Back to You(64)

She walked right up to Michael’s side, wrapping her arms around his waist, still giggling as she planted open-mouthed kisses along the side of his neck.
Lauren swallowed, her eyes pinned on the girl. For some reason, the only coherent thought she could come up with was that she was wearing too much makeup. Her eyeliner and lipstick were both heavy and dark, making her look harsh instead of feminine. Her name was Tanya. Or Tina. Something like that. But despite not knowing her name, her reputation was something Lauren knew well.
She watched her lavish Michael’s throat with attention, and she couldn’t help but notice how her lipstick was smudged around her mouth.
She didn’t want to think about how it had gotten that way.
Lauren ripped her eyes away from the girl, looking back up at Michael. He seemed completely oblivious to the person at his side, sucking on the skin just below his ear. His eyes were on Lauren, his expression gentle.
Concerned.
“Hey,” he said softly. “You’re cool, right?”
It took every ounce of strength in Lauren’s body to pull a smile, but she managed a shaky one. “Yeah, I’m cool,” she said, hoping her voice didn’t falter. “I just meant that…I wanted to ask you to take it easy with Jenn. Quit instigating her, okay?”
Michael grinned then, a combination of relief and mischief chasing the concern from his eyes. “No promises,” he said. He walked the few steps over to her with Tanya/Tina in tow and planted a kiss on the top of her head.
And then he turned and walked back toward his friends with another girl’s lips all over his skin.

Del sat on the floor up against the side of his bed, his head bobbing slightly to the song thumping out of his stereo.
And then he grit his teeth and took a swig from the bottle in his hand as his mind went back to that afternoon.
To the moment Tanya had smacked him across his face.
In front of the entire cafeteria.
Del shook his head, swallowing his mouthful of whiskey. That f*cking bitch. He could not believe he spent the last month of his life with that girl. And he had an even harder time believing that the slap she bestowed on him wasn’t just a ploy for attention.
He knew she didn’t really care about him, just the way he didn’t really care about her. They never even pretended to care about each other. So honestly, how upset could she have been that he had grown bored with her? After all, their entire relationship was a joke. In fact, even referring to it as a relationship was a joke in itself; anything that began with a girl on her knees in the middle of the woods could hardly be constituted as anything meaningful, at least not in his eyes.
But they had used each other to satisfy a need for the past few weeks. And then he had ended it.
And she slapped him. As if he had wronged her. As if she didn’t know exactly what their situation had been about. As if she didn’t basically set the terms of it herself.
Michael grit his teeth again. It took everything he had in him not to knock her on her ass. Who did she think she was? How dare she put her hands on him, in front of a room full of people, no less? He didn’t take that shit from anyone.
But she was a girl, and so he had to satisfy himself by grabbing a bottle of Jack from his mother’s stash downstairs and drinking the afternoon away.
A few minutes later, Del heard the faint sounds of a car pulling up outside, followed by the sound of a door closing gently, and he smiled.
Of course she’d come.
She was there in the cafeteria. She saw it all unfold.
Michael laughed humorlessly, shaking his head as he took another swig from the bottle.
By the time the track on his CD player changed to the next song, he heard the light footsteps on the stairs, and then his door cracked open slowly as she peeked her head in.
“There she is,” he said with a grin, his voice tinged with alcohol. “I knew you’d come.”
She opened the door with a sad smile. “And I knew you’d be drunk,” she sighed, closing the door softly behind her.
“Well, I guess we’re pretty predictable, aren’t we, Red,” he said, swirling the contents of the bottle in his hand.
“Well, we have done this dance a few times,” she said, nudging him with her knee as she reached him. “Don’t you ever get tired of dating girls like that? You know how it ends.”
Del rested his head back on the bed, looking up at her as he shrugged indifferently.
She sighed, folding her arms over her chest. “So, do I officially have my friend back?”
Del pulled his brow together. “What does that mean?” he asked, and Lauren shrugged.
“It’s just…this was a bad one. I hardly got to see you or talk to you when you were with her.”