She sucked in her gut and her cheeks, turning sideways to see what she might look like if she didn’t have that extra five pounds. If she could just get Kevin Peterson to look at her one time, just once – and if that one time she was tan and her hair was just right, and she wasn’t so darn puffy – maybe he’d notice her, and then …
The fantasy was too far-fetched to continue. She let her gut back out and stopped biting in her cheeks. The day Kevin Peterson – the most perfectly formed, hottest guy in high school – noticed her as a dateable girl and not some weirdo with unruly hair, puffy cheeks and short legs, was the day she was the last girl on Earth. It was too depressing to even dream about.
She turned her attention back to her packing.
Should I pack the green bathing suit and the pink one, or just the green one? So many decisions to make and so little time. I wonder which color Kevin would like better.
Her magnifying glass stayed in the drawer of her desk, the poncho only making it into the bag because it was sitting right next to the pink bathing suit that she finally decided to take. The rest of the items on Jonathan’s list remained where they were. In their place went mint gum, sunglasses, eyeliner and waterproof mascara. A girl has to look her best on a cruise, and she only had this one shot to prove herself.
***
Kevin was standing at the refrigerator drinking out of the milk carton when he heard the front door slam.
“KEVIN!!”
He choked as the word slammed into his eardrums. He quickly put the cap back on the gallon jug, practically throwing it back into the fridge.
How did she know I was drinking out of the carton?
She was at the front door; he knew she couldn’t see the kitchen from there.
“What?!” he choked back, having hurriedly swallowed and wiped the small milk mustache off his top lip with the back of his hand. He leaned on the counter to make it look as if he was just hanging out in the kitchen for no reason – not drinking out of the milk jug without using a glass. That was a big no-no in the Peterson household.
Sarah rounded the corner from the front hall, and the first thing he noticed was her face. It was streaked with black stuff, from under her eyes to her jawline. Her eyes were blazing red and her nose was dripping snot. He quickly surmised that her current mood had nothing to do with his drinking-milk-out-of-the-jug infraction.
“What the hell happened to you?” was all he could think to say.
“What the hell happened to
me?
I’ll tell you what the hell happened to me! I just found your slut girlfriend messing around with my asshole ex-boyfriend in his bed, that’s what!”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Kevin responded, the words not yet completely sinking in.
“Yeah, you heard me right. I went over to Barry’s house to surprise him, only I’m the one who ended up surprised – because your girlfriend was there
naked
with Barry and his pants half off!”
Kevin was dumbstruck. He jerked himself off the counter, grabbing his phone out of his pocket. He tapped out and sent off a furious text message.
“I … ” started Sarah.
“Don’t say anything,”
he warned, menacingly, barely containing his rage. He stood there, staring at his phone, waiting for a response. The ticking of the kitchen clock and the humming of the refrigerator were the only sounds to be heard.
The beep of a return text reached their ears. Kevin took half a second to read the response and then punched the stainless steel refrigerator door, lightning-quick, leaving a dent in the front.
“Holy shit, Kev,” said Sarah, staring back and forth between the dent and his face, her face showing surprise at his quick and violent anger.
He turned to leave the kitchen through the other doorway.
“Wait!” Sarah came chasing after him. “What are we going to do about this?”
Kevin continued through the butler’s pantry, the dining room, and then down the hall and around the corner to the bottom of the stairs. “We’re not going to do anything. It’s over. They deserve each other. Move on.” His voice was cold and heartless.
Sarah stopped at the bottom of the stairs, as Kevin to them up, two at a time. “Move on? How can I move on? My heart is broken into a thousand pieces!”
He laughed bitterly, not looking back. “Please. That guy’s a complete ass, he didn’t deserve you anyway. I don’t want to talk about it anymore. Story’s over. I’m gonna go on a cruise and find me a new piece of ass.”
Sarah ran up the stairs behind him. “But … ”
“But nothin’, I told you. I’m not talking about it.”
