Flowers, Nichole Hall [pdf e book reader TXT] 📗

covering a yawn, but it’s no use. I have been sleepy all day, even as we head to our last class and I slept almost all through lunch, only awake enough to see Kevin took a seat next to Mandy. It made me smile, and then my eyes closed again. 

“You better be awake for this party tonight.” Lucky turns around, walking backwards. Kevin stays to my left as we laugh when Lucky keeps hitting people from behind. 

“I will, I will.” I wave a nonchalant hand at him.

“Sooooo, did Mandy find you a hot date yet?”

Uh. Not looking at Kevin, I shrug. “Not yet.”

A hand pinches my butt hard enough for me to screech out. I swap at Kevin’s head. He ducks, just barely.

“Ass.”

“No hot date?” He arches an eyebrow. It’s hard to decipher if he is teasing or really upset. 

“I knew it!” Lucky’s voice booms and other stragglers stop to stare. Kevin walks up pulling Lucky into a headlock. Other’s see the display and move on, while I stay rooted to the spot. How would Lucky know? Does that mean everyone knows? Ah crap, Kevin is going to flip and we just got back on good terms.

“Shut it, man. If you value your life.” Lucky pulls up his arms in surrender. Looking between Kevin and I, he can’t resist the urge to grin, or waggle his eyebrows. 

“Let him go, we’ll be late.” I act bored.

“Listen to your girl.” He is asking for it, really asking for it. 

“Lucky, seriously..” Other words fail me. It’s hard to contrive a good explanation at just what Kevin and I are, because we definitely aren’t in a relationship nor are we allowed to see other people. So that means, “we are just dating.”

“And no one needs to know right now, okay?” Kevin adds.

“I’ll keep you my dirty little secret.” Lucky singsongs, it’s a struggle not to laugh at his antics. In the end I fail miserably. We finally make it to class, Lucky still whistling that stupid song and Kevin stiff as a board. Personally, I find it funny. So when we take our seats in the back, I tell Kevin to relax. He gives me that don’t even start look. Patience, right. Only the second day and he is asking for my patience. 

“Miss Hart!” The voice booms, startling me awake. Mr. Wilcox stands at the front of the class, a pen in his hand not looking too happy. “Care to explain to me just how you ace all your tests, but can’t seem to stay awake during my class?”

Oh the response I can give him. You know something along the lines of I study outside the class, hence the reason I am tired, but that’s just asking for more trouble than I already am in. Even Kevin gives a slight warning by squeezing my knee. Lucky is no help, just waggling his eyebrows. Wilcox awaits an answer, impatiently tapping his pen against the cheap desk.

“Sorry, won’t happen again.” Satisfied, he turns around and continues writing notes on the overhead. 

“Keep me awake.” I whisper. Kevin’s idea of keeping me awake is to rub his hand all along my thigh. From the tip of the knee to just below the sweet spot. Yeah, it works. 

The last bell rings, and freedom and a nap call my name. At least, I thought they did. My legs are barely working at this point, and I can’t even keep my head up to look around. 

“So tired.” I groan, to no one in particular. Lucky waits for Kevin and I, bouncing around in his usual hyper self.

“You down, Kevin?”

“Yeah, we will meet you guys over there.” 

Too confused and exhausted to ask what they mean, I just raise my hand. Lucky approaches, but Kevin steps in front blocking Lucky and facing me.

“Want a piggy back ride?” I want to laugh at how immature it sounds, but walking all the way to the parking lot seems like a task in itself. 

“Uh-huh.” Kevin hands over his bag to Lucky, turns around and lifts me up to his back. Lucky follows along to the side. My head literally feels like a hundred pounds so I let if fall against Kevin’s back. “Why aren’t you going to your class?” My words are slightly mumbled.

“Everyone is skipping their last classes. We are going to go set up, brainiac. And guess what? You are helping too!”

I groan, swatting at Lucky. “Stop being so energized around me, it’s depleting me more.”

Kevin’s car alarm beeps. Our friends voices surround us, but not even the touch from Kevin is keeping me awake any longer. He places my body in the front seat, even buckling my seatbelt. My head falls to the glass window, with a just a centimeter of eye opening to see what’s going. Everyone is talking, Kevin says something to Charlie and Charlie looks in my direction with wide eyes. Hmm, I wonder if he just barely told his best friend. Mine doesn’t even know so there’s no reason to be angry, and honestly I am not. Shutting my eyes for good this time, Kevin hops in the car blasting the AC. The cold keeps me in the state between knocking out completely and awareness. Where you cannot keep your eyes open, nor can you turn your brain off. It sucks. 

“Come here.” 

Kevin waves his arm that is resting on the center console. Moving over, I place my head in the crook of his right arm as he uses the left to drive. Fingers start running through my wavy hair, massaging my scalp.

“Mmm, feels good.”

The drive to our destination doesn’t take long. Soon Kevin is ordering food and a iced coffee, something strong.

