Happier Without You

by Nicole Thorn

  “Missus,” Cathy said to me. “Have your parents let you off the hook yet? I found them utterly unreasonable, and I took my frustration out on Cujo. She was very confused as to why we played fetch for a half hour.”

  “It’s been a day,” I reminded her. “My parents won’t crack so easy. Plus, they can keep an eye on me in the house. God knows what I would get up to outside.”

  “They wouldn’t keep an eye on you if you ran around the house in a toga, reciting a spell in ancient Greek. Again, your parents suck. Poe.” She turned her head to him. “Tell her that her parents suck.”

  He didn’t look up from the book. “Yeah,” he mumbled.

  I refrained from saying anything to him, feeling the unease coming back. “I’ll be free soon, Cathy. Give it a few more days.”

  Cathy went on with a rant about my parents, and how unhelpful grounding people was. She supposedly hadn’t ever been grounded, and I assumed it had something to do with her parents always being gone. Her brother got away with those crazy parties, so anything she did in comparison, wouldn’t have seemed all that bad.

  I tried to listen to Cathy, but I kept looking over at Poe, waiting for him to give a sign of life. He hadn’t written a thing on his worksheet, though his eyes stayed stuck on the page. I nearly reached over and nudged his shoulder.

  “Hey, silent boy,” Cathy said, doing the job for me. “Dude, what the fudge is up with you today?”

  Poe looked up slowly, raising an eyebrow. “Problem?”

  “Yeah, why are you being all weird? You are my sunshine, babes, and right now, you’re bumming me out.”

  Poe made a sound of indignance, dropping his pen on the table. “So sorry,” he said sarcastically. “Let me adjust my mood to your liking then. How can I fix myself as to better entertain you?”

  “Poe,” I admonished.

  “Buddy,” Cathy bit. “Watch your damn self. I get it if you’re in a pissy mood, but don’t take it out on me when I’m trying to help you.”

  “Are you trying to help?” he asked. “How fucking so?”

  “Poe,” I said again, putting my hand on his shoulder. “Did something happen?”

  “No, nothing happened,” he growled at me, slamming his book closed. “You two really need to learn when to drop it.”

  We watched him storm off, still shoving his things into his backpack. He didn’t look over his shoulder, or pause for even a moment. Poe just took the fuck off, making me feel like crap for checking on him.

  “What a bitch,” Cathy huffed. “I saw him this morning and he was fine.”

  “He was also fine when I started talking to him,” I said. “He told me he started making me a scarf…”

  She reached over the table to pat my hand. “I don’t think it’s anything we did. Mostly because we didn’t do anything, and he’d have to be crazy to think we did.”

  Her words made sense, but it didn’t click in my brain. Poe snapped at me, so it had to be my fault. My parents would have told me I must have done something to set him off, and Peter probably would have agreed.

  “I know that look!” Cathy said, accusatory. “Stop that. You had nothing to do with this.”

  I shook my head. “I probably did. I know I get annoying sometimes. Peter used to tell me. He said I could grate on his nerves sometimes, but he said it so that I could correct the behavior.”

  She scoffed, and threw a grape at my head. “Shut your damn mouth. That’s not correcting behavior, that’s being an asshole. You’re not annoying, you are utterly adorable. Poe would correct your crazy ass if he were here and in his right mind. We’ll know for sure when I tattle on you tomorrow.”

  “Super.”

  Lunch ended, and I went back to class. Not that I had a lot of joy in my days, but Poe had managed to suck all the light out of mine. I shuffled along, trying to figure out what had gone so wrong. Thinking back, I made an attempt to put pieces together that I probably made up. Nothing like being paranoid to make everything worse. He’d been fine at the party, and fine when I saw him sitting outside of his house. Poe had been knitting all alone on his car, his focus all on the thing he made.

  I decided to try texting Poe, but I would only allow one. Any more than that, and it would have looked desperate. Or annoying. I sent him one asking if he was okay, or if he needed anything. Sure that he wouldn’t get back to me, I put my phone back in my pocket. My cheeks already burned.

