Neither did I.
Hudson packed up the remaining desserts in little baskets, handing each of us one. “Leftovers rock,” she commented, licking the icing off of a cupcake. “I always pig out on them at night when I can’t sleep. But, now, instead of moldy meatloaf, you can each have your own basket of freshly made desserts to pig out on.” She laughed momentarily. “You can thank me later.” She tossed her chestnut hair over her shoulder before grabbing up the picnic blanket and rolling it into a ball. Armando grabbed up the large baskets, leaving the grass spic-and-span.
Olive slowly stood up, joining me next to Anjolie. She was holding a fresh pan of oozing cherry pie, grinning at Hudson. “The apple and cherry pies were delicious, Hudson,” she said, turning on her heels and facing her purse, which lay directly behind where Anjolie was standing. “I’ll just keep this in my—whoops!” Stepping forward, she tripped on my shoe and plummeted into Anjolie, cherry pie and all.
Anjolie gasped as she caught Olive, stopping her before they both fell to the ground. In the process, Olive’s cherry pie slammed into Anjolie’s chest, smearing oozing red goop down the front of Anjolie’s new shirt and sliding to the ground.
Anjolie gasped, looking down at her cherry drenched body. Covered in dripping, red goop, Anjolie looked as if she had been severely wounded — her entire shirt, shorts, legs, and shoes covered in the blood-like substance. “Oh, my,” she said, staring at her ruined clothes in shock. Her cheeks flared up, her face turning an intense shade of red as she gazed down at her body.
Olive held up a hand to her gaping mouth, her eyes wide with innocence. “Oh! I’m so sorry!” she cried, looking Anjolie up and down. “I didn’t mean to ruin your new clothes!” She quickly grabbed up a paper towel and hurried to help Anjolie clean the cherry off her clothes.
But Anjolie just stepped away, glaring at Olive one last time before taking off down the lawn, running off into the far distance until she was a speck in the horizon.
Hudson shoved Olive’s shoulder. “What was that?” she yelled, glaring at Olive. “You did that on purpose, didn’t you?” Though Hudson was small, when she was angry, her roaring attitude could frighten the devil himself.
Olive shrunk away from Hudson, her eyes wide in terror. But she soon regained her composure. “I did not, Hudson!” she retorted, balling her hands into fists at her side. She looked up at me. “I accidentally tripped on Cameron’s shoe! That’s all,” she yelled forcefully. But her anger was no match to Hudson’s.
Hudson scoffed and frowned. “Yeah, right, you witch!” she spat, ready to claw at her. Olive took up the same stance, lunging for Hudson at the same time she did.
But Armando held Hudson back, standing in front of her and standing in between the two of them. I was thankful for his large stature; if it weren’t for him, someone would have died. “Settle down, ladies,” he said in a semi-bored manner. I couldn’t blame his annoyed attitude — he’d been playing referee for the entire picnic. I could tell he needed a break. “Go home, Olive. I’ll take Hudson.” He glanced at me. “We’ll see you later, Cameron,” he said, and with that, he grabbed Hudson and the picnic supplies and trudged back toward the parking lot.
I shockingly gazed at Olive, who was still fuming. “Why did you—”
“Save it, Cameron!” Olive snapped at me, interrupting my inquiry. “I’m sick of all of you!” She grabbed up her purse and also trudged away, never looking back. I stared after her, trying to discern where all of her hatred was coming from. I knew I didn’t do anything to her. So why was she mad at me?
Soon, I was left standing there, the only one still occupying our vicinity.
Weren’t picnics supposed to be fun?
Chapter Forty Five
Anjolie
I sat on the swing, swinging back and forth slowly, staring at the multi-colored bark that littered the ground beneath my feet. It was getting pretty dark out, the sun beginning to set behind the horizon. The playground was basically deserted, the only remnants of child-play being the lone soccer ball lying at the end of a slide.
Checking my clock, I saw that it was a quarter to six.
If I managed to hide out here long enough, he wouldn’t be Cameron anymore — just Cam — and he would go right on home and leave me alone here.
