Beautiful Bedlam (13 page)

“She’s at a friend’s house.” Sienna replied and dumped her backpack on to the floor.

“Meredith and Cora?”

“I’m not sure. They should be around.”

“Right, and your dads at work and your mom’s probably holding a glass to the other side of the wall.” He smirked as she laughed softly at his comment.

“Hey do you still paint?” he asked suddenly remembering some of the paintings she did a couple of years back. He jumped up and skimmed his fingers against all of Sienna’s favorite novels on her bookshelf that ranged from the Penguin classics to the Hunger Games trilogy books to Khaled Hosseini novels.

“No,” she looked at him surprised that he remembered.

“I barely get time to paint these days. I can’t believe you remembered.” She said staring contently in to his eyes.

“Well, I aim to please.” He winked at her, almost shrugging off the intense tension between them. He always felt tense, almost on edge whenever he was around Sienna and he couldn’t quite understand why. He instantly snapped her out of dreamy doe-eyed daze when he threw her wardrobe doors open.

“What are you doing?” she asked irritably and shut it quickly.

“Looking for my shrine.” He answered with a wicked gleam in those dark eyes that continued to kindle and add fuel to the burning fire that had sparked in her stomach. “
Hilarious
.” She retorted sarcastically. It astonished her how his substantially gigantic ego managed to surpass the realms of reality and knew no bounds whatsoever and exceeded all limits of morality and actuality.

“Turn around. I need to change out of my gym clothes.” She informed him swiftly.

“But I thought our purely platonic bond transcended all meaning and worth of any sexual-“ he began saying patronizingly before she quickly cut him off.

“TURN AROUND!” she ordered. He complied immediately. 

“Someone’s testy today, but then again it is the second week of the month so we all know what that means.” He said wryly. His back was turned but Sienna could literally feel his smirk.

“
You know my menstrual cycle?”
she exclaimed astounded and bewilderedly as she slipped in to a pair of jeans.

“Believe me, the fact that I know that grosses me out just as much as it does to you.” He replied disgustedly and shuddered then did the cross sign over his chest as if to ward his thoughts off from evil…such as Aunt Flo apparently.

“What’s this?” he asked as he noticed the bulletin board on her bedroom wall filled with postcards and pictures of various different cities in the world.

“Now all you need is a yarn of red wool, some newspaper clippings, preferably some blood samples and we have ourselves Haven Falls’ very own Dexter. How very serial killer of you! I admit. I am disappointed you don’t have a picture of me pinned up here,” he added as an afterthought.

“Believe me if I suddenly went all rogue serial killer, you’d be first on my hit list.” She scoffed and pulled on her green sweater.

“You didn’t look did you?” she asked as she walked towards him.

“No, of course not. What kind of pervert do you take me for?” he asked defensively. “Oh, sorry.” She apologized guiltily.

“Nice mirror by the way.” He said and nodded towards the mirror on the wall that gave a perfect view of where she had previously stood and disrobed.

“Logan!” she reprimanded.

“I’m kidding.” He said flippantly and crossed his arms as he stared at her bulletin board.

“Are these all the places you want to visit?” he asked softly.

“One day. I figure I should start with the states, go to New York, LA, Washington, and Las Vegas. See Africa, travel Asia but my heart has always longed to see Europe; London, Paris, Rome, Florence, Venice, Prague, Dubrovnik, Dublin. It’s a nice dream, isn’t it?” she said in a soft almost whispering confiding tone as stared wistfully at these beautiful pictures she had pinned to the board. ‘
For a girl without a penny to her name
,’ she added to herself in her mind. Logan turned to look at her and found her completely lost in these images, her eyes longing to be somewhere else, anywhere else. He surprised himself more than anyone else when the next words came out of his mouth.

