Disclaimer: I don't own anything, guys. Not a thing. Except for Saxton, her I can take credit for.
The tune of a Spanish guitar and a soft, melodic voice filled my little apartment.
Oh, Maria, Maria
She fell in love in East LA
To the sounds of the guitar, yeah
Played by Carlos Santana.
"No!" I shouted, more frustrated than I ever remembered being in my life. "It's not the right song!"
Two hours. Two hours wasted! The bloody song would not get out of my head! It was upbeat, fun, clearly a dance song, and had a Spanish sound to it. What was it called?! This song was going to be the death of me.
It didn't really help that I couldn't remember any of the lyrics. I think they were all in Spanish….so that could be a problem since I was hopeless when it came to the Spanish language. After 3 years of Spanish in high school, I gave up. I had only learned how to say "I don't know, sorry." "May I go to the bathroom please?" and "My eyes are on fire because your face is very ugly."
That last one got me into a whole lot of trouble. My friends that could speak Spanish thought it would be funny to have me tell that to my teacher. They told me it was a compliment. Jerks. I had to write a 200 word apology. IN SPANISH! Did I mention that my Spanish teacher hated me? She did.
It's okay though, I got her back. She never specified that the words had to be different, so my letter was pretty easy to write.
Me llamo Saxton,
Lo ciento Seniora porque yo soy muy estupido. No habla espaniol bueno. No habla espaniol nada. Lo ciento Seniora porque yo soy muy estupido. No habla espaniol bueno. No habla espaniol nada. Lo ciento Seniora porque yo soy muy estupido. No habla espaniol bueno. No habla espaniol nada. Lo ciento Seniora porque yo soy muy estupido. No habla espaniol bueno. No habla espaniol nada. Lo ciento Seniora porque yo soy muy estupido. No habla espaniol bueno. No habla espaniol nada. Lo ciento Seniora porque yo soy muy estupido. No habla espaniol bueno. No habla espaniol nada. Lo ciento Seniora porque yo soy muy estupido. No habla espaniol bueno. No habla espaniol nada…
Anyway, you get the point. I reached the required amount of words, and she couldn't really do anything about it because I followed the directions. Sucker. But, that is how my time in Spanish went. I failed, got in trouble, failed, got in trouble, and failed again. And this song was bringing those memories of failure back to me! Gah! What the hell is that song called?
I settled back down to try and figure it out. Okay Google, don't fail me now! I quickly typed in Spanish dance songs 2012. Apparently Banano00 had the same question as I did because BAM! Right there on Yahoo! Answers was: "Name of this popular Spanish dance song?"
"Come on Banano00! Get me my answer." I muttered, scrolling down to see the answers. "Alright, Ai Se Eu Te Pego, I hope you're the right song."
I pulled up YouTube and typed in the song by Michael Telo, clicked on the link, and sat back as it buffered.
"Please be the right song. Please be the right song. Please be the right song. Please be the right….dammit."
I sighed and cleared the search bar.
"I give up, okay? Are you happy? You win! I hate you!" I yelled out, tilting my head back and shaking my fist up at the ceiling.
I walked around my living room, telling all of my possessions how I felt about them and the fact that they couldn't tell me what song I was thinking of.
"Lamp, I hate you."
"Couch, I hate you."
"Window, I hate you."
"Guitar, I hate you."
"Ukulele, I hate you."
"T.V., I hate you."
I lay on the floor, face down.
"Rug, I hate you." I mumbled, face pressed into the area rug in my living room.
I lifted my head slightly and let it fall back down, hitting my forehead against the rug covered floor.
"Hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate."
This became my mantra as I lay on the floor, slowly bashing my head against the floor and losing more brain cells by the second. Who cares? I was a failure. A big, huge, whopping failure! I continued to mutter my new mantra, punctuating each word with a bang of my head on the floor.
I yelped and tried to grasp onto the rug when I suddenly felt myself being lifted up.
