Chapter 25: The Carnal Knowledge
“What in the world happened to her?” the voice was muffled, blinking, and I could barely catch the gist of it. But I knew the owner of the voice. At least I thought I knew.
My mind was still in the state of flying high in an imaginary sky full of gold coins.
“I don’t know! She was just dragging me here and suddenly she just collapsed!” a different voice rang, the tone of concern didn’t leave it, and whenever he spoke, I could feel the ground shifting.
“She dragged you here?! Andrea?!” I’d never thought that so much disbelief could define a sentence, but I was proven wrong.
“Yes. And if you finally can get past your pride to notice that other men can get laid, too, Alec, could you please help me and get her out of this house?” he was pacing, circling nonstop, and even though I couldn’t see anything, I could feel the rapid movement. “I think somebody spiked her drinks.”
“She’s never been a strong drinker.”
The comeback came out fast. “Well, nobody’s a strong drinker compared to you.”
“Oh, so now you’re implying that I’m a fucked up scum, huh?”
A snort. “Not implying, maybe encouraging some rude awakening.”
The fury that built around them grew faster than a raging red pimple. “You know what Gabriel? You’re a jackass.
I probably wouldn’t mind if it were other guys that she dates, but it’s actually you.”
I felt two hands slipped on my neck and the bottom of my knees, and then slowly lifting me up against what felt like two warm hard boulders. “Since when do you give a damn about girls?”
There was another stifled sound, but I couldn’t catch any of it. My limbs were dangling, and my head bobbed around the air, but I was flying, and all I could see was splotches of colors on top of black.
So this was what it felt like to hit a jackpot after too much drinking.
It took a while for both of them to carry me. There were tons of grunting, gyrating, and a lot of cuss words that echoed to my ears, but in the end, they managed to fit me inside a car. I started to groan because the car was small and hot, and in an instant, two faces were in front of me, both were pushing each other to get into the bigger ratio of my eyesight.
“Get away, you curly!”
“Attacking my appearance now, huh? Well, get away from me, you floppy arms!”
More shoving ensued. “My arms are not floppy!”
“Say that to these!” and then he flexed his arms in front of the other guy, nearly effectively nudging him on the jaw.
“Careful with those steroid-packed twigs!”
“I dare you to say that again! I double dare you!”
“Um, hello?” I gave my all to say something, but they weren’t listening.
Alec was pointing at Gabriel’s mop of curls. “You put too much hair-gel on your head! I bet you’re going bald before even you can say ‘I’m a faggot.’”
“You’re a faggot!” Gabriel retorted, and then he waited for two full seconds before running his fingers on his hair again. “See? I’m not bald yet. Now suck my balls!”
“Ugh!” the amount of teeth grinding that Alec did would do a permanent damage if done often. “I don’t mean that literally, you idiot! Gah! Think smarter the next time you hear me talk!”
“But I mean it literally when I tell you to suck my balls!”
At this, both of them fell into a full moment of silence.
“Or… on the second thought,” Gabriel trailed off.
“Good. I felt like dying a little back there.”
“No homo.”
“No homo.”
This was getting dumb and dumber by the ticking second of my precious time.
“Attention, mofos,” I announced, although to my annoyance, my voice didn’t hold up as much attitude as I’d intended to be. “Fainting girl here.”
“Andrea!” both of them shouted in unison.
“I can’t open my eyes, but I can hear every stupid thing you all been arguing about,” I said, not even bothering to butter it up. “So stop talking and tell me where I am.”
There was no answer.
“Guys?”
“You told us not to talk!” Alec gasped in a protest.
For God’s sake!
Gabriel must have heard my inner frustration because he said, very gently. “You’re in Alec’s car.”
I sniffed. It did smell familiar, but there was the smell of something else… strawberry? Combined with… vanilla?
What the hell?
“The car smells like a girl!” I wrinkled my nose.
“It’s Cady’s perfume, ok?”
His answer left a lingering pang, but I tried to ignore it. the throbbing inside my head hadn’t stopped, and when I tried to open my eyes, I was hit by thousands of jabbering lights. “Oh my God, I feel sick.”