  ***

  I kept an eye on Tammy in gym, and she didn’t even look in my direction. Cathy and I got stuck jogging the mile. We kept pace with each other, and chatted about how we would fucking die because it wasn’t humane to make teenagers run a mile.

  “You can have Cujo if I die,” Cathy panted. “She likes belly rubs and guilting you into sharing food. Treat her well.”

  I shook my head at her. “You’ll pull through. If I die, you can have my… I don’t have anything good, but you can keep my corpse and do what you will with it.”

  “Sweet! Practice kisses, here I come.”

  When the lord had mercy, class ended. I took the extra time to shower, not caring if I got to my study hall in time. The people there didn’t deserve to smell me, as well as be locked in a room for nearly an hour. Cathy went ahead without me, and Tammy didn’t linger behind. I managed to get to class in peace.

  I knew for a fact that I hadn’t felt my phone vibrate, but I checked it anyway. Still nothing from Poe, and I wondered if he went home early. I would have been happy if he had answered me, instead of ignoring me completely. I guess we weren’t good enough friends for that.

  “I got my dress already,” the girl behind me said to her friend. “My parents helped me pay for it, but I have to clean the house top to bottom for a month.”

  “Good deal,” the other one said. “That dress was five hundred bucks.”

  “You get yours?”

  “Not yet. We have like a month or whatever until prom. I’m not worried.”

  My brain stung when I heard them talking about prom. Of course, Peter and I had grand plans for that. We’d been talking about if we should go or not, because we both hated that kind of stuff. It sounded like torture, so we thought up something else. Something that would have been special. We’d have gone to get a nice dinner, and then headed back to the hotel room I was supposed to reserve next week. I wanted to make a big deal about it, even though Peter couldn’t have cared less when we had sex, but it mattered a lot to me. We’d waited, because I wasn’t ready yet. Every time we tried, I got all freaked out and wanted to stop. I didn’t feel comfortable, and Peter always took it personally. It wasn’t him. We’d been together for so long, and it couldn’t have been him.

  When the bell rang, I hadn’t been expecting it. I jolted in my seat while everyone else poured out of the room. I hurried to gather my things, because I wanted nothing more than to be in the safety of my own room.

  I fumbled at my locker, trying to get it open quickly. That only slowed me down, since my whole body felt jittery. When I did get it open, I unzipped my bag so I could unload all the books inside.

  “Clover,” a girl said from behind me. I knew her voice, and didn’t want to turn. Wait, I did want to turn. I wanted to turn, and smack Kelly in her face with my history book.

  “Kelly,” I said, facing her. “Do you need something?”

  She smiled tightly. “Um, yeah I wanted to talk to you about something real quick. Do you have a minute?”

  No, fuck off, you boyfriend stealing bitch. “Sure.”

  Kelly crossed her arms, and stared at her feet as they knocked together. “I know that Peter had lunch with you the other day, and you’ve talked a few times.”

  Oh, this is gonna be great. “I wouldn’t call it having lunch, but sure. We talked a couple times.”

  The girl made herself look up at me, and her shoulders tensed. “I want to be really clear about something. I didn’t try to get him back when you guys were together. We didn’t talk all that much, and I never even hinted a
t it. I don’t want you thinking that he cheated on you or something. I know we got together pretty quick…”

  What was this? Did she want me to give her my blessing? What the hell did it matter to her? “I’m sure,” I said. “Peter would feel too guilty to cheat.”

  Kelly laughed for a moment. “He is. He’s a pretty good guy.”

  If you ignored how blunt he could be. “I know.”

  Kelly nodded. “He’s nice, and he tends to go out of his way to be nice. Forgive me, but I get a little nervous when I hear from my friends that they saw you guys huddled in a corner alone.”

  Stunned, I tried to speak. “Are you accusing me of something?”

  “No,” she said flatly. “But I know that this is really fresh for you, and you still love Peter. He was your first boyfriend, and that kind of love lingers.”

  Obviously.

  “I understand that you probably want him back.”

