Beautiful Bedlam (20 page)

“You continue to push people away, you’re just going to end up alone.” He growled at her despondently.

“Good, it’s just the way I like it!” she replied adamantly her chest heaving with emotion.

“Fine! You and I, this friendship, no, let’s get real here, whatever the hell this
thing
we had was. It’s
over
! We’re done.” He yelled at her through the open window.

“Fine!” she shouted back at him irreverently and turned to leave.

“Wait!” he yelled and got out of his car suddenly slamming the door behind him and walked towards her with large heavy strides.
Oh great
, she thought bitterly
. He must really hate me if he doesn’t want to let this fight go
. She threw her hands in the air and sighed exasperatedly.

“What? What do you want now? What do you-“

Her words were swiftly cut off and were met with his tantalizingly soft lips and fresh minty breath. Her back leaned against the sycamore tree under which they had played countless times as children. His arms held her up, as he kissed her softly at first, almost chastely not wanting to frighten her. He then tilted her chin up, cradling her beautiful face and glanced at her for a short few seconds that to her felt too long, almost like an eternity had passed between those eyes before kissing her hard, rough and gentle and smooth all at once. Her nerves exploded in her stomach. Her heart pounded in her chest and she could feel his beating equally as fast beneath her fingertips that rested against his sternum. They both stared at each other longingly still when their lips parted for air. He exhaled and tucked her hair behind her ear then let his thumb linger over her full pink lower lip before sighing again for the final time.

“Now we’re over.” He told her breathlessly and turned and staggered to his ride, as if he himself was surprised he had actually done that before making a quick exit.

She waited until the sound of his loud revving engine faded, til the glistening cherry red gleam of his car disappeared down the street. She waited. She stood for god knows how long, just listening to the sound of the rain hammering down against the rooftops of the houses, against the trees and the tarmac. She waited until the thunder resided and the clouds parted and drifted away, until the cold no longer stung her with its bite nor the wind with its icy caress. All clichés aside, sometimes a girl just needed to cry in the rain, causing her nosey eighty-three year old neighbor to look on through the blinds in surprise and glee and to pick up her bipolar three legged Persian cat and retreat back in to the home, no the house where she knew she wasn’t wanted nor needed.

16.

Sienna woke up to the sound of her annoying alarm clock and threw it on to the floor like she always had and buried herself deeper under her bedcovers. Monday.
God
, she hated Mondays. She was pretty sure God hated Mondays judging by the downpour of rain outside. With great difficulty she made it out of her bed the while the thought of Logan ran through her mind just as it had all weekend. She took extra long this morning getting her self dressed this morning, showering and blow-drying her hair straight and adding some mascara to her already infinitely thick black eyelashes that made the green in her eyes pop even more. She figured she at least owed it to herself to look good even if she felt like cat poop on the inside. Speaking of cat poop.

“Smeags! Outside only!” she chastised the cranky but loveable Persian who yowled back at her and jumped on to her bed and snuggled under the covers purring softly as he fell asleep. Sienna looked out of her window and saw the dead white dove outside and sighed. It was still happening.

“Hello! Sienna! Mom said you have to drop me off to the bus stop.” Annie asked from the doorway snapping Sienna out of her daze. “Oh,” she sighed and gathered her things and went out. Thankfully the rain had ceased. They barely made it a foot out of the house before the Spanish inquisition that was Annabelle Lucia Maria Rivers or Rivera as her mother would call her started.

“Why did your boyfriend punch dad?” Annie asked innocently her face neither prejudiced nor angry like her sisters had been but merely curious.

“What? How do you know that? Oh god, did you see? I’m sorry, Annie, its…it’s complicated.” She gulped in response. Even the memory was more than enough to send her heart rate hurtling up.

“I’ll say.”

“And he’s not my boyfriend.”

“So why were you kissing outside? Me, Meredith and Cora watched.”

“
What?”
Sienna retorted her mouth agape in shock and outrage.

“The satellite cable was gone ‘cos of the rain! It was either watch mom and dad fight or watch you and Logan fight. You guys…fight weird.” She stammered then giggled as if it were the funniest thing in the world.

