In A Heartbeat

Mason has been with every girl, her mom and her older sister. Even
worse, he's lethally charming. I can't think of one girl I know who
doesn't find him at least remotely attractive. He has been with girls
from eight different states. It's all extremely impressive being that
he goes to a private, prestigious, all boys' school. I attributed it to
his pent-up tension from being around guys all day.
Olivia has had the biggest crush on Mason since the fourth grade. She's
the type of girl who's not used to being sexual, and hides her
awkwardness by acting like she's in love with him, even though, I know
she desires something greater than him. Just some meaningless lust that
began before she even knew what hormones were. She's so fun to tease
about it.
"Don't tell Mason I like him okay?" Olivia. The definition of
perfection, painfully shy, and my best friend.
"Oh, I'll do something to you. When I think of something. I'm pure
evil." My responses were never as snappy as hers. All I had was Satan
on my side.
"You and your pastel blue. You're so terrifying." Olivia mocked.
"And my pen matches my shirt. Did you notice I switched to blue?"
"Pink does match blue, they're all pastels." Since I was little I had
problems with matching colors that didn't completely match. In the
fifth grade I got in a fight with my art teacher on how complimentary
colors clash.
"They suck."
"Jesus. You're so all the time negative." Olivia had the uncanny
ability to be right on the nose with my moods. I had the uncanny
ability to deny it, passionately.
"What does God have to do with it?" Meanwhile, I don't even believe in
God.
"Stop avoiding the topic. Why are you so brutually bumming all the
time?" The eighties vocabulary spewing from her mouth was almost too
much to take. Sadly, she thought she sounded cool.
"Well, my Dad was a junkie and my mom was an alcoholic. And right now
my sister hates me. The world is a vampire."
"You really like to air your dirty laundry." Olivia, that stupid bitch.
I confide in her and this is what I get. Trust no one.
"You just asked me why I'm depressed."
Fool.
"I guess I just didn't expect you to turn into this verbal volcano of
after-school specials."
DAMN her and her snappy lines.
"You're not helping any. You asked me. You conveniently seem to forget
that." For once she was stumped. I was proud.
"I knew a girl like you, of course, she killed herself. Is that what
you intend?" Olivia said.
"Why must you always make things so over-dramatic? You've done it since
the eleventh grade, in that writing class we took. Always on people's
cases." We used to spend the entire class period arguing about
nonsense. She was as stubborn as me, if not more so because of her
superior air.
"You brought yourself into this. No one wants to listen to you. I'm so
done here." Olivia had no problem tearing me apart and leaving me for
the wolves.
"No you're not done. Because I'm done."
"Just shut people out. Like that girl did, and you'll end up like her.
I hope you do."
Hardly! I reach out to her and she throws it back in my face, some
friend. But I couldn't bring myself to tell her all of that. Of course,
she won.
"Wow. I suck. Come pick up my corpse later."
When in doubt, go for the drama. Olivia was so outmoded and tried so
hard to sound cool, I felt bad for her. That's why I let her win. She
liked to compare herself to me because I was everything she wished she
could be. I was younger, but I lived what she wished she had, and more
importantly, I could have Mason. She knew she never could and it drove
her crazy.
We were walking down the street and she had another "Moment." She saw
Mason surrounded by his cronies, and they laughed at her. Of course,
she never noticed. She was too busy creating the moment in her mind
when Mason would come running up to her and they'd share a passionate
kiss like something from a movie. Now, all of this was horribly ideal.
Olivia was short, and tragically trendy. Her hair was black, and
srunched into tight little spirals. Her face looked like someone picked
up a handful of cookies crumbs and through them onto her cheeks. Those
were her freckles. However, she was very smart, book smart, but it
didn't extend much past that.
"Hey, babe." Mason planted a kiss on my cheek. "Kali, c'mon honey, hang
out with me."
"Olivia, why don't you go with Mason?" I gave her a little shove. "I'll
handle the errands."
Olivia gripped her bag tightly in hand, and turned bright red.
"Forget that! Come with me!" Mason was begging me. For one, he didn't
want to be with Olivia. For two, he got so much pleasure out of
flirting with me. I was nothing special, even I'd admit it. I didn't
belong in magazines, on the fashion pages. I didn't even know what year
it was, stuck in the seventies as I was. But I had learned a lot.
