by Karla Luna
Jeez, thanks a lot, Zayne. I really love ya.
“Well, I am Zayne.” Next, he pulled my other cousin by his shirt. He looked exactly like him, only with blonde hair since Zayne dyed his black. “This is my twin brother Zandy, and our one year younger baby brother, Alezandro, who is being gay over there with Jesse… like always.”
“Your family sure has a thing for the letter Z,” Joss said with a light giggle. But I just stared at her. I had fallen for that giggle once. Now, all I could think of was Evelyn.
And I couldn’t help but feel sad and lonely.
She left me. She doesn’t care, does she? She never cared. She’s the bad girl. When the hell was she ever going to actually care?
“Then there’s Adrian and Leonard, who are brothers as well – just not ours.”
I just heard Zayne’s voice echoing through my ear. People passed by but it’s like the whole world was tuned out on me. I was the only one here. I was left alone. When she’s gone, I felt more than empty. There’s a hole in my heart where she’s supposed to be. If this world didn’t have her, I’d be dead and gone as well.
She was my everything and I was nothing to her.
Haha. Of course. Why did I ever think she would actually feel something? Why did I ever fucking think that! God! I’m so freakin’ stupid!
“Zavier? Hey, you okay, dude?”
I shook my head but then nodded at Jesse. I wasn’t even looking at him though. All I could do was glare at the space in front of me. I really hated myself at the moment. I’m here weeping about liking some girl when I have someone else I could be with instead.
But my heart was telling me not to listen to my brain. Oh well, maybe my heart has just been wrong this whole time. Maybe I’ve been completely wrong this whole time.
“Zavier, you look pale.”
I kept ignoring the voices.
“Zavier.”
There’s no one else.
“Zavier!”
Once I felt a hand on my shoulder, I whipped around and punched the person square in the face. I heard something snap and that’s when I gasped and blinked at the sight before me.
Oh no. I’m gonna be sick.
Did I… did I do that? And to my own best friend?
“Jesse!”
Alez and the other guys went over to help Jesse out, who was on the ground with a horrible nosebleed. And I was more than sure that I had just broken his nose. I felt even worse now, mostly when Ethan came and ran over to him, grabbing on to his arms to try and pick him up because it seemed like he was so close to passing out, too.
Jesse’s nosebleeds were always bad and he needed special aid for them when they wouldn’t stop after quite a while. What the hell was wrong with me, really? Why did I just punch him in the face? Because I was angry with myself? That’s no reason to do something like this! I’m getting violent now, this isn’t right.
“Get him help!” Ethan yelled as he and Alez put Jesse’s arms around their necks to help him stand up straight.
People all around were giving them space to go through. And even though their eyes were on a bloody Jesse… most of them were stealing glances at me to judge me for what I had done.
And my family… what’ll they think of me now? Never in my life had I punched someone before. The only person I ever truly wanted to punch was Davne. Words couldn’t possibly describe how much I hated him. And him being interested in Evelyn just made me all the more angry.
I wanted to be hers. Yet she could never be mine.
I watched Ethan and Alez go, with the other guys trailing behind them, trying to get people to move out of the away. Though I didn’t miss the glare Ethan sent my way. Yet, his eyes were also full of disappointment. I mean, how could I hurt our best friend? The freakin’ weirdo that has always been there for us when we needed him. Sure, he may throw insults here and there, but did he really deserve that from me? Of course, not.
“Zavier!?”
Just then I heard my mother’s voice. I still wasn’t thinking much. But really, was I even thinking at all? No, I wasn’t.
I just didn’t care anymore. I didn’t want to feel anything for anyone. I wanted to feel completely numb for once.
So grabbing Joss’ hand, I took one last glance at Zayne, who was just standing there after witnessing his innocent little cousin punch someone like never before.
“Let’s get out of here.”
“You know it’s completely fine, Zavier. I… we can just enjoy our date and pretend this night never happened. Well, I mean that part, not this one.”
