You Deserve Better
Chapter 8
"I just can't believe they're related. I mean, Lily is so mean and Willis is really--" Kari began to say.
"Nice." Yolei finished the sentence for her. It was true, Yolei had noticed it too. Lily was really snobby and mean to those she thought 'beneath her' and acted better than everyone else. Willis, on the other hand was nice, down to earth and accepted everyone, Yolei had even seen him have a conversation with a boy that, by Lily and her friends, had been labeled a 'geek'.
"Exactly. At least Willis doesn't act like a-Glue."
Yolei looked away from the computer screen. "What?"
"Glue. I need glue, this thing won't stay down." Kari said.
Yolei dug around in the desk drawer until she found a glue stick. It turned out that their Geography project was to be presented the next day. Obviously, they weren't done and rushed over to Yolei's apartment to finish it, making a mess of the living room in the process. The curse of procrastination.
Kari, being the more balanced and organized of the two, was arranging the project on several pieces of bristle board, making sure that all notes that were needed were at hand. Maps, notes without page numbers, and other random things that needed to be organized were handed to Kari. Yolei, being the computer whiz that she is, spent most of her time on the computer, she typed out research and notes and print things off the Internet that could easily score them some bonus points. She edited, spell-checked, and grammar-checked before and after she printed it off.
For most of the work being done the night before the due date, the project was looking fairly well. Aside from the fact that one of Kari's maps would stay glued to the bristle board, and the phone kept ringing every five minutes everything was going smoothly.
"Where is everybody?" A voice asked. It was Mantarou, Yolei's older brother.
"Great." Yolei muttered sarcastically.
"Where's mom and dad?" He asked, grabbing a carton of milk out of the fridge and drinking from it.
"Down in the store. Why?"
He walked over to Kari and Yolei. "I need some money. What are you doing?" He asked, looking at the computer screen.
"Would you please-" Kari said trying to pull a piece of bristle board out from under Mantarou's feet. "Get off."
"Oh, sorry." He said stepping off of the bristle board Kari had been working on for almost an hour. "What is all this stuff?"
"It's for our geography project." Yolei said. "And we're trying to work on it, so if wouldn't mind getting lost, it would really help."
"Alright, alright, I know where I'm not wanted. I'll see you later Yolei."
"Bye." Yolei said, not bothering to look away from the computer screen until she heard the front door shut.
"He is so annoying."
"Hey, it's staying now." Kari said. Yolei looked over, the corner of the map was staying down now, Kari brushed away a little dirt that had come off of Mantarou's shoe. "Perfect."
Yolei laughed. "You're crazy."
"As long as it doesn't pop up again I'm happy." Kari laughed and grabbed another piece of bristle board to start gluing stuff again. "Do you think Willis is going to the dance?"
"I don't know." Yolei said. "What about TK?"
"That's not what I'm saying, Yolei. I never said I didn't want to go with TK, I'm just wondering what you think. Do you think he'll go?"
"Maybe." Yolei replied. "If he does, I'll bet you anything that he'll go with one of Lily's friends."
"Probably. " Kari said as she picked up another map to glue onto the bristle board. "What do you think we're going to get on our project."
"We're definitely going to fail."
Kari laughed. "No kidding."
"I cannot believe we actually passed." Yolei said as she went to open her locker. Despite the fact that they did most of the work the night before, they managed to pass with a B-.
"Well, we could have done better." Kari said, the evaluation sheet in her hand. " We got a two out of five for eye contact."
"Well, I can't keep eye contact with twenty-three people at a time." Yolei said, shoving her math book in her bag.
"Neither can I." Kari said. "Voice clarity/speed/volume, four out of six."
"Not too bad." Yolei shrugged as she attempted to fit her science binder into her bag.
"Not bad at all, the group that did Mexico only got a two."
"Well, they also got an A Kari." Yolei said as she closed her locker carefully so the mess that remained inside didn't jump out at her.
