“What?” I felt my heart sink deeper into the catacombs of my chest. I can’t lose two people I care about today… I thought desperately and as she turned around, whipping her hair behind her, I ran after her. I grasped her arm. “Dalilah…wait…Come on…”
However, she just turned around and screamed, “Get your hands off of me!” before she slapped me across the face.
I felt the pressure of the hit before the searing burn and both of them hurt, in their own way. I yelled out and pulled my hand up to my face. “What was that for?”
“For touching me. How dare you try to stop me.” With that, she turned herself around again and stomped off.
I watched her leave and wondered what in the world had just happened. Either with Valerie or with Dalilah, I honestly didn’t have a clue.
Chapter Fifteen
Valerie
What the hell was that all about? I thought as I flopped onto my bed.
Upon returning to my bedroom, I felt a strange sense of emptiness encompassing my being.
Flashbacks of years before, what he had said and how he had reacted when I had made the same suggestion that he had wanted me to fulfill tonight reminded me of exactly when I believed the beginning of the end of our relationship began. For a long time, I had tried to ignore that idea. It had not been simple and it had not really worked all that well, but I had tried it nonetheless.
I tried to see it from his perspective, but tonight, what he had said and how he had acted had only made me angry with him. I had not expected to be angry, but I was. I had not expected to feel hurt or betrayed either, but I was.
On top of all that, I was also confused.
I might have not actually believed him when he said what he did that night, which felt like so many lifetimes ago now, but I had wanted everything to work out. I had the intention of everything being okay. Because I knew that he didn’t mean it, I was willing to work past the hurt and the frustration that I felt after being rejected. But then our relationship just sank further and further into an abyss of nothingness, until it dissipated altogether.
Then, the moment that I was ready to give up on any kind of relationship between Shawn and I, he dropped this bombshell on me; and instead of making me happy, it only made me angrier with him.
Instead of erasing all of those hurt and unpleasant feelings that I had, what had happened tonight had only compounded what I was already feeling, as dormant as it was.
In a way, I felt as though I should be happy. Tonight was confirmation that I was right all along and I should be excited by that, but I wasn’t. I was just frustrated.
After a moment though, I heard a knock at my door. I breathed deeply and tried to focus on not sounding as depressed as I really was when I answered, “Come in.”
My mother came through the door easily and smiled at me. “I thought I heard you come in.” She turned her head and added, “Are you all right?”
“Yes. It’s just been a very long week.”
She nodded, almost as though she understood exactly what I was talking about. “Sometimes that will happen.” She sat down on my bed and smiled at me. “Is there anything you want to talk about?”
I shrugged. “It’s just…you think you know a person and then…they surprise you in the most awful, horrible way ever.”
Her lips pursed tightly for a moment, before her eyes softened and she asked, “Are you and Shawn still fighting?”
Define fighting? I thought, but knew that one thing I could not confess to my mother was the longing that I had, that I had always had of Shawn and I being together. So instead of opening that never-ending barrel of problems, I simply nodded.
“I’m not sure exactly what is going on with Shawn right now, but there are some things he just needs to work out on his own.” She shrugged before she added, “I don’t know why he is acting so strange, after all, he hasn’t even returned his father’s phone calls, but I think all he needs is time.” She lightly put her hand on my arm before she said encouragingly. “The important thing…Well, really all that you can do right now, is give him his space, be there if he wants to talk to you and remember that the way that he is acting isn’t your fault. He probably doesn’t even know why he is acting this way and that is probably very aggravating to him.” She smiled and shook her head. “He loves you…”
I blinked at her and my heart began to pound wildly in my chest, nervous that my mother was reading between the lines. However, I refrained from saying anything, or incriminatingly denying this, which I was happy about; because after her short pause, she moved into a far more acceptable avenue for her advice.
“I know he does. You are his best friend and you always have been. We, along with his father, have always been there for him. We are his family.” She shrugged as my heartbeat began to return to normal rates and I was sure that the color was also beginning to return to my face. “Unfortunately, sometimes even the closest families have their arguments and their disagreements that get blown out of proportion, especially when it comes to teenagers.” She laughed then, realizing that she was talking to her eighteen-year-old daughter. “But my point is, he is probably just trying to find himself. As a parent my role is to let him do that himself. He has to fall, or at least wander around blindly for a little while before he understands what it is he really wants…and as his friend, you need to let him do the same.”
I smiled at her and nodded. “Thanks, Mom.”
With that, she beamed at me. “I miss him too, but eventually, he will find his way back to us. It is just a matter of time.” She stood up and began to walk out, but before she left, she offhandedly added, “The most important thing for us now is to never push him away when he is trying to come toward us.”
At that, I felt my heart begin to beat quickly again and I felt sick.
Thankfully, my mother was content to leave me to myself and therefore, she only looked back at me for a moment. I just nodded carefully, before she turned and closed the door.
Now I was even more confused than before.
