I wimped out. As soon as we got upstairs and he kissed me, I started thinking about Matt. And when I thought of Matt my thoughts went from him attacking me to the fight and then back to reason the fight happened. I told him that my housekeeper went in my room at midnight and if I wasn't there, she told me she would call the cops. And I didn't even wait for the response, I just ran out of the room and got as far away from the house as I could.
When I got home, I collapsed on the bed, hoping I wouldn't have a hangover even though I knew I would. I don't even know how much I drank, and I can't really hold my liquor. I heard the phone start to ring, but I really wasn't in any condition to answer it, so I just let it ring. That's the last thing I remember from the weekend.
As I walked into English class, I knew that Hannah would ask me what happened. I dreaded this since I woke up this morning.
"Hannah, hey." I said, I knew that she would get pissed if I didn't say hello, and I really did not need to hear her whine this morning.
"Jackie, you are aware that you're telling me everything that happened upstairs with Jason. I mean, leave out the details, but let's go, start talking!" she said, practically shouting it.
"Nothing happened. We kissed for a bit and then I had to leave. So not story worthy." It was actually the truth, I just left out the mini-freak out I had.
"Jackie Burkhart! You haven't done anything with any guy since your date with Matt, two months ago. Jackie, your status is quickly going down. Marissa didn't even want me to bother inviting you because she didn't think you would show up."
"Screw her then. I really don't care anymore."
"That's becoming increasingly obvious. Jackie, you're wearing jeans. Mondays are not jean days, they're track pants or skirt days. Are you ok?"
"I just stopped following some stupid rule that we made up in fifth grade."
"Jackie, what the hell-"
Miss Zone, the teacher, walked into the classroom. "Ok class, today we are going to start a paper on The Lord of the Flies. You will each get an assigned partner and the two of you will start making your rough drafts today. The final paper will be due next Wednesday. Ok, our first pair is Tony and Alicia. Hannah, you'll be working with Audrey, Jackie, you'll be with Katie…"
Miss Zone kept talking, but I had to figure out who this person was. I was glad I didn't have to work with Hannah, she's so annoying lately.
"Jackie, I have the coolest partner ever. This is gonna be awesome. I love Audrey." Hannah said.
"Who's Katie?" I asked, I seriously couldn't find out who this girl is.
"Look for the blue hair. Then you've found her. Audrey, honey, come sit over here!"
Blue? Was she being serious? And as I looked around the room, I found out she was. I walked over to the corner and sat in the desk across from her. "Hi, I think we're partners for the project." I said. But she didn't respond. "Hello?" I waved my hand over the paper she was writing on, and she looked up.
"What?" she asked, taking the headphones she was listening to and putting them around her neck. She seemed really annoyed.
"Um, I guess you were listening to music. We have to write papers about the book and we were assigned as partners."
"Great."
Jackie looked at her, she knew that she knew her from somewhere.
"Yea, my hair is blue. Get over it." She said, noticing that I was staring at her.
"No, no. Um, I think I've met you before. Did- did you go out with Steven?"
"Hyde? Yea, for like 2 seconds. It was over in a week."
"Steven's not really the relationship type. I'm actually surprised it lasted a week."
"Well then, I'm not alone. You friends with him?"
"Yea, my ex is one of Steven's best friends, so when I was with Michael I saw him all the time. He's so sarcastic and mean, like whenever Michael mentioned us fooling around-"
"Can you please not say Michael and fooling around in the same sentence? Thanks."
"Why? Oh my god did you date Michael Kelso?"
"Michael? Kelso? No, never. He's way too pretty boy for me. My brother's name is Michael though, so it's just kinda gross."
"Oh, ok. Well, I guess I could call him Kelso, like everyone else. So how'd you meet Steven?"
"We had PE together, so we basically sat against the wall together. I think he noticed that I'm a leftie and um, he started talking about conspiracies and being left handed and I really think he was high."
"That sounds like Steven. He's definitely one of a kind."
"So how long have you liked him?"
"Excuse me?"
"Honey, your thing for Hyde is more obvious than Hannah's thing for Audrey."
The pencil I had been tapping against the desk flew onto the ground. "Hannah? She's straight, what are you talking about?"
"You see how she's sitting with both legs on the ground?" I nodded. "Well you know Tony, he sits in front of me, and he always says that he can see up that skirt whenever she has both legs on the ground. She's facing Audrey, fixing her hair, looking at her nails constantly flirting with her. I mean seriously, she sits across from Hannah and she's always looking at her, up her skirt. It's sad how obvious it is."
She was right. Everything made sense now, that's why Hannah was always talking about her, why she was so excited that they got partnered. "You are a genius. Even I couldn't figure that one out."
"I've got great gaydar. They'd make a cute couple."
"You just said cute. And you're right, they would."
"Just like I'm right about you and Hyde."
"Whatever. You're just crazy."
"Ok then. Oh, look at that, she's going in for the hand. They should go out, we should have one good couple to talk about. I could hang with them if they were dating."
"Maybe we should start on this project."
"Maybe you should live a little and do something fun."
"I do plenty of fun things. I just went to a party."
"Yea I heard about that. You left after like an hour though."
"Yea, well, something came up."
"Was it Jason Jr?"
"Oh my god!" I started cracking up. Donna never talked like that, she was always logical and mature about everything, almost to the point that we couldn't have a normal teenage girl conversation.
"I get it. Why you would want to leave." Katie said that like she actually could understand, like she was raped too.
"What are you talking about?"
"You wear that look on your face, like you wanna forget and go back to life before it, before the rape." She whispered the word 'rape' like she was ashamed of it, and that's how I knew she really could understand.
"Who- how old were you?"
"My mom's boyfriend, Rick. I was thirteen. You?"
"Matt Helton. A few months ago, on a date." I could feel the tears coming, but I knew that I couldn't cry in class. Katie said it so calmly, like it was nothing, and I couldn't say it without crying.
"Hey, it gets easier. Mine was 2 years ago, yours was a few months ago. I promise you'll feel better, be able to sleep with guys."
"You slept with a guy and you were ok? After how long?"
"I don't know. It's how I dealt with it, I slept with guys to make it easier."
"I tried that but I kept thinking about Matt."
"Well just give it time. If you um, you need to talk or whatever, you can talk to me. I mean, Hyde wouldn't exactly understand."
"Yea, I mean he's so sweet for trying to, but it just isn't the same as talking to another person like me. Here, write down your number."
"You know, my place isn't all that great so I'm usually not there. I usually stay at this guy Jay's house, here's his number."
"Is Rick living there?"
"You're a quick one."
"Why, didn't you tell your mom?"
"Did you?"
"No. I haven't seen my mom in a while."
"You lucky bitch."
That's basically how the rest of the class went, we talked about getting over it. I couldn't believe I had opened up to a blue haired punk who I knew for 20 minutes. Then the bell rang.
"So, you wanna start recovery?" Katie asked me.
"What do you mean?"
"Step one: have some fun. I have physics next and I'm failing. I say we walk out the door and go do anything but sit here all day."
"I don't know."
"You've never ditched before have you? What's the most thrilling thing you've ever done? Watched American Bandstand at 9?"
"Let's go."
We just walked out, no one stopped us, no one noticed. And that's the story of my first ditched class.