Authors: Monica Alexander
“You could ask,” I said, crossing my arms in front of my chest, “instead of just demanding.”
I could see Chase fighting the urge to roll his eyes. “Oh, Great Princess Emily, would you do me the immense honor of allowing me to borrow your window, so I can
humbly
smoke a joint?”
“What’s wrong with yours?” I asked, annoyed that he was encroaching on my territory,
knowing that he
was doing so,
so he could smoke
weed
, but enraged that he’d found it humorous to mock me in the process
.
“Mom and Dad are on the
back
porch.
They’ll
smell it from my window,
”
he said, dropping the affected voice he’d used when attempting to insult me.
I wanted to laugh. Chase had been sneaking his bad habits all summer because my parents still didn’t know he smoked – weed or cigarettes. Unfortunately for him, his
room
had a view of the backyard
and looked out over the
porch where my
parents liked to relax
.
My room had a view of the front yard and the street.
I
t was far enough aw
ay from the backyard that they
wouldn’t smell the vile stench of his pot.
“So
don’t smoke,” I said in
my nastiest tone, thinking
it w
as probably the third time that day
he’d gotten high.
“Bite me,” was his charming and oh-so-mature response.
I
glared at him.
“Fine, whatever,” I said
through gritted teeth
.
“Just take the screen out and blow out, not in
.
I don’t want to smell that stuff.”
Chase was one of the few people who
had always been able to bring out the worst in me
. He had
a way of
getting under my skin that
drove me crazy. S
ince I’d been home
, and
was already
on edge most of the time anyway, his attitude toward me
made my
moods worse
, which in turn made me feel crabbier
,
and resulted in a viscous circle
of bitchiness
that I couldn’t escape
.
“Thanks
,
sis,” he sa
id, his voice full of sarcasm.
“I’m so glad we can have
these little bonding moments.
They just mean so much to me.”
As he passed by me, he gave me a look that told me he thought I was being stuck-up
, judgmental and close-minded.
It was a look he often tossed my way
.
I returned his look with a sarcastic smirk of my own which only made him chuckle lightly as he
settled onto the window
sill and worked to pop the screen out
.
He completely ignored Keely
as he walked by her.
I glared at his back
as I got
off the bed
and turned to her
.
“I’m getting a drink.
Do you want to come with me?”
She shrugged, put the CDs
she was browsing back
on my d
esk
,
and got up from the chair.
“Sure,” she said, stealing a glance a Chase who w
as rolling a joint on my window
sill.
I couldn’t help thinking that if I was
really
a bi
tch, I would have told him no.
It was funny that I’d never even considered that as an option.
Maybe there was hope for me yet.
“Why do you let him get
to you?” Keely asked, eyeing me
cautiously
as we closed my bedroom door behind us and headed downstairs
.
“What?” I asked, turning to face her.
Her question was thoroughly confusing, given our history. We often complained about Chase to each other
, as he bugged us both equally.
I
t
was the first time she’d ever questioned my reaction to him being a jerk.
She
usually agreed with my opinions of him.
“Why do you get
s
o worked up over him?”
“I’m not worked up,” I said, a
utomatically defending myself.
I hated that my little sister seemed to have more clarity than me
all of a sudden
.
“You are too.”
“H
e’s a jerk
,” I said simply.
“He’s a stoner loser who walks arou
nd here like he owns the place. It’s irritating
.”
She took a deep breath
as
we made o
ur way through the
house.
Through the sliding glass door, I could see our parents sitti
ng on the porch
enjoying some afternoon cocktails
.
My mother was laughing
at something my dad had said.
I started to wonder what had kept her infatuation
with him
all of these years since they still seemed to be just as in love with each other as
they’d always been.
It made me think of Ben and our history toget
her and what i
t meant to me.
Maybe breaking up wasn’t such a good idea.
“He’s not that bad,” Keely
said
then
, breaking my concentration
.
I
stopped comp
letely and turned to face her from
the
doorway to the kitchen.
Her comment
had thro
w
n
me for a
complete
loop.
She was looking at me speculatively, as if to gauge what I
was
thinking.
I raised my ey
ebrows and just looked at her.
I wasn’t
sure
how to respond.
Cha
se
was
that bad.
There were
no two ways about it.