He could hear her feet racing down the hall to catch up to him as he was entering his room. “But! … ”
His response was a door slammed in her face.
***
The next thing Sarah heard was her brother’s stereo being turned on and up really loud.
She leaned her head on the door and said softly, “But I really liked him a lot.” The tears were burning her eyes, but she willed them not to fall. She hated feeling weak, and tears were a sign of weakness.
There was no response from Kevin – not that she had expected one. When her brother told her he wasn’t going to talk about something, that was it. He wasn’t the touchy feely type.
Sarah turned to go into her room. She planned to either cry where no one could see her until it was time to leave, or, if that didn’t make her feel better, to come up with a suitable means of revenge against her cheating ex-boyfriend and his slut. Entering her room, she looked around and couldn’t help but notice the tons of Barry mementoes all over the place – the photos, the stuffed animal he’d won for her at the school fair, the valentine flowers he had given her this year that she had hung and dried, the empty box of chocolates from her birthday. She felt a well of anger begin to build.
How could I have been so blind?
***
Kevin planned to stay in his bedroom until he was sure his sister was gone. She could be a serious pain in the butt when it came to talking about ‘feelings’ or ‘emotions’. She didn’t get that even though they were twins and pretty close, nothing and no one was going to get him to talk about that crap.
He sat down on the bed and took his phone out of his pocket, looking at the text messages that had just been sent and received.
I HEAR YOU WERE WITH BARRY JUST NOW. IS IT TRUE?
YES … SORRY
He flipped open the keypad and texted back:
SCREW YOU
. Then he went to her contact and deleted it – and all the pictures he had on his phone of her, even the one of her tits that he’d taken just last weekend when they were making out in his car near the park. For him, there was no going back, no forgiveness. Like he had said to Sarah earlier, there were plenty more chicks where this one had come from, and they were all the same too – worried about their hair, makeup and clothes, pretending that they enjoyed sports to get guys to like them back. Fun to party with but annoying after more than a few hours.
Deleting Gretchen off his phone made him feel better. She was a fun girl, but he really didn’t care that she had cheated on him. Sure it pissed him off – no guy likes that feeling that someone else was more attractive to his girl than he was, but he really didn’t like her that much. She was cute and had a hot body, but she really didn’t have anything else going on. It got old really quick listening to her talk. He usually tuned her out after about ten minutes and then grunted or ‘mmm-hmmed’ every once in a while when it seemed like she was waiting for a response.
As he looked back on his past few girlfriends, he realized that this pretty much described all of them. He tended to go for the Barbie Doll look, not paying much attention to personality. If the chemistry started flowing when he checked her out, she was a possible candidate. His sister had once accused him of purposely picking the dumbest, shallowest girls to go out with. At the time he’d disagreed, but making a more honest evaluation now, he thought there might be more than a grain of truth to that statement.
He shrugged his shoulders at this thought.
At least they aren’t too complicated. I’ve got too much going on with rugby and potential college scholarships to worry about this chick garbage. I’ve got plenty of time to get serious with the marrying kind.
Kevin had a theory. There were girls who were the dating kind – like Gretchen – and there were girls who were the marrying kind. So far, he hadn’t bothered to get to know any of those. They were dangerous, in fact; they could distract him from what was important – his goals. Besides … there was no point in hooking up with the marrying kind of girl, since he didn’t plan on settling down until he was done with college. He had some serious wild oats to sow before then.
He fell back onto his bed and laced his hands behind his head, imagining all the gorgeous single girls who were going to be on this cruise. That instantly made him feel much better.
Lookout ladies, Kevin is back in business.
He smiled. That shithead Barry and airhead Gretchen really did deserve each other – he hadn’t been lying to Sarah or just trying to make her feel better when he said Barry didn’t deserve her.
Still, even though his sister was better off without Barry, she didn’t deserve to have her heart crushed. Kevin knew how much she really liked the guy. Her problem was she couldn’t see people for who they really were. She kept her thoughts and her interests shallow so she didn’t have to feel too much. They were very much alike in that way.