"Good point." Kari said, as they started to walk down the hall. "I talked to Nicole in my art class, Willis is going to the dance with one of Lily's friends."
"Which one?"
"Miki Verbinski."
"The quiet one?" They exited the school.
"Yeah, with the short hair, Lily put them together. "
"Isn't that your mom over there?" Yolei asked, opening a small bag of chips she had got from the vending machine at lunch.
"What?" Kari asked, confused. Yolei pointed out the car. "I told her I was walking. Oh well, I'll see you at the dance later."
"Meet me at the vending machine." Yolei called out as Kari ran to the car.
Yolei gave her self one final look in the mirror, of course every time she went for that final look she found something wrong with her reflection. Lipstick on her teeth, a hair out of place, the list was endless. Yolei's sister did her hair, a complicated hairstyle that she copied out of a beauty magazine. Yolei complained about the bobby pins pinching and poking her head and it took her about two minutes to ruin it by moving the bobby pins causing the hair on one side of her head to be up, the other side down. After a second attempt at a fancy hairstyle, Yolei got frustrated, gave up and left her hair down. Her make-up was simple, a coat of mascara and a lip gloss Yolei kept licking off because she said it tasted good, causing her to re-apply every two minutes.
Ken was picking her up at six forty-five the dance started at seven. So Yolei kept her eyes on the clock, six-fifteen, six- sixteen, six-seventeen, "A watched pot never cooks." Her sister repeated as Yolei continued to state her theory that time was not moving. At twenty after she looked at every clock in the house and twenty-three after claimed they were all broken.
When the doorbell finally rang Yolei had started to get nervous. Although she told herself she looked fine she couldn't help thinking about how Lily would show up in a dress that cost at least three times as much as the one Yolei was wearing.
Yolei opened the door, any negative thoughts she had about her appearance, the dance, that whole night were abandoned when she saw Ken. He was wearing black pants, a black button up shirt and a navy tie that Yolei noticed matched his hair. She remembered that she had Ken, the one thing that Lily wanted. "You look beautiful." He gave her a kiss on the cheek, Yolei blushed not only because of what he said but because she knew her sisters were watching her. But she didn't care what her sisters were thinking or what Lily would think when they arrived, Ken thought she was beautiful, that was enough for her.
They arrived on time, it didn't take long for them to get to the school because Ken had his own car. Since Yolei had promised to meet Kari at the vending machine they headed there first.
Ken stared absentmindedly out the window, watching for any sign of Kari or TK. "Damn it." Yolei said in an irritated voice as she hit the machine with her fist, Ken looked at her, confused. "The machine ate my money. "
Ken laughed and walked over. He pushed the coin return button, it didn't work. "Here." He gave her a few coins. "Now wait a minute, then put the money in." Yolei did what he said. "Go ahead."
"Okay, A1." Yolei muttered as she pressed the buttons. She got her chips.
"Press the coin return three times." Ken said. Yolei gave him a skeptical look but did what he said. In the coin return slot, she got back all the money they had just put in.
"How did you do that?" Yolei asked, as she scooped up the change. "I must have lost at least fifty dollars to this machine."
"I took a computer class here the summer before fifth grade. Mr. Guerrero showed me how to do it. "
Lily walked past them with her date, she cast a cold glare at Yolei but she didn't notice because Kari had walked up with TK. "Sorry, we're late." Tk said.
"That's all right." Yolei said.
They all went to the gym. Wall to wall, there were decorations, everything in the gym seemed to be either pink, red or white. The lights were dimmed giving all the white streamers and balloons a blue tint, there were tons of balloons and every once in a while one of popped. There were tables with light purple tablecloths, there were tiny candles in the middle of each table but none of them were lit.
"They really went all out this year, didn't they?." TK muttered.
"Yeah." Yolei nodded in agreement.
After a few dances, the four of them sat down at a table. When Willis and Miki entered, Willis gave a small smile and Yolei smiled back, still listening to Ken's story. Willis and Miki went to the table where Lily, Justine and Kali were sitting with their dates.
