ELEVEN
Belle
The chill from the thick shake in my hand has my fingers numb by the time Kate steps through the automatic doors. She glances around, her gaze settling on where I sit on the bench seat in the middle of the mall, and smiles.
Maybe there is hope.
“Sorry I’m late.” She motions for me to stand with a jerk of her head as she approaches. “Brock had to help his dad with something before we left. He’s waiting in the car, so let’s make this quick, yeah?”
Maybe there isn’t.
I fall into step with her, frustrated that yet again she’s placed that fucking guy on the rung above me. “Thanks for coming.”
“I need to pick up some more moisturiser anyway, so no biggie.” She glances across as we head toward the chemist. “Talk to me. What happened?”
Looking at her, I feel every part the emotional wreck I am in that moment. She’s clearly stayed the night at Brock’s given the fact she wears the same clothes as last night, and yet if I hadn’t seen her yesterday to know, I wouldn’t have picked up on it. Her hair is still perfectly straight, her face stunning despite the lack of make-up, and she has this air about her. She’s glowing. Not a word I would have thought I’d use to describe my best friend, but there’s no other way to describe how her happiness seems to follow her like a sweet cloud of sugary goodness.
“I need to get the morning-after,” I whisper as I catch my reflection in the shop windows.
Dad was still asleep when I left, after having got in at some ungodly hour of the morning. Forty minutes in the shower, and I still can’t scrub the feeling of filth from my pores. The more I sobered up last night, the more it sunk in. I seriously considered stealing a bottle from Dad’s cupboard to reinstate the blissful numb that accompanies killing half your brain cells.
And yet I didn’t. One look at Zeus as he sat at the breakfast table and I wished I had.
“Jesus, Belle,” Kate hisses under her breath. “How could you be so careless?”
“It wasn’t me,” I whisper-yell in return, leaning in close as we walk. “He said he was gloved.”
“And you didn’t notice when he stuck it in that he wasn’t?”
I smile sheepishly at a guy who frowns on his way past us. “Keep it down.”
She’s hit the nail on the head, found the thing that makes me feel most stupid about the whole deal. How did I not know?
Because you’re young and inexperienced, that’s why.
And it’s that inadequacy that made me want to crawl under a rock when Zeus locked his gaze with mine and simply sighed. He didn’t say a damn thing; didn’t have to. He’s disappointed in me. Probably takes one look at me and can’t help but see a stupid young girl getting it on with an even stupider young guy.
I’m tainted. Used.
Undesirable.
No guy wants seconds, and when you’re trying to score a guy twenty years your senior then you best be bringing your A game.
Clearly, I’m not.
“I can’t believe you were so gullible, Belle.” Kate makes a clicking sound with her tongue as we near the chemist. “Did you see him put it on?”
“Yes. I mean, not really. I thought he did.”
She stops in the entrance to the shop, turning to face me. “Did you see his dick sheathed in rubber? It’s pretty simple, you know.”
I cock an eyebrow at her, stunned by this attitude. I get it—I was naïve to believe he would have enough respect to glove up and not be selfish. But shit, cut a newbie some slack, huh?
“What is your deal?”
“I can’t believe you’d be so stupid is all.” She flicks her hair and starts walking again, leading us through the aisles. “If you weren’t thorough enough to check, then no wonder you’re in this situation.”
“You’re blaming this on me,” I whisper as we pass an old lady selecting a heat rub.
“What was it you preached to me? Do you think this will make you fit in? Make you cool?” Kate slaps me with a scathing glare before sweeping around the end of the racking to pluck her moisturiser from the shelf. “Scott? Of all people? Didn’t you want it to mean something?”
It takes me a minute to retrieve my jaw from the floor and then set to work on my cracked heart. This girl is supposed to be on my side, telling me what I need to hear to make me feel better. I guess she’s got the whole tell-it-how-it-is trait nailed down, but shit.
What do I say when my answer involves the guy I really wanted to give it to being my dad’s best friend?
“Well, I guess we can’t all be you, right?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Her gaze narrows as she queues up behind some guy.
“Finding the perfect boy to fall in love with.” I glare at her, slamming my arms across my chest. “How was he, Kate? Was he special?”
Her nostrils flare as she simply stares at me a beat. “We didn’t go that far.”
“His parents have you in the spare room?” I cock an eyebrow, somewhat disbelieving after the way she went on about him last night.
“No.” The line shifts and she slams her purchase on the counter. “He had too much respect for me to go there on the first date.”
Ugh. I step back as she starts her transaction, and get flagged by the assistant at the next till over. “Can I help?”
All of two people stand behind us, and yet it could be a crowd of a thousand for how nervous I am in this moment. I set my hands on the counter and lean over to murmur, “I need the morning-after.”
The assistant nods, not a single muscle in her face shifting. This woman has mastered the art of indifference, but then again, she probably sees stupid young girls such as me all the time.
I sweat bullets as she turns and walks several steps to retrieve a box from the lower shelves behind the counter. “Have you had this before?”
I shake my head, which in turn sets her off explaining how to take it and the side effects. I should be listening, but instead I’m focused on my friend as she takes her purchase and walks out of the store.
What the fuck? She’s left without a single word. Nothing.
“Any questions?”
I snap back to the pharmacy assistant and shake my head. I’m sure anything I missed will either be on the box or available care of Dr Google.
She rings the purchase up, and takes the better part of my fifty-dollar note Dad gave me for my birthday. I clutch the paper bag to my chest as I walk out and head to the supermarket to get a bottle of PowerAde and something sweet from the bakery to wash this down. The sooner the damn thing is in me, the sooner my stomach can stop turning at the thought of a tiny Scott running around.
I speed through my shopping in record time, intent on taking the pill at the mall. Yet as I step back out into the walkway, I’m overwhelmed by the hundreds of eyes around me as the weekend shopping hits peak hour. People stroll past, filling the floor space and the bench seats, all lost in their personal crusades, but I can’t shake the feeling that they all know. That if I take a seat and pull the packet from the chemist bag I may as well be waving a banner flag and flicking on a neon sign.
Privacy. I need privacy. My research on the pill last night said I have up to twenty-four hours to get it down before the effectiveness starts to wane, so I’ve got plenty of time left to get home.
Home.
Part of me considers the logistics of never having to leave the house again. I have no friends left—Kate made that clear—and no job to keep me busy now school is done. What reason do I have to do anything other than merely exist? A week in hibernation working on my sketches sounds like bliss after this weekend. A week to unwind and find myself again, because fuck knows I didn’t find her amongst the masses the last five years.
School’s out, motherfuckers—welcome to adulthood.
Where mistakes are made, and dreams are shattered.
Living the dream.