“You pervert!” Sienna retorted and pushed her little sister jovially just as they reached the bus stop causing a bunch of middle graders to laugh.

“See ya later, kid!” Sienna winked and continued on her lonesome way to school.

“Okay, do I have spinach in my teeth or something? Or like toilet paper sticking out of my pants or what?” Sienna asked Noah as he came up to her locker. As soon as she got within half a mile of the high school she felt as though everybody had been staring at her.

“Sienna, you should know something.” Noah whispered and fidgeted with his fingers.

“Uh oh, you got constipation face. What happened? Did you cave in to your ridiculous diet and pig out on some snickers bars?” Sienna joked with a wicked gleam in her eyes and a smirk. He merely shook his head and gulped uncomfortably. 

“Hey Sienna.” Bethany said friendly with a huge grin plastered over her overly made up face as she walked past. Her and her friends laughed as they walked in to the girls’ bathroom together. ‘
Must be selfie time
,’ Sienna thought wryly already imagining them pulling duck faces in the mirror.

“Did she just call me Sienna and not McKenna?” Sienna asked bewilderedly pulling a baffled face. Oh, and the name was really starting to grow on her!

“Its about Rose.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it. I know.”

“You do?”

“I…you know what…I know this sounds crazy but I forgive her.”

“You do?” Noah’s voice came out as a squeak.

“She’s my best friend. Well, she was anyway. So she made a mistake, don’t I owe it to her to try and find out why she made it instead of throwing years of friendship down the drain?” Sienna mused thoughtfully.

“Wow, you’re being super mature about this. I thought…wow, just when I thought you couldn’t be anymore awesome.” He said warmly.

“Oh thanks Noah,” Sienna chuckled softly surprised at his overly sweet words.

  “I mean most girls would have torn Rose’s head off or at least stuck needles in to a voodoo shaped doll of hers for sleeping with their boyfriend.”
“What?” Sienna asked and looked at him as if her ears had just failed her.
Logan and Rose slept together? They had sex?
“Oh yeah, technically you guys never dated but you know what I mean.” He corrected himself shaking his head remembering the fact that for some weird reason neither of the star-crossed lovers ever admitted dating one another.

“You...didn’t know.” He said slowly as the realization dawned on him filling him with guilt and dread especially since Rose seemed to evaporate as if from nowhere just then. She shuffled the folders in her hands uncomfortably as she approached her old friend.

“Hey, Sienna. Can we talk?” she asked nervously chewing her nails as she had always done when she was feeling guilty for doing something wrong.

“You’re dead to me.” Sienna told her flat out straight; her eyes expressionless and cold as she slammed her locker door shut with a metallic clang and walked off.

“That went well.” Noah sighed.

“You told her?” Rose gasped reading him like a book.

“I thought she knew!” he exclaimed defensively to no avail as she wacked him on the shoulder with her carefully color-coded folders.

“Noah how could you?” she shouted and hit him again before running off in the opposite direction presumably crying.

“How am I the bad guy?” he shouted after her then realized he looked like a fool screaming in the middle of a crowded hallway with everyone staring and laughing at him.

“Why are you so late to lunch?” she asked looking up at Noah, her bright green eyes sharp and intense causing him to momentarily forget the answer. He wondered if she knew the effect she had on him. She had been sitting alone at her table for a grand total of five minutes now and she could already feel everybody’s eyes on her. Or maybe it was just her being paranoid. Who knew? Either way she was grateful for Noah. He was the only real friend she had left.

“I got roped in to helping some seniors out with the winter formal dance. It’s a long story.” He chuckled coyly as he sat down. He flicked some tinsel away from his chair. Seriously, that stuff was everywhere. Courtney Cross and her team of bodacious dimwitted bubblegum thwacking monotonously nasally sounding female spawn of Lucifer had managed to bedazzle and embellish almost everything they could feast their eyes on. This year a lot of parents had complained of a lack of faith in school forcing Sharpe to shed her Grinch image and make everything look cheerful and jolly. There was even a huge Christmas tree outside the school entrance and another in the teacher’s lounge. “Some seniors, eh?” she enquired inquisitively arching her eyebrow at him. He shrugged like it was no big deal wishing she would be at least a little jealous.