"Let' s go get something to eat." Kari said to Yolei.
"Alright."
There were all sorts of snacks, chips, fruit, brownies, cream puffs and there were all sorts of drinks; pop, juice, milk, punch.
"Punch looks good." Kari said.
"Keep in mind, it has probably already been spiked." Yolei reminded her.
"Good point." Kari said and reached for a can of Pepsi. After filling two small plates to the top with as much brownies, cupcakes, cream puffs, and chocolates as the plates could hold, they headed back to the table.
Yolei looked at her watch, it was quarter after nine. The dance ended at ten. Kari opened her second Pepsi as Mimi joined them. "Having fun, girls?" She laughed as she sat down in an empty chair beside Yolei absentmindedly wondered if Mimi had any of the punch or not.
"Where's your date?" Kari asked.
"Somebody spiked the punch, he had a little too much, his friends are taking him home. Where's yours?" She asked, taking a cream puff off of Yolei's plate. Yolei had no objection, she was stuffed anyway.
"TK went to go talk to someone on the basketball team, Ken went with him."
"Where's Sora and Tai?" Mimi asked, looking around as if Tai and Sora were going to some out of nowhere as she said that. "I haven't seen them."
"They had other plans, I can't remember the name of the restaurant." Kari replied.
Sora had mentioned something to Yolei, she was about to say the name of the restaurant but someone tapped her on the shoulder. She turned around.
"Yolei, can we talk to you for a minute?" It was Miki Verbinski, one of Lily's friends, and Willis. Why would they want to talk to me? Yolei thought. "Sure, I guess so."
Yolei got up from her chair. "Be back in a moment." Yolei told Kari and Mimi, they looked just as confused as Yolei was.
Miki and Willis led Yolei to an empty table. They all sat down, Willis picked up some empty plates and pop cans that were on the table and threw them in the garbage.
Yolei looked at Willis and Miki, who were looking at each other as if to say 'You do it' "Look, I'm sure you didn't call me over her to name a winner of your staring contest so could you, please, tell me what this is about?"
"All right." Miki started. "Lily has this plan and it involves all of us, pretty much. All of us are playing some kind of role in this-"
"Sorry to interrupt, but what is this about?" Yolei asked.
"Lily." Willis said. "She wants Ken back."
"Basically, we're all doing something but it's all for the same purpose-" Miki said.
"To keep you and Ken apart long enough for Lily to move in. Believe me, this is not part of Lily's plan; Us, telling you like this but we wanted to tell you."
"So you could stop Lily from doing whatever she plans on doing. She never told us exactly what, just to keep you apart. Justine and Kali were supposed to do something to get Ken away from you. They got some people from around school outside to hang out and eventually they persuaded someone to go get Ken and Kari's date, TK. They thought it would suspicious if only Ken came." Miki told her, and Willis started from where she left off.
"Once Ken and Tk were outside, Lily joined everyone else and sent us in here to distract you. Not like this, of course. I was supposed to take over where Ken left you and Miki was supposed to cause a scene."
Yolei could not believe what she was hearing. She didn't believe a word. This was probably something Lily was making them do for a laugh. "Is this why you came to the restaurant last night?" Willis nodded.
"She's been planning this for days." Miki said. "If you don't believe us, go find her, she probably had Ken alone now."
"Yolei, we don't want to see you get hurt." Willis said.
Yolei got up and pushed her chair in. She felt like laughing, and the same time, crying. Was Lily just trying to be cruel? Was Lily expecting Yolei to take this seriously and embarrass herself for her own amusement? Did she hate Yolei that much? They were trying so hard to be convincing, they thought the story through.
Of course as Yolei walked back to the table, she began to think differently about it. It did seem to make sense and Lily did seem to want Ken back. When she got to the table, instead of sitting down, she looked at Kari, "Did Ken and Tk, by any chance, mention where they were going?"
"No, some friends came and got them. Why?" Kari replied.
"No reason." Yolei said. "I'm going for a walk, just around the halls. I'll be back in a little while."
