CHOICES (Completed)

EVEN SCORES

Everything already aches and I know I’m no where in the world prepared to hear what she has to say. I have a dreadful, overwhelming instinct of where this is leading and I don’t want to go there.

“Remember what Hardin said the first day. Never mind, he said that it’ll be a day worth remembering. And he meant it.

You shouldn’t have slapped him. He’s Hardin Scott, darling.”

No, this is not happening. I stand frozen and the fear grows on me like a cloud, blackening around me. My eyes are wide as saucers, and stinging with burning unshed tears. I part my lips, trying to inhale but none of body parts co-operate right now.

I need to breathe. Tessa, you need to breathe. 

“He had it all figured out, really. Ooh, and told me everything. The brownie was a bit too much I thought but he said chocolate would always do the trick.

Oh and the song at the bonfire, Jesus Christ, that was just- iconic.”

My stomach forms a painful hollow inside and nothing I try to say, comes out.

If it was possible for me to break anymore, I would have. She knew every small thing. Which meant- Har-

“And actually there wasn’t much need for it because we had what we wanted already. The day, you went to his house, when Brit called? Oh and how good of a nurse are you, Tessa!

Hardin has the effect, I know, but how could you believe that he’ll ever want someone like you.”

The girls with her giggle sardonically and Sofia chuckles unbelievably.

You actually thought this could have happened? That we could be a thing?

That I being I, would choose you, of all people?

The entire hallway stands as I shatter. Bit by bit, achingly steady, like slow poison. Everything was a sham. All of it, a well thought out scheme. Every step planned and executed. All the memories roll in front of my eyes. And all of them was a lie. Hardin had been playing me all along. Our moments were just, not mine. Hardin had been much, much worse than all I had blamed him to be last night.

“There was a camera. And you looked such a lovesick puppy. We had to get the face, we had to have every angle to make the morphing look genuine.

And, what can I say, Hardin is a bloody professional at angles.”

She scoffs off and I feel punched in the abdomen. A sudden surge of pain and anger floods within me and it all fits in, piece by piece.

Hardin had suddenly kissed me. He had said he meant in, in front of everyone. Made out in his home, against a camera. Morphed it into a sex tape and circulated it all around. He wasn’t even drunk that day. Everything he had said had been a lie. He never wanted me. He never loved me.

And all of it was just plain old revenge- for a fucking slap? All this is so crazy, mental institution schizophrenia gone loose crazy.

It’s going to be a day worth remembering.

And like it’s only a matter of time, before you realise that I’m not worth it.