Categories > Celebrities > The Used > Tales About God (Or The Closest Thing)
Chapter 7
I floated through the rest of the day in a merry little cloud. It was hard to soak in anything that went on outside my head. I was pretty sure somebody punched me a few times in the stomach; I'd felt myself collapse at least twice during the day. However, pain was something I felt none of. I'd developed a special kind of immunity against, well…everything. I knew I had Quinn to thank for this rather wonderful power. Unfortunately, I didn't get the opportunity to do such a thing because first of all, it would have just sounded gay and second of all, I didn't have the honor of sharing any of my other classes with him. We didn't even have the same lunch period. This should have bothered me. It should have picked at my nerves until I did something extremely humiliating. But my body was being possessed by my optimistic counterpart. He was self-assured and calm, unlike me. I had no complaints about him, though. Things were as perfect as they could possibly get.
And then along came—not Polly—Holly.
It was towards the end of my shockingly awesome school day, a few minutes after dismissal. My alter-ego, who still occupied my soul, stuffed a bunch of schoolbooks into his dusty, yet beautiful backpack. He rose to his feet, thinking about how wonderful the world was. Slinging his backpack over his shoulder, he slammed his locker shut, and in the process got his long, dark hair caught in the metal door. He remained calm, which I had to admire him for. I would have been cursing my lungs out by that point. My counterpart, on the other hand, patiently turned the blue combination lock, ignoring the snickers which came from nearby. Once his hair was freed, he spun around with a cheerful smile plastered on his face. It morphed into a red blush as soon as he saw who exactly was doing the snickering.
"Smooth. Real smooth, Bert," Quinn grinned and punched my alter-ego's shoulder lightly.
I started to regain control of my body and looked down, embarrassed. Shoving my hands into my pockets, I mumbled a hello. Quinn laughed and tugged at my arm. My body stiffened at his touch and my breathing hitched. I was back to my nervous self, oh joy. Ohgodohgodohgod. What do I do? Apparently, the answer was nothing. Quinn simply pulled me harder and towed me towards the bus, while I put in a great effort to not drool over how his skin kept brushing against mine.
"Come on, hurry up. We're—oh my fucking God," his grip around my arm tightened and he froze in his footsteps.
My eyes wandered from Quinn's face to the direction in which he was gazing, to see what had distracted him from his sentence. It could have been our bus, which had been repainted orange for some odd reason…or it could have been the fact that Leslie Ackerman just ran the opposite way upon spotting us…or it could have been the tree we were about to walk into…or…or because the hottest girl in school had just walked past. Shit. She was tall, blonde, beautiful, and horrible news for me. Her large green eyes were like emeralds, which sparkled when the sun shone on them. Her laugh was as pretty as the sound of church bells on Sunday morning. Her hair rippled when she walked, like golden waves of…gold. She was so gorgeous that I had no more crappy similes to describe her with. And she was so gorgeous that I saw a look in Quinn's eyes that I wished was reserved for me.
He swatted my arm three times, and his jaw was slightly agape, "Dude, who's that? The hot blonde?"
Holly Slutsky. Yes, that was her real last name; it was Russian. In my humble opinion, it suited her quite well, at least the first part of it. As you can imagine, it was impossible for a girl that attractive to be anything but a total whore. She had enough notches to fill up a hundred bedposts, stacked on top of each other. I had half a mind to inform Quinn of this, but reconsidering the circumstances, I did not. It was quite possible that the only reason I disliked Holly was because she was a bitch to me. However, I frowned upon thinking this, because hey, everyone was a bitch to me. The loathing I felt for her was sharper, more sudden. It made my heart clench and contort into an angry serpent, with poisonous fangs, exclusively saved to sink into Holly's skin, so she'd be dead before she even knew what hit her. My hands clenched into fists. Maybe what I felt could be better described as jealousy. Yup, that was it.
I looked at Quinn and formed an innocent look on my face, "Who?"
