The walk home was miserable. After the event at lunch I had been left feeling unhappy and annoyed, the exact opposite of the feelings I’d hoped would bloom from my amazing idea. I guess the best part of playing pranks on Beau was seeing his reaction afterwards, usually he would get bright red in the face and look like a crazy man swearing and shouting, but today he was apathetic.
My mother was not helping with my rotten mood either. As soon as I stepped foot into our front door I was inundated with pink and yellow streamers and even more balloons than before.
“Mom?”
My mother whizzed out of the kitchen and she wasn’t looking her best. She had on her bright blue apron while flour covered her face and her hands looked like they were covered in wet dough.
“Oh, hi dear, I was just busy with some baking, don’t come into the kitchen unless you want to ruin your little birthday surprise”
I knew that birthday surprise was going to be a malformed cake of strange taste. To be honest all the effort my mother was putting into this was really starting to scare me.
“Mom, I really need to know what’s so important about my birthday this year? You’re really starting to freak me out, you’ve gone completely stepford wife”
My mother began wiping her hands on a dish towel and gave me what I can only assume to be a condescending look.
“Look, I can’t give you the full details, but just know this year is going to be really big for you”
“In what way? Puberty? Cause, I think that began a while ago”
“Come here into the dining room and maybe I can give you a better explanation”
My mother grabbed me by the shoulders and marched me into our dining room, forcing me down into one of the wooden seats. She sat opposite and gave me a comforting smile.
“In our family, the sixteenth birthday is special in that…things about your body will change. It will be perfectly normal of course, but you might find it a little scary at first. Your sixteenth birthday party is a celebration of these changes, the party marks the moment of maturity and becoming a young adult”
Oh god, I knew it was about puberty. Why can’t my family be normal and buy me a new phone for my birthday? Not celebrate me growing breasts.
“So…you had one of these parties?”
“Oh yes, it was quite amazing actually. The party was full of family and friends and you know, that’s also where I met your father”
Oh joy. I wasn’t the biggest fan of my father, not since he walked out on mother and me when I was five.
Mother must have saw the sour expression that came over my face at the mention of my father, she grabbed my hand and squeezed.
“I know how you feel about your father Anne, but he isn’t a bad man. He had responsibilities that you wouldn’t be able to understand. You never know, you might find someone at your sixteenth”
Great, my mother was also trying to hook me up at my sixteenth. Can this day get any weirder?
……………………………………………………….
Turns out it can. If having Beau Barnes parked outside my house, leaning against his range rover and staring right at my bedroom window was weird. I was watching him from behind my curtains, hoping eventually he would get bored and drive away. But it has been 20 minutes and he didn’t seem to be getting bored.
At least he changed his crewneck, walking around town with dried beef casserole on you must not be very comfortable.
At this point I was ready to just leave him there and go on with my business until I heard the front door open and my mother calling him inside.
“Beau! How nice it is to see you, what are you doing here? Please tell me Anne hasn’t been causing you trouble again?”
Thanks mother stand up for your own children why don’t you. I could hear Beau enter the house from upstairs from my mother and he chatting.
“It’s nice to see you Miss Connolly, is Anne around? I need to talk to her about some schoolwork”
Schoolwork my ass, we’re barely in the same classes.
“Why of course! I’ll just call her down. Anne! Anne! Someone is here to see you!”
I rolled my eyes at my mother’s enthusiasm; she was only nice to Beau because he came from the Barnes family. The Barnes were well-respected around town, they owned the favourite diner, Beau was a star on the school’s football team and Alcott Barnes was sort of de-facto leader of St. Liapa. It was all very cult like.
“Coming mother!”
I took my time making my way downstairs, this was a confrontation I was not looking forward to. When I entered the hall, I noticed Beau leaning against the wall, hand in his jean pockets and giving an overall rude demeanour. My mother paid him no mind and ushered me over to him.
“Well I’ll leave you two to your little chat, I’ll just be in the dining room planning the party if you need me”
Mother kept giving me these looks like I was supposed to understand what she was trying to get across. It was obvious she would be listening to our conversation from the dining room, I could never have privacy.
“Why don’t we have this conversation outside?”
I grabbed Beau by his arm and forced him out the front door before he could give me a reply. I had to put some defence between my mother and me. Once I closed the door, I sat myself down on the stoop outside and rested my head between my hands, I could feel a headache beginning to form.
“What do you want Beau? Didn’t you say everything earlier?”
