excessive amount of attention to herself. The blue truck pulled over in one quick motion.
The door of the car opened, revealing a dark man with short hair. A tan tee shirt with black jeans covered him. “Having car trouble, ladies?” He called out before coming closer. He crept up to the car, taking one length of the cord to plug into his car.
After that, he spun to us. “Well, you’re sure responsive.”
“Thank you for coming!” Shannon said, counteracting what he assumed.
“What are your names?”
“Mine is Shannon, and she’s Dorothy.” Shannon spoke. Someone always tends to speak up for me. That can get on my nerves.
“I’m Riley.” He said, extending out his hand to Shannon, avoiding me. I probably looked unwelcoming at the moment; my fingers were in my mouth. I bit down slowly on one of my fingernails.
Shannon shook his hand, agreeing to just that.
Riley filled the void with some small talk. Of course, I was included but I didn’t say much. Shannon did all the talking for me and it was nice. Riley seemed to take an immediate liking to her, but how could he not? Shannon had an incredibly lively personality.
Shannon tried the car. It came to life. “Yes!” She exclaimed. She thanked Riley a second time, and he hinted that he wanted to exchange phone numbers. And Shannon did, she’s not one to say no.
After Riley left, Shannon blabbed about how adorable Riley acted around her. Considering that she would call him…possibly.
“Oh, wow.” Shannon said when we stopped at a light. “Eric and Travis called like twenty times.” She laughed.
I wondered what it was but I picked it up. “Right,” I said, “that’s not embarrassing at all.” I put my face in my hands.
“No,” she said, starting to lighten up the mood. “They need to start practicing for their future wives.” She smiled at the thought, turning her head to me. “Consider that a gift from us.”
Future wives? I’ve never really given any thought about the future. I either mull about the past or regret the present, but the future had to be the scariest place to think about.
“Dottie, you seem so out of it after you got back from the woods with Eric. What the hell happened in there? Anything to get a certain girlfriend jealous?” She now wore sunglasses; it pushed down against her nose.
“Well Eric and I were never close… physically.”
“Ah, he needed to work up a story for his girlfriend,” she suggested. “What did he do?”
“It’s juvenile.”
“And…?”
“He hugged me.” I said.
“Wow, Dottie. That’s so bad.” A sarcastic tone escaped.
I sighed. “I told you that.”
We talked just a bit more about Eric then switching to my boyfriend. I really wish the spotlight wasn’t on me all the time, so I asked her some stuff about Carter and Travis.
“Carter’s dating the most amazing kind-hearted girl you could ever meet! I introduced them,” she boasted.
“That’s sweet.” I said, not equipped with what I should say. I begin to wonder how my set up with Jeremy was doing.
“No. That’s amazing Dottie! You know Carter used to date stuck-up wannabe scene girls. They all used him because he’s good-looking. You know.” I did know. Carter was the exact cut-out of those fake pictures that most people put up on as a profile picture for MySpace. Emo-looking people are always the ones that get their face stolen.
“Yup,” I said.
“His girlfriend’s totally different.” She continued. “Opposites but adorable,” Shannon squealed, just thinking of them appeared to make her happy.
“He’s really close to his phone.” I recalled.
She quickly answered that. “Gloria had to go to New York to study acting. She wants to be an actress. The sad part is that she might leave to go to New York for college. I know that just kills Carter,” Shannon said bitterly, remembering the bad part of putting them together. “She’s coming back today though, so that’s why we should go eat extremely fast to let Gloria and Carter unite and rekindle their undying love for each other.” She took a deep breath, as if she has been held underwater.
“That explains it.” I said, feeling relief that Carter wasn’t a textaholic.
“Carter gets really distracted when someone’s away. I remember when Travis departed to go to Florida for Spring Break with his cousins. Carter always came over my house every night,” she said. Carter seemed like a wonderful friend.
“Yes, we’re here!” We pulled into the crowded parking lot. A neon red sign had the words ‘Toni’s’ planted on it, along with a little a blond-haired man that was a mascot.
Before Shannon got out of the car I asked her, “How do you trust me? I could have a total outburst in the restaurant?”