I kept walking with my hands in my pockets as Joss talked away. I didn’t get a chance to change since we ran off, so I was still here in my sleeveless shirts and jeans. It was a good thing I wasn’t planning on going to a fancy restaurant or anything either.
Mostly because I didn’t want this date to be better than Evelyn’s was. But I was still willing to make it fun for Joss. It was the least I could do after frightening her with what I had done back there.
She should be running away, but then again, I would never hurt a girl like that. Only crazy people would.
That’s when an image of Davne hurting Evelyn came to mind. I had to blink for a few seconds to make the whole image leave my mind. And it was hard to. Just thinking about him hurting her the way he always hurt me, it got me angry again. I reminded myself though that I couldn’t get angry again because if Joss were to just touch my shoulder like Jesse had done…
“I’m really sorry you had to witness that,” I apologized as we kept walking through the busy streets of New Jersey. It only reminded me of when I was showing Evelyn these places.
Anything reminded me of her. I think though that I had to get over her already. But I knew it wasn’t that simple.
“So how about we go –”
I got interrupted when Joss’ phone rang. She gave me an apologetic look and we stopped walking so that she could dig into her purse to look for her phone.
“Hold that thought, I am getting a message. Might be important, my parents can be pretty strict.”
“Yeah, I understand,” I said with a small smile. I watched her look at her phone and I saw how her face went from one of calmness to shock. And a little bit of disgust. “What is it?”
That’s when my own phone rang, telling me I had a message as well. I quickly dug into my pocket and took it out, checking the random message from an unknown number.
But I regretted ever opening it, because what I saw just made me feel angry all over again.
34: Mend The Broken-hearted
• Zavier •
“Good girl…”
I didn’t know why, and I really freakin’ hated myself for doing this – but all I could do right now was replay the damn stupid video some random person had just decided to send to Joss and I while on our first date.
This was disgusting on so many levels. I mean sure, it looked quite fucking enjoyable for them, but for me?
I hated it. I hated him. I hated this. I hated everything. And I hated…
No… I could never hate the person I’ve fallen in love with. I just couldn’t. If I wanted to, then it would mean she’d have to do something that was horrible enough to get me to feel that way about her.
Although, this was beyond horrible for me because of, not just one, but two reasons. And honestly, I just couldn’t let myself hate her for something like this.
If she wanted to be with the bad boy, then let her be with the bad boy. She wanted to spend her free time with him rather than being with me, then let her be. She wanted to lie every damn time to my face, just so that she could run straight to him to live her happy, wild life…
Then… Let. Her. Be.
I said I didn’t want to care… and holy damn was it hard for me to do that?! But I had to get through it.
I was so stupid, that I didn’t even have the nerve or courage to stop the video they had sent me. I understood Joss’ reaction because of the way it was done. But I was mainly disgusted by Evelyn and
why she chose to do this with Davne, my greatest enemy.
I couldn’t do this anymore…
“Oh, yeah, definitely been waiting for this for so damn long,” I heard Davne say in a husky voice, making me close my eyes as I tightened my hands around my phone again. Really, what the hell was this? Why did they even decide to send us this?! To get me angry? Because I was, angrier than I thought I could ever be. And the feeling just made me want to punch someone even more, or even throw up because of how nauseous it had made me.
“Shut the hell up and take your stupid clothes off so we can make out or whatever,” I briefly heard Evelyn say.
“Greedy, aren’t we, bunny?” Davne laughed and I heard the soft patting of a bed, making me slightly growl as I felt a hand lightly touching my own. Joss took my phone away and I punched my knee, buried my face in my hands, and mussed my hair up a bit in frustration.
We sat down on a bench by the side of the street, so that I could calm down – because seriously, I was not okay. I was so sure I was about to have a panic attack twice in the same night and that wouldn’t have been good for me. If I did, Joss would have to call the ambulance because a little kiss wouldn’t work this time, especially now since I knew that the one I had kissed back there was her, and not Evelyn – like I had wanted it to be all along.