I didn’t sleep well that night and when school came around the next day, I couldn’t believe how weird literally everything felt to me.
It wasn’t just that I was trying to avoid Shawn at all costs. It was also because, what had happened the night before had completely changed every perception I had ever had about the relationship that was culminated, literally for mine and Shawn’s entire life.
At first, it was always wonder. I always had the idea that he liked me about as much as I liked him, but I was never brave enough to find out. Then, when I did finally break it to him, he rejected me harshly.
Due to that, the sanctity of our friendship was cracked and what I thought could be a possibility for a meaningful relationship was completely shattered.
That was the last thing I ever wanted for him and I, but that was what happened and I knew that because of it, things would never be the same.
For two long years I lived with that, trying to repair our relationship, only to watch it splinter; until last night, when I thought it had completely shattered, only to realize that I was right all along.
I knew I should be happy with that and I knew that I should have jumped at the chance to be with him, before he went and changed his mind again. Part of me thought that if things had played out differently, he would have come home and not only would I have gotten what has now become the closest thing to a lifelong dream that I had ever had, I would also be the hero for bringing him home.
It would have been perfect, because my parents would have just been so happy to see him and have him back, that they wouldn’t have even asked questions. We could have gotten away with pretty much anything.
Alas, I had reacted based entirely on how I felt and that had turned out to be incredibly wrong, which in turn made my whole reality exceptionally strange.
Eventually, I turned to the one constant that I had in my life, who was totally removed from my strange family: Zachary.
When I
saw him standing by his locker, I smiled, thinking about the happiness he brought me.
Another strange thing about today was the fact that Zachary had not picked me up. He said that he had homework to do and therefore, he was going to get a ride into school.
That wasn’t too abnormal though, so I had no problem walking up to him and starting a conversation.
“Hey, Zachary,” I said cheerfully, trying to leave my baggage behind me for the moment. “Did you finish your homework?”
“What?” He asked and then looked at me with a strange expression before he shook his head. “Oh…hi Valerie…Yeah, I did.” He smiled at me, but in my opinion, it looked incredibly forced.
I wasn’t sure why he was acting so strangely, but in a way, I figured that it was really none of my business. Afterward, he seemed all right and even walked me home as he normally did.
So I chalked his weird reaction to me coming up to him randomly this morning as just another way in which that day had turned out to be weird.
Maybe it’s a full moon, I thought, but really didn’t give much more merit to the reason behind the day at all. Eventually, I just figured it was all in my head.
After all, there was plenty going on with me, but there was no external reason for anything to be strange with anyone else, especially Zachary. Right?
Chapter Sixteen
Shawn
I wasn’t sure what I was doing here. I didn’t want to be here. I knew that, but where I really wanted to be, I wasn’t welcome anymore, probably by anyone.
Therefore, I found myself here, on Dalilah’s front stoop, trying to think of reasons to get her to give me another chance, while also trying to escape another slap to the face.
Even though a few days had gone by, I was still fairly unsure of exactly what had happened that night.
There was definitely something going on between Valerie and I, but that was likely to never happen again. Then I was the one who Dalilah decided to stalk and I still ended up being the bad guy.
How did that work out?
I might not have been able to come up with any plausible answer, but still, after a few long days of the silent treatment, especially given my family situation, I could certainly use a friend. At this point, I cared very little about where that friend came from.
That was the ultimate decision that led me here.
My mother didn’t care about me and I couldn’t face Valerie, at least not yet and certainly not to talk about us, or me and Dalilah.
I felt similarly about my stepmother at the moment and so, that only left Dalilah; which was sad in and of itself, but at least I still had one person.
That is, if she ever answered the door.
I felt slightly impatient and antsy. I was scared that she would turn me away, just like everyone else had; and even she herself had a few days before, but in lieu of going crazy, I decided that I had to try.
I knocked on the door again and once more fell into my waiting stance. I shuffled the imaginary dirt with my foot and looked down a lot, trying my best to look sorry, just in case she was peering through the peephole, deliberating about answering the door.
She made me wait quite a while, but when she finally answered the door, her face was anything but pleasant. “What do you want?”
“Hi Dalilah…” I answered carefully, smiling disarmingly.
“What do you want?” she repeated brusquely.
“I want to talk to you.”
“About what? Because if you are not willing to talk to me about what really happened the other night, then I have no interest.”
I felt my shoulders lower and I sighed before I threw my hands out, unable to hide the fact that I was angry. “Really, Dalilah? Do we have to talk about this? Can’t we just forget it?”
“No,” she answered simply and moved to slam the door once again.
Without thinking, I put my hand in the way and stopped the door before I insisted toward her shocked expression, “Listen, absolutely nothing happened!”
“Then why won’t you just tell me?” she demanded, which caused me to sigh.