Beau immediately chuckled at my statement and glared down at me, his presence never used to bother me much before, but the standoffish demeanour he was giving off made me realise why Bess seemed so frightened of him. I could feel a knot forming in my throat and I couldn’t swallow it no matter how hard I tried.
“You know, I always knew you were a joker Annie”
Well…this was confusing. Was he here just to tell me how funny I am?
“Is that why you’re here? To tell me I’m funny? Cause, I’m flattered, but now is not really the time”
“No, I have other reasons. I came here to call…a truce of sorts”
“A truce? You? I didn’t take you for a coward Beau”
Beau immediately sighed in what appeared to be exasperation, looking up the sky for some sort of comfort.
“Why do you have to be so argumentative? Most of these fights we have are not my fault, you know? You just love to see me pissed off for some reason and I’m tired of it”
His reply made my blood boil. Some reason? He knew exactly why we had been having these arguments and they weren’t purely caused by me. Yes, I played a part, but he needed to take responsibility for his too. I stood from the stoop and got closer to him, trying to put on a front but realising the fruitlessness of it when he stood 7 inches taller than me.
“You know exactly why we’ve been arguing Beau. Do you realise how much you’ve affected Bess with those rumours of yours?! She’s terrified to even be in the same room with you let alone the same school”
He just smiled down at me with his perfect white teeth. He even had dimples, dimples for god sake!
“I think what you need to realise Annie, is that you’re the coward. You can’t even admit the real reason why you’re so obsessed with me”
“And what reason is that?”
Beau crouched down to my eye level and closed inwards.
“That you like me”
Oh my god. Oh my god, Beau is insane. He’s completely and utterly insane. How could he think the reason I slashed his tyres and dumped tampons in his bag is all because I like him. The only reason I do these things is because of Bess and nothing else.
“You’re crazy, I don’t like you. I hate you! You’re a bullying piece of trash who has everything handed to them and gets no consequences for his actions all because your daddy owns the diner”
“I’ll let you know that he owns a lot more than just the diner, but semantics. And, yes, that is the reason. I know it, you know it and everyone else knows it”
“You’re disgusting. You’re so full of yourself you think anyone who pays you a bit of attention is in love with you. Just because nearly every dumb girl at school can’t see past your fancy car and realise how awful you are doesn’t mean I can’t, you need to realise what you do to others has repercussions”
Beau leaned back on a post on the stoop and seemed to pay me no mind, I wouldn’t be surprised if he begins looking at his nails next.
“You know, you smell pretty nice when you’re angry”
That stopped me dead in my tracks. Smell nice when I’m angry? He can smell anger? What, does he have super smell or something?
“You can smell my anger? That doesn’t make any sense”
“You’ll get it eventually. Look, I’m sorry for what happened with Bess, but that rumour was nearly three years ago, and I was a stupid idiot who thought he could say anything”
“You said it earlier in the cafeteria, you called Bess hermie, so don’t pretend you’re a nice guy now”
“It’s just that you get me so angry Annie that I come out and say dumb shit that I know will upset you. I’m not saying I’m a nice person, but you’re not one either. I’ll apologise to Bess, but I want all this stuff between us to end now, unless you want my father involved”
So far, Alcott Barnes had been out of the loop on things concerning Beau and I and our meetings with the principal. It had always been his mother turning up and I’d never heard Alcott mentioned. And now Beau was threatening me with him, yeah, he was not a nice person alright.
“Are you threatening me?”
“I wouldn’t say threatening, just a note of interest. I don’t want things to get any worse than they already are, I’ll apologise to Bess tomorrow and then we can forget all of this”
He began looking at his watch, seeming irritated by what the watch was telling him.
“Look I need to go, family stuff and all that. Oh, before I forget, I’m pretty excited for your party Friday, bet it will be a hoot”
My party? How did he know about my party? It was family only, I didn’t invite anyone else, unless…mother. Of course, she probably invited the whole town with her excitement.
“You’re coming to my birthday party?”
“Of course, everyone is gonna be there, didn’t you know? You’re gonna be the bell of the ball”
He stared at me as he walked backwards to his car. Then I noticed it, his eyes seeming to change from his usual brown to a fluorescent gold. Didn’t he do that earlier in the cafeteria? Or am I just seeing things?
Once Beau drove off I sat again on the stoop, taking everything in. A truce? I can’t imagine it; I’ve been doing this for so long I can’t see us being peaceful with each other. And he was coming to my party, who invites random people to a party? Mother knows my relationship with Beau and yet she still invited him. That just made me think, who else has she invited?
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