He turned his head to face mine and I saw an expression on his face that I hated; sympathy. He quickly told me to "never mind". That did it. My perfect day was coming down and it was coming down so hard that I would be crushed under its weight. I should have known not to trust my counterpart. He was just too much of an optimist to face facts; Quinn would never like me. Not in the way I wanted him to. This was just God's way of showing me that the things I felt were just wrong. I should just like girls, like Quinn did. And if I didn't, I'd end up feeling miserable and alone; similar to what I was feeling now. Nevertheless, I pretended to "never mind". Before anything even more heartbreaking would leave his mouth, I trudged to my orange bus. Oh, I detested how happy the color looked. Things were not perfect. My backpack was ugly. The world fucking sucked.
How I managed to sit beside Quinn on the bus was a mystery. Whenever he spoke, no matter what he said, I heard the tone in which he spoke when he saw Holly. It made me want to throw a temper tantrum, but that would have been inappropriate. I had time to do that at home, on my own. I never responded to him and instead, sulked. I hoped he noticed. Once the bus stopped close enough to my house, I rushed out, without bothering to say goodbye to Quinn. He didn't deserve a goodbye. He deserved a bad bye. I was acting like a little kid who broke his favorite toy, but it seemed so much more serious. Quinn was my toy and he had no right to get up and just leave. Toys didn't do that. What I needed right now was about five of my magical pills, maybe more. That was the sole thing that could return my mind to the happy state it had been in a mere fifteen minutes ago. I broke into a run so I could get home faster.
Upon reaching the front door, I rapped on the painted, white wood with my fist. I fidgeted during the long wait. My dad opened the door. To my surprise, he said something.
"Robert," his voice was angry, "We need to talk."
He grabbed my arm and pulled me inside roughly. His fingers were nowhere near as pleasant as Quinn's on my skin. They left a red mark when he released me. I was scared shitless. I stared with horror into my dad's eyes. Never in my entire life had I seen him this upset. He reached into his pocket and pulled something out. A bottle of some sort. Once I realized what it was, all the life was sucked out of me. He held it up in front of my face and shook it tauntingly.
“Explain,” he commanded.
My pills.
Thank you to everyone who bothered to read and review and an extra thank you to my new beta, asherschick. If it wasn't for her, this chapter would have been loaded with errors.
I floated through the rest of the day in a merry little cloud. It was hard to soak in anything that went on outside my head. I was pretty sure somebody punched me a few times in the stomach; I'd felt myself collapse at least twice during the day. However, pain was something I felt none of. I'd developed a special kind of immunity against, well…everything. I knew I had Quinn to thank for this rather wonderful power. Unfortunately, I didn't get the opportunity to do such a thing because first of all, it would have just sounded gay and second of all, I didn't have the honor of sharing any of my other classes with him. We didn't even have the same lunch period. This should have bothered me. It should have picked at my nerves until I did something extremely humiliating. But my body was being possessed by my optimistic counterpart. He was self-assured and calm, unlike me. I had no complaints about him, though. Things were as perfect as they could possibly get.
And then along came—not Polly—Holly.
It was towards the end of my shockingly awesome school day, a few minutes after dismissal. My alter-ego, who still occupied my soul, stuffed a bunch of schoolbooks into his dusty, yet beautiful backpack. He rose to his feet, thinking about how wonderful the world was. Slinging his backpack over his shoulder, he slammed his locker shut, and in the process got his long, dark hair caught in the metal door. He remained calm, which I had to admire him for. I would have been cursing my lungs out by that point. My counterpart, on the other hand, patiently turned the blue combination lock, ignoring the snickers which came from nearby. Once his hair was freed, he spun around with a cheerful smile plastered on his face. It morphed into a red blush as soon as he saw who exactly was doing the snickering.
"Smooth. Real smooth, Bert," Quinn grinned and punched my alter-ego's shoulder lightly.
I started to regain control of my body and looked down, embarrassed. Shoving my hands into my pockets, I mumbled a hello. Quinn laughed and tugged at my arm. My body stiffened at his touch and my breathing hitched. I was back to my nervous self, oh joy. Ohgodohgodohgod. What do I do? Apparently, the answer was nothing. Quinn simply pulled me harder and towed me towards the bus, while I put in a great effort to not drool over how his skin kept brushing against mine.
