Falling For My Best Friend

Chapter 6

So I'm suspended. Which is, of course, fabulous. And like it's the f*****g cherry on my shitty-day sundae, I have to go through the rest of the day damp and angry (or, depending on your sense of humor, wet and bothered). By lunch, there's not a soul in the school that doesn't know what happened in first period gym class.

'That one weird girl s****l ly assaulted the swim team captain'- that's unanimously the most popular sentence today.

Sexual assault. That's what I'm being charged with. Apparently I should've laid off on my passionate confession, because all the coach needed to get me a five day vacation was the cut on her lip. God, athletes are so fragile. I have the larvae of a five-fingered bruise growing on my arm, but do you see me begging Mr. My-white-thighs-could-cause-legal-blindness-and-yet-I-still-wear-short-shorts for sympathy? No. You don't.

And if the animosity between Lapis and I shocks you, it shouldn't.

Unsurprisingly, two very stubborn people with the stunted emotional range of a six inch ruler do not cut fights cleanly. And it doesn't help that we are bested only by an online language translator when it comes to poor communication.

Our arguments break skin more often that what is probably socially healthy for best friends. And quite often, we're pretty evenly matched. But I really can't throw a punch when my arms are preoccupied with trying to keep me from drowning, and Lapis really can't control herself when she gets worked up like that.

And maybe this is my fault for knowingly getting her worked up like that. For purposely risking my safety just to get under her skin and make her feel like s**t.

I've said it before, and it rings true into infamy- I'm a pretty bad friend.

I know we'll be patched up by the time my bruise fades, but I dread seeing Lapis anytime soon. And the short one-week recovery time I'm being allotted doesn't seem like enough. The idea of looking at her and admitting that maybe I meant the things I said fills me with nausea.

I barter with myself. Maybe if I get into a fight with Pearl during chemistry, I'll buy myself another week to avoid Lapis with. It's not like I have a reputation left to preserve.

Thankfully, I don't deal with her for the rest of the day. I do, however have to deal with my teachers. Since I'm going to be out for awhile and was given this golden opportunity to stay in school for the rest of the afternoon, I ask them for the work I'll need to complete over the week. That way, I'm not too far behind.

When they ask why I'll be out for such an extended period of time, I shrug and lie.

"Vacation," I tell them. They don't pry. A few even tell me that they're glad I get to relax a bit because I've been looking a tad stressed lately.

After washing my face off in the mirror for the nth time today, I have to say, I agree. But hey, on the bright side I think my eye bags are finally being covered up by my other eye bags!

I end up in chem two minutes before the bell rings and Pearl strolls in right after me. I feel like every eye in the room subconsciously takes note of her presence, even if it's just an absentminded flicker towards the doorway. She dominates the room with the essence of a practiced kind of teacher who wears a chopstick bun and cat-eye glasses. Pearl, of course, is younger than fifty and rational enough to lack both of those physical traits, but I can tell that later down the line, her birdlike nose will have a ridge set perfectly for gaudy specs, and her strawberry blonde hair will be grayed at the roots and stabbed in place with an eastern Asian eating utensil.

She leans awkwardly to one side as she half tip-toes, half swaggers in. It's probably because of that dead weight hanging off her shoulder. She's one of those kids who packs their entire locker in their bag because they're afraid of being late. Her hand-woven tote bulges at the seams. One day, that things is going to burst in the middle of the busy hallway, and I am going to laugh so damn hard.

But for now, I'm too preoccupied with worrying that she'll use it to deck me.

Pearl takes a deep breath as she approaches our table and then sits down, pulling out her desired supplies and arranging them in front of her. She has a system. Two pens- red and blue, one mechanical pencil, and one thoroughly abused eraser sit by the top of the black surface, along with her science notebook. To contrast, my desk is occupied by a beat-up journal and a chewed wooden pencil. I smile inwardly. It probably drives Pearl up the wall.

I mentally prepare myself for Pearl's barrage of questions and demands- there's no doubt she's heard about this morning- but it never arrives. Instead, she takes a steady breath and looks me over. I can't tell what she's thinking, and if I were any less exhausted, that would scare me. Pearl's eyes usually betray every emotion under the f*****g sun, but right now, they're cold and bleak, like stained metal.