“Maybe some day we’ll-“

“Sienna, door open!” her mom yelled from downstairs. “You should just listen to her and put her out of her misery. She probably thinks I’m deflowering you.” He said nonchalantly and took a few much needed steps away from Sienna before he ended up doing something stupid like trying to make out with his childhood best friend for the second time that day then opened his chemistry textbooks and took out his calculator. Sienna blushed and rolled her eyes at his cocky blasé attitude. “We’re really doing chemistry?” she asked incredulously. “Oh yeah, this little crayon has a point to make.” He replied amusedly.

They actually ended up spending all afternoon answering questions on molar quantities and concentrations of solutions. Her phone vibrated multiple times as Rose tried to call her. Sienna felt guilty for ignoring her friend
again
but selfishly wanted to enjoy an afternoon with Logan all to herself, even if it was spent doing Chemistry. Much to her surprise Logan was not the average Joe, sometimes struggling in the math department student anymore. Instead he simultaneously enraged and exhilarated her with his exceptional academic skills. It just goes to show the difference between fancy private prep schools and public schools. It was just so not fair.
She
was supposed to be the smart one! Now he had taken that away from her too. What happened to the good old days when jocks were complete and utter meatheads and not closeted nerds? She looked up to see Meredith at the door, her unruly frizzy hair pouring over her shoulders, her arms crossed over her freckled chest as she scrutinized Logan.

“Meredith, you’re looking lovely as ever!” Logan said sarcastically.

“Oh bite me Jackson, save your charms for my stupid little sister. She’s the only one dumb enough to fall for them. It’s late. Daddy won’t like it when I tell him you had a boy over at night.” She spat out venomously without taking her eyes off her sister.

Logan paused momentarily, his eyes wide with shock. Sienna mirrored his expression appalled by Meredith’s behavior. She was even more confused with the fact that Meredith had brought up their MIA father.

“Night? It’s only six o clock!” Sienna cried back. Logan gathered his belongings and headed for the door before Sienna could say a word let alone apologize for her sister. “Ignore her, she’s only bitter ‘cos she still holds a torch for Jake after all this time.” He said smiling innocently.

“I’ll pick you up in the morning.” He added with his trademark smirk and mischievous wink before walking out causing Sienna’s heart to flutter despite being in this suddenly outraged mood.

“God! Meredith, what’s your problem?” Sienna shouted as soon as she heard Logan close the front door behind him.

“My problem? My problem is that you’re an idiot if you can’t see what kind of a guy Logan Jackson is! He’s only after one thing and one thing only, its time to wake up and smell the coffee!” she shouted back infuriated by her sister’s naivety. Her sister was still young and stupid, Meredith knew guys like Logan, the tall handsome jocks who screwed girls over and left them brokenhearted. He may be nice for now but when Logan grows up, Meredith knew he’d be exactly like his brother Jake. Meredith had hated Logan since they were children, it all started when they were seven years old and Logan said she looked like Miss Piggy and Logan’s older brother Jake whom Meredith had a huge crush on at the time couldn’t stop laughing. Then the name stuck in middle school and even in the beginning of high school. Logan always felt bad and apologized on numerous occasionsbut Meredith never did quite forgive him or look at him the same way since then
.

“You are not going to see him again, do you understand?” she warned.

“What are you my
mom
? What do you care? We’re just friends! He has no feelings for me whatsoever!” Sienna exclaimed fervently and fell back against her pillows on her bed, her mind already drifting off to sweet thoughts of a dimpled smile and entrancing dark eyes. 

“Well, everybody knows that
idiot
. It’s you who is stupid enough to fall for him.”

“What are you even talking about?” Sienna asked slowly and looked at her sister with what she hoped was the most impassive nonchalant look on her face.

“Fall for who? What? Him? He’s so-“ she stuttered to no avail. She stopped short of her words as she saw the look of a mixture of disdain and pity on her eldest sibling’s face. “Do you ever get tired of lying?” Meredith snapped and shook her head contemptuously. Okay, seriously, did
everybody
know? Was it that obvious? It was as if there was a giant neon red arrow pointing towards her with the caption ‘not so secretly in love with the local bad boy, small town heartthrob and oldest childhood friend Logan Jackson’.