“Here.” I take the coffee sitting up partially and taking a sip before going back to my earlier position. It feels better that way. “How long did you stay up last night?”

“Passed three.”

Kevin mumbles something about Lucky having good reason to call me a brainiac. The fingers stop moving and the arm slides underneath my head. We must be close to Lucky’s. I sit up, taking the coffee with me and draining all of its contents just as we arrive. 

 

***

The guys are playing Tetris with the furniture. No joke. Lucky said his parents would freak if anything got scratched. So they each volunteered to help move all the stuff into one spare bedroom. They didn’t account for how much stuff would actually be in the house though.

Mandy and I were put on cleaning duty. Thank God, Trina and Clarissa stayed in the kitchen getting the drinks ready as we swept and wiped away. 

“So, can we talk?” I grab the swifter wet jet, waving my hand in a continue gesture. Making eye contact will be hard, especially since I am just not quite yet ready to tell her about Kevin. “Look, I am sorry, okay?”

With my back still to her, she sighs and continues taking a deep breathe going on with one of her Mandy rants.

“I was jealous at first, at how all the guys took a liking to you. It was me who is with Charlie and there you are walking with Luke and Lucky comes swiping in hugging you, only to be followed by Herman.” Lie, lie, lie.

“Mandy, your attitude started long before the first day of school.”

The wet jet makes that eery noise when spraying the liquid unto the floor. Spray, push, spray, push. Making a pattern of cleaning seems a lot easier than having a conversation about this. Odd, because it’s easy to talk to Kevin about my mom, but I can’t even face Mandy about why she suddenly is jealous of me, of all people. 

“Will you look at me please?” The wooden broom stick slams against tile flooring, giving off that crackling sound like something broke, but really didn’t. I turn around, facing Mandy. Standing there with one hand on her tilted hip, the other with a white knuckled grip to the broom, she looks ready to fly off as the wicked witch of west. Only with blonde hair. “You are so perfect, Willow. Look at Willow, she’s so smart. Look at Willow how she can hold her alcohol but never parties. Look at Willow taking care of her best friend and then having her grandmother cook hangover remedies. You never do anything wrong, you never say the wrong thing, it’s so intimidating to be your friend sometimes.”

“Are you kidding me?” Looking at Mandy only stirs an already boiling pot of anger. Standing there like I am the one causing problems when all I have done is sit there and try and be there for her. Sort of. These past two weeks, I can be honest and say we both have not been the greatest friends to each other. Not trusting Charlie or Kevin at first was the initial problem, but it became clear that Mandy didn’t see that as our drifting excuse. Funny now I trust both of them more than Mandy.“I am so far from perfect it’s scary.” Walking slowly towards Mandy, I let her know just what the real problem has been. One that should have been clear from the get-go, but I was too stunned that my friend would stoop to such levels to gain such attention. “But let’s talk about why our friendship is dying. You want to fit in Mandy, always have, always will. You pretended to gag and laugh at Charlie’s known behavior but flirt with him the first chance you got. Now look at the happy couple, but wait you are pissed because I became their friends too. The attention was off you and on me, for one reason and one reason only.” 

Near nose to nose, Mandy doesn’t back down, which I give her credit for. “And what’s that, oh smart one?”

“Because I am not fake. When I laugh it’s genuine, when I hug Lucky, Herman, Luke or Charlie it’s because they are my big teddy bears, when I fight with Kevin it’s because I fucking care. You slept with Charlie to gain popularity points, I hang out with those guys because they are real people with happiness, sadness, contentment and quietness. They don’t give a shit about money or their looks, which is why they hang out together and which is why I am their friend.”

An evil look takes over Mandy’s face. Slowly, she creeps up to me. “So is true then that you think Kevin will choose you over every girl in this town, or the neighboring towns that he has already had knowing you for what? Only a month?” She purses her lips in what she thinks as a total slap to the face. Which only has me laughing, and then laughing harder. When had our friendship taken such a shitty turn? When had Mandy become such a bitch? Mandy, not looking too pleased starts spitting off curses.

“You are right, I used Charlie but he uses me too. For the sex. Uh-oh cover your virgin ears, Willow, wouldn’t want your perfect soul to go to hell for hearing just how hot and steamy we get every night possible.” Ha, Kevin and I go anytime possible. “But back to the Kevin scenario. Word from Clarissa is he just had her over on Sunday.” Knew that, still she continues thinking that all of this is punching some kind of hole in my gut. In actuality, I’ve learned that in the last week that most of this stuff has happened, nothing really hurts like a mother leaving her daughter after raising her for thirteen years. Almost makes a person feel invincible to other emotional wounds, almost. “Clarissa will be the one to lock him down, and you will soon be left as the loner Willow without any friends. Too bad, so sad.”

 

 

CLAP. CLAP. CLAP.

 

“Great speech Mandy, can we all hear it this time around so your friend Clarissa here can catch up.” 

Charlie saunters into the living room at total ease. The hallway entrance he just came through holds a throng of bodies. Luke and Herman, look