Pearl heaves a quivering breath, adjusting her bangs with elegant fingers and squeezing her eyes shut.

"I heard what happened," she announces like the exasperated mother of a three year old trying to goad him into confessing that it was he who painted the entire wall in non-washable markers.

But I am not a three year old, and her suburban mother's accent does nothing to intimidate me.

"You'd have to be pretty damn deaf not to hear," I snap. Pearl gives me a smoldering look and I shrug. "Oh, was that rude? Sorry. Forgot to put on my good attitude cap today." I make a show of tapping my skull with my index and grit my teeth.

Pearl sighs and ruins the bangs she so elegantly placed by dragging her hands through her hair. "Is she always like that?"

My eyebrows quirk. I was more or less expecting a lecture riddled with passive aggressive threats. She almost sounds like she actually wants to converse. "Like what?"

"Did you or did you not fight?" she asks with impatient rhetoric.

Oh. So that's why she's trying to talk to me evenly. She wants information. But her battle tactics are as transparent as my glasses, so I'm not fooled. In fact, you could almost say that I find her attempts to run an interrogation to be amusing. I look into her befuddled expression and smile like a wolf next to a house built out of hay.

I'm brought with the realization that Pearl has never seen the dark side of Lapis' moon. She never fought with Lapis like I have, because if she did, she'd know without a doubt that Lapis is more or less 'always like that'. And since it's impossible to not piss Lapis off to the point of a clenched fist, I can tell that Lapis is hiding that part of her with the fiery chains from hell.

Suddenly I'm offhandedly proud. And I'm not proud because I antagonized my short-fused best friend to give it to me- I'm proud because Pearl has never had a bruise like mine. A bruise that proves I know more of Lapis than she ever will.

"We fight sometimes," I shrug, trying to hide the sentiment behind that statement.

"I've never seen her like that," Pearl insists. Her cheeks puff up like a pouty two-year old, and I can't stifle my tart giggle.

"Well, the thing is, whether or not you see it doesn't change the fact that it exists." I retort.

Pearl stiffly shakes her head as if I must be making up lies. She's probably trying to convince herself that I lost some oxygen under the water and killed a few brain cells. Probably thinks I'm making this up for attention. She presses her lips together and turns her head to the front of the class. I don't know why- there's nothing interesting up there save for our still hung-over science teacher.

And because it'd be weird if I kept staring at her, I follow her gaze to the front and stare at the man at the front of the class in expectancy.

His face bears a striking resemblance to a blobfish, I decide after close inspection.

The bell makes my ears bleed to signify the end of free hallway passage, and class begins.

I pick up my head and try to focus on a power point about balancing chemical equations. My mind is basically a calculator already so I have no trouble with these things, but the rest of the class, not surprisingly, struggles. It doesn't help that the teacher only ever refers to the power point when some poor kid asks a question.

(I swear, one time a guy in the back asked if he could go to the bathroom, and Mr. Blobfish just took out his laser pointer and highlighted the term, "Absolute Zero".)

The class is uneventful, and before it ends, I have to swallow down a wave of mingling nerves and annoyance to ask the teacher for my homework. He gladly gives it to me, along with a promise to email me the lesson slides, and I leave with my shoes hardly touching the floor.

Pearl is waiting at the door for me with a gentle smile. I don't know what I expect out of her, but it's certainly not this. As soon as I'm within arms reach of her, the air thins.

She greets me as if we're friends (ha!), and then as soon as we walk out of earshot of Mr. Power-points-are-substitutes-for-actually-teaching, she whips around, delivering a hard glare. I blink. I like her eyes. They're rather pretty. Blue, with smoky wisps of hazel and gold.

I decide that I'd like to poke them out with my index and middle finger.

She takes a deep breath, as if contemplating the best way to get across to me. And then she speaks.

"Don't you dare touch my girlfriend like that ever again. Please, and thank you." Her tone is harsh, cold, and betrayed, but I can detect that she at least feels sorry for me.

I've seen Pearl threaten people before, and this is not it. Usually, she sounds like one of those nasally white women demanding to speak to the manager in a department store, probably with two screaming kids at her thighs. But right now, she almost sounds like an actual human being. I have half the nerve to obey her and move on with my life.

