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jennaferz

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She couldn’t sleep that night, her head full of the day.

Deni couldn’t remember the last time life had been this awful, the last time she had been unable to conjure up one good thing about her life. Because as much as she strained her mind, as much as she worked to find something, there was nothing. Everything, every last thing that possibly could, had gone wrong.

Her cell phone rang repeatedly, the screen blaring Taylor’s and Michael’s numbers, until finally she switched it off. She didn’t want to talk to them. She didn’t want to talk to anyone. Her mind had swelled up, full of tiredness, weakness, and resignation, to where she didn’t feel that she could handle people right now.

But her ranting hadn’t been enough.

There were still words playing in her mind--words that she longed to throw at Taylor and Michael but didn’t dare. Words that she knew would cut them, would make them think, but that she couldn’t say because she knew that she couldn’t ever face either of them.

A glassy tear dangled from her lower eyelashes, and she brushed it away impatiently. She was tired of tears, tired of feeling weak, tired of being this girl who would back down to anyone. It was time for a change. She could feel it, could feel the strength bubbling up inside of her, the weakness dissolving into nothingness. She stood up bravely and faced herself in the mirror, blinking away any signs of tears.

“I will never cry again,” she told herself. “I will never let anyone tell me what to do. I will never fall in love. I will never again be submitted to anyone’s choices but my own.”

It was then, with the power of those words, that the real transformation began.

~2 Weeks Later~

“So I’ll see you tonight,” Jeremy called across the campus to Deni, and she nodded, smiling at him with a flip of her hair.

It had been two weeks since she’d seen Taylor, since he’d been accused, and since he’d confessed. However, even though there had been a straight-out confession, the judge hadn’t put him in jail. He had put him in a rehab center. The complaints, the protests, and the fights had been many, but the judge hadn’t backed down. He had insisted that Taylor wasn’t the bad guy in this. He had imprisoned the actual murderer.
Deni didn’t understand it. She didn’t understand how he could get away with it. But she didn’t care anymore, at least not to the world, because she had taught herself not to show it.

She had made friends, true friends. There were those who avoided her because of her newly formed reputation of sleeping around, but for the most part she was popular. Jeremy had been one who had avoided her, but that day he had approached her and asked her what she was doing that night. She knew what that meant. It meant a condom and dimmed lights. It meant sex.

She went into her house, and the smile she showed to the world was instantly wiped off her face. No tears fell, because she had sworn that she would never cry again and she held to that. But she couldn’t stop herself from feeling, and the pain that she now felt overtook her entire body. She collapsed into a chair, dropping her head into her hands, hating the mask that she had to wear but knowing how necessary it was.
Even as she resented the mask she wore, she stood to reapply it. It would only be a few hours before Jeremy arrived; there was no way of knowing when he might decide to show up. She had to fix herself, make herself presentable, desirable, alluring, seductive.

But as it turned out, there was no time. Because at that moment, the doorbell rang.

Startled and wondering, she went to the door. Jeremy stood at the other side.

She opened it hesitantly, pasting a smile. “You’re early,” she remarked brightly.

He smiled. “I hope that’s all right.”

“It’s fine. Come on in. Can I get you anything?”

He shook his head, biting his lip awkwardly. “Actually, I kind of just wanted to talk.”

She stared at him, caught off guard. Never before had any of the guys she’d invited over said that to her. “Um…all right. We can sit down in the family room.” She began to walk, and he caught her hand.

“Will we be overheard in there?”

“No one else is home,” she reassured him. “No one will hear us.”

They made their way into the room and sat down on the couch side by side. Still gripping her hand, he turned to her. “You probably mistook the reason why I asked you if I could come.”

She didn’t say anything. Her mind was in a flutter. If he hadn’t come to have sex, why had he come? That was all anyone wanted of her now.

“You may not know that Taylor and I were best friends,” he continued.
Oh, God. She knew exactly where this was going now.

“No, I didn’t know that,” she answered warily.