"Okay, I'll see you in a little bit." Kari said but by the time she replied, Yolei was already walking away.
Yolei looked out the first window she saw, she looked to see if she could see any sign of anybody outside. Nothing. She walked down the hall a little bit, she could hear the soft clicking of her heels on the floor. Yolei looked outside again, she saw people. Justine and Kali were there, she could just make out TK amongst the people. Then she got a little worried, she didn't see Ken or Lily. Were they telling the truth?
Yolei walked through that one hallway, back and forth, she found it sort of weird to be in the school after it was closed. She walked upstairs, to the second floor. Was she really looking for Ken and Lily? Did she really believe what they had said? No, of course not. Until she did find them, exactly like Willis and Miki said. Close together, alone, they weren't kissing but they were talking, faces close, she couldn't hear them, she didn't need to. Yolei looked away, tears forming. She couldn't even look at them. What was she supposed to do? For a moment, she froze. She wasn't the type to walk over there and tell him off, she didn't have the guts for that. Of course, she couldn't stay there.
Yolei started to run, she wasn't sure where she was going. She didn't care, actually. She didn't care that she had just ditched her friends, she didn't care that she left her jacket and purse back there, she didn't care what people thought of her after running out like that. But she cared about him. She always had, but now she didn't want to.
It was just a game . Yolei told herself. Something they thought up when they were bored, a joke. They just happened to pick me for their prank. Yolei should have noticed it right when it started. Should have saw it from the beginning. She should have known something like this would happen. He didn't care about her, he was leading her on. He was only trying to get Lily back. He was only using me, Yolei thought, and I let him. Well, he got what he wanted. Lily.
Yolei stopped. She was running but she wasn't getting anywhere. She was at the swings, quite far from the school, but nor away from him. They seemed to always end up here, at these swings. But not this time, it was just her here now. She sat down, facing the opposite direction of the school. She heard something behind her.
"Yolei?" Ken. What could he possibly want? Yolei thought.
"Go away." Her voice was weak and cracked, she wanted to cry but she couldn't, not in front of him. Letting Ken see her cry was like giving him a reward for winning his game. Look, you used her and you hurt her.
"Can I talk to you?" He asked, making no movements to walk towards her or away from her.
Yolei wiped her eyes with her bare arm, a black smear appeared on her wrist, mascara. "Go away."
"Whatever you think you saw-" Ken began.
Yolei regained her voice long enough to reply. "I know what I saw." She said, then wiped her face off again, tears and mascara, a mixture on her wrist. She looked at him. "You were just using me."
"That's insane, Yolei. I would never-"
"But you did, Ken. You used me, to get her back."
"If I wanted Lily, would I be here?" Ken asked.
Yolei didn't say anything, he was right. If this was all a game, if he wanted Lily, why was he here? Why was he here, trying to talk to her? Why wasn't he with Lily?
"Look, I don't know what they're telling you, I don't know what you saw, what you think you saw but you haven't heard my side of this." Ken paused, waiting to hear something from Yolei. She remained silent. "I did care about Lily. I did, and she broke my heart. And you were there, you always had been really. The one time before that when I lost my cool, you put me back in focus. Do you remember that? Since Sam, I didn't have someone that I could depend on, and then you were there."
Still, Yolei said nothing.
"When Lily and I broke up, you were there. You said to me that I deserved better. And you know what, you were right. Lily came to me the other day, she wanted me back. Do you know what I told her?" Ken asked, taking a seat on the swing beside her.
Yolei shook her head, she wiped her tears on her arm again.
"I told her that I had found a better girl than her, I told her I had feelings for you."
"You said that?" Yolei asked, she was no longer crying. A small smile crept to her lips, she found this somehow odd. Ken would rather be with her than be with Lily. It just seemed that if most people were given a choice, they would have chosen perfection over something less.
Ken nodded. "Lily told me that I could do better than this, I could find a better girl. But I couldn't, it doesn't get much better than this. "