But instead, I raise my middle finger and shrug, "she started it."

Pearl releases an indignant squawk and flutters away to get lost within the migration of teenagers exiting the building. I wait a few seconds before following after, because we both take the same route to our lockers and it would be kind of weird if I walked right behind her.

My locker's at the very end of a very out-of-the-way hall, which means I have to sprint to it between periods. I'd be late to half of my classes if I had to actually unlock it every time, so I simply position the lock so that it appears locked from afar. Unfortunately, that makes me suspect to a lot of nasty pranks. When I arrive at the tin box, my lock has been inverted and closed. I heave a long sigh, kneeling down to undo it. My knees rub the dirty tile floor.

I try to hurry, because Lapis' locker is right next to mine, and if I see her again, I'm going to lose it.

I grumble to myself as I toy with my lock, dialing the incorrect combination at least three times with shaky hands before the damn thing opens. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Lapis' face peeking from the adjacent hallway. I'm glad she has the courtesy to wait.

I don't even know what I'd say to her if she did decide to approach me.

"Hey, almost drowning me earlier today and me totally devouring your face- that was fun, right?" is admittedly not the best icebreaker.

The final dismissal bell rings around me, signalling that the buses have left. I chuckle to myself. Looks like Lapis is walking home. Thankfully, I don't share her fate- my parents have to come up to the school and sign some forms acknowledging my suspension before I'm allowed out. And since mom's at work today, I guess I'm dealing with dad.

I grab my shoulder bag, stuffing all my class work inside and slamming my locker so hard that it rattles. I pretend I'm slamming it in Pearl's face. Maybe I also pretend to break that beak-like nose of hers, too.

I refuse to give Lapis the novelty of knowing I see her, so with a swift turn, I'm off in the other direction.

I trot down the halls like I waxed the very marble my shoes are scuffing.

Our school is built like a huge box, with smaller cubicle like sections within it. Every tall, narrow hallway looks about the same, and I navigate my way to the big glass office with only the numbered doors as landmarks to guide me.

I kill my arrogant gait the moment I walk through the door, replacing it with teeth on my lower lip and brows drawn upwards.

My dad's waiting for me, expression unreadable.

My dad is a stick-thin guy just short enough to go through doorways without ducking. Mom says I look a lot like him, with my graphite eyes and gaunt cheekbones, but that's where the similarities end. Unlike my usual scowl, he's got a goofy smile that perpetually sits on his face even when he frowns, and soft gray eyes that can even reflect vibrant light in a dull, sleepy way. He looks like a malnourished sloth.

I amble towards him, forcing a toothy grimace.

"Hi, dad," I mutter.

Dad doesn't say a word. The receptionist at the desk beckons us over and has dad fill out a handful of forms that acknowledge the extent of my wrongdoings.

Basically:

Lady: Did you know your child had actual s*x with another female on the pool deck, robbed six banks today, and stole an orphan's candy bar on his birthday?

Dad: (some long-winded remark about how wild he was in his high school days, probably adding that he robbed seven banks and stole an orphan's candy bar on Christmas.)

After that, the transaction goes smoothly enough- dad signs my papers, I get scolded by the assistant for leaving my chewed off nails on her desk, and we head out to the car.

"You know I had to leave work for this?" Dad snaps. It's obviously rhetoric, so I don't answer save for a glance down at my shoes as we walk towards my dad's Ford. We get in, and dad starts up the car. A sleazy talk show host fills the silence, and I cringe. Dad smacks my hand away as I try to change the radio. "This is serious, Dot!"

I wince and shove my fingers into my hoodie pockets. Dad is the only person who can call me Dot. Nobody else gets that privilege- not mom, not Lapis, not anyone. Basically, unless you're my dad, call me Dot and you die.

I expect him to put the car in drive, but he doesn't, opting instead to drum his fingers on the steering wheel and sigh. He looks so exhausted- I can almost see why mom thinks we look similar.

Dad sucks on his lower lip, a habit I despise, and releases it with an audible pop.

"What's up with you? You've been acting weird all week, and now this? Is something wrong?" Dad asks after a long silence, furrowing his brow. He tries to lock eyes with me, but I avert them and successfully find a focus on the forty eighth star on our school's flag.