Maybe her deepest darkest secret wasn’t the world’s best-kept secret after all. Sienna felt her heart hammer against her chest, the sounds resonating deep within her almost like the final sounds of nails in to the coffin. She felt her cheeks prickle as Meredith leaned against the doorframe smirking clearly delighted with Sienna’s evident discomfort and humiliation.

“Is that...is that dad?” Sienna asked as she heard a car pull up to the driveway. The girls jumped to the window and were met with imminent immense disappointment when they saw it was just Annie being dropped off by her friend’s mom. The sisters withdrew from the window. “Do you think he’ll come back?” Sienna asked quietly. “I don’t know, Sienna, will the sky rain down marshmallows? Will you ever grow a brain? Will anyone ever give a damn about what you have to say? Don’t ask stupid questions to which we all know the answers to.” Meredith spat out in a huff before leaving.

Sienna swallowed down her hurt and added it to the growing infestation of pain placed it in that beating glass jar of hers, concealed it shut and buried it deep under the filth and grime of her soul that no one cared to dig through. She didn’t blame them. Nobody likes to get their hands dirty, sometimes not even for the most hidden treasure and buried gold.

10.

Dinner at the Rivers household was awkward at best. The girls sat at the dinner table in silence, it wasn’t filled with its usual bustling of plates and cutlery, no bickering about washing the dishes, no attempt at trivial small talk. Instead, there was ample chewing, swallowing, gulping, head scratching, idle exchange of small glances and staring at the empty seat at the head of the table, the proverbial elephant in the room was practically trumpeting at them zealously. Her mother had that glazed look in her glistening hazel eyes as she cradled the wineglass in her hands as if it were here first newborn child. She rocked back and forth slightly, and murmured to herself incoherently in Spanish in between gulps of her elixir of survival. The girls didn’t say anything but they knew she was going through one of her moods again, and were sure to be well out of the way when Hurricane Maria struck. Sienna naturally got left with the dishes as her siblings managed to disappear one by one.

“You like that boy.” Maria slurred as she came up and stood behind Sienna after a few minutes.

“What? Logan? No, he and I are just friends.” Sienna replied instantly and shook her head as if it were the most ludicrous thing she had ever heard. Sienna began wiping the dishes with a dishcloth and faced her mother. Maria Rivers was an exceptionally beautiful woman with long glossy chocolate locks, big hazel eyes and an hourglass figure that women half her age would have given their left arm for. Even after four kids, Maria still turned heads but today she did
not
look like that. Her black mascara was running down her cheeks, her hair unwashed and she was still dressed in her black silky night robe presumably wearing the same clothes from the night before.

“He knows you love him,” she said amusedly as she took another gratifying gulp from her wineglass. She never took her eyes off her daughter. She took great pleasure in seeing that insufferable know-it-all squirm for once.

“If he wanted you, he would have made his move by now. You know that, don’t you?” she remarked with a huge smirk. Sienna just looked at her mother placidly and said nothing as she continued to wipe the plates.

“What? No response?” Maria retorted incredulously and cackled.

“You know when I was your age, I had just come to America and in my first week of high school I had all the boys wrapped around my little finger.”  She said proudly and cocked her hip out with her hand resting easily on it. It wasn’t that Sienna had no response, in fact she had several comeback lines ready and waiting in her head, but she decided against playing this game her mother always concocted. She knew the outcome. “I’m sure you did, mom.” Sienna sighed and resisted the urge to roll her eyes as her mother was surely going to dive right in to another one of her glory day stories back when she wasn’t tied down by life, meaning her marriage and children.

“You know when I was your age, I used to have a friend just like Logan. Tall, dark, handsome, filthy rich and filthy intentions.” She said with a devilish faraway look in her eyes almost as if she were recalling a memory. Sienna pulled a disgusted face and put the dishes away in the cupboards.

“Most mothers would have been terrified to see their daughter running upstairs with a boy like that, but me, I did not need to worry.” She chuckled as she glared at Sienna knowingly.