“You drink too much,” Gabriel put a hand on my cheek, stroking gently.
“Yeah, and you’re acting disgusting. Can’t you at least wait until I’m not seeing any of that pathetic attempt of courtship?”
“It’s not courtship if I’ve gotten the girl,” Gabriel sounded excessively triumphant at this.
“Keep rubbing it in my face, and I won’t give you a ride home.”
That successfully made Gabriel stop voicing anything. Either he was too angry words couldn’t form, or he wanted that ride home so bad.
“Zipped your mouth? Good. Now Andrea,” Alec shoved Gabriel aside as his face loomed over me. His luminous green eyes and the display of his nose were giving me more headaches than before, for some weird reason I couldn’t fathom. “How are you feeling like now?”
“Puking…” I managed to let out.
Alec backed away a little, his eyes alerted. “Come again?”
I attempted to get something out of my mouth, and for a moment, I was pretty sure that it was words. But no, it wasn’t. it wasn’t something else. Something pungent, something heavier than words. It was…
I got up as fast as I could and shoved both boys away from me, and then I bent over
and-“%$#%$@%#@R#$@!!”
Vomit.
Alec and Gabriel shared a look, before then Alec raised both of his eyebrows in a thoughtful pucker. “Now that’s charming.”
-Turns out that my whole body decided to be better after all the poison was out in the form of half-digested food and water. I slept all my way home, only hearing occasional barking of the two boys, and then slept again until the annoying slivers of sunlight were cast on my eyes.
When I opened tested to open my eyes, the room was vaguely familiar. It was one of the rooms in the Worthington mansion. The guest room.
The chirping sounds from the bird confirmed that it was past the night already.
Aghast realizations were sinking to my head.
I’d just stayed the night in Alec’s house.
Strike #1.
I looked down on myself, just to make sure. The last thing that I could safely say I remembered clearly was going to a dark, edgy room with Gabriel, ready to do the deed.
But I was fully clothed, and judging from the amount of crease, I was pretty sure my hymen was still intact.
Although, from the look of the slightly brownish color of the bottom of my jeans, I could tell that I’ve just puked bad.
Strike #2.
I grabbed my bag, and then searching the things inside. My cellphone had almost died, but I managed to get it and take a look of the screen. What I saw horrified me the most, enough to the point of packing up and fleeing to Canada.
There were 25 missed calls from my mom.
Strike #3.
Gathering my things, I scrambled out from the room, looking for a way to get out of the house. I could ask the details of what happened to Gabriel later and I could question why the hell I ended up in Alec’s place much later, but my mom’s wrath wasn’t something that would die the longer I stalled not dealing with it.
As soon as I went out from the room, I saw Alec walking through the hallway, his toothbrush was half on his mouth, and nothing covered him except his brief.
Against my will, I screamed, and then, against my better sense, I came up to him and punched him straight on the cheek.
-A few minutes later I was tending the blue part on his cheek on the kitchen, and -Alec (fully clothed now) was being an absolute baby by flinching and wailing every time the cotton reached his skin.
“Stop moving!” I pressed on his shoulder hard so that he’d stay still, but he was wriggling with all his might, distracting me. And that caused the cotton to press on his bruise a little harder than he was comfortable with.
“I sincerely thought that you’re out of the phase where you think hitting me is some sort of daily exercise,” he was pulling a face at me.
“It’s your fault that you’re half naked in front of me.”
“It’s my house, okay? And I wasn’t sure that you’d wake up now. One minute I was just out getting new toothpaste and then BOOM! The strike of horror.”
Enraged, I pressed on his cheek hard. “This is the strike of horror.”
It amazed me how he still managed to put up a grin even though his eyes were brimmed with tears. “Now. For a second there I thought I was sent to the underworld.”
Gabriel entered the kitchen, bringing a tray full of ice. When he looked at Alec, he rolled his eyes.
Noticing the display of distaste, Alec decided that it would be a good idea to pick a fight with him. “Looking so grim so early in the morning, Gabriel? You’re not jealous that your girlfriend’s touching my face, do you?”
