Benefits

Ch. 23: Mr. Brightside

Mr. Brightside by The Killers

"He's touching her chest now. He takes off her dress now, let me go"

TW: SA (sexual assault)

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Friday

"It was tacky Sharon." My mom cackles through her phone. "We went to some old ass restaurant downtown. He claims it was one of our first dates, but I can't recall."

Dad's date I only assume.

"At least it wasn't as bad as Homs. We went to a high-end restaurant, and barely spoke two words." She giggles. "You could say we did a little more than just talking."

What- my phone rings, interrupting my thoughts from what she was talking about.

"Sharon I need to talk to you later." My mom says frantically through the phone, as I reveal myself to her in the kitchen from the hallway.

"You're eavesdropping." She glares at me.

"Who's Homs?" I ask as calmly as possible.

"An old boyfriend that's all. Sharon and I were just remembering the good old times."

She wants me to believe her. I want to believe her. It's hard to when your own mother has lied to you many of times in the past for her own personal vendetta.

"Promise never to do that again." Her voice is becoming stern.

"Promise to what?"

"To never sneak up on me like that. Eavesdropping can get you in a lot of trouble in the end. Listening to something that you shouldn't hear can lead to interpreting things the wrong way."

I roll my eyes at her. Sometimes I can't take her seriously.

Once I start walking to school, I check my phone. I suspected it was Jake calling me, but it wasn't. It was from Dawson.

There was one message.

Dawson: I have plans on what we are going to do later today :)

Instead of being excited about it, I didn't have so much happiness in me like I should.

Maybe it was Jake.

He's been avoiding me since Sunday. I didn't like it.

Yesterday was probably the most embarrassing thing that's ever happened to me. I called him, so we can you know... Fool around. He said he couldn't because he just fûcked someone.

Our conversation.

"Hey."

"What?"

"Oh... Uh. I just was wondering... If you wanted to come over to-"

"No, I just fucked someone."

Pause.

"Oh."

"Yeah. Bye."

He hangs up on me.

It hurt. It hurt like a motherfucker. Just like when I had cramps this week, but my period went away early Thursday morning.

Why was he avoiding me? Was it because of my constant asking about his glasses, or was it something else? I was quite discomforted about him being with someone else.

Sometimes I think something has changed between us. A rift perhaps.

But then at the start of week, it's like nothing has really changed. I told him about my past. I opened up to him, for only him to ignore me for the rest of the week. For what reason? Nothing changed. He didn't care. He just wanted to know for some gain perhaps.