Ella's Twisted Senior Year(4)
The scent of Kennedy’s perfume hits me. My eyes immediately water as she throws her arms around my waist, tucking her head against my chest. “Finally. I had to wait forever for your slow ass to get out here.”
I don’t know why she wears so much perfume and we’ve been dating for an entire month and I still can’t think of a way to bring it up politely. I blink back tears and lift my chin to breathe in some fresh air.
“I had to shower,” I say, nodding goodbye to Toby who heads to his truck. She rolls her eyes and pulls my hoody around her body as a blast of cold air hit us. “So you just wanted to make me wait there like a jerk? Thanks, Ethan, really.”
My eyes widen. Kennedy’s Explorer isn’t parked next to mine like usual. All of the craziness of the tornado in last period totally made me forget that I was supposed to give her a ride home today because her dad stopped by to take her car to get new wheels put on. “I’m sorry. I forgot.” I double click my keys to unlock the passenger door for her. “Let’s go. I’ll make it up to you.”
Her glare turns sultry as she bats her sparkly eyelashes at me. “Good. And you owe me huge, by the way.”
We get in my truck and I start driving toward her neighborhood which is on the opposite side of town. “Huge? I made you wait like ten extra minutes to leave,” I say, choosing a radio station that’s actually playing a song instead of covering the tornado. “You’ll survive.”
“Uh no, that’s only part of why I’m pissed at you.” She fixes her face into that look of disappointment that I’ve been seeing a lot lately and her hand leaves my thigh. So now she’s elevated her mood to being pissed at me? This won’t be horrible at all.
“What’d I do to deserve your wrath, Ms. Price?”
She exhales. “The fact that you even have to ask is really disappointing, Ethan.”
We stop at a red light and I look up at the roof, trying to think of where I screwed up.
“Seriously?” she says, throwing her hands in the air. “You seriously don’t know?”
I glance at my phone which is in the cup holder. “Did I forget to text you back?” That was the last time she’d been pissed at me. A forgotten text reply at two in the morning.
She groans, crossing her arms over her chest. Normally I don’t mind when she does that move because it makes her boobs push up, but this time my hoody blocks everything. Guess I’m such a shit boyfriend I don’t deserve to see anything right now.
I sigh and grip the steering wheel tighter. “Just tell me, or you’ll be pissed forever.”
“Ethan, I need a boyfriend who isn’t so damn clueless all the time.”
If she’s about to break up with me, I probably shouldn’t feel relieved, right? I look over at her. “If you want an apology, tell me what I did wrong. Because I’ve got nothing.”
She blinks and takes in a deep breath that she then pushes out slowly like she’s doing some kind of yoga relaxation technique in the passenger seat of my truck.
“That girl was a bitch to me in the hallway,” she begins, still talking with her eyes closed. “And you didn’t even stick up for me.”
“Oh,” I say, scrunching up my face. That’s all this is about? “Ella? She wasn’t really being a bitch, I don’t think.”
“Oh so you’re on a first name basis with some loser?” Kennedy huffs again, shaking her head so violently it might just fall off and spew blood all over my tan leather interior. “Who even are you?” she says, her eyes going wide with irritation.
“Wow, you need to chill.”
The moment I say the words I know it is a mistake. Kennedy goes off, yelling about how incredibly rude and demeaning it is to tell her to chill when I’m the one being the *. I tune it out as I drive because I’m pretty sure I’ve heard it all before. We can’t go more than a day or so without her getting pissed off at me for some seemingly pointless thing I’ve done. But it’s never pointless innocent infractions to Kennedy Price. Every time I do something that is less than perfect in her eyes, I am a monster who needs a lecture to straighten me out.
The thing is, maybe I don’t think I’m a monster at all. Maybe I’m just a normal guy who isn’t a mind reader. But anyway, I tune her out and cruise along, wishing she didn’t live so far away. The tornado clearly didn’t hit this part of town because everything looks fine.
I’m trying really hard to focus on the car in front of me, of the bright blue sky that’s done a one-eighty after the tornado, of anything except Ella Lockhart.
Seeing her today was like falling into a time machine. I can’t believe I’d asked her what was up like we were friends. It just slipped—one minute I’d been in a haze, my heart still beating like crazy from running drills with Coach and then the next minute I was being told to sit against the wall while alarms pierced through the air.
Maybe it was from the craziness of the tornado alarms, but when I saw her sitting there, in ripped jeans and a long sleeved shirt with some kind of weird print on it, it almost felt like the old days. Ella was always simple and herself. She did what she wanted, wore the clothes she thought were cute, regardless of how many times she was made fun of for wearing Hello Kitty in junior high. She was just herself and that made her happy. So yeah, in all of the craziness, I ‘d forgotten that we’re enemies now. I’m in the running for prom king and she’s . . . well I don’t even know what she’s up to now. Knowing her, she’s probably still baking her cupcakes and sporting Hello Kitty pajamas. But I know she doesn’t have anything to do with my circle of friends. We are complete opposites now.