Brain Bleach
Somehow, I managed to sneak back into the suite without waking anyone up or running into anyone who was still awake. Bella’s light was out, which didn’t really tell me whether she was in or not. Either way, I was just glad not to be confronted by anyone after my most shameful walk of shame yet.
I should have known I wouldn’t get off so easily.
The next morning, I showered and dressed for class quickly, wanting to just get it over with since I hadn’t managed to study as much for the chemistry test as I wanted. I was pretty sure we had some Poptarts that I could scarf down as I walked across campus to class and thus save myself even more time. With that all planned out and all my things gathered, I walked out of my room… and into what looked like a very small intervention.
“Umm, guys?” I asked, glancing back and forth between Molly and Peyton, who were both blocking my path to the kitchen, their arms crossed and their faces deathly serious.
“So, when were you going to tell me your little boyfriend was Taylor?” Molly asked.
“I, umm,” I stuttered out. “Wait, how do you know?”
“Well, that confirms it,” Peyton remarked.
“Bella came back here last night yapping even louder than usual on her phone,” Molly explained. “We couldn’t have ignored it even if we had wanted to, and once we heard the names Taylor and Georgina… well, we had to listen. And we learned some pretty interesting things.”
Peyton nodded. “Yeah, like how she and Zac walked in on you and Taylor doing the deed. Eww, it hurts just to say it.”
I crossed my arms defensively, but stared down at the floor. “Look, I just… I mean, you can get why I wouldn’t want to brag about it, right? I’m not proud of myself. I’m really not. But I was just… well, you girls know how mad I was at Zac, and somehow, sleeping with Taylor just seemed like a good outlet for that anger. I know it doesn’t make sense, but that’s how I felt.”
“And lying to us about it?” Molly asked.
“Attempting to avoid this sort of reaction, to be honest,” I mumbled, scratching my head. “I mean, I knew no one would be happy about it. Especially Zac. And I just wanted to avoid all of those awful reactions.”
“Yeah, well, from what Bella said, Zac definitely did not talk it well,” Peyton replied.
“It was insane,” I said. “He was so pissed, but really, is it that bad? I mean, we’re barely even talking right now, and Taylor might be Taylor, but he’s nothing compared to Bella.”
“But he’s still Taylor,” Peyton pointed out. “He’s still the douchey older brother of the guy you claim to be in love with.”
“Claim to be?”
“Well, the fact that you’re sleeping with his brother makes it a little hard to believe you really feel that strongly about him,” she replied.
I shook my head and pushed past the two of them. “I‘m not listening to this. I don’t have to defend myself to you guys, too. Zac I could understand being upset, even if he was way more upset than I expected him to be. But you guys? What does this even matter to you? So I’m going to go fail this chemistry test, and if you’re still all pissy later, we can talk about it then.”
I grabbed a package of Poptarts from the cabinet and hurried away before either of them could say anything else.
Of course I had known everyone would judge me for sleeping with Taylor, but I really couldn’t handle the level of that judgment. Somehow, it just didn’t seem fair. Why did it really matter to anyone who I slept with? That should have been my business and my business alone. I knew it was our own foolish indescretion that caused them to find out, but I couldn’t help blaming Bella, too. Why would she need to gossip about it? What did she accomplish by yapping about my sex life to whoever she was on the phone with?
Something about that really did not sit right with me, but I couldn’t figure out why. It stayed on my mind all through my chemistry test, which meant my grade was probably even worse than it would have been otherwise, but I still didn’t come up with any sort of explanation for Bella’s actions that made sense.
After I somehow managed to survive the chemistry test, I headed across the campus to the food court. I was a little early, which meant I might not run into any of my friends—although given how I had argued with all of them recently, I wasn’t sure friends was the right word to describe them at the moment. I didn’t even bother looking for any of them before getting in line for a burrito.
“Oh, Georgina!” An annoying voice that I immediately recognized called out.
I wanted to hide, but of course, there was nowhere to hide. Reluctantly, I spun around to face the source of that voice—Bella.
“I just wanted to say that I am so sorry about last night,” she practically cooed. “If I had realized… I mean, of course we didn’t want to just walk in on you guys like that. We were only there to look for my pledge badge. I’m not supposed to ever be seen without it, but it had vanished, and I thought I might have dropped it at Taylor’s apartment. So I feel like it’s all my fault that you and Zac aren’t speaking, and I just feel so bad about it all.”
I stared at her, not really believing that she did feel bad. I remembered the way she had looked almost smug and pleased with herself when they stood in the door looking at us. She didn’t feel sorry at all.
“Yeah, whatever,” I replied, then turned back to the guy who was putting the toppings on my burrito. “Can you just wrap that up to go, please?”
Bella seemed to get the hint, because she was gone by the time I turned back around, my lunch wrapped up and in a bag. I didn’t have another class until later that afternoon, and I was in a horrible mood, so going straight back to the apartment and hiding in my room seemed like the best idea I’d had in ages.
