Chapter 2: Brunch with an Intern

teen rating due to cursing

I woke up to some old Keane song playing through my ear buds. My finger fumbled with my iPod and I shuffled. Another Keane, but this was my favorite. I listened to the whole song and just stared at the willow tree, imagining that Mahalia was there. She rippled away from my sight when my door opened. My dad popped his head in. “I was called into work today. My client was extradited to Oklahoma and for some reason or another Judge Talbot up there wants me at the trial. I know grounding you won’t work while I’m in a different state, so I’ll just put my trust in you that you…” He licked his lips. “Try not to go to Steve’s.” He blew me a kiss and closed my door. I barely heard him. I was just thinking of my stalker. What if she didn’t contact me? My heart sunk to grief just as I had realized that.

   My phone buzzed and lit up beside me. I put it to my ear and answered with a mutter of some sort of greeting.

   “Freddie told me you’re gonna be mad at me.”

   I sighed loudly. What a waste of time. Yes, Christian, I am mad at you, you dumb prick. You snitched to my dad! Of course I’m going to be mad at you! “And this improves my morning in what way?”

   The kid intern made some sort of guttural noise on the other side. He was silent for a little while. “I’m sorry, man; I didn’t think anything of it.” He smacked his lips. “Can I make it up to you?”

   I stared at the willow tree. Sam nudged his head on the bottom of my foot. I obliged him by caressing him softly with my toes. “What does making up to me mean exactly?”

   Christian chuckled. “I can take you to buy clothes! Girls like that.”

   “Okay, see here, kid, I don’t give a s**t about clothes.” Speaking of, I got up and rolled down my jeans and somehow got my shirt off without losing touch with the intern. “I will accept a lunch from you, though.”

   “It’s nine thirty.”

   “Fine, a brunch then, but I won’t go any lower.”

   He laughed. I could hear the youth in his laughter. It was slightly adorable. “Okie dokie then, Bonnie, I can meet you at your place in twenty. What do you say?”

   “That’ll do, pig. That’ll do.” I hung up, tossing my phone on my bed. Sam’s eyes glowed with something wild inside, and before I could stop him, he plopped down on top of the phone. I growled. “You can lay there now, cat, but I’m getting that phone one way or another.” I went to my closet and cursed aloud. I didn’t have a single pair of clean pants. The only thing that would cover my lower half was… damn it.

 

Christian was in a miniature Volkswagen when I descended the hill in my Converse. I kept on pulling on the hem of my dress, making sure my a*s didn’t show, but I was also afraid of too much cleavage. Try-hard little old me. The dress was white with some orange and blue floral pattern on it and this thick beige belt wrapped around it. My robot necklace sat rigid on my chest, which was heaving up and down. Did I look stupid? I got into his car. He smirked at me. “This isn’t to be impressive, right?”

   “Shut up.”

   Christian bit his lip. He backed up, driving out of the lot. “Is this dress on purpose?”

   “I didn’t want to wear dirty jeans, kid.” That would shut him up. He didn’t like his age being pointed out and dissected. Maybe it was mean, but hey, he told my dad that I was at Steve’s. He deserved it.

   Christian’s hand traveled to the radio dial. Some crappy Emo band whined about their terrible hair day or some s**t like that. I tuned it out. He mouthed every word. Christian is what I’d like to call a poser, but he did work hard to be as Emo as possible. At least he had effort. He didn’t do the cliché cutting or anything, because he was honestly happy, but he styled himself and molded his image into a pretty nice sculpture. I had slight respect for him.

   He pulled up to Pandra’s Tacos and turned the key. “I know it’s only like a block away from your place, but I love Pandra’s.”

   I just got out, ignoring his explanation. Pandra’s was a cute little bistro made of stucco and splattered with fliers. I sat at a metal table under a parasol while he went in an ordered. He’d taken me and Spore here before, so apparently he had remembered what I liked. I was wary to change my mind on my menu choices. Across the street I saw the girl in black, the second Heat Prevention. She was glaring at me intently. What, did I have spinach in my teeth? She never moved a single bit for the next few minutes. Christian came back out and slipped my plate over and sat on the other side of the table. He began to eat. “So,” he muttered, his mouth full of food, “how’s the family?”

   “My dad is pissed at me,” I replied, poking a taco. I picked it up cautiously and took a bite. It could have been fresher, but the salsa was just so thin and hot enough to cover up the fact that it was old. I shrugged. “He’s either pissed at me or unaware of my existence, so I may possibly prefer him being angry. At least he knows I’m there.”

   Christian nodded. “My mom has been a raging b***h ever since Paul said he was a Mormon, and that he already had a wife.” I chuckled softly. “Yeah, I laughed, too, but she said she wasn’t going to convert to Mormonism just because he’s good in bed. Yes. She literally told me that.”

   I gestured vomiting. He nodded again. “Paul’s a nice guy, though, and I like his wife. I wouldn’t mind having a sister-step-mom. She has two kids, though, so it may push Mom further from marrying him.”

