Chapter 7: Exposed

Closing my eyes felt like time would stand still and I wouldn’t be dealing with any of this. Like I would be able to hit the pause button and restart all of this over. Like I could choose what day I wanted to relive over and over again, and I knew the perfect one. It would be the day we went to the bookstore and bought the book by the same author who had written I remembered it well.

I sighed as my eyes popped back open. I would give anything to go back and restart this entire thing. I would never find out that my only friend accepted nearly seven thousand dollars from my mother to be my friend. I wouldn’t have acknowledged the feelings that had begun to grow. I would have ignored the butterflies I got in the pit of my stomach. We never would have kissed. We never would have had sex. Everything that went wrong wouldn’t have and I’d still have my best-friend. We’d still be in our perfect little bubble of friendship where nothing went wrong and we still understood each other.

While I’m at it let’s go further. I never would have befriended Clarissa. I would have noticed her sooner for the snake that she is. I wouldn’t have been in the situation that got me to this point in the first place. I wouldn’t have remembered a nightmare that could’ve gone wrong in a thousand ways. Although it still wasn’t the complete truth, it still more than I could bear. I wouldn’t have anything to do with her and the fucking rumors that have pegged my life and ruined it. I would love myself more and never had gone through a self-hatred phase. Clarissa ruined my life in more ways than I realized; I just never figured out why.

Then there’s John. Someone who confuses me so bad. One second he has me thinking that he’s trying to get to know me with the expectation of wanting more, and then the next he says we’re friends. If we were just friends why would he get mad about an assumption that he made? He doesn’t know the truth. He didn’t give me the chance to respond and now he’ll never know. I’ve made a new motto and so far it’s been an easy one to keep.

Avoidance is the price of peace of mind when dealing with situations like this. Avoidance had become the price of the best-friend I’ve ever had. Avoidance had cost me a relationship with my mother. Avoidance had let me in undesirable situations. Avoidance had ruined my self-esteem. I didn’t want to avoid it anymore, but I didn’t want to deal either.

I had a hard time believing the things that people had shown me more than once. I made excuses for them. I played devil’s advocate even though it was clear otherwise.

Clarissa was once my best-friend. I mean yes she turned her back on me when the rumors started and took the rest of our friends with her, but there was once loyalty. She once had my back. I never had to fight because she always stood up for me. We used to spend long weekends having sleepovers and watching all of our favorite movies while eating the most fattening recipes we could find. I held her hair back when she vomited everywhere from eating too much. We were real friends, or so I believed. I don’t care how bad we fell off, I didn’t want to believe that she would stoop so low to betray me like that. That didn’t sound like her at all. At least not the version that I thought I knew. I didn’t want to deal with the possibility that she’d been playing me the entire time.

Then there was John. He never really paid attention to me before and I couldn’t in good conscience say that he didn’t have feelings for me. Boys get nervous too and have to work up the courage to ask a girl out. I can understand how seeing me coming from Dave’s window can be misconstrued as for something else. It was one thing to ignore that fact that every time we hung out he’d ask about him and then I’d go into a rant about how I practically hated him, but it was another to completely ignore all the rumors about Dave and I; and there were a lot. Even when we weren’t seen together anymore and had stopped speaking the rumors were plenty. I didn’t take into consideration how he may have felt about it. I ignored it and got defensive when he accused me. Then again, it wasn’t like his accusation was wrong. I had sex with Dave and even though some part of me wanted to take it back, a much bigger part practically couldn’t wait for it to happen again. Still, I couldn’t ignore that maybe I had John wrong. He’d been trying to get my attention for years and I just never noticed. I thought those conversations at the dog park were just that because we went to school together. I didn’t want to deal with the fact that I just might be wrong and ruined the possibility of at least one good relationship before even realizing that it was possible.

Last but not least, there was Dave. I could write a book on how bad things had gotten between us, but I still wanted to fix it all. I understood the paranoia and why he’d accept the money. I get that it was offered to him the day after we spent all that time just talking and getting to know each other. I know he only accepted it as an excuse to force himself to keep talking to the girl that had so easily captivated his attention, but something was still off putting about the whole ordeal. Why wait damn near two years to tell me about it? Him accepting the money made me feel like my personality just wasn’t enough to make someone want to be my friend. I broke down and allowed myself to open up and be me with someone for the first time in a long time and now I just felt betrayed. I allowed myself to fall for his words, godlike looks and charm. He sent me mixed signals that drove me nuts and had me questioning myself like crazy, but he finally admitted it. He was in love with me too. I plagued his mind almost as much as he plagued mine. Every hangout stopped feeling like a hangout and more like a date. It was like the time we spent together began to change. It no longer seemed like two best-friends just being together, but two people who were in love from the beginning but were too scared to admit it.