I want to tell him about everything- Lapis, Pearl, Sadie... but I don't think I could physically retell it to him without breaking into tears or puking. I've never been especially comfortable with confiding in people anyways. It always felt like I was grabbing for attention, or in this case, an excuse.

So I just settle for:

"I'm just stressed."

"Do you want to talk about it?" He asks, crinkling his brow.

"Are you reading all those parenting magazines again?" I ask, ignoring his question. I tangle my fingers together in my hoodie.

Dad cracks a half smile and puts the car in drive, taking us away from school at last. "Maybe. But if you want to talk about it more, you know I'm always on your team." He runs a hand through my hair and ruffles it before taking us home. I bite my tongue, because while I love to ruin a heartfelt moment, I don't quite want to let go of this one.

I manage to hold the fuzzy feeling in my gut for a full five minutes and thirty six seconds. And then I'm sick of listening to the cotton-mouthed radio talk show host, and I change the station to something more respectable, like trashy pop.

By the second verse of the song, We're Drunk and at a Club and Hooking Up with Random Dudes Who Probably Have STD's, the mood has passed.

As soon as we pull into the drive, dad has his hand out in expectancy. "You're grounded by the way," he says factually. "No electronics."

"Dad, I have school projects I need to complete!"

"Okay... You can have the laptop."

I grin.

"Under my supervision, of course."

I want to scowl, but I decide that even a laptop for school is better than none at all. I reluctantly part with my cellphone, promising it that I'll be back. Dad gives me a look, but knows better than to remark upon it.

I decide that I don't want to stay cooped up in my house all night and trap my thoughts under a roof, so I tug on dad's arm as we get out of the truck.

"Yes?" He asks, in that parental tone of piqued interest.

"Am I allowed to walk around?" I ask.

"With all the time you spend in your room, I didn't think you knew how to," Dad jokes, chuckling at his own words. At the roll of my eyes, he waves his hand at me. "Go ahead. Just be home by the time the streetlights come on."

With a relief-laden sigh, I thank him and take off down towards the boardwalk.

Over the past week, I've collected the habit of making daily visits to the Big Donut. I don't buy my breakup box every time of course, but I do get a free water so that I'm not considered loitering.

When I burst through the doors of the Big Donut, I see Sadie's eyes light up. She told me once that she looks forward to seeing me, and I have to say, it's a nice feeling to be anticipated.

Her coworker is manning the register next to her and reading a magazine. We started off on a left foot, but he became thoroughly less horrible after I explained that I was gay, and he started seeing me as a potential friend rather than a date. He's actually pretty funny if you aren't overly sensitive.

"What took you?" Lars asks, folding his magazine and placing it next to him. His smile reminds me of the hyenas in The Lion King- it's wide and goofy, with just an air of mischievous intent.

"School," I shrug, ordering a water and taking a seat in the booth nearest the counter.

"Hey, are you okay?" Sadie asks, drawing her eyebrows in. To contrast with Lars, her smile is as candid as a photograph, and it's full of concern.

"I've been better," I shrug.

"Dude, what's wrong with you?" Lars asks, and for a moment he sounds too much like Lapis. I cringe and take a sip of my water.

I can deftly make out the noise of Sadie smacking Lars on the arm and a muffled "ow! Sorry!"

Sadie retreats from the counter and sits next to me, offering her hand. I don't take it today, because even thinking about touching someone makes me sick.

"Peridot?" Sadie asks, pulling her hand to her side after realizing I'm not interested in it.

"I kissed her," I confess, the words tumbling from my mouth like loose rocks on the side of a mountain. Sadie's eyes shoot open.

"No way," she whispers, lost for breath. "How'd it go?"

For a split second, I see her eyes flicker back behind the counter, but I don't pay mind. I'm too busy feeling like I'm drowning in the pool again, dragged through the water by a phantom hand.

Sadie drags me out and gives me air with a nudge.

"I get it," she mumbles. But she doesn't get it. She doesn't get how absolutely screwed over I am. She can never understand how, absolutely, 100%, irrevocably f****d my life is right now. And I'm not in any place to blame her, because I don't even fully comprehend the extend of my own unadulterated fuckery.