“We’ve kept in touch while he’s been at rehab,” Jeremy continued, “and the only thing he ever wants to talk about is you.” He paused, as though expecting her to say something. When she didn’t, he continued, “I know you guys didn’t leave off on a very good note. But Deni, he loves you, he really does. I think it would do you both good if you went to see him.”

“It’s his fault my mother is dead!” she shouted, her breath coming hard and fast, her fists clenched. “I don’t care about his feelings, I don’t care how much he claims to love me! No one who truly loved me would have my mother killed.”

“You still have a lot on your chest,” Jeremy said quietly. “It would help if you could get it off. And who better to tell it to than Taylor?”

“Anyone,” she snapped. “I am never going to see him. We are through.”

“No,” he said sharply, “you are not. Because guess what? That’s why I’m here. To drag you to see him, whether you like it or not.”

“Yes,” Jeremy told the lady at the front desk brightly, “we’re here to visit Taylor Green.”

“Relationship?”

“Friends.”

“Up the stairs, first door on the right.”

“Thank you.”

Deni dragged her feet as Jeremy pulled her by the hand down the hallway. “I do not want to do this,” she grumbled. “Why am I doing this?”

“Because you have no choice. Quit bitching.”

She continued to whine as they climbed the stairs, but as soon as they stopped in front of Taylor’s door her mouth fluttered closed and her hand drifted to her chest. “I don’t know if I can do this,” she whispered.

“That’s what I’m here for,” Jeremy told her, squeezing her hand. “You can, Deni.”

They knocked on the door. With each moment they waited, with each footstep they heard resounding toward them from inside the room, Deni shook more and more.

Finally the door swung open and Taylor stood on the other side.

Deni sucked in her breath and began to back away, but Jeremy still held fast to her hand.

“Denise?” Taylor breathed, his eyes widening as instant tears sprung into them.

She squirmed, trying to wrench her hand from Jeremy’s, but he wouldn’t let go. Desperately she looked everywhere but at Taylor.

“Can we come in?” Jeremy asked.

“Sure.” He backed up and held the door open for them, never once taking his eyes off of Deni.

“Jeremy made me come,” she blurted.

Taylor’s expression flickered slightly. “I don’t doubt it,” he said softly. “Jeremy was always a good friend.”

She rolled her eyes impatiently, still determinedly not looking at him.

“So--” Taylor and Jeremy said at the same time, and then both laughed.

“It’s good to see you, bro,” Jeremy told him, clapping him on the back. “You hanging in there?”

“You could say that,” Taylor replied. “What about you, you doing okay?”

“Fine,” he said with a smile. “I think, however, that you and Deni have more to talk about than me and you, so go for it. I’m going to get a soda.”

He got up and left. Deni stood to try to go, but Jeremy locked the door from the outside.

“They have to be able to lock you in,” Taylor explained. “They have those on all the doors.”

She nodded tightly and sat down.

“So Jeremy says you’ve changed quite a bit around school,” he hedged carefully.

“What else did Jeremy say?” she asked bitchily. “That I’m a slut? A whore?”

“No!” Taylor looked startled.

“And stop treating me like some invalid. I’m perfectly fine. You don’t have to act like we’ve never met before.”

“Fine,” Taylor said angrily. “Yes, Jeremy told me about your new slutty habits. And you know what, Den? You don’t have to go screwing yourself up just because I did.”

“Don’t you dare assume you know why I do the things I do!” she yelled at him. Breathing heavily, she realized that she had stood up. Sitting down again, she caught her breath and smiled calmly. “Sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

He stared at her. “You’re different, I can already tell that.”

“What do you mean?”

“Why did you stop yelling at me? God knows I deserved it; the old Deni wouldn’t have--”

“The old Deni is gone,” she replied coolly, “and you can just get used to that. If you must know, I promised myself that I would never again let the world see what I was feeling. I haven’t cried in all that time. I didn’t cry at my mother’s funeral. I will never cry again. And besides that, I will never fall in love again.”

He stared at her, and she hated the pain in his eyes. “Denise, you’ve gone and fucking ruined yourself.”

“No,” she whispered. “What I’ve done is saved myself.”