   “Isn’t she super Christian?”

   “Yeah, that’s why I’ve got my name.” He peered at me. The whole time I had been glancing from him to the girl. She still didn’t move and was most definitely angrier than before. I noticed he had stopped talking, so I threw my focus to his spotlight. “I’m sorry,” I said. He smiled at me. “Got your mind on something?”

   I weighed the options. I could tell him about Heat Prevention and my stalker, but I don’t think he’d take it as well as I did, so I lied, saying, “I’m just thinking about Freddie.” Dumbass! What if he thought the wrong thing?

   Christian adjusted himself in his seat, taking another bite. “You don’t have to answer this or anything, but… what happened between you guys? You were pretty much inseparable.”

   He did think the wrong thing. I shook my head. “I don’t mind. Uh, we just crumbled- romantically, of course, we’re still best friends.”

   “How long did you date him?”

   I closed my eyes, thinking back. “About six months. We started on my eighteenth birthday.”

   Christian stared at his food. “Why did you end it?”

   I was going to answer before I noticed what he had said. He identified me as the one who broke up with him. “How did you know that I ended it?”

   Christian bit his lip. His cheeks turned a bright red. Did he make some sort of mistake? “Freddie is my friend, Bonnie. He talks to me about what’s important to him, things he can’t talk to you about.”

   “Like what?”

   “You.”

   I let the word sit there for a little bit, just thinking it over. They talked about me.  “What does he say?”

   Christian finished his taco and balled up the paper wrapping. “What the f**k do you think? He is, like, madly in love with you. He’s fairly torn, you know.” He crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. “When you guys broke up, he came to my window and we talked for, like, an hour. He cried, Bonnie.” His face showed slight disdain. He continued, saying, “And I gave him the best advice I could, but that was all I had for him. He was broken. Bonnie, Freddie was a sink without a faucet. He didn’t censor himself at all. You know how deeply he hides his problems? You broke that dam in his mind. You fucked him up- royally.”

   My eyes felt like they were being salted and spit on. I wiped away a tear from my cheek and stuffed the now tasteless taco into my mouth. My jaw acted like it didn’t want to work, so I just painfully swallowed it.

   “I’m not here to make you feel bad. He actually doesn’t know we’re at brunch.” Christian held out his hand and I put mine in it. “You should know, though. You have that right.” He stood up and threw away our trash. My eyes wandered to somewhere, anywhere else. I saw that Heat Prevention was gone. Was her hate only great enough to be temporary?

   Christian walked to his car and I followed. We got in our seats in unison. He didn’t bother to turn on the music, he just drove. It was quiet for a little while. I nodded off, unprepared for waking up so early. He had trouble, too.

 

My throat probably hurt the worst. I didn’t feel much else that was in pain, except in my collarbone and my calves. I felt something warm and wet in my mouth and some kind of liquid rolling down my face, but that was cold. I tried to put my fingers to it, but it was like they didn’t move anymore. I opened my eyes when I heard the loud tearing beside me. A wreck of a hood was all I could see. Sunlight barely shone through the torn metal and shattered windshield. I could hear, though. I heard people yelling over the tearing sound. It was so loud. “Christian.” I moaned. A chunk of the cold stuff fell off my face. It smelled terrible. Did I puke?

   “Get her out of there!”

   “We’re trying, sir, you need to move.”

   “Get her out! Now!” This voice was so familiar. Robert? Robert! “Robert!” I tried to yell, but it was just some sort of whispering cry. “Robert.”

   I’d really love to help you, Bunny, but I can’t. Just know that I’m always with you in your head. So the voice outside wasn’t Robert. Who was it then?

   Light blinded me from my right side. Hands were all over me, but the other voice shouted, “We don’t know the effects of her injuries! Let her go, Mr. Reilly! We have to cut her out of there!”

   Dad- he was the voice. I glanced at him. Tears rolled down his face. “Bonnie… Bonnie, just sit tight, okay? He’ll get you out.”

   Behind him was Christian, bloodied and bruised, and Freddie, disheveled and staring straight at me. “Bo, listen to your dad once in your goddamn life,” he laughed sadly.

   The man with the tearing sound got another man, they were both in jumpsuits, and pulled the front of the car away from me. A few other people drug me onto a long bed thing and started rolling me away. What was I on? Stroller? Cart? Gurney? Yes. It was a gurney.

   My eyes drooped.

 

I woke up very warm. It was a good warm, kind of like Christmas. It didn’t smell like Christmas, though, but like death. It was disgusting. I couldn’t see that much light through my eyelids, so I decided it’d be safe to open them. I was in a hospital room. I could tell this because my television was very helpful in explaining dramatic tragedy to me. I wasn’t surprised to see someone in the room with me, facing the window, but I was surprised to see who it was. A long blonde braid hung down to a nicely rounded waist and thighs covered in grey jean shorts. Mahalia didn’t make a sound, so I began the conversation. “What happened?” Cliché, cliché, cliché.