"What the fu…." I was flipped around in the grip of my assailant, only to see two dark brown eyes smiling back at me.
"Holy crap dude, you scared the crap outta me!" I said, relaxing in the grip of my best bud Embry. "What's wrong with you? Didn't your mama ever tell you not to scare poor, unsuspecting girls?"
"What's wrong with me? I walk in to find you lying on the floor, hitting your head repeatedly, and I'm the one with something wrong? I don't think so." He smirked at me.
"Whatever man, I was just trying to even out our intellectual playing field. Let's face it, I'm way too smart for you." I stuck my tongue out at him, grinning.
His eyes zeroed in on my tongue.
"Put that thing away Saxton. Now." He growled out, meeting my eyes now.
I grinned even bigger.
"Nope. Make me." I challenged, and stuck my tongue out at him again.
It all happened so fast that I was too disoriented to react right away. Embry had me pinned on the ground, knees holding my arms down, sitting on my upper thighs to still my legs.
"Hey!" I yelled, a little alarmed now. There was only one thing he did when he got me into this position. "Don't even think about i….STOP!"
With his hands free, he started to tickle me. Mercilessly! His fingers dug into my sides as I tried to thrash around and arch my back. Anything to get this dumb ass off of me! I twisted and turned, trying to lift my arms and throw my legs around. He was just too damn heavy!
"Em, Embry, OKAY!" I managed to choke out between all the laughter.
He stopped and let me catch my breath for a second.
"What was that, Sax? Who wins? Who is the intellectually superior one in the room?" He gave me this sickeningly sweet smile that made me want to punch him in the face.
I couldn't give in that easily. I knew I would have hell to pay, but really? He thought I'd give up that fast? No way bro, not a chance.
"Wow Emy-cakes, you've been reading that dictionary I got you for Christmas, haven't you? Big words you used there! I'm so proud!" And then I returned the sickly sweet smile with one of my own.
Embry shook his head, a look of mock sadness on his beautiful face.
"Alright Sax, guess we'll just have to do this the hard way." He sighed, giving me his best look of regret.
"Bring it on Emy-poo. Do your worst. I'll never cra….AH!" His hands dug into my sides once again, even harder this time. He was taking no prisoners.
"Stop! Stop! Stop! Red…haha….red light! Hahaha, oh fuck! Em! Okay, Oh…..haha…kay! You win, you win!" I squealed out, thrashing around like a crazy person.
"What the hell is going on in here?"
We both froze. And then looked to the door way where a very angry, red faced Olivia stood. Her arms were crossed, eyes narrowed into a glare, and foot tapping an irritated beat in front of her.
"Uh…." Embry mumbled, not really sure what to say to his fuming girlfriend.
He quickly recovered and stood up, offering his hand to me. I looked at it and then stuck my tongue out at him, opting to stand up on my own. I decked him in the shoulder once I was back on my own two feet and walked past Miss Angry-Pants and into my kitchen.
"Chill Liv, she just made a smart remark about my intelligence and I got back at her by tickling her. I won, by the way. She said it herself."
I could hear the grin in his voice as he said the last part.
"Shut it Embry! I'm going to win next time! Just you wait and see."
I grabbed three glasses from my cupboard and the lemonade from the fridge before making my way back to the living room where Embry and Olivia were now standing.
"That's the thing," Olivia said, glaring at me.
Oh no. This is not going to be good. That look said, I hate you. I want to kill you. You disgust me. I never want to see your face again. But I didn't expect the words that came out of her mouth.
"I don't want you to hang out with her anymore."
Silence. Pure. Fucking. Silence.
"Excuse me?" I said, completely shocked.
I looked over to Embry's face to see him staring at her with the same surprise apparent on his face.
"You heard me!" Olivia spat nastily. "I want you to stay away from him. And you! You are not to talk to her anymore. Got it?"
