The next day I ended up back at the Nugget with Chandra, sitting near the electric box.
The electric box was, if possible, an even worse existence than the Nugget. It was exactly what it sounded like, an electric box. It was positioned on a large slab of concrete, right between Burger King and the Nugget. The slab just happened to be the perfect place to sit if you were going to have a cigarette, and all smoking teenage Pahrumpians bowed to it.
I was already there before I noticed who was sitting there. Jay's new girlfriend, Stacy. She was five feet tall, had no breasts, and was the size of a Q-tip. Her hair was dyed a deep black and her blue eyes had enough eyeliner to make marilyn manson shudder. She was wearing her pajamas for some reason, and was crying as I approached.
" Val, don't hurt her." I heard someone say. I was baffled, until I realized she was muttering to herself through her tears. She was asking me not to hit her. She was shaking, rocking back and forth, and muttering about me. Me! As though I was Hulk Hogan and not a five foot two teenage girl.
I wanted to feel bad for her, wanted to laugh and tell her it was okay, but I couldn't. I had informed her a week ago that Jay was my boyfriend, thinking she was as clueless as I was. I was wrong. she had spent twenty minutes telling me that she had never even seen him, let alone dated him. She might as well have taken sharpie and written " I did it on purpose" across her chest.
I walked away instead, wanting to leave before Jay arrived and I had to see them together. This was the third time she had done this to me and I was beginning to think it was not coincidence. I spent the next few hours(Okay days.)imagining exactly what I would do to her, until I had perfected it to a step by step routine. Then I would feel guilty, remind myself that Jay was the pig, and pretend once again that I had a crush on Merrill.
It was two days later before I actually saw them together. I had left my friend Stoney's house that morning, taken a pill he gave me, then started walking for the Nugget. I was already at another casino, Mt. View, that's close to town when I realized I had bled through my denim shorts. It was extremely visible and I had nothing to cover it with, which made me feel like a panicking seventh grader.
I looked around me desperately, perhaps believing a pair of pants would magically float from the heavens. Bushes? No, that wouldn't work. Perhaps a nice rock would cover it up? Perhaps not. Then a brilliant thought dawned on me. Jay had borrowed a pair of my pants and his house was right across the street. In fact, he was the absolute only person nearby. I could go, get my pants, and have a perfectly good excuse to talk to him. It was a fantastic idea.
I was beginning to get excited as I walked to his house, humming through the wonderful effects of my happy pill. I wondered if skipping my way to the door would be appropriate. Perhaps a little dance or two on the way there. I tried to snap out of it as the door opened, reminding myself it was the pill doing the happy dance.
Jay wasn't there. Typically. It was just evelyn, billy's mom. My happy pill was still buzzing though, so the voice in my head continued to sing through my disappointment. She invited me in, since she was all by herself, then headed to the room to find my pants.
We sat for a while, talking, and secretly hoping Jay would walk in. I must have been sitting there for too long, because my happy pill was quickly turning into a sad one. I vomitted in her house, completely in the toilet but through shouts of "Please don't throw up in my bathroom". Then I became to fall asleep in the middle of our conversation. We both sensed it would be bad if anyone came home to me asleep on the couch, vomitting uncontrollably.
So she dropped me off at the Nugget, where I walked in and saw it. They were walking together, his arm over her. He was quiet, surrounded by my very own friends, looking like he belonged next to her. I vomitted, then waved goodbye to the heart I had since recollected.
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