Maybe if I fought back, this wouldn't be so bad. I think that if I clocked her in the face, we'd be on more progressive terms. Because the memory of a bruise fades with the blemish. But the memory of a first kiss? Well that's the sort of thing that sticks with you like the gum on the underside of a classroom desk.

And I don't know how friends go back to being friends with a thought like that glued to the back of our minds.

Sighing, I decide that if that's the one kiss I get with Lapis, then I'm not regretful. I can't change what happened, and I don't think I would know what to do with myself if I could.

"Stop having a pity party over there. It's pretty freakin' sad," Lars sneers.

I c***k a grin, because I know that he's really saying, "Hey, don't be sad. I don't like seeing you this way."

Lars is one of those people who talks through a reverse filter, in which he puts all the good stuff in and only lets all the bad stuff out. It's a very interesting phenomenon, because he's not even doing it consciously in order to seem detached or cool. He just dons a natural air of meanness like a participation medal on an underachieving child's trophy shelf.

"I am being stifled," I announce, looking him in the eye. "My emotions are invalidated now. Look at what you've done."

"Eh," Lars spits out his tongue.

We share a relaxed snicker and trail off into comfortable silence.

"Seriously though. You alright?" Sadie asks.

"Peachy." I say, bitterness edging my tone.

"I'm sorry."

"I'll get over it."

And maybe I will, because the gross colony of congestion in my chest is almost starting to clear up. It'll come back with isolation, but for now, I'm alright. Hanging out with people I dare to call my friends- I think I'm going to be just fine.

"Stop being useless over there and buy some donuts already, man," Lars snaps, and I know that he thinks I'll be alright, too.

Sadie leads me up and guides me to the counter.

"Compensate me for my troubles," I demand, slapping five-dollars short worth of bills on the counter.

"What troubles?" Lars raises an eyebrow.

"Dealing with you, for starters" I shoot back, faux venom in my words.

"Fair."

Sadie fishes the donuts out of the glass container as Lars takes some cash out from his pocket and makes a show of kissing it and using it to wipe invisible tears before throwing it in the register.

"I hope you get pink eye," I tell him.

"Don't be stupid. My money would never betray me like that." He says. I laugh without having to manage it, and it feels weird when my smile appears on its own.

I almost forgot how nice it felt to be so relaxed around people. To banter back and forth and forget the conversation hours later, only left with the remnants of the good feeling it left you with. It's weird. Not weird as in a childless grown man hanging out around an elementary school playground during recess hour- no, it's a nice weird. Like an unexpected drop on a roller coaster, or finding five bucks in your jean pocket when you could've sworn you didn't put it there earlier.

By time I'm fondly over the blatant weirdness of this new situation, I see the sun dip below the beach and the streetlights flicker on.

"I've gotta go," I declare, throwing away the empty donut box and helping Sadie wipe off the counter.

"Aw. Does daddy want his little girl back?" Lars sneers, refusing to help us close up and throwing a jacket around his shoulders.

"Why yes," I reply, "I would love a ride home."

Lars huffs and shakes his head, getting his keys and beckoning me to the back door. "Come on, asshole." He says.

Lars' car is a beat up garbage can on wheels. I can't really complain because mine is no better, but I do notice an incredibly pungent smell seeping from the cushions. Sadie notices it too, and I think she motions for me not to bring it up, but I don't realize she's telling me to keep my mouth shut until it's already open.

"Damn, you smoke?"

Lars cringes, nodding stiffly. "Leisurely."

I want to tell him that the reek of nicotine in this car is nothing but regular, but I finally catch Sadie's cue and brush it off.

Smoke is a scent that has been ingrained into my brain since I was a toddler. My dad used to be as 'leisure' as I assume Lars is, and I often woke to the smell of nicotine and coffee. The walls of our house were stained yellow with sulfur, and it soaked into the furniture like water to a sponge. He stopped after I started showing signs of secondhand lung problems, but sometimes I can still smell a fresh cotton bonfire in the garage and I know he's had a rough day at work.

I wonder absentmindedly what dragged Lars to smoke, because it seems like there's always a good story behind these kinds of things. Maybe he got peer pressured. Maybe he did it to piss of the DARE officers that had assemblies at our school and just never stopped.

Dad smokes out of stress, so I think it would make sense for Lars to smoke out of rebellion and spite.