"Come on, hurry up. We're—oh my fucking God," his grip around my arm tightened and he froze in his footsteps.
My eyes wandered from Quinn's face to the direction in which he was gazing, to see what had distracted him from his sentence. It could have been our bus, which had been repainted orange for some odd reason…or it could have been the fact that Leslie Ackerman just ran the opposite way upon spotting us…or it could have been the tree we were about to walk into…or…or because the hottest girl in school had just walked past. Shit. She was tall, blonde, beautiful, and horrible news for me. Her large green eyes were like emeralds, which sparkled when the sun shone on them. Her laugh was as pretty as the sound of church bells on Sunday morning. Her hair rippled when she walked, like golden waves of…gold. She was so gorgeous that I had no more crappy similes to describe her with. And she was so gorgeous that I saw a look in Quinn's eyes that I wished was reserved for me.
He swatted my arm three times, and his jaw was slightly agape, "Dude, who's that? The hot blonde?"
Holly Slutsky. Yes, that was her real last name; it was Russian. In my humble opinion, it suited her quite well, at least the first part of it. As you can imagine, it was impossible for a girl that attractive to be anything but a total whore. She had enough notches to fill up a hundred bedposts, stacked on top of each other. I had half a mind to inform Quinn of this, but reconsidering the circumstances, I did not. It was quite possible that the only reason I disliked Holly was because she was a bitch to me. However, I frowned upon thinking this, because hey, everyone was a bitch to me. The loathing I felt for her was sharper, more sudden. It made my heart clench and contort into an angry serpent, with poisonous fangs, exclusively saved to sink into Holly's skin, so she'd be dead before she even knew what hit her. My hands clenched into fists. Maybe what I felt could be better described as jealousy. Yup, that was it.
I looked at Quinn and formed an innocent look on my face, "Who?"
He turned his head to face mine and I saw an expression on his face that I hated; sympathy. He quickly told me to "never mind". That did it. My perfect day was coming down and it was coming down so hard that I would be crushed under its weight. I should have known not to trust my counterpart. He was just too much of an optimist to face facts; Quinn would never like me. Not in the way I wanted him to. This was just God's way of showing me that the things I felt were just wrong. I should just like girls, like Quinn did. And if I didn't, I'd end up feeling miserable and alone; similar to what I was feeling now. Nevertheless, I pretended to "never mind". Before anything even more heartbreaking would leave his mouth, I trudged to my orange bus. Oh, I detested how happy the color looked. Things were not perfect. My backpack was ugly. The world fucking sucked.
How I managed to sit beside Quinn on the bus was a mystery. Whenever he spoke, no matter what he said, I heard the tone in which he spoke when he saw Holly. It made me want to throw a temper tantrum, but that would have been inappropriate. I had time to do that at home, on my own. I never responded to him and instead, sulked. I hoped he noticed. Once the bus stopped close enough to my house, I rushed out, without bothering to say goodbye to Quinn. He didn't deserve a goodbye. He deserved a bad bye. I was acting like a little kid who broke his favorite toy, but it seemed so much more serious. Quinn was my toy and he had no right to get up and just leave. Toys didn't do that. What I needed right now was about five of my magical pills, maybe more. That was the sole thing that could return my mind to the happy state it had been in a mere fifteen minutes ago. I broke into a run so I could get home faster.
Upon reaching the front door, I rapped on the painted, white wood with my fist. I fidgeted during the long wait. My dad opened the door. To my surprise, he said something.
"Robert," his voice was angry, "We need to talk."
He grabbed my arm and pulled me inside roughly. His fingers were nowhere near as pleasant as Quinn's on my skin. They left a red mark when he released me. I was scared shitless. I stared with horror into my dad's eyes. Never in my entire life had I seen him this upset. He reached into his pocket and pulled something out. A bottle of some sort. Once I realized what it was, all the life was sucked out of me. He held it up in front of my face and shook it tauntingly.
“Explain,” he commanded.
My pills.
Thank you to everyone who bothered to read and review and an extra thank you to my new beta, asherschick. If it wasn't for her, this chapter would have been loaded with errors.
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