“So… did you get asked to the dance? I mean…are you going?” he asked timidly and pushed his salad back and forth with his fork.

“No, nobody asked me. In case you haven’t noticed guys don’t exactly line up outside my doorstep.” She said wryly mocking herself imagining the look of horror on her father’s face if that actually happened.

“Oh come on, you know you’re beautiful.” He said without looking at her. His eyes still cast down almost afraid to acknowledge her response.
“I mean girls like you always know. How could you not?” he asked earnestly.

“Thanks, I guess?” she replied softly taken aback by his comments.

She looked at his warm kind intelligent brown eyes and soft sandy brown hair. He was no Adonis like Logan Jackson, but he was certainly no Ugly Duckling either. He was smart, charming, kind, funny and already Sienna’s friend and was hitting on her.
Wait, is he hitting on me?
She thought feeling confused, maybe he was being friendly, the last thing she needed was to ask him out and be rejected by her only remaining friend. Noah leaned his arm against the back of her chair.
Yep, he’s definitely hitting on me.
Logan could not believe his eyes. That
worm
, that
slimy
little
worm
. Logan Jackson had never been the kind of guy to hold a grudge. He wasn’t the sort to have an arch nemesis or a rival. All of that had always seemed petty and beneath him simply because he’d never had to fight for something in his life, he’d always gotten everything handed down to him, he had always been the favorite to win. That was until now.

Logan scowled as he heard her beautiful laugh echoing around her, the way she was so oblivious to the way Noah leered at her, the discomfort he felt when he saw his hand on her arm or back for a tad too long. It had been weeks since he’d last spoken to her and even longer since the time she actually replied back. She was frighteningly good at ignoring him, at pretending he had never existed, at avoiding him at school, at the grocery store and in parks and libraries and as awful as it sounded he didn’t want her to be happy without him and that was the honest truth.

He wanted her to feel every bit as miserable as he did because even though he was the one who had said the words,
she
was the one who broke up with him,
she
was the one who practically screamed at him to go away after he socked that scumbag abusive father of hers in the face,
she
was the one who rejected him over and over again…but he was the idiot who slept with her best friend that same night at the birthday bash in the woods. He was hurt, upset; sexually frustrated and so drunk he could barely walk. So it was more of a surprise to him than anyone else when he woke up next morning in his dad’s cabin in bed with Rose Matthews with absolutely no recollection of the night before. He begged Rose not to tell a soul but it was already too late and before he knew it he had lost his oldest friend. He rubbed his temples and sighed. She laughed again at something Noah said throwing her head back, her beautiful long silky dark hair shimmered and sashayed down her back. She then put a strawberry to her perfect mouth reminding him of what her lips tasted like. ‘
Like I care
,’ he thought miserably and unable to look away.

“Oh my God, I think Noah’s finally making a move on Sienna.” He heard Rose whisper as they all turned to look nosily.

“Haha, I wish him luck. That chicks a tough nut to crack, all the hottest ones always are.” Trent said shaking his head mumbling “poor kid” already having decided that she was sure to reject Noah. Logan wasn’t so sure. He had a sinking feeling in his gut that she might even take him up on his offer. Noah must have planned it out perfectly, when she had none of her friends with her, when she was feeling vulnerable, right in the midst of Logan and Sienna’s fight so he could weasel his way in.

“Ten bucks she rejects him.” Bethany giggled leaning back in her chair to try and get a better grasp of the conversation.

“Ten bucks he asks her to the dance. Trust me I’ve called this for years. Those two are perfect for each other!” Rose smiled knowingly.

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Logan grumbled and frowned at her causing her to quiet down considerably.

“Put me down for her rejecting him!” Trent yelled. The entire table turned to hiss at him and to tell him to be quiet. Everyone was so enthralled and engrossed with Sienna’s love life and too busy calling out their bets no one seemed to notice Logan’s stony silence.