“Let me see: once you finally won the guy of your dreams but he died before your first kiss.”
“No way…”
“Girl of your dreams, then?” She’s searching for something in my eyes.
“Um. No – not that either.”
“Okay, then – you once dated this total asshole and he made your life hell until you finally got enough courage to break up with him.”
Melanie smiles, she’s about to bust out into another laugh. I feel my face burst into flame and even though the last thing I want to do is cry, my eyes overflow and I’m sniffling like a big baby.
“Shit. I’m sorry,” Melanie says. “How did you meet him?”
Melanie could be my friend. I could tell her everything. Carrie thinks she knows everything, but it’s complicated, you know? She’s never had a boyfriend – what does she know about how these things work?
“I mean – everything was sweet at first. We have Spanish together. He asked me out during one of our Spanish skits. I thought it was just a part of the script but then - it was nice.”
“And then?”
I looked at her. She was a stranger. But strangers are sometimes safer. Still – could I tell her? Tell her how one time Trent threw a chair at me when I was alone at his house? How I just wanted him to drive me back to school because I had a math test to make up. I had to take the zero. I never showed anyone the bruise on my thigh. How he laughed about it later, telling me I was making a big deal out of nothing – then, how he twisted the story and claimed he hadn’t thrown the chair at all. That I was always making shit up about him. That there was something wrong with me – not him. And even though I knew better than to believe him, I believed him – you know?