Gabriel put the tray of ice in front of me with a little more force than necessary. Then he smiled at Alec, his lips as thin as paper. “No, I don’t. I just wished she hit you harder.”
“Well, me, too,” I said as I high-fived him.
“So this is the ice, and I’m sure that you can do this by yourself,” I said as I checked on my phone. Damn. It’s 8:30 already. I was already late for school.
“Oh, shit,” I muttered. “My mom is so going to kill me.”
“Didn’t you tell her that you’re going to a party yesterday?” Gabriel inquired.
“Yeah, but I didn’t tell her that I’m going to stay out the whole night,” I licked my lips carefully. “I probably should call her.” And then I remembered what she was like when she was angered. Especially enraged at the morning. “Or maybe I shouldn’t.”
Both guys were looking at me expectantly.
“Should I?” I asked them, not really expecting an answer.
They nodded simultaneously. But really, their opinion shouldn’t matter much because they didn’t know a single thing about my mother. They especially didn’t know how easy it was for her to crush my bones once she found out that I stayed at a guy’s place at school night.
Or that she’d have the power equivalent of a gorilla.
Or that she’d been sent to jail a few times for assault.
I loved my mom to death and appreciate the genetic mutation in which I was transferred some of her monstrous strength, but I just didn’t like to deal with her being angry towards me.
I looked at both boys again. “You sure?”
Another double nod. “It’s not nice to have your parent wondering where you are,” Alec said.
“If your mom is anything like my ma, she’d be worried sick and cried her tear glands to dry. Moms have natural instinct to, you know, nurture and all that stuff. They will always want to know where their kids are.”
Embarrassed by his earlier short speech, Alec popped his thumb towards Gabriel. “Ditto with the dago.”
Gabriel’s middle finger shot up to him. “You, Sir, is a despicable male prostitute.”
Knowing my mom, she’d probably set to destroy the whole neighborhood if she knew that I stayed the night here.
“Okay then,” I breathed as slow as I could possibly do and pressed the speed dial. “Now, if any of you make as much sound as whimpering,” I shot Alec a glare at this. “I’ll seriously strangle you until you turn blue.”
Three rings, four rings, fifth rings, I was almost ready to feel relieved that my mom was still asleep, when, in the seventh ring, she slurred.
“Hullo?”
“Mom!” I became chattery when I was nervous around her. “Hey, mom. It’s Andrea. Please remember that I’m your daughter so that you won’t fillet me for calling you so early in the morning.”
Silence. Gabriel and Alec both gulped so hard I almost kicked them on the shins.
“Andrea?” My mom still sounded out of it. she paused, as if remembering my name, and then she repeated it again in a thunderous voice. The exact kind of voice that I’d been trying to avoid. “ANDREA!”
My mouth was running on its own. “Please remember that I’m your daughter and you brought me around inside your womb for 9 months and 5 days!”
“Cut the crap, young woman! Andrea Robinson, I demand you to be on my doorstep in this second, or else you won’t like what I’m about to do!”
I could feel my whole face turning green in fear. “Mom, that’s impossible! I can’t be phoning you and getting to the doorstep in one second!”
“Then where the hell are you? Did you know that I waited for you until three in the freaking morning? What did you do? You did drugs? You smoked pot? You had irresponsible sex? Orgies? Or did you partake in a bank robbery, because I saw the news last night and one of the burglars had your build!”
“Mom, I did none of those.”
“THEN WHY ARE YOU NOT IN THE DOORSTEP!”
“Mom,” I tried again, softer this time. “Mom, please step out from the porch. You’re going to scare the neighbors.”
I heard my mom pacing back to the house, but from the sound of her footstep, she was still furious. “Now, mom.
No, like I said, I was in Mc. Gregor’s party last night.”
“Why didn’t you go home?! Don’t you know how worried I was? I was so worried I made a dent to the walls again, Andrea! Our house’s still got 20 years of mortgage and already I’d made another dent!”
“That’s tough, man,” Alec whispered.
I gave Gabriel a sign and he dutifully pinched the bruised area on Alec’s cheeks.
