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“It’s fine ‘til someone gets hurt.”
Regina leans in and Aaron pushes her away. She blinks, clearly not expecting that response.
“Regina. We’re over. Just like we were the last time you said we were over. And the last time. And the last time. Except this time, I’m not going to fall for you pretending that you actually care about me. You always do this. You act like I was the one who hurt you. Like you’re some, some victim that I’ve been toying with when that’s what you’ve been doing to me. Well, I do see through it and I’m done. I’m… I’m fucking done. With you and your bullshit.”
Aaron walks away before Regina can try to respond and make him doubt what he said.
He can’t believe he just did that. He can’t believe he just said that.
The speech had existed in many different forms over the months they’ve been together (and not together) but he never expected he’d ever have the guts to say it to her.
It didn’t matter before. It didn’t matter because at least she would be with him again and he wouldn’t be alone and someone would care about him.
But she didn’t, did she? She never did.
And he wasn’t able to see that until he met someone who actually does.
Cady is staring at him with wide eyes, her zombie makeup messy from tear tracks. He rushes to her. “Hey. Hey, what’s wrong?”
“You… You and Regina.”
“We’re over,” he says. “Seriously. We’re over.”
“But she wanted you.”
“Yeah and I didn’t want her.” He pushes her hair away from eyes. “I realized that I wanted someone I never thought I could have.”
“Oh. Who?”
He chuckles. “You, Cady.”
“Oh,” she breathes. “You’re like someone from TV. Like that guy who gives out roses to those women.”
His brows furrow for a moment, confused by her response. “Like… the bachelor?” She cringes and shrugs as she shrinks in on herself. Aaron pulls a rose from her ghastly bouquet. “Well,” he says. “Cady Heron. Will you accept this rose?”
The smile that spreads across her face is blinding and Aaron’s so glad that she’s taken out her fake monster prosthetic. “Yes. I’d like that a lot.”
“Let’s get out of here,” Aaron says.
He takes her hand and leads her out of the house and they meander down the sidewalk with no specific destination in mind, hands swinging between them.
“I miss the stars,” Cady says, eyes glued to the sky. “We had so many stars at night in Kenya but there’s so much light I see them less now.”
“Do you miss Kenya?” Aaron asks.
She turns to look at him. “Yeah. I do. But there’s a lot of things here that there aren’t in Kenya. And… Kenya could get lonely sometimes.”
“Well, you’re not alone now,” Aaron says.
“Yeah,” Cady says. “It’s different… having friends like this. Not, not Regina and Karen and Gretchen. I don’t think I want to be friends with them anymore. And I don’t think they wanted to be friends with me either. Janis and Damian, they warned me about the Plastics and they were curious what they were like so I sat with them at lunch and… anyways. No reason to talk to them anymore. I know what they’re like now. Experiment over, hypothesis confirmed, no further studies necessary.”
Aaron grins. “You’re really good at math.”
Cady ducks her head. “Math makes sense.”
“Yeah, I wish I could say the same.”
“You’re… good at math.”
Aaron lets out a low breath with mock offense. “Oh. Wow. That one hit the ego.”
“I could tutor you! If you’d like help!” Cady stops, pressing her lips together with embarrassment.
“No, hey. That would be great. Though, I don’t think either of us are getting what’s going on this unit.”
“What do you mean?”
“You, uh… you asked me about the factorial problem in class.”
“Oh. Right.” Cady pauses, clearly deep in thought. “I… I might have maybe pretended to know what the problem was so I wouldn’t blurt out that I didn’t know how to talk to you!”
“Uhm. Okay… well. Luckily for you, we are talking right now and you are completely succeeding. And second, you don’t have to pretend to not know how to do our math worksheets to talk to me. Actually, please don’t. You are, like, crazy smart and if you were on the mathletes you’d probably wipe the floor with the other teams.”
She looks at him like he’s an equation she’s trying to decipher. “You don’t… you don’t think that it would be social suicide?”
“Maybe,” he shrugs. “But you’re not just good at math. You like it. So you should do it. Plus, social status is overrated. I’m preparing to fall down the hierarchy by Monday. Regina probably will have spread something about me that will be so unbelievable that everyone will believe it. But… who cares what Regina thinks? Or anyone who listens to Regina? If you believe what she says instead of, I don’t know, making your own opinions, then your opinion doesn’t really matter anyways because it’s just hers.” He sighs. “Wow. Okay. Sorry about that. Definitely did not mean to say all of that.”
“It seems like you needed to,” Cady says. “It’s okay if you’re not over her even if you two are over.”
“I do not want to be with Regina—”
“That’s not what I mean,” Cady says. “Clearly she meant a lot to you. Or, at least, she was in your life for a while in a very significant way. You may not be grieving your time together but your body is always seeking a state of homeostasis. Having a baseline balance to revert to means that your body can return to normal when circumstance and environment forces it to shift. But, homeostasis isn’t explicitly good. In states of stress, your homeostasis adjusts to match that level of stress and your baseline normal is stressed. If nothing else, it seems like Regina gave you stress and your body has adjusted to it. You are always seeking out the familiar and she… she was very familiar even if not by your own choice. So… it takes time to readjust homeostasis and it takes time to unlearn that constant state of stress.”
“Okay. Wow. That… that explains so much actually.” He turns to her. “Are you sure you’re okay with waiting?”
“I’ll wait for however long you need,” she says. “I don’t want you to feel stressed when you’re with me. It should be easy. I’ve always been stupid with love. I didn’t get it. But, I’m starting to get it now. You will too. But for now…” She holds her hand out. “Friends?”
“Yeah,” he says, shaking her hand with a soft smile. “I’d like that a lot.”
“Oh, hey! This is my friend Janis’s house. I think her and Damian are binging horror films tonight. Do you want to join us?”
And for the first time Aaron feels like he belongs somewhere.