I lead Lars to my house like a GPS. He botches my instructions at every intersection, and I end up recalculating the route twice before Sadie grabs hold of the wheel and turns it for him. It's probably dangerous for us to pilot the junker like this, but it'd probably be more dangerous to let Lars drive on his own.

As we pull in, I thank Lars and give Sadie an awkward hug, our elbows bumping the car seats.

"See you tomorrow, Peridot!" Sadie calls as I head inside. I assure her that I will, and slam the door behind me.

Dad's lounging on the couch watching some sport or another. He hardly looks up as I trudge through the living room and into the kitchen.

"Your dinner's in the microwave," he informs me as if he can see my hand reaching for the cup noodles.

I check out my dinner plate. Macaroni and fried chicken. Classic.

I set the timer to one minute and wait, fingers tapping the counter rhythmically. I paw at my pocket for my cell, but my hands are only met with empty space.

The microwaves finally dings, offering me my food. I take it without thanks, heading back to my room and easing my door shut. I plop down on my bed, surprised to see that Dad was committed to his punishment enough to unhook my television. I gingerly test my nightstand lamp to make sure he didn't mean light fixtures as well when he said 'no electronics'. Thankfully, it flickers on, and my room is illuminated by a warm glow.

With a reheated dinner sitting in my lap, and no instant entertainment, I dig out a novel from my shelf that I haven't read in years. I'm usually dependent on my tablet for reading, but in cases like these, treekillers work too. It takes a moment to get used to the lack of a backlit screen, but after a moment of shifting, I manage to angle myself so that the light hits the page evenly.

After a few minutes of trying to immerse myself in the book and coming up shorter than a low budget film remake, I slam the novel shut and toss it to my side. The words seem to slip from the page and dance away from my vision, begging not to be read. I can't focus well enough to care, or even to want to care. My thoughts drift to other things.

I let myself zone out, and my mind has once again found Lapis, as if it were never astray from her in the first place.

And that's okay, because while the physical Lapis makes me want to rip my hair out right now, the mental thought of her is almost pleasant.

I spend the next ten minutes imagining a scenario where everything goes right. Where Lapis kisses back and Pearl goes back to her birdhouse and cries or whatever. Where 'best friends' is just a gateway to better things, and where a kiss is only a kiss.

In my fantasy, Lapis pulls back gently after our lips meet and cups my cheek with those huge warm hands of hers. The pads of her fingertips, hard and callused, scratch my skin. She searches my face with her fishlike eyes and crinkles her brow.

"Peri," she says, "what are you-?"

And I cut her off, just barely managing a smile behind the nerves and euphoria that she actually kissed back. "I like you, you i***t," I grumble, running a hand through her sleek wet hair and remarking how wonderfully blue it looks when it's wet.

"s**t, what about Pearl?"

"Break up with her," I demand.

Lapis kisses the top of my forehead. "Okay. For you."

And then Pearl flies to her house and migrates south for the winter or something.

I chuckle to myself about that last bit.

I eat mindlessly until my fork is scraping ceramic. When I'm finished, I toss my plate on my dresser to ferment, and lay back on my bed.

My life has gotten excessively complicated in the last two weeks, and I'm still slowly adjusting to the aftershocks. And I need Lapis right now, but at the same time, I never want to see her again, and basically everything kind of sucks.

My eyes catch a lump of fabric in the middle of my floor. It's a dark blue, and I can just make out the white lettering on the back. My breath catches slightly. Lapis' jacket. I never gave it back in my attempts to avoid her.

And now I'm thinking about grabbing it, because I know it smells like her. But I'm not that desperate. I'm not. I'm mad at Lapis. I don't want her.

And yet, ten minutes later I'm gravely disappointed as I come to learn that my incense smoke has all but overpowered the thick chemical smell in the coat, leaving only a ghost of the original scent. And as I bury my face into the fabric and hold down the quivering sobs that have been building up since the morning, I decide that I'm glad there's so little of her left. Because any more than a trace of Lapis Lazuli would absolutely destroy me.

And I would prefer to not be destroyed, thank you.

I don't cry. Not in the safety of my room, not in the privacy of a shower.

But maybe in the faint smell of chlorine, I will.