I stared at Embry, waiting for him to tell this bitch to fuck off. You can't just tell best friends of 15 years to stop hanging out. Instead, he tried to placate her. What?
"Baby, you know Sax and I are best friends. You can't ask that of me. She's important to me, you know that."
Uh, excuse me? Still waiting for you to go bat shit cray-cray on her ass.
"No. You're supposed to be my best friend and I'm supposed to be your best friend. That's how boyfriends and girlfriends are. So either you stop hanging out with her, or you stop being my boyfriend. What will it be?" She put her hand on her hip and pursed her lips, looking like the Grade-A bitch that she was.
"Hah! You don't know what you just threw away dumb ass." I thought. I couldn't wait for Embry too call her out on her shit and tell her to get the hell away from us. No one could tear Embry and I apart, no one.
"Okay baby. Okay."
My head snapped up to meet the shamed face of my best friend. Well, former best friend I guess.
"What?" I asked, trying to get him to look me in the face. "You're giving up our friendship for this spoiled little brat that thinks she should be the center of everyone's universe? Really?"
His eyes met mine, and I could see the sadness in them.
"I'm sorry Sax. I'm so sorry." He said, his voice quiet and low.
"No. That's Saxton Stelling to you. Only my friends call me Sax. You gave that up the moment you picked -boobs over me." I bit back.
I could feel the ache in my chest and the tears in my eyes, but I would not show weakness in front of this bitch. I turned to her.
"I hope you have a wonderful rest of the day. People should just know that you, you are the center of everything. They shouldn't even breathe unless you tell them they can. Everyone should know to keep you happy and make your wants and wishes the priority. Embry certainly learned that pretty quickly. Have a great rest of your lives living in Olivia land! Now get the hell out of my apartment and don't come back unless you want to be escorted out by the cops."
I grabbed Olivia's purse and Embry's keys off of the counter. I calmly walked over to my open window and chucked them out. I was only on the first floor of my house, but it still felt good.
"Hey!" Olivia screamed, running out the door and after her precious purse. Probably had her diet pills in there or something.
Embry gave me one last dejected look and stepped towards me. Uh-uh, no way ass hat. I took a step back.
"Ba-bye now." I waved and gave him my biggest fake smile.
He sighed, hung his head more, and walked out of my apartment. I shut the door behind him and walked into my room. I needed to hit the gym. I grabbed a pair of wraps from the top drawer and changed into some basketball shorts and a sports bra, throwing a zip up hoodie over it. I grabbed my iPod and sneakers and waited for about 10 minutes. Didn't want to run into the dynamic-duo-of-dumbassery.
After the appropriate amount of time, I walked out of my apartment and jogged down the three flights of stairs. I threw open the doors and walked out into the warm, humid air.
I walked down the block to the studio that I trained at. I shoved the doors open and walked straight to my favorite red punching bag. A chorus of greetings rang out to me.
"Hey Sax!"
"Hey girl!"
"How's it going Sax?"
"Dude! Sax! How's it hanging?"
I gave my other friends training a little head nod and then set about wrapping my hands. I wasn't in the mood to deal with people. I had steam to blow. My best friend just dumped me…was that even possible? Can you dump a friend? Sure felt like it. He listened to his bitchy girlfriend over me, and I still didn't know what the song stuck in my head was! Fuck this.
I finished up wrapping my hands and turned to the bag. I would bring a picture of Miss Priss tomorrow and tape it to the bag I decided. Nothing like a bitch with a bad attitude and an unpleasantly nasally voice to motivate me to hit the bag harder. I took off my hoodie and flung it to the side. Anger was my friend, my comfort. I was not going to let anyone hurt me. Not even my best friend. Especially not my best friend.
With that last thought, I set about beating the crap out of my favorite red punching bag. The steady pounding of my fists and elbows connecting with the bag blanked my mind and allowed some clarity to settle over me. Tomorrow was a new day. Tomorrow was a new me. Tomorrow would be better.