Olivia was blind too. It didn't take looks to get the guy.
"Alrighty, we got a deal." I grabbed Olivia by the arm, tearing her
from her normalcy for two seconds. She could hardly bear to part. We
headed down the block, past all the houses in rows. It was fall, and
all the leaves blanketed the ground. I loved the fall for how much it
complimented my chestnut hair, and made my green eyes sparkle in
contrast. Mason decided to drag his stupid friend, Shane along.
"So Kali, when you and Mason gonna hook up?" I let them into my house,
it was small, but the architecture was stimulating. It had an
antiquated presence on my block. It stood out from all the other plain,
white sided houses. It was a beautiful stucco with black trim, that I
adored.
"Oh please. Do you guys still have that ridiculous competition going
on?"
"I think I'm winning honey!" Mason poked my stomach, his flirtatious
signature. Mason was still a boy in so many ways, I think that's what
attracted me to him most. He had beautiful dark brown hair, and eyes to
match. His skin wasn't perfect, and he was no model. But his flaws
complimented him.
"Well I nailed number ten last week. I believe you're at eight. You're
slackin' off buddy." Shane plopped down in the navy blue arm
chair.
"I blame it on Kali. She was supposed to be my nine." Explained Mason.
I gestured over to Olivia.
"Aren't men SUCH pigs?"I pointed out. Olivia just blushed, she'd rather
stay silent than say something that would make her look like a fool in
front of him. She buried her face in a magazine. Amidst the eerie
silence that fell I came up with a plan. I grabbed Shane from his
comfort in the chair and brought him down the stairs with me. I thought
maybe if I gave Olivia and Mason some alone time she may make a
move.
I didn't want her to think I was completely cold-hearted, but I
couldn't carry her. Nor could I help her get guys to like her if she
chose to be a mute. Hell, she was more attractive than me, she had a
better body than me and all.
Back in the kitchen me and Shane had a heart-to-heart. I sat down at
the wooden table, coated with a fresh shine. He was sitting across from
me, pretending to be interested, I told him I wasn't going to get with
Mason again because of Olivia.
"You know you want him." He took off his Abercrombie hat exposing his
messy bleached hair. He had the potential to be attractive, but it was
wasted with his uninspired style of khakis and a tee-shirt, just about
every day.
"I don't want anyone. I hate boys." I began to make little braids in
the back of my hair as a distraction.
"You're crazy about him. Who are you kidding, Kali? Don't use Olivia as
your 'scapegoat."
Even if I did like Mason, I would never breathe a word of it to anyone.
I wanted no commitment, I wanted to get what I wanted, savor, and be
done. Going back to Mason would mean our relationship being more than
just the random hookup that it was.
"Get over it. You know I really have the hots for you." If it's one
thing I know about men, is that by placating their ego, they easily
forget that which they were talking about. It makes it easier for you
to avoid a topic.
"You're not on the list, babe." Shane laughed. I walked over to him and
sat on his lap, and pulled his arms on top of the strip of exposed skin
between my little red tank top and blue pants. "You'd easily find room
for me, if you thought you had a snowball's chance in hell of getting
with me!" I giggled. "Let's go check on the kids."
We ran up the tan carpeted stairs, and past the walnut railing. I
stared at my door in disbelief. The back side covered in stickers of
all my favorite bands was visible. Light filtered from under the door.
Nothing could be happening in there, Mason was probably just talking
about me and didn't want me to over hear him.
"Open up!!" Shane opened the door, the baby blue curtains that
concealed my bed were closed, Mason's favorite black swirly chair was
empty. Behind the curtain, I could hear noises. I ripped them
open.
"Oh my fuckin' God." Mason was on top of Olivia, I could not believe
it. He's supposed to be hung up on me, and not all over Olivia. His
hands, around her waist, and his back to me for once. The neatly made
bed was no longer neat. When they noticed us, and stopped fornicating
where I sleep, Olivia got up. She grabbed me by the hand and pulled me
into the bathroom. Admiring herself in the mirror I wanted to pull her
ugly, little curls out.