He thought that he was probably the only person in the world who knew how intelligent and sensitive his sister really was. Maybe someday she’d let someone else see that side of her. The problem was that she’d been spoiled by their parents and ignored way too much. Their parents let her get away with murder because they felt guilty about how much time they spent away, plus they were mostly clueless anyway. His dad was pretty harsh and his mom was addicted to pills that made her sleep all the time.
When Kevin was in his psychoanalyzing mood, he’d say that Sarah acted shallow because she was afraid no one would like the real her – the smart, sharp-witted one. Instead, she focused on things she knew her parents valued – looks, style, attitude. And it wasn’t the nicest attitude in the world either. They’d both been raised to be arrogant and selfish. Their father was the epitome of self-indulgence and self-importance. Their mother wasn’t so much, but she was so weak, she went along with whatever their father wanted – when she wasn’t sleeping.
Right now, their father wanted to get into some business deal with the Buckleys’ father. Supposedly, this cruise was going to mean big changes in their lives in the near future. Kevin thought about that and some of the other things he’d heard his father say, both to his face and to other people. His father didn’t know that Kevin listened to all of these conversations with interest. Frank Peterson thought his son was a dumb jock who had nothing on his mind but sports and girls. It suited Kevin to let people think that about him. Being underestimated gave him the upper hand.
He had pieced together that the Buckley kids’ dad had made some software or program that was going to revolutionize the telephone relay service world, and his dad wanted to somehow get involved. This cruise was something his dad had put together to convince the Buckley guy to work with him and not some other company. Buckley was some kind of goofy genius who had no idea of the true worth of his invention. Kevin’s dad was going to get this guy signed up with him and then take it from there. Kevin got the impression that what his dad was doing was legal, but not exactly right. He gathered this from some of the offhand comments his father had made and the level of stress Kevin was feeling in the house lately. He could tell his dad was really counting on this deal going through. He’d heard his dad say that he didn’t want Buckley to figure out the real value of this program before he was locked in by contract.
The Petersons lived the high life – drove nice cars, lived in a big house, wore all the cool designer clothes – but Kevin knew that all was not as perfect as it seemed. He’d heard his parents up late at night arguing about money. He knew his dad had recently taken his mom’s credit cards and cut them in half.
A lot was riding on this trip. Kevin didn’t share this information with his sister. He knew she would only try to use it to manipulate their dad into letting her stay behind – and if he had to go on this stupid cruise, so did she.
He let his mind drift over to the things he remembered reading in the cruise brochure. There were five swimming pools, one of which was open all night, seafood buffets, breakfast buffets, lobster dinners …
It wasn’t long before he’d fallen asleep. The next thing he knew, his sister was pushing his shoulder saying, “Wake up, dumbass, the shuttle is here.”
He opened his eyes and noticed right away that she’d cleaned herself up and almost looked happy. No more crazy black streaks running down her face or snot dripping out of her nose.
“Well, you sure got over your heartbreak pretty quick.”
She smiled knowingly. “Yep. Like you said, he’s not worth it.”
Kevin got up to follow her down the hall but stopped when he caught a glimpse of her bedroom. “What the … ?”
All over the bed and floor were little tiny pieces of what looked like confetti and possibly an exploded pillow.
“I did a little redecorating,” said Sarah casually.
“Uh, it looks like a friggin’ bomb went off in there. What’d you do, blow up a teddy bear?”
She turned around casually, showing no sign of emotion, other than personal satisfaction. “Nope. Just cut up all of Barry’s pictures and shredded the stuffed animal he won for me at the fair.”
Kevin got a big smile on his face, nodding in appreciation. “Nice.”
Sarah smiled back. “Thanks.”
“I deleted Gretchen’s contact and photos off my phone.”
“Sweet.”
They shared a smile, bonding over lost love and heartache. Or maybe revenge. Either way, it felt good.