms around me and led me back to the car.
Joss wanted to take me back to her house but I just wanted to be alone. I needed to figure myself out and the only way I could do this was alone. Piper was stuck so far up Tom’s ass that she didn’t even offer to ride back with us. I would never abandon her in a time of need and thought that she felt the same way. It hurt to know I was wrong.
“I can stay here with you, if you want?” Joss offered as we reached my driveway.
“No thanks. I need to be alone right now.”
“Okay, but I’m calling you first thing in the morning. We need to say goodbye to Pips and Chucky before they leave tomorrow afternoon and I need to get your stuff back to you.”
Squeezing her hand, I told her how much I appreciated her friendship. Then, closing my eyes, I told her what had been running through my head the whole way home. “He played me and got my virginity out of it, Joss. I am such an idiot.”
Grabbing my face, she said, “Look at me, Ellie.” Once she had my eyes, she continued. “I know what it looked like tonight. I know that you are hurting and, God knows, if Kurt did this to me, I would be too. But….I heard Max’s voice and saw his face when he was trying to explain it to you and, I gotta give it to him, either he is the best actor on the face of the planet or we are missing something. Either way, take your space and get some sleep. I can’t help but think that things will look better in the morning.”
Nodding, I got out of the car. I was heartsick and bone tired. All I wanted was a hot shower and a good long cry.
“Love you, girl,” she said out her window as she drove off.
I could hear the phone ringing from my driveway and my aunt’s voice as she answered it.
“Hang on just a minute Max,” I heard her say as she put down the phone.
I opened the screen door, shook my head and mouthed “No” to her.
Narrowing her eyes at me, she picked it back up. “Uh…she’s not back from Joss’ house yet. In fact, I don’t expect her back until sometime tomorrow. I’ll be sure and tell her you phoned though,” she told him. As soon as the phone hit the cradle, she asked, “What has that boy done to you now? Your eyes look like you’ve been stung by a swarm of bees and you sound like you’ve just smoked a carton of cigarettes. I don’t like it, Ellison, not one bit.”
“I can’t talk about it right now. Can we talk tomorrow? Please? I just really need to be alone right now, okay?”
“Okay sweetie, I’m here for you if you want to talk,” I heard her say as I hit the stairs.
I opened my bedroom door, walked directly to my window and locked it. No surprise visits tonight. My heart couldn’t take it. Grabbing my pillow and favorite blanket, I turned off my light, shut my door and walked across the hall to the guest room. After a scorching hot shower, I crawled onto the bed and cried myself to sleep.
The next morning I woke to someone crawling into bed with me.
What in the world?
“Ellie, it’s me, Joss,” she crooned, rubbing my back.
“You just scared the hell out of me,” I croaked. After screaming at Max and crying most of the night, I had very little voice left.
“Thought it was Chucky, didn’t ya?” she giggled. My lack of humor made her sigh. “Honey, I
am so sorry I got you to go to that party.”
“Just think, if I hadn’t caught him with her, he would have kept pretending that he wanted to be with me. I am so….dumb, Joss.”
“Oh, El, has it occurred to you that maybe things didn’t happen the way we think? Maybe what we thought we saw wasn’t what was really happening?”
“No. You were there. You know what I saw.”
“I talked to Kurt after I left you here last night.”
I wanted to hear more but wasn’t going to ask.
“He stayed with Max after we left. He said that Max was completely destroyed.”
“Let me guess, Max was destroyed because he got caught and lost his booty call for the night.”
“No. He said that Max was destroyed by the thought of causing you pain. He also said that Max tore into Jennifer the second he got back to the party.”
This got my attention and I couldn’t help but ask, “Why?” I turned my head so I could see her face.
“Maybe because things weren’t as they seemed?”
I rolled my eyes at this. “What exactly did he say to her?”
“Something to the effect of how his life is good, for once, and that if he loses you because of the shit she just pulled, he will make it his personal mission to make her life a living hell.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah, I thought you would want to know that.”
“Still, it doesn’t excuse that he allowed her to sit in his lap and put her lips on him. If it were me, she would have been kissing the deck the second her nasty ass sat on my lap. I would never do that to him, Joss, ever. So why did he do it to me?” Just thinking about it made my eyes well.
“I know and agree. But what we didn’t see was him reciprocating. We were so caught up in what Jennifer was doing that we failed to pay attention to what Max was doing. Kurt said that Jennifer started chasing Max around the party the second they showed up. He told me that in no way did Max invite that from her. In fact, he said that Max had managed to completely avoid her until five minutes before we saw them on the deck. Don’t you find it odd that she chose that moment to pounce? What do you want to bet that she saw us walk through that door? She‘s been wanting to get you back, Ellie. What a perfect way to do it.”