   She turned around. Her face was different. It was the lack of makeup. She had natural beauty, though; I didn’t understand why she caked on the s**t anyways. She stepped over to me. “From what I saw, your little blonde friend is bad at driving.” She found interest in a vase on the table beside the bed. The fake multicolored hydrangeas looked back at her. “He’s fine, though, which is quite paradoxical.”

   I stared blankly at her. Paradoxical? “Are you from Quincy?”

   “No,” she replied, answering what I already knew. I had met everyone in Quincy over the age of twelve. She wasn’t a familiar face, and believe me, I would’ve remembered her face. “Are you?”

   I nodded once, but my throat hurt, so I winced. She noticed and knelt down. She caressed my cheek. “Don’t do things like that, Bonnie.”

   Smirking, and in pain, I sat up. My leg was large and bulky under the blanket and I discovered I had a medical boot on. “Goddamn it, I broke my leg?”

   “Well, you didn’t, but the dashboard did. The pole your friend ran into tore up the car terribly. I’m just surprised your scalp wasn’t cut up as much; the windshield took a lot of damage.” She was staring intently at my head, and I felt self-conscious. “Don’t,” she pulled my hand away from covering the wounds. “It’s not that bad, anyhow, I’ve been much worse, honestly.” She sighed and looked at her wrist. A little silver watch sat there, thin and pristine. “It’s six in the morning, I have class,” her smile fell. “I’ll be back tonight, Bonnie.” She kissed my hand and left. It felt like she was a whisper. She felt so important for only a few minutes, but was gone as fast as she came.

   After her departure, I wasted time watching some hour-long infomercial about how bad my hair is and that I should use Revair, the newest and best hair care product on Earth ever in the history of humans, etc. It was also fifty-seven dollars. The rest of the time I watched television on the twenty-seven inch hanging from the ceiling. Some s****y Texas team was throwing their pointy balls at some other s****y Oklahoma team. What was the point in football?

   At about seven, I heard a knock at my door. I saw the tip of the Mohawk before his face, but I knew it was Freddie. He brought in a younger girl with him. She had light brown eyes and long ginger hair. Hope was sixteen or so, and Freddie’s younger, and only, sister. She waved at me. We had never been the best of friends, but she lived in Ramsey, a neighboring town, so our relationship never had the time to flourish.

   She sat down in the chair cattycornered to the bed and craned her neck to watch the TV. “Is this college football?” She asked excitedly.

   “No clue,” I answered.

   Freddie stood at the door. His face showed the upmost concern. “Are you feeling okay? Would you like anything? I can get Hope to grab a nurse.”

   I knew what that meant. He had to bring Hope along with him, but he wanted alone time with me. Hope understood, too. She simply stood and brushed past him, closing the door softly.

   Freddie lingered at the end of my bed. “You scared the living hell out of me, Bonnie.”

   I sighed, rolling my eyes. “I’m fine.”

   “You broke your leg. You’re not fine.”

   “I think I’ll live, okay, Mom.” I averted my eyes to the buildings outside the window. I didn’t have to snap at him. He was just being a good friend. It didn’t seem to hurt his feelings, though, because he walked over and sat beside me, hanging his legs over the side of the bed. He took my hand and caressed it with his thumbs. “I didn’t know if you were going to make it,” He whispered, bringing my hand to his lips and letting it reside there. “I don’t know what I’d do if you…”

   “And I don’t know what I’d do without you.” I looked back to him and sat up a little more, my neck throbbing.

   Freddie dropped my hand and hugged me tightly. I could feel his quick breathing roll over my ear. “I just love you so much. Why did you let him drive you?”

   “It’s not like he informed me that he was a murderous driver.”

   And that’s when Freddie pulled back, but ever so slightly. His lips were just a space away, and he must have thought that it was the right time to plant one on me, so, of course, he did. How are you supposed to react to that? I didn’t want to be awkward about it, and his left hand was on the back of my head, pulling me into the kiss, so I just kissed back. His lips were so soft, and terribly sweet. His fingers weaved through my hair. I could feel something wet between our cheeks and I barely opened one of my eyes to see that Freddie was crying. It was a wee bit creepy, causing me to pull away from him. He blinked, realizing what we had just shared. He stood up and smoothed down his jeans. “Okay… um…” Freddie began to play with the tips of his hair when he turned to look at me. “Yeah… so… we should do that more often.”

   I closed my eyes. How could I say this without being a complete a*****e? “Freddie, you know that can’t happen.” He became suddenly angry. “Why?”

   I shook my head. “You know why, Freddie.” How about, you’re my best friend? Or, even better, you are male? The best, though, this one I enjoy, is that you are Robert’s best friend. “I cannot do this with you again. It failed so miserably the first time, why do you think it’s even possible now?”

   He scoffed. “Were you not there, what, three seconds ago? That’s why! Are you f*****g serious, Bonnie? There’s been something between us ever since you left me for-”

   My jaw dropped. How dare he mention her?