"What exactly was going on in there, Olivia?" My arms were crossed and
I was leaning against the pink tile walls, giving her the wickedest
stare I could possibly convey. If only I had the power to burn her
cornea's out, I would gladly destroy her.
"You were so, incredibly right. What a good kisser, we were talking
about you and all the sudden---" She wipped the mascara out from under
her eyes.
"All the sudden what?"
"He was just like, on top of me and kissing me. Gee I knew he liked me!
His talking about you was just a distraction so I wouldn't see. But I
saw." She was talking so fast. When I reasoned it out, the best
explantion I could muster up for it, was that he was trying to make me
jealous. But what if he wasn't?
"Well I'm glad you had fun Olivia. It's what you really wanted isn't
it?" I stated, matter-of-factly.
"No not really, now that I think about it. I never really liked him, I
just needed to conquer him to get over him." This girl was too
much-she's hung up on him for years, and all the sudden she steals my
conquering. I highly do not think so. I wanted her to be happy,
really-just not with Mason.
"Do you think that's really fair to him, Olivia? Did you really think
of that when he was kissing you? Is that fair to do that to him?" I
needed to attack her to vent my frustrations.
"Excuse me." She turned away from the mirror and defiantly got up in my
face. "You keep encouraging me to go for him, now I get him and you're
scolding me? Wow. It was hardly enough to handle your flirting with
him. You're just jealous Kali, admit it."
I stared her square in the eye, before I could gather the courage to
exit the bathroom. Than I slammed the door in her face. I ran two rooms
down and went into my room where Mason was twirling in my chair. He had
his sandal covered feet up and continued to go about it at his leisure.
Shane layed on my bed, hands behind his head, perfectly comfortable on
the bed of sin. Mason was giggling like a child who had done something
wrong, knew it, and was proud of it.
"Shane, get the hell out. Right now." Hand on hip, I pointed to the
door.
"What's your problem?" He laughed. I grabbed him by the tee-shirt and
threw him out of my room with all my might. Than I shut the door on him
and Olivia. It was my turn to play.
"What exactly do you think you're doing, asshole?"
He was so deliciously sweet it took everything in me to keep up my
anger. "What's up baby?" He spinned left than right, smiling still. In
that moment I just wanted to smack him silly.
"Maybe I should be asking you that. What was that shit with Olivia?" I
tucked my hair behind my ears than returned my arm to their crossed
position.
"She's crazy about me." He said.
"So, you should hookup and play with the minds of every girl who wants
you?"
"Ya know, your adorible when you're angry like that." It was clear to
me now why he hooked up with Olivia. But I still wanted to know if
liked me, why he'd done it. Mason did all that just to relish in my
rage?
"Just a test, my dear." Him and Shane's stupid competitions drove me
mad. I didn't want to be tested. He put his arms around my waist and
pulled me to his lap, just like I had been sitting with Shane.
"No hard feelings, a'rite? Next week we go to my house, I got the pool
table."
"Shall I bring Olivia?" I smiled, grasping his hands and turning my
face to his. So I was double crossing my friend. My priorities were
always out of order, I'd thought Olivia had been used to it. I'm human,
so sue me if I put myself before that girl. She was a poor, outdated
fool. I deserved more. I left Mason, to go check on Olivia, still
primping in the bathroom.
"I was being used." Olivia grasped the window sill, staring out past
me. It was her usual dissapointment in me, and it got me down.
"It really sucks. You should've known better." I strolled in and sat on
the edge of the tub looking up at her.
"I was crazy about him, you know. It felt good to know I had him, but
it didn't when I found out I was just part of you guys little scheme."
She was pretty beat up about it, and I think for the first time I
didn't think of myself.
"You make it sound like we were plotting against you this entire time.
What would you like me to do Olivia?" Of course, she'd never know of my
moment of selflessness.
"You will do what you like, no matter what I say." She turned around,
and looked down upon me, rightfully so. She was dissapointed, but I
couldn't give him up for her.
"Basically." I hopped up, and planted a kiss on her cheek. She was such
a pushover like usual. She was entirely too forgiving, we were so
different in that respect. I was so quick to ditch her for Mason, I'd
of done it in a heart beat.