Zach doesn’t know any of that. And neither does Ashley.
But would they really care, even if they did? Would it really bother them, make them feel guilty that they ruined the last thing that meant the world to me?
“So here’s the thing, Zach, unless you can magically bring back dead people, it’s going to be very hard to find a replacement,” I say with a throat full of so many emotions that I’m drowning in them.
“It belonged to my mom. She died last year in a car crash. My dad, too. They were on their way back from their anniversary dinner. My dad thought it’d be a nice treat for my mom. Seeing as how he never took her anywhere because we didn’t have the money. I’m sure you know that because you and your minions wouldn’t let me forget it.
“You wouldn’t let me forget that I come from the other side of the line. The trashy side. But anyway, he’d gotten a great job, my dad, painting a church in the next town, and he thought why not? Why don’t I take her out and do something nice for her? So they went. But they never came back.”
I’d helped Dad plan the whole thing. Besides, I had good news of my own. I was going to tell them that after graduation, I was leaving on a cross-country road trip. My mom would’ve been ecstatic. She always wanted to get out of this town but never could. So in a way, I was fulfilling her dream.
“They died because my dad wanted to give her something special. Something she never had and something you guys take for granted,” I continue with fisted hands and stinging eyes. “Something that most of you don’t deserve. Because you never lift a finger to earn anything. You don’t even change your own sheets. You can’t even put your laundry in the basket and somehow, people like you get to rule the whole world.”
I take a deep breath and look into his black eyes. They are shimmering, penetrating, and if I let them, they’ll suck me in and drown me.
“So I don’t want you to replace it because you can’t. All I want you to do is let me go so I can get a good night’s sleep and get back to working for you so you get to be a big bully and potentially ruin lives.”
I have no idea where I even got the energy to say all those things. And why I even bothered to tell him this.
But whatever. I said it and now, I need to go cry in my pillow.
As I step away from them in my sticky dress, I look up and find everyone watching me. There’s Grace and Leslie. There’s Maggie too. They are all looking at me with pity.
Mrs. S is nowhere in sight. But I’m sure news will travel and she’ll come to know tomorrow.
Maybe I’m really fired after this.
But I can’t seem to care. I want to lie down. I feel heavy like my wet dress. A little dead too, I guess.
They let me go without a word and when I reach my room for the night, I curl up and hug the pillow, crying into it.
There’s a little bottle on the counter.
Leaving Ashley behind, I go and pick it up. Laxative.
It probably belongs to her. Sighing, I bow my head before pocketing it.
“Get lost,” I tell Ashley.
“What?” she asks, confused.
I turn around and face her. “Get lost.”
“But Zach –”
“Get the fuck out.”
“Are you doing this because of her?” Ashley asks, looking up at me with pleading eyes.
There was a time when my dad wanted me to marry her. That was reason enough for me to just fuck her, steal her virginity in a cheap motel room, and leave her sleeping on the bed.
Just to spite my dad. Anything to spite my dad.
But I underestimated the blonde, virgin princess. She never really left. She hung around, year after year, watched me fuck other girls. Always others, never her.
I never understood why but I think I do now.
She loves me. In her own way, she was giving me the time to sow my wild oats. She still thinks we’ll end up together one day.
Poor Ashley.
“This isn’t St. Patrick’s anymore,” I say.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means stop being a bitch and grow the fuck up.”
Her eyes flash fire. “Excuse me?”
I shake my head. “Jesus, how much have you had to drink?”
Ashley draws back as if I slapped her. I might as well have. Drinking used to be my way of coping three years ago – not sure if I’m allowed to preach about it. That and my bike.
“Are you… are you taking her side?” she almost shrieks as a reply. “Did you see how she was? She was going to attack me.”
“And I’m thinking I shouldn’t have stopped her.”
Ashley is hurt. Her bee-stung lips tremble. “Why did you, then?”
“She would’ve gotten fired and you’re not worth it.”
An actual tear slides down her cheek.
It’s not that I deliberately want to hurt Ashley. She hasn’t done anything that she wouldn’t have done back in school.
It’s just that I don’t want anything to do with her or the old crowd or all the things we did back at school.