Dave was everything I ever wanted in a boyfriend, especially me being comfortable enough to just be who I am with him. I ate and talked at the same time. I laughed with my mouth wide open. We had eating contests and I was brutal in my teasing when I won. He’d just laugh and pull me into a tight hug, threatening to squeeze me until I puked. Knowing what I know now, I realize that he came up with any excuse he could to have me in his arms. I notice the way his eyes lit up when talking to me or just me being in his presence. I was so caught up in trying to hide my feelings that I didn’t notice his. I thought he hated John and was trying to protect me from a jock he barely knew, but I never once thought that he was just jealous. Even when he told me he was, I didn’t believe him. I questioned why he or anyone else would want me and I made a fool of myself. I brought about so much drama and bullshit that we didn’t need instead of just listening to the words that were being said. He was right, emotions were the assholes. They blinded everything and made it harder to see the truth clearly. Emotions made you act out of character.

Out of the three, Dave was the only one who truly deserved an apology. I was scared to speak to him though, out of fear of what could happen between us.

John owed me some answers for how and why he was acting the way he was and Clarissa deserved the ass whooping I should have given her a long time ago. I planned to do all of this during lunch, but was stopped in my tracks as the police arrested both her and John. I was stuck, the rumors going around were true and it made me think Clarissa and John had different motives for showing their interests in us.

I stood there shocked, tears filling my eyes. It was true. It was all true and John had been a part of it. It was the only thing that made sense. It came out that he was the one that had taken me home and he only did it because the blurry guy in my memories was his brother. At least I think so. The voice sounded familiar for reasons I didn’t want to disclose, but his face still wasn’t clear enough for recognition. Still, whoever he was, John knew him and was close to him. For my sanity I hoped it wasn’t who I thought it was.

Was being popular that serious? Was it worth ruining your life and someone else’s? It really wasn’t that serious. How could they think something like this was okay? How could they think they’d be able to get away with something like this?

Allegedly, John and Clarissa met each other the summer before we became freshman. They supposedly dated and bonded over the fact of how competitive the both of them were. When I beat her out for flyer, he dumped her. He wanted to be with someone with the same kind of drive as he had. She spent months dieting and trying to get her spot back. She eventually became a flyer, but he still didn’t want her. She began hating me and was only pretending to still be my friend. One night she invited me to a party with the sole hope of embarrassing me. Rumor is she bragged to someone about how she was going to make me hate myself to the point where I would become suicidal.

She started the lies about me having sex with brothers that night. People say they saw me entering the room and then them following in behind me. They claimed how I was so messed up that one of the brothers took me home because I was to spent to walk by myself. It wasn’t until a few days ago that I knew that brother was John. Someone left a note in my locker telling me everything. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one this had happened to. I was just the only one where it was personal.

John and Clarissa had made a game of drugging people and laughing after seeing who hooked up. Girls would wake up not remembering a thing and guys would feel guilty after realizing what had happened. Then they would come in with their evil plans and blackmail them. Clarissa made the girls feel like whores and John had the guys feeling like rapists. They videotaped them. They enjoyed their little game. They ruined a lot of lives and loved the fact that they did it. Dave and I were their next targets, but they didn’t expect for us to stop speaking. They didn’t expect for us to get together and hook up on our own. It was what pissed John off so bad. They’re plan had been ruined. The note ended with them saying they were going to the police with everything, but would leave my name out of it. Unless I chose to come forward myself. They wanted it to be my own decision.

I was thankful because it wasn’t something that I really wanted to talk about. I just wanted to forget about it and move on. I wanted to avoid despite all the problems it caused in the first place. I was grateful for John stopping what would have happened no matter how selfish the reasons were for. He turned out to be exactly who I thought he was. He didn’t see me, he saw an opportunity. As they walked past me both in handcuffs and Clarissa ugly crying I couldn’t help but laugh. People were looking at me like I was crazy, but they were getting what they deserved. There was no need for anyone to be that evil.

“Hey Minnie. Can we talk after school?” came Dave’s voice from behind me as I sobered up. I sighed. Might as well deal with everything at once.

“Sure Mickey. I’ll meet you at your house.” I replied before walking off and out of the school. I didn’t care that I left in the middle of the day. I had a plan and I needed to make sure everything was perfect. If I was going to say good-bye to Dave, I was going to do it right.