I wouldn’t even have to see him.
I was more than angry at Olive. Everything about that girl just made me want to kill her. She was so mean, so immature, so like Cam that it made me sick. How could Cameron ever fall for a girl like that? She was utterly disgusting in my eyes.
And thinking about them kissing on the blanket like that, like no one else was around, made bile rise up my throat, threatening to escape from my lips and ruin my already destroyed clothing. I couldn’t stand her. I couldn’t stand them together. I couldn’t stand this whole world.
Everything she said about me was a lie. I didn’t force Cameron to drive me anywhere! And Hudson was the one who offered me the shopping spree! And I don’t even give a crap about Cam! How could she say that I use them all like that? She was just desperate, that’s what it was. She felt threatened about my presence so she decided to call me out.
What an idiot.
Sighing, I pulled my hair out of its ponytail and raked a hand through my hair, allowing it to fall into my face and crowd my breathing space. I looked at my silver bracelet; the one Petra gave me the other day. They were all being so nice to me ever since Cameron came over the other day. They would smile at me and give me gifts, never ceasing to compliment me. I felt loved suddenly, knowing that without Cameron’s help, my home life would still be miserable.
My heart lunged at the thought of him, engulfing me with warmness and softness. I could feel my heart slowly melting away its previous ice shield, heating up and pumping gently beneath my rib cage. And just as I began to feel the butterflies multiply within my stomach, I immediately crushed the feelings as quickly as they came.
Olive is his girlfriend.
I am his friend.
Olive is his girlfriend.
I am his friend.
I continued to chant those two sentences inside my head, trying my hardest to believe them.
But I couldn’t. I just couldn’t.
“Hey,” came a soft voice from behind me, interrupting the war inside my mind. I didn’t even have to turn around to figure out who it was. Without waiting for my response, he gently wrapped his hands around mine, gripping the both of our hands onto the two chains that held up the seat of my swing. His touch felt warm and soft, like blankets for my fingers. “Are you okay?” he asked, his breath warm against my ear.
I didn’t answer.
Sighing, he let go of my hands, sliding his own slowly down my forearms, around my bent elbows, and up biceps, coming to a rest at my shoulders. He laid them there for a moment, saying nothing as I silently struggled beneath the heavenly weight of his warm hands on my bare shoulders. I felt as if I were going to explode.
Then he began massaging my shoulders.
Okay, now I’m really going to explode.
He continued massaging my shoulders in silence as I kept my head bent down, staring at my lap. It was a good thing he was behind me; I was blushing like a madwoman and I did not want him to see that. As the massaging continued, I allowed myself to surrender to his warming hands, taking in all of the pleasurable feelings that had slowly erupted once more inside of my body.
It was a long while before he bent down, lips near my ear and said, “If it makes you feel any better, you smell delicious.” I could hear the smile on his lips. I giggled a little, shaking my head and rolling my eyes. Cameron always knew how to make someone feel better — physically and mentally.
He ceased his massaging and slowly walked over to the nearest swing, sitting on it and facing me. He kicked at the ground and started to slowly drift back and forth, the chains making a slight squeaking noise from his weight. It was silent as I watched him stare at the dirt, gathering his thoughts. Feeling the need to do something myself, I
kicked at the ground, too, and joined him, our swings matching the same rhythm but going in opposite directions.
Finally, after a long moment of silent oscillating, Cameron softly muttered, “Sorry. For everything.” He didn’t look at me — he just kept drifting back and forth, gazing at the orange horizon.
“It’s not your fault.” And it wasn’t. Nothing was ever his fault.
Cameron hesitated momentarily before saying, “It is, though.” I saw his mouth frown as his eyebrows furrowed together. “I shouldn’t have let her say those things to you.”
I shrugged. “Nothing would have stopped her from saying anything,” I responded.
Cameron shook his head with frustration. “I shouldn’t have allowed her to keep seeing Cam,” he said.
I shrugged once more, repeating my previous words. “Again, nothing would have stopped her from seeing him.”