I grinned a thanks to him, before going back to my mom. “It’s okay. I’m sure dad could fix it,” and it was true.
My mom was ferocious and would often lost control of the movement of her limbs when she was mad, very much like me, but my dad was the polar opposite of us. Level headed, calm, and easy to smile, he was her leash, and he was the one-man support who’d gladly do the damage control.
“Anyway, I’m not at home because,” my mind whirled for a credible reason. “well, because I’m at Hannah’s house.”
Now. That could work.
“Hannah’s house?” there was a vestige of suspicion at my mom’s voice. “Really?”
“Yeah, really. Like, she got really wasted last night. She got wasted, not me, mom, okay? Not me. Anyway, she got wasted, so me and another female friend drove her to the house, and since it was already late, we crashed for the night. We’re preparing to go to school now.”
I bit on my lip as I waited for the dreaded judgment. Would she buy it? Would she not?
Turns out that I was pretty good at lying.
“She got wasted?” mom confirmed.
“Yeah.”
“Another female friend?”
“Yeah,” I nodded again, fully cringing at the full irony of my situation.
“Okay. Then where’s Hannah? I want to talk to her.”
Oh. Fuck. Not this.
“Hi, Mrs. Robinson!!” Suddenly, Alec’s ringing high pitched voice came into picture. I always knew he was good at impersonating girls when he really put his heart on it, but even my mom wouldn’t be fooled.
Right?
Right?
Fortunately for us, my mom’s brain couldn’t function properly before it was past 11 o clock in the morning, so Alec’s poor retention of Hannah’s voice didn’t sound too weird to her ears. “Hannah, is that you?”
“Yeah, it’s me. I just got out from the bathroom. Ohmigod, Andrea was soooo helpful, Mrs. Robinson! Like, she was so nice to me when she brought me home last night. Even before she offered to scrub my back when I was about to take a bath…”
Gabriel had already raised his fist, and just waiting for my approval before he’d hit Alec. I could only gape wide-eyed at Alec’s impersonation of Hannah was having a conversation with my mother, and him dropping crazy innuendos about my relationship with Hannah.
“Oh, that’s nice, Andrea. A little too… inappropriate, but nice,” my mom sounded unsure about what she’d just heart.
“And when we were sleeping, Mrs. Robinson,” Alec glanced at me, and then a mischievous smile appeared on his lips, but before he could say anything more, I stuffed my whole fist inside of his mouth and grabbed my phone in my other ear so that she wouldn’t hear the sound of Alec gagging nonsense. “Okay, mom. So that’s Hannah. She’s still a little drunk so don’t take anything that she says seriously, okay? Bye, I love you!”
When I clicked the phone to death, I was glaring at Alec so hard I thought my eyes would crawl out on their own.
“What?” he feigned innocence. “I’m a guy. It’s normal for me to occasionally have fantasies about two girls…”
he trailed off as he saw both my face and Gabriel’s darkening into a lethal countenance of fatality.
“Anyway!” he coughed in a poor attempt to distract us. “So, who wants a ride to school?”
-School mostly was fine. The three of us came late, so the principal reprimanded us heavily and made us sit on a non-air conditioned room for three hours citing the reasons why we were late. Alec, Gabriel, and I shared a lot of eye contacts during this time, trying to warn each other so that we could fabricate a story that would look real and innocent at the same time. But we should also try to make it look like we were together, so that the questioning would be easier.
Since no talking and no cellphone was allowed, we really needed to rely on our eye-contact to make it work.
And as expected, it turned disastrous.
In the end, Gabriel made up a story about being lost at the parking lot and running away from a horde of pseudo Italian mob. Alec made up a story about having to have a surprise trip to France where he needed to save his online friend, who was in the verge of committing suicide, and I ended up making up a story about getting up in
In the end, Gabriel made up a story about being lost at the parking lot and running away from a horde of pseudo Italian mob. Alec made up a story about having to have a surprise trip to France where he needed to save his online friend, who was in the verge of committing suicide, and I ended up making up a story about getting up in