By the time I had walked all the way back to Zink, my burrito was cold and I had to stick it in the microwave to warm it back up. While it was warming, the door opened and Molly walked in. She froze on the spot, and I sighed. I knew I had been a little out of line with her earlier, but I hated how everyone was ganging up on me. Yet… I had known it would happen, hadn’t I? Wasn’t that why I had chosen to keep the secret?
“Don’t mind me,” she said, pulling a soda from the refrigerator. “I’ll be gone soon.”
“No,” I replied. “I mean, look… I was kind of a bitch this morning. I knew this was a stupid idea and I knew everyone would be mad. I guess I didn’t think about how much worse it would make it if I lied to them.”
“Well, you should have,” she replied, but her tone had softened some.
I sighed. “Yeah, I get that. It’s just… you know, it’s too late to go back and change that. I just want everyone to forget that they ever knew about it.”
“I didn’t even see it, thank god, but I still don’t think I’ll ever get that mental image out of my head without some serious brain bleach. So forgetting it may not be that easy.”
In spite of myself, I laughed loudly. “Yeah, well, I’m never going to get the mental image of Zac and Bella staring at me and Taylor… well, you know… out of my head. And I think Bella seeing me like that is just as scarring as you having to think about it.”
“You may be right,” Molly replied, giggling. “What were they even doing there?”
“I don’t even know!” I said, then thought for a second. “Actually, you know what? She said something about thinking she had left her pledge badge there. But I thought she wasn’t allowed to ever take that thing off. I don’t know.”
“Her pledge badge?” Molly asked. “You mean the thing that stabbed my ass when I sat down on the couch earlier? That thing was shoved down in the couch cushions.”
I tilted my head to the side. Something about that struck me as odd. Now that I thought about it, she hadn’t been wearing the badge in the food court. But I was certain she had been wearing it the night before. It could have been my imagination distorting my memory, but I was really convinced of it, because that thing was such a big, gaudy mess of pink and glitter that it was pretty hard to forget. Yet she had said that she had gone over to Taylor’s apartment to look for the badge…
“What did I say?” Molly asked. “You’re looking at me like I just grew an extra head.”
“The badge was really wedged in there, huh? Like someone was trying to hide it?”
Molly nodded slowly, but she still looked confused. “Yeah, I guess so… why?”
“Because that badge is supposedly the reason Zac and Bella saw me with Taylor,” I replied. “And it’s the reason I need to call Zac and tell him his girlfriend is a lying bitch.”
“Are you sure that’s such a good idea?” Molly asked.
“No, but it needs to be done,” I replied, digging through my purse for my cell phone.
My burrito all but forgotten, I dialed Zac’s number. Molly threw her hands up in the air and walked away, obviously judging my decision, but I didn’t care. Zac needed to know that his girlfriend had purposefully set this up.
“Hello?” He answered, sounding annoyed. “I thought we weren’t speaking. So unless you called just to breath heavily down the line… and frankly, that’s a level of creepy I don’t think even Taylor is capable of. Although, you have been spending a lot of time with him…”
“Oh, shut up,” I replied. “I have something important to tell you. Important enough to break the silence.”
“And that is?”
“Your little girlfriend lied to you to set it up so you would find me with Taylor,” I said.
“Why and how would she do that?” Zac asked, and I could just picture him raising his eyebrow in disbelief and judgment.
I didn’t have a good answer for that, I realized. After a moment of awkward silence, I stuttered out, “Well… well, because she doesn’t like me. Obviously. And well… I did leave my phone in the living room after Taylor texted me. She must have read the text. And come to think of it, the other day he said he sent me a text that I never replied to, but I swear I didn’t get it. And I was working with Bella that night, too.”
“None of that is exactly damning evidence,” Zac replied.
“Well,” I said, glad that I had saved the best for last. “Didn’t she tell you she was looking for her pledge badge? I swear she had it on last night, and just now, Molly sat down on the couch and got stabbed by it. It was shoved down in the cushions like someone had done it on purpose. Like, say, to give themselves an excuse to go hunting for it.”
Zac sighed. “You’re still stretching, George. I know you don’t like her, but Bella has never said anything mean about you to me. So I just don’t see why she would have any reason to do anything like that. You want to believe the worst of her. I know you do. But you’re really reaching, and I just don’t buy it.”
“Just because you don’t buy it doesn’t mean she’s not selling it,” I shot back.
“That’s low, George. That’s really low. Although not nearly as low as giving it up to my manwhore of a brother.”
“Whatever,” I replied. “You may not believe me, but I know this is Bella’s fault. She wanted us to fight like this. I’m right. I don’t need you to believe it now, because I’m sure she’ll give you plenty of other chances to realize what a two-faced bitch she is.”
“Right now, she’s not the one I would describe that way,” he said.
“For your own safety, I’m going to hang up now,” I replied, and did just that.
I should have known he wouldn’t believe me, and yet it still hurt that he didn’t. In the end, though, I could only blame myself. If I hadn’t lied to him, he might have had a little more faith in me. There wasn’t a single other time I could think of when Zac hadn’t believed me.
By sleeping with Taylor, I had ruined everything.