Cameron frowned, opening his mouth to offer more doubts, but closed it after seeing my halting gaze. He stared out into the distance, the look of defeat clouding his expression. It looked as if he were going to continue, but he didn’t. He just kept swinging back and forth, back and forth, offering nothing else. He and I both knew that Olive had a mind of her own — no one could stop her.
It was a while before either of us said anything. The sun was setting pretty quickly. I was about to tell Cameron to go home before he blacked out on the swings, when he suddenly blurted out, “I like you, Anjolie. A lot.”
My eyes bulged, my breath stopping within my throat, my heart ceasing to beat.
What did he just say?
His swings were stopped now as he stared at me, watching me intently. I tried my best to remain cool and collected but HE JUST SAID THAT HE LIKED ME! How could I maintain a cool demeanor in this situation?
I pulled my swing to a halt as well, looking at him and meeting his intense eyes. A stalemate ensued, neither of us saying anything. My heart was beating so loudly, but I could tell that by the way he was looking at me, he wanted me to say something, to respond.
I gulped, taking inconspicuous breaths as I tried to clear my racing thoughts. He was waiting. I had to say something.
“I—I like you, too, Cameron,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper.
Cameron smiled at me, his whole face going from severely intense to super overjoyed. “Thanks, that means a lot to me, Anjolie,” he said, grinning. He looked down at the floor and kicked at the bark beneath his shoes. “You’re so cool and laid-back and you let nothing stand in your way,” he explained, smiling to himself.
I was now sure that the small blush I was feeling moments ago was now covering my entire face in an embarrassing cherry-red color. My face most likely matched the cherry stain on my shirt.
Cameron continued to shower me with compliments. “You’re strong and level-headed; blunt and sincere, and you manage to maintain that sensible composure of yours throughout any situation — no matter how hard it is.” He looked up at me, smiling. “If I could have even an ounce of your personality, I would be a better man.”
I smiled sheepishly. “Thank you, Cameron. Really,” I said, smiling widely and grinning like an idiot. But I couldn’t help it; nobody has ever said such nice things to me before. Ever.
Cameron smiled and stood up, coming to stand in front of me. He dug his hands into his pockets and leaned down to me, his eyes level with mine.
He was going to kiss me.
All of my senses stopped working. I couldn’t breathe at all. I basically died, anticipating what he was going to do.
Smiling, he said, “You’re a really good friend, Anjolie. And I like you for that.”
There it was. The “F” word.
Suddenly, my spirits came crashing to the floor, crumbling into zillions of tiny little pieces and scattering all over the place.
Olive was his girlfriend.
I was his friend.
Olive was his girlfriend.
I was his friend.
It all made sense now. I was only his friend. Nothing was going to change that as long as he was with that lousy Olive. I would remain in his friend territory, never to escape no matter how much I tried. All those new clothes, all those conversations, all those times we spent together only strengthened our friendship. That was all.
Cameron was talking to me, but I couldn’t hear him — I was lost in my own thoughts. It was only when Cameron gently tugged on one of my locks that I tuned into what he was saying. “Earth to Anjolie…” he was saying, his head cocking from side to side, the kind smile still remaining on his lips.
I shook my head, shrinking away from his gaze. “Oh, yeah, huh?” I said, focusing on his words. “What were you saying?”
He laughed, the warm sound wafting through my ears. “I said we have to go. I don’t want to blackout here in the park,” he said, grabbing my hand and standing me up. He pulled me in for a gentle hug, his arms warming my limbs. I didn’t pull away. He did.
I mutely followed him back to his car, my hand still gripped in his. I didn’t know what else to say to him. I was emotionally paralyzed.
I would remain his friend.
Olive was his girlfriend.
Chapter Forty Six
Olive
“Why did you just slam the door?” Abby shrieked at me after I’d just crashed into the house with a fury of a thousand suns. She stared at me in awe as I marched into the kitchen with fire in my eyes, as I sat myself down at the kitchen table, as I forcefully shoveled the cruddy spaghetti into my mouth.