Shannon smiled sweetly, “Because I know how you are.” She went on, “Eric’s a mystery, and I know he won’t do anything. And I know you won’t want to leave. You’re in too deep now, Dottie.” She ended with that, which left me to wonder. But she was right, in a way. She opened the door for me.
We entered the restaurant and one of the waiters grabbed two menus and said, “Party of two?”
“Actually,” Shannon put her sunglasses on top of her head, “party of six.” The waitress nodded and reached out for four more menus.
We were seated in this giant booth that made us look awkward because were the only ones there. A fair amount of people crowded the restaurant. We talked on about nothing in particular. I couldn’t keep focus on the conversation, I was too busy worried about my stomach. Shannon noticed my discomfort and offered to call the guys. I just shook my head.
We spotted the guys through the blinds across from us. Aaron led the pack carrying one of the backpacks. The bag looked like it was about to explode on them. And as soon as they came to the table, he dropped it in front of me.
“Listen,” he said in an annoyed voice. “We went through aisles and aisles of endless feminine products!” He said loudly, causing the middle-aged couple in front of us to turn their head slightly.
“You should have picked something and went through with it.” I said, my voice edging towards anger.
“We don’t know what brand you’re in,” Travis said. “Like we need to make you mad at this time.” He gave me a ticked off look.
I put my hands around my face, hiding myself from approaching stares. “You’re already getting me mad,” I hissed, “You’re causing a scene.”
“I hope you didn’t get anything on my seat. Because if you did….” He shook his finger at me like he was the teacher and I was the bad student.
“Oh, is that all you care about Travis? Your car is junk anyhow.” Shannon tipped her head at him. She took hold of my hand and grasped one of the straps on the backpack. Before she passed the guys to the bathroom, she said to them, “I want a cappuccino, and Dottie?” She looked at me.
“I’ll have orange juice.” I said. With that, we headed to the bathroom. The task of sorting pads awaited us.
12. MOTHER
After the breakfast, Shannon intentionally picked on Travis. Or maybe it was on purpose, I wouldn’t know for sure. And I was beginning to see that they really liked each other. But I needed hard evidence.
The only reason I knew is when Shannon flat-out said it; “I am enraged at Travis.” She glared in his direction at the table. He sat too oblivious to care. But when he looked back at her, he gave an expression of question.
All she did was stare back, her eyes rude.
“Travis… ticked you off?” I assumed, resting my head on the palm of my hand.
She made a sigh. “What are you talking about? He should be ticking you off!” Confusion overtook my face. “Come on. He ranted on and on about his stupid car.”
Oh. She was right. Travis cared a lot about his car. I didn’t blame him. Okay, maybe I did. But I got over it—kind of.
So as we left the restaurant, Shannon, Travis, and Carter stayed
behind for a bit.
“You know you never talk a lot.” Aaron said while looking at me.
“I’m pretty sure Shannon would agree with me about how wrong your sentence fragment is,” I said, to pass the time.
Eric snickered. “So how’s the car ride with Shannon? What did you guys talk about?” He asked.
“Oh,” I started off, thinking of all the topics of him to avoid, “Girl stuff.” I smiled to him. Carter came out of the restaurant, followed by Travis.
Travis approached me. “I’m sorry that I’m an inconsiderate selfish bastard.” He said to me with a real apology on his face, but we both know that the words coming from his mouth were from a certain someone else.
I crossed my arms. Remembering Shannon’s words, I had every right to be angry. “Whatever.”
That didn’t sound real then, did it?” Travis said. “Sounded like Shannon?” He offered. Yes. It sounded exactly how Shannon would go about saying an apology. So I nodded to him and he sighed. “Shannon told me to tell you that, but I knew that you would pick it up.”
“So then that means,” I said slowly, “that you’re not really sorry?” I finished off bitterly.
“How about this,” he said, glancing up at the sky. Searching for words in the air that I didn’t think he would find. “I’m sorry that I’m a stupid asshole.” He went down on his knees, clasping his hands together as if praying to God. “Would you please forgive me?” He begged with his eyes boring into mine.
I stared back at him. Looking away was truly hard for me to do. “Yes,” was all I could manage to say, what else was I suppose to