drew barrymore pt. 2 | a continuation

2.8 | 4 years prior

solána:

freshman year at this point was pretty much uneventful. i had a (dysfunctional) friend group that consisted of jacques webster, my childhood best friend, megan pete, whom i had met in middle school, rakim mayers, one of jacques's friends, isaiah mcclain, my cousin's boyfriend, and tahliah barnett, one of the few foreign exchange students we had.

jacques had a girlfriend, sabrina, whom he'd been dating for the last few months. he'd been in and out of relationships since the beginning of the year. we'd (jacques, definitely not sabrina) been best friends since second or third grade when i accidentally dislocated his arm by pulling him off of the monkey bars (i have yet to live that one down). but ever since he had gotten with sabrina he had pretty much abandoned the rest of us, me most of all.

now, being 100% honest, i was completely aware of the fact that sabrina wasn't too fond of me, based off of the random dirty looks and childish shit of that nature. but the way she made jacques act towards me was out of pocket. if she saw me with him she would call or text him or walk up and cut into me talking about whatever i was talking about (depending on how driven her animosity was towards me that day). but there was one thing she did that i *nearly* fucked her up for, had it not been for megan talking me out of it.

i don't know what it was that i was doing when it happened, but me and jacques were sitting on my bedroom floor, trading notes if i remember correctly, when he randomly looked up and said "how do you feel about sabrina?"

"what?" i said, looking up from whatever i was doing.

"how do you feel about her?" he asked.

"she's fine, i guess. as long as she makes you happy," i lied.

"you been coming at her kinda weird," he said.

he was out of his mind, i believe. out of the numerous daily attempts to provoke me, i'd responded to her twice. "jacques... what?" i said, going back to whatever i was doing.

"the way you respond to her. like y'all got tension or something," he said.

"gee whiz, jacques, it's not like she tries to rattle my fucking cage everyday or anything like that," i said sarcastically, looking back up at him.

"well if she's trying to bother you, you must be giving her a reason to," he said.

i reached over and felt his forehead, flipping my hand. "say ah," i said.

"what are you doing?" he asked.

"trying to see if you're sick or something because you're obviously losing it if you think i'm giving your girlfriend, who i've never traded words with a day in my life until she met you, the time of day," i said, standing up.

"she's been telling me you been saying shit to her," he said.

i studied his face. i saw regret. i wasn't sure what he was regretting, but i could certainly see it. "has she given you definitive evidence of me saying shit to her?" i asked.

"what does she need evidence for?" he asked.

"the only thing i've ever said to her was that i didn't have feelings for you so she could stop fucking bothering me, which i literally told you about after," i said.

"you definitely said more than that," he said.

"i can't believe you're really not seeing through her bullshit," i said, grabbing my binder and closing it.

"what bullshit, what does she have to lie for?" he said.

"you're delusional. what did she do to you? are you on drugs? what is it? tell me, because you've clearly lost your mind," i said.