I realized then that if I was going to make this plan work, I was going to have to put aside my foolish sense of pride, which told me that it was none of her business what we were talking about and give her an explanation that she might be able to understand. I bowed my head and looked down at the ground. I kicked the invisible dirt again and sighed. “Um… It’s my mother…Well, my stepmother. She isn’t well. Valerie knows how close we are and so, despite our current feud, she wanted to tell me in person what was going on with her, so that I was aware.”
It was a boldface lie, but what other choice did I have? I shrugged and stared back up at her, trying to find the pity in her eyes.
She was quiet for a long time, until finally she answered. “Oh…I’m sorry.”
“Yeah…” I answered, “So, I would appreciate it if you didn’t say anything to anyone. None of us really wants that to get out.”
“What’s the matter with her?” Dalilah asked briskly.
I shrugged again. “That’s the weird part; the doctors have no idea.”
Dalilah was silent for a moment and then, she asked carefully, “Is she…okay?”
“I hope so,” I answered, now feeling slightly guilty for what I was saying about Valerie’s mother. But that was the best explanation that I could come up with, besides the truth as to why two estranged friends would be meeting like we did and staying as close as we were to one another. She seemed to respond well to it.
She nodded and even gave me a hug. “I’m really sorry. I know that you two are close…”
I waited, but for once there was no snide comment or snicker in her tone. She just spoke normally to me, as though she really did have a heart that wasn’t always overpassed by her brain in order to get something that she really wanted.
This was probably a ploy and I accepted that. In fact, I was fairly certain that somehow, this would likely come back to haunt me. But I still didn’t want that idea to ruin the feeling that I was getting; the illusion that she was actually caring about my feelings, instead of just herself.
I had to do a lot of that lately, but my biological mother had always and continued to give me good practice, so I had learned well. At the very least, my mother gave me that.
I nodded “Yeah…Thank you.”
“Well, if you need anything…or want to talk, even though I know that you probably don’t, but if you do, I am here for you.”
“Thanks…”
“And don’t worry about a thing.” She smiled at me. “Your secret is safe with me. Unlike everyone else that you seem to have in your life, I would never betray your trust.”
I stared at her strangely for a moment before I tried to figure out what she meant by that. I wasn’t sure though and so, once again, I simply opted to take her at her word. I smiled and pretended, at least for the moment, that nothing negative was going to come out of this experience. I pretended that she was really a person who cared for me and respected my wishes.
Deep down, I knew that wasn’t true, but like a lot of things in my life, I decided that “here’s to hoping” was the only way I was ever going to find true peace, even if it was only for a moment.
Even still, that moment passed rather quickly, when she, apparently deciding that we had mourned for enough time, said, “So, what do you want to do today?”
At first, I was slightly taken aback at her brusqueness, but then I remembered, not only was that just the way Dalilah always was, but I was also basing our entire interaction on a lie. So it probably didn’t really matter how she reacted to it.
At least she’s reliably crazy and careless with feelings, I thought to myself as I smiled, happy to have gotten at least one person back in my corner.
“I’m kind of hungry…” I mentioned, realizing now that I was so distraught over the past few days that I hadn’t eaten much.
“Sure. You can take me to that new hibachi grill.”
“What? Isn’t that place expensive?” I demanded, slightly shocked. “I don’t have…”
She interrupted me immediately. “You never tell a girl that you don’t have the ability to fulfill her desires, in any capacity. That is strictly for her to decide.” She smiled in more of a devilish way. “I’ll be ready in five minutes.”
Chapter Seventeen
Valerie
About halfway through the school day, I saw Dalilah coming up to me. I was surprised to see her in school. Most days, she cut class and urged Shawn to do the same; yet another reason why I simply couldn’t stand her.
However, after the last time we had talked, the fact that she was heading straight toward me made me wish that she wasn’t in school anymore. After all, I would not want to be the source of her anger, at least to the capacity that she would try anything. She had been in plenty of fights before and I had seen her be pretty rough on Shawn as well. And while I wasn’t afraid of her, I also didn’t want to get suspended over the likes of Dalilah.
The really sad thing was though, part of me was afraid of what I might find out about Shawn if she ever did start anything with me. Would Shawn come to my aid, or would he side with his girlfriend? I really didn’t want to find out.
Therefore, seeing her barreling toward me like a bull, practically mowing down students as she walked, I wanted to run. In fact, I almost did turn around and bolt down another hallway, knowing that no interaction with this woman was ever going to be a pleasant one.
But before I could do that, I heard her call my name, loud enough that if I did turn around and run, it would be far too obvious. I sighed, trying not to let her see me roll my eyes. “Hi Dalilah.”
“Hey…” She answered, almost as though we were old friends. I knew that couldn’t be good. When she got a little closer to me, she lowered her voice. “I just wanted to let you know that we’re cool.”
“Oh…okay. Great,” I answered, even though in the back of my mind all I could think of was, No, we most certainly are not. Until you stop brainwashing my friend into being with you, we are certainly not cool… Although, I figured that a ceasefire between me and Dalilah could only help the odd relationship that I was trying to have with Shawn, so I just smiled.
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