“K
eely, seriously?” I finally asked
after a few minutes of deadlocked eye contact with
my sister.
“He just marched into my room
, assumed he could take
it over
an
d didn’t say two words to you.
How can you defend him?”
She shrugged
,
but she looked lik
e she wanted to say something
, s
o
I probed.
“What
are you not telling me
?” I asked,
stepping closer to her
.
“Nothing,” she said, her eyes drifting
away from wher
e I held her gaze, my eyes
locked on hers.
I crossed my arms in front of me and stared at her
so she
was forced to turn her head
and face me
.
“Keels, what is going on?
You hate Chase.
”
“Nothing
’s going on, and I never said I hated him. You said that
.”
I could see the defiance cross her face.
“
You’ve always assumed that it was me and you against Chas
e, but I’m sort of sick of it.
I want t
o be friends with both of you.
It’s bullshit that we can’t get along.”
I was sort of
taken aback by her statement.
“Well, maybe if he wasn’t such a
los
er
jerk, I’d want to hang out with him more,” I snapped.
“Well,” Keely said, and I could tell she was trying not to start an argument with me, “he might not be such a jerk if y
ou were a little nicer to him.”
I watched her cringe
slightly as she said it, most
likely anticipating ho
w i
t might set me off.
Seeing this, I t
ried to maintain my composure.
“Keely, he’s stoned most of the time, he’s rude, he makes fun of everything I do, and oh, right, we have nothing in common! How am I supposed to be friends with someone like that? He’
s an asshole. Everyone knows that.”
She shrugged. “Not everyone. Rachel was talking to him the other ni
ght at that concert I went to.
She didn’t seem to be repulsed by him.
She was even laughing with him.
Maybe if you were nice to him
, like she was
, he’d be nice to you.
”
I nar
rowed my eyes at her
, completely ignoring the last part of her statement
. “Rachel?
My Rachel?” She nodded.
“My best friend Rachel was talking and
laughing
with Chase?”
I was h
aving a hard time imagining that. Worse, why hadn’t she told me?
The concer
t was
been three nights
ago
.
It was some
electronic
band
Rachel had to cover for the magazine
.
I wasn’t a big fan, so I’d opted
to hang out with Ben instead.
I didn’t even know Chase had gone
to the show
.
“
She watched the whole show with him and Davis.
I talked to them for a few minutes. They seemed to be having fun.”
I was dumbstruck. I couldn’t see Rachel, who disliked Chase as much as I did, because he was equally mean to her, actuall
y hanging out and laughing with him
and his best friend, who was an
even bigger loser than Chase was
.
It didn’t make any sense.
“So
Chase has been nice to you?” I asked, just for clarificat
ion.
“Is that why you want me to give him a break?”
“Just try not to be so
judgmental of him,
Em,
” she said.
“I mean, he does smoke a lot, but
he’s really smart
,
and it doesn’t make him all st
upid like it does some people. He says it relaxes him
and helps him concentrate.”
I put my hand up in protest.
“Okay, how do you know all of this? And, better yet, why are y
ou defending his habits
?”
She shrugged.
“
I sort of hung out with him last night, and
he was telling me about it.
I don’t think it’s that big of a deal.
Lots of people I know smoke.
”
She shrugged again.
“
Okay, Keels, for the record, it’s illegal, so it
is
a big deal.”
“So is underage drinking,
but you did
that
for years
.”
Oops, she’d caught me there.
I wasn’t sure what to say to t
hat, so I diverted the conversation
.
“
When
did you hang out with him
?”
“Last night w
hen he got home.
I heard a noise in the hall and thought it w
as you and Ben, so I came out.
Chase asked me if I wanted to come outside with h
im, so I did.
Em
ily
, he never invites me to hang out
, so I figured I needed to capitalize on the opportunity
.
”
“And,” I prompted, knowing there was more to the story.
“I don’t know,” she said, looking down
.
“We went out on the back porch
, and
he didn’t really say much.
I asked him what he did that night, and he told me about how he’d been over at Davis’
s
house with some
friends
.
He said they hung out,
smoked and played video games. It wasn’t that exciting.
Then
I told him about ho
w
Barrett,
Paige and I had gone to Lauren
’s
party for a little while before we had to be home for curfew.”