“I asked you a question,” Abby said, pointing at me with her fork. Her hazel eyes had narrowed and her pink-lipsticked lips pursed tightly together.
“Abby, it’s nothing,” I said after swallowing a huge, gross gulp of her “Italian” spaghetti. Frankly it tasted like wet rubber bands. I tried hard not to gag.
Abby stared at me for a while, trying to piece together what could possibly be wrong with me. That’s what she always did. Whenever anything was up with me, she’d size up my day and who I’d hung out with, then draw her own conclusions that way. It was her own way of playing the “motherly” role.
Finally, she spoke. “You went on that picnic today,” she said, digging into her spaghetti. “Was it that stupid boy, Cameron, who has you ticked off like this?” she asked, surprisingly hitting it right on the nose. She was good.
“Cameron is annoying me right now,” I said, giving up on the spaghetti and grabbing at the bread rolls. “He’s acting nice and all, but he doesn’t have his priorities in check. It annoys me.”
“What priorities?” Abby asked, giving up on the spaghetti, too.
“He’s not acting like a boyfriend to me,” I said, summing it all up into one sentence. Because it was true!
Abby shook her head, disgust behind her heavily-lined eyelashes. “I told you not to hang around that boy. He’s not a good boy anymore. You saw how he treated you! How he treated me! This is what you get when you don’t listen to me.” Great. This was turning into a lecture — something that Abby did best. Frankly, I was in no mood for this lecture at all. I needed to let off this steam that was collecting. I needed someone to actually listen to me. I couldn’t keep this in any longer. I wanted to scream.
It was as if a higher being were listening to my plea when I got that text message.
im awake. wanna party?
****
“Someone looks angry,” Cam said to me as I jumped into his car. Just sitting in his car, engulfed with his musky shower smell and the car’s loud hip-hop music, I suddenly felt real again. It felt good to sit by someone who was actually sane for once. “What happened to you?” He pressed on the accelerator and zoomed down the street, away from our neighborhood.
I sighed heavily and tangled my hands into my hair, letting it pour around my face like a black blanket. “I’m just tired of this right now,” I finally said, sitting up and looking at him. “Today was probably the worst day of my life.”
He glanced at me. “I thought the
day you farted during silent reading was the worst day of your life,” he said with a smirk on his gorgeous lips.
I smacked his arm. “I told you not to bring that up again!” I said, laughing for the first time today.
“Hey, anything you tell me is free game, honey,” he said, going ninety on a sixty-five miles-per-hour highway. At first his speeding had my heart racing a mile a minute, but now it was just a usual thing. Cam frowned at me. “Tell me what sucked so much about today,” he said.
I pushed my legs up onto the dashboard and turned down the rap music. “Okay so you know how I had that picnic today?” I asked, gagging just thinking about it. I wished I could erase the whole memory of it all. When Cam nodded, I continued. “Yeah, so I decided to call out Anjolie’s crap.”
“You did?” Cam asked, his eyes brightening. “That’s my girl!” He tossed his hand onto my head and ruffled my hair.
I laughed and pushed him off. “Of course I did,” I said. “Just—just everything about her seems so fake to me, I just couldn’t help it.”
“What did you say?”
“I just called her out on her ‘woe is me’ crap,” I said, fiddling with his cell phone. I started a random game as I talked. “Ever since Cameron started picking her up from school and stuff, I got to thinking. Like, take this for instance: Why is it that she has Cameron drive her to school every day?”
“Because she’s weak?” Cam offered, raising his eyebrows.
“You and I both know that’s not true,” I said with a smile. “You said so yourself that she lifts and eats like a body-builder.”
“Exactly, but she’s making it seem like she can’t walk a few miles because she’s tiny and stuff,” Cam said, shaking his head in disgust. “She’s a liar. I know because she sent me on a mission to the top of some huge mountain to see if gold was up there. She and I went up there, saw there wasn’t any gold, and had to climb all the way back down. That was the longest eight hours of my life. She got down in four.”
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