  For someone who wasn’t accusing me of something, she sure as hell sounded like she accused me of something. “A little hypocritical of you,” I said. “Even if you didn’t try anything before we broke up, do you really get to talk about residual feelings and overstepping boundaries?”

  Kelly held up her hands in defense. “All I’m saying is that I don’t want drama here. You and Peter are over, and I wouldn’t want you to let yourself be hung up on him. It won’t work out for you, and it would suck if you let this ruin the rest of your senior year.”

  The only thing that kept the bitch from getting fingernails to her eyes, was that it didn’t feel like she took pleasure in this. The tone sounded condescending, sure, but that probably hadn’t been on purpose.

  “That’s pretty easy for you to say. You have a boyfriend, a bunch of people who adore you, and I bet you’re going to college in the fall.”

  “Yeah…”

  “So how about you don’t worry about me and my feelings. You got Peter, can you leave me alone?”

  She didn’t like my snippiness, because her arms dropped to her sides, and some of the softness in her eyes faded. “No, I won’t leave you alone until I’m convinced you’re not going to try something with Peter.”

  I laughed, and it hurt my body. “I can take a hint, he doesn’t want me. Why the hell would I try and get back with a guy who dumped me?”

  “I don’t know, but my friends said that you looked pretty cozy with him the other day.”

  “Then your friends need to get glasses, because I told Peter to fuck right off. I don’t want to be his friend.”

  “That’s not what he said. He said that you needed a little time, and then things can get back to normal. He’s hell-bent on keeping you around, even though you two are over.”

  “Crazy, right?”

  “Right,” she growled. “I wouldn’t want you talking to him, but if you happen to decide to give it a try, make it clear that you’re not interested in spending any more time with him. It’s weird, and makes me uncomfortable.”

  Wouldn’t want to do that. “I assure you, I don’t care what Peter does with his time. He can make a million new friends for all I care, and I don’t want to be one of them.”

  “Really? Because you sound kind of bitter about the whole thing.”

  I slammed my locker closed, startling her. “Oh, sorry that my long term boyfriend dumped me, got back together with his ex within two weeks, and fucked up my whole life plan. I really should be over it by now. Thank you so much for being understanding.”

  She squinted at me. “Two weeks?”

  “Yeah, two damn weeks, and he said you two were back together. You won, Kelly. You won it all. Leave me to my life, please.”

  The girl huffed, and turned around before she started walking away. I nearly headed off myself, but she stopped, and then came back to me. “Look, I didn’t want to upset you. I’m just a little paranoid. You’re all he talks about.”

  I blinked. “What?”

  “Yeah, he misses his friend, and I have to hear about it daily. He thinks that you guys can stay best friends, despite everything. I don’t have the heart to tell him that’s stupid.”

  I had the heart to tell him, but he refused to take no for an answer. “Sorry,” I said, trying to sound like I meant it. “I told him it wasn’t happening. There’s no more I can do.”

  Kelly took a deep breath, rubbing her face. “I guess I’m on my own then. I should get out of here. Peter is waiting to bring me home.”

  Yeah, I remembered the days where he used to do that for me. We would hang out until he had to go home, sometimes spending our time doing nothing at all. Life felt good when I had my head on his shoulder, sitting in the quiet. I needed to get over that.

  “I should go too,” I said. “Good luck with Peter.”

  “Yup,” Kelly said, eyeing me up and down. “Thanks.”

  Chapter Ten: Fixing a Hole

  It all started feeling worse when Poe didn’t show up to school the next day. I wanted so badly to call or text, but I stopped myself each time I reached for the phone. Then it got around to the end of the day, and I decided something.

  I didn’t need more trouble in my life, or stress that only made me doubt the choices I made. Poe had issues, and I had more than I could have counted. If he didn’t want to be my friend, then he wouldn’t be. Cathy was more than enough for me, and having two friends sounded greedy anyway.

  “Um, fuck no,” Cathy said as we walked to her car. “That’s not how friendship works. You don’t dump someone because they’re sad.”

  “That’s not what I’m doing. Poe clearly has some issue, and he isn’t talking to us about it. I just got dumped by one guy, I don’t need to get attached to another so that the same thing can happen.”

