Belle 18: Lost

Brody didn’t show up to school this morning. I saw him yesterday and he looked fine, but he appeared hollow while he was out in his tree. He seemed hurt �" no without someone important. I wanted to ask him what was going on just so I could be there for him, but normally he’d text me and tell me to go out so he could talk. Another thing is no matter how sick he is he at least comes to school just to hang out with our group even if it means passing out in his truck during class. Something must really be wrong. I could feel it in my gut that he was really hurting. I wanted nothing more than to go to his house to see him, but I got reamed the last time I ditched.

Sitting down in English I planned on listening in on Miranda, hoping she’d clue me in on what was going on. If she didn’t it would make the clock my enemy. Time was wasting the longer I sat at that desk. Something else in my gut told me I wasn’t going to like what I was going to hear.

Miranda came in pissed off.

“So, what happened again?” one of her blonde friends said in “ah”.

“Okay so we went to his truck right? And I was like “let’s go up to the lake” and he takes me us to my house and I figured he didn’t get why I said go to the lake, so I’m all like “Let’s go all the way” cuz it’s not prom night unless you have sex right? So I strip for him and put his hands all over and he just backs away like “Get out of my truck”. I’m like “Really? It’s just sex, just do it”? He was such a p***y.”

“What an a*s. It’s over right?”

“Hell yes. I just wish I could’ve broken his heart more than I did.”

“He deserves it. It’s prom. Everyone is having sex on that night.”

“Except him. He probably prefers guys if he’s afraid to do it with a girl.”

“F*g.”

I couldn’t bear to hear any more. My heart sank at “put his hands all over”. I wanted to cry just from hearing that. In the back of my mind I always thought we’d be each other’s first for that, but it really hurt that I wasn’t. Then came how hard she tried to dump him. She purposely tried to hurt him for stopping what he thought was a bad idea.

On a selfish note, I wasn’t sure if I could bear to look at him today after hearing that. I know it’s selfish and that I should be there for him, but I just know if I force myself to go over there knowing how much it hurt me to hear that, it would just make it worse for him.

He always believed in waiting until marriage before making love as did I and the for-play was no different, so I knew that he was going to have a hard time with this in itself, but with her dumping him like that . . . I didn’t want let out my hurt on him. I wanted to wait until he was ready to talk which will, hopefully, be around the time I have been able to cope with this fact.

I wasn’t sure if I was crying for him or for me, but I figured crying for the both of us was good enough. The teacher told me to step out into the hall so I could calm down out there.

I barely made it through my next class. I started to feel like I went through what Brody did in one fast punch to the torso making every organ cry out for help. I was sure he felt even worse. But knowing that he felt a worse type of blow was starting to kill me.

I didn’t want to go right home, because I wasn’t sure if Brody would see me and want to talk. I wasn’t ready to talk to him yet. I knew I would be, but just not now.

“Hey there Southern Belle, why so down?” Kyle called

“Just Miranda crap,” I answered.

“Gotcha. The b***h that dumped our buddy,” Joe stated.

“You heard about that?”

“We haven’t heard from Brody, but Miranda was going around telling people all day. We don’t know what’s going on with Brody though. Probably sick or something.”

Like I said care-free boys. Better off that way. They’d give him such hell for it and make it worse.

“Hey, let’s go shoot some guns. That otta cheer ya up.”

I went with them. The gun vibrations gave me such an adrenalin-rush it normally made my emotions shake enough to feel better. And it did.

Hearing the boys joke and tease each other put together with the adrenalin rush of the gun shots made me sort out my feelings without even having to do anything. It felt so good.

On the way home, my heart was going a million miles an hour. I was so far beyond nervous to see what’ll happen once I’m home. But to a relief followed by more panic was my front door step was empty. This meant I had to wait longer to get this conversation out of the way.

I went to bed the second I got in the door and was awaken with a text from Brody.

Hey. Friday night run? Please…I need to talk to you…

Sure

Well, all I had to make it through the next couple of days which made Brody actually come to school.