But who knows? Maybe Evelyn had always gone to kiss Davne before every time I kissed her.
Ha! Pathetic.
I shouldn’t even hate anyone for this. I hated Davne, that was for sure. But it was because of the way he always treated me when we were young. He was starting to act nice to me and that was just extremely weird and suspicious. But I was right. He only wanted to get to Evelyn and well, he had her now. Why would I want her with me? So that I could watch her love someone else that wasn’t me?
Now that was what made me angry, deep down – that I wasn’t the reason for her smiles, or her laughs, or her happiness. I wanted to be the one who’d fight for her and protect her, even if it had been the other way around for us before.
I wanted her to be mine. All mine.
But I just…
“I just can’t,” I whispered to myself as I put my hands back to my face, covering my nose and mouth. My eyes were welling up with tears and I had no idea why. I was mad, sad, and every other single emotion that you could call horrible. I was sniffling and I was shaking and I just… I couldn’t.
“Zavier, you should stop watching that,” Joss whispered to me for what seemed to be the thousandth time. She’d told me to quit it with the video but I just wouldn’t. I just couldn’t look away from it, so all I did was keep ignoring her and watched it as if it was the most entertaining thing.
But it wasn’t. It definitely wasn’t.
I still had to find Evelyn, but only to have her explain this to me. Oh, I sure would love for her to tell me the fantastic story behind it! Like how she lied right to my face and went behind my back to…
“Freakin’... Dammit!” At the last word, I had punched the bench and abruptly stood up while breathing hard and looking down the busy roads. I tightly grabbed my hair as I frantically turned whichever way, watching the earth moving casually all around me.
But Evelyn was my world and my world revolved around her. There was not a single second in one whole day when I was not thinking about her. Every. Damn. Minute. She was on my mind and I couldn’t stop it.
But now, I knew I had to.
I just hated feeling this way for someone like her. I was right when I first met her. She’s just a delinquent and I’m just the good, innocent little boy. Well, it just made me want to turn into a bad boy just so she can see what she’s missing out on.
Damn, wouldn’t that be something!
“Zavier, please calm down, this isn’t healthy for you,” Joss told me as she started walking closer to me, but very cautiously as if she’s afraid she’d be harmed.
All I did was raise my arms up at the waist and laugh like a crazy person. “Isn’t healthy for me?” I suddenly stopped all of my fake smiling and laughing and glared at her instead. “Like you would know anything about me.” At that, I started walking closer to her, making her frown and step back. I was scaring her and I wanted to laugh at the feeling of making someone feel scared of me. Did that already make me a bad person? Well, I honestly didn’t really care. “All you gave me was a simple little kiss, it was nothing special. So stop flattering yourself when you’ve done absolutely nothing for me.”
She swallowed hard, clenched her teeth together and shook her head frantically. I squinted my eyes at her, waiting to hear just what she had to say to me. I remember feeling something strong toward her just because of some dumb Spin The Bottle game. Seriously, did I still like her? Did I want to keep on liking her just because Evelyn didn’t care one bit about my true feelings?
Maybe. Maybe it wasn’t so bad to keep on liking her.
“You would’ve had to go to the hospital if it weren’t for me. Zavier, this isn’t you. Please don’t talk like this,” she said.
“I need a smoke. Or a drink,” I mumbled to myself as I narrowed my eyes and looked all around the street. I started walking to this Liquor Store that caught my eye, when Joss grabbed my arm and pulled me right back. But when she brought me close to her, I still wouldn’t stop looking at the Liquor Store.
Alcohol wasn’t so bad for me on the first try. It felt good against my tongue and down my throat after a few sips. Maybe it could cure the pain and ache I now had everywhere. I just wanted to forget everything at the moment and get lost. I wanted to have fun. Live a little. I mean… whatever, right?
It was nothing.