  We stopped, and Cathy put her hands on my shoulders. “I understand, but I’m not letting this happen. Poe is upset, and we’re going to fix it. And if we can’t fix it, then we’ll make him feel better. Ride or die, bitch.”

  I had a choice to make, piss off Cathy, or try one last time with Poe. I didn’t want to bother him if he wanted us to screw off, because that would have only made me decide to swear off humans. But Cathy seemed positive about this one.

  “Fine,” I said. “We can see if he’ll talk to us. If he won’t, then I wash my hands of this.”

  We got into the car, and Cathy headed for Poe’s house. Everything in me said that this was a bad idea, and ambushing someone would only get me yelled at. Yet, Cathy drove on, unafraid of the rejection about to come. She could have shaken it off with ease, called him a name, and then gotten over it. Me, I dwelled. I stewed. I let shit bother me until I wanted to scream. With no outlet for my rage and sadness, windshields got broken, and cars got smashed. I was a danger to society. Really.

  Cathy pulled up to Poe’s house, and I felt on the verge of a heart attack. I hoped she planned on doing all the talking, because my tongue felt like a dry slab of meat.

  We got out of the car, and she put her arm around my shoulders for the walk up. I was one hundred percent sure she did it so I wouldn’t run all the way back home. I could have told her that my parents expected me home, but they were out at the kids’ parent/teacher stuff. I had the rest of the afternoon to do whatever I wanted. That happened to be hurting myself by being here.

  Cathy rang the bell, and I groaned to myself while we waited. Poe’s parents probably wouldn’t appreciate me throwing up on their porch, so I stared at a spot on the wall until my stomach stopped turning.

  A girl pulled the door open, and she peeked her head out from around the edge. If I had to guess, I would have put her at about ten, so I knew she had to have been Malon. The girl looked adorable, with long red hair, big green eyes, and freckles on her nose.

  “Hi, angel,” Cathy said with a big smile. “Is Poe home?”

  From behind the girl, I heard a woman, and her tone sounded frantic. “Baby, we told you not to answer the door all alone.”

  She pulled the door open, and I saw a carbon copy of the little girl in
front of us. I placed the woman at about forty, but her eyes looked tired. She stared at us with concern.

  “Hi,” my friend said. “I’m Catherine, and this is Clover. We’re here for Poe.”

  The woman smiled, pulling her daughter back. “Oh, do you go to school with him?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “We’re his friends. We got worried when he didn’t come to school today.”

  When the door opened a little more, I got a better look at the girl her mother seemed to be guarding. She wore a little pink dress, with her hair in pigtails. I wouldn’t have looked at her so damn hard, but something about her skin stuck out to me. I swallowed dryly when I figured it out.

  Along her arms, were thin scars that stretched at various lengths. Some looked about two inches long, but more than a few had to have been eight or so. They weren’t jagged, and the first thing that popped into my brain, was a blade. Something sharp and quick. They crisscrossed, laid parallel, and any which way they could have. She had a couple in other places too. I saw one on her leg, a long one on the side of her throat, and a short one on her forehead.

  Why the hell would she have had scars like that? Not only because I couldn’t have imagined what accident did something that seemed so careful, but because flesh workers could have fixed them. If they’d found one, they could have her skin looking perfect in thirty seconds.

  “Friends,” Malon’s mother repeated. “Oh, I didn’t know.”

  It didn’t hurt, having Poe’s family not know we existed. It had only been a couple weeks, and I hadn’t expected he’d went on long rants about the crazy girls that followed him around.

  A man approached from behind the girls, and he had to have been Poe’s father. Dark hair, blue eyes, and a hint of a smirk. “Who do we have here?”

  His wife turned to him. “This is Catherine and Clover. They’re Poe’s friends.”

  The man blinked, but recovered from whatever threw him. “That’s great. Let them in.”

  We walked into the house, and it felt like a normal home. Maybe I had been expecting something else. They had a wall of pictures, and they depicted the four Martins. I saw quite a few with Malon and Poe playing. They all looked happy, and I wished my house felt more like this.