“Ashley, look –”
“You’ve changed,” she cuts me off, looking at me like I’ve grown two heads or something. “I can’t believe after all those years, you’d defend her. Her. Cleopatra. Do you even remember how much we hated her? How she didn’t belong with us? The way she talked back? And she’s not better now. She’s a freaking maid. A maid, Zach. Nothing about her has changed.”
Yeah, nothing about her has changed.
Blue is still the same. Loud, spunky… bright. Brimming with so much life that it’s hard to look at her.
But still I looked.
I watched her get humiliated for years. I watched her get pushed around, get insulted, laughed at.
For years, I was her bully.
I’m not a fan of words or letters or anything. Never have been.
But bully is the word I hate the most. I hate it so much that it might be a living, breathing person.
A person I want to strangle and choke the life out of.
“I’m not defending her. I’ve never defended her,” I say to Ashley. “I’m just letting you know how things are.”
“What did they do to you at Oxford?” Ashley muses.
“That’s the thing. I never was at Oxford. I’ve never been to the UK. I was in New York, crashing on strangers’ couches.”
And realizing that the world is a much bigger place than my dad had me believe. A place where people look at me like I’m worth something, even though I’m only a high school dropout.
My dad will shit a brick when he hears of this, that I outed the secret. The prodigal son wasn’t at Oxford but squatting in buildings like a homeless bum.
You’re not trying hard enough, Zach.
You really are dumb, aren’t you?
You’ll never amount to anything if you can’t even spell your name right.
But that’s nothing new, is it? He’s been shitting bricks ever since he found out his perfect little son has long, deep cracks.
I know the staff’s still here, watching everything. At The Pleiades, it’s hard to keep secrets. I make eye contact with a brown-haired, mousy one. “Escort her out. She’s a little too drunk to walk on her own.”
Ashley calls out my name and I spin around to face her one last time.
“Don’t ever come here uninvited. And don’t harass the staff. You’re not gonna like how I react the next time. Just a fair warning.”
With that, I leave.
I thrust my hand down my pocket and wrap my fingers around the bottle of laxative. I have a headache coming on; I need a fucking cigarette.
But guess what? I can’t have any. Because someone stole them from me.
My fingers tighten around the bottle in frustration.
Fucking thief.
I don’t get fired.
Mrs. S hears about my nightly adventures, however. She lets me go with a warning. It’s a shock but I guess I know the reason.
Pity.
Pity is the reason. I see it reflected in everyone’s eyes. Maggie, Leslie, Grace, even Ryan. They all have been giving me sad, sympathetic smiles.
It’s like my parents died all over again and I have to go to the morgue to identify their bodies. And then, it’s like the bank took away my house again because of all the debt and missed payments. Now, I have weeks of begging to do until they give me another chance to somehow make a partial payment.
It’s history repeating without actually repeating itself.
So I’m happy just to be sent on my daily duties. Only Tina’s assigned to work alongside me and in order to shift the pity, I tell her about Ryan’s asking me out.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?”
And that’s her reaction when I tell her that I refused to go out with him.
“Nothing.” I shrug, pushing the cleaning cart as we walk down one of the hallways in tower two. “Nothing’s wrong with me. I can’t go.”
“It’s not even a question, Cleo,” she says, stopping and putting her hands on her hips.
“Do you know you look like a mom when you do that?” I ask.
She folds her arms across her chest, then, throwing me a stern look.
“Not helping the mom situation there,” I sing-song and resume pushing the cart.
She sticks her hand out and grabs the handle, halting our progress again. “You have to go. You’re going.”
Sighing, I roll my eyes. “I can’t. I don’t have the time.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“I work all day and then…”
“Then what?”
“Doris might need me to babysit Art. She’s old and she gets tired easily. Plus I’m giving Art punching lessons. Do you know he’s getting bullied at his school?” I shake my head. “Seriously. What’s wrong with the world? How do these people, these fucking bullies, even sleep at night? Do they think it’s okay to torment people? Is it okay to scare them? Does it make them feel bigger? Like, seriously? God! World’s fucked up, Tina. Sometimes I think I should go and put the fear of God in those kids. Trust me –”