“Listen to you!” Right when Joss snapped, I froze and turned to her. Her blue eyes popping out more than usual due to the tears in her eyes, which were threatening to fall any minute. “Don’t you see, Zavier!? I like you! I’ve always liked you! And… and Evelyn has just been a bad influence on you! Ever since she stepped foot here, she’s been bad news. She’s changed the sweet, innocent and good Zavier Coin when she shouldn’t have. She isn’t even worth it. See this?”
At that, she brought my phone back up to my face. Davne’s hands were all over Evelyn's small body and I wanted nothing more than to just rip his arms off so that I could be the only one to ever touch her. His lips were all over her, too. And when their lips came into contact, I just had to look away, because that was the worst part for me. Watching them kissing intimately when I thought she only ever liked my kisses.
I scoffed and clicked my tongue against my cheek as Joss took the phone away from me again, and kept it in her purse to make sure I wouldn’t take a peek at the stupid video.
“She doesn’t care about anyone but herself. That’s how bad girls are. That’s how bad people are! Careless. Ruthless. Not the least bit selfless. She’s a criminal, what else is she ever going to care about?! Not the law, of course. And if she were to go to jail, she’d just ask you to bail her out. She’ll just use you. That’s what they do… a-and they also trick your mind! And she’s just tricking yours. She’s been tricking yours this whole time and you’ve just been so oblivious to notice it at all.”
I should hate her right now for talking trash about Evelyn like that. But wasn’t it all true? Wasn’t she right? Or was my mind just being stupid like it had been this whole time? I didn’t even know what to believe anymore, to be completely honest. I didn’t want to believe anything. I just wanted things to be as simple as they were when Evelyn wasn’t in my life. But I wanted her in my life, yet clearly she doesn’t want me in hers.
I flinched a little when I felt Joss’ hand on my cheek as she softly caressed it and looked deep into my eyes. I simply frowned at her and looked straight at her sapphire blue eyes.
This really wasn’t me. If she were doing this to the real Zavier Coin, he’d be blushing mad crazy and doing his best not to look directly into her eyes because he was just that shy with her.
But now? He was certainly changing.
He had even
punched his best friend right in the face and ran away from the problem. That’s what he’s been doing, just running away from all of his problems as if they’d actually go away on their own.
And who knows, if it was for the better or for the worse that he was changing.
“Don’t stop being yourself just because of some girl. I like you for you. Okay? Don’t change. Please!” Joss said, as she leaned in and gave me a small kiss on the corner of my lips. I was stiff, and I didn’t move at all until she fully pulled away from me.
“I’m sorry, Joss,” I whispered as I tried to give her at least a small smile. Then I rubbed the tears off the corners of my eyes, when I realized I couldn’t smile just yet.
I was being weak and stupid. I was always weak, and a complete wimp. And I wasn’t as smart as people thought. I’ve made decisions that were probably just as bad, if not worse, as they have. And there were so many times when I haven’t even used my brain properly. It’s just hard to tell exactly when I’m not thinking straight.
“It’s okay. Let’s just go on with our date and pretend nothing ever happened, please. It’ll mean the world to me.”
I nodded. “Alright.” Let us go on our date and forget everything and everyone. Like Evelyn had said, it was just us. Nobody else mattered. Nobody else ever mattered, at all. “Let’s go enjoy our date, Joss.”
• Evelyn •
I had been struggling, trying my very hardest to get out of the damn ropes that these idiots had tied me up with.
I had absolutely no fucking idea what had happened back at the fundraiser. I was just watching Zavier doing his extremely sexy dance moves, when suddenly I felt like I was being pulled away somewhere by two people. I had no guess who they were though. When I looked, I panicked because I saw that they had hoods on their heads and masks over their faces! I really had absolutely no idea who these people taking me away were!
No one seemed to notice them since they seemed pretty casual about it. But come on, they looked like robbers! I was closed to screaming or kicking their asses, but they were actually really smart. They had a plan before they even grabbed me… so that I wouldn’t be able to do a single thing about what was happening to me!