Drowning • Billy Hargrove

Chapter 37

I silently opened the front door, after a long day of work.
"Hey!" Tyler says, greeting me from the living room.
"Hey!" I reply.
"How was work?"
I sigh. "It was okay. I made a lot of tips though!"
He smiles at me as I take a seat beside him on the couch. "That's good!"
I nod my head and smile. "Yeah, it is."
A few moments of silence pass.
"Oh, I'm really sorry about last night. I had a few drinks and I shouldn't have thrown a party on a Monday."
"Don't worry about it. It's all cool."
He smiles. "Okay good." He shifts over and looks at me. "You know you're not like any other roommate I've had, and I like that about you."
I smile at him. "Thanks. You're pretty cool yourself."
After a few moments of silence pass, he does the unthinkable. He reaches over and kisses me. The only bad part about it was, I chose to kiss back. He stands up, signaling me to do the same. I do and he lifts me up and carries me over to his bedroom.

"I can't!" I finally say, coming to my senses and breaking free from his kiss.
"What?" He asks, confused.
"I'm sorry. I can't do this." I quickly walk out of his room and run to my own. I slam the door behind me and sit on my bed.

I felt extremely bad about what I had just done, even if Billy and I were on a break.
I couldn't help but to think if this is how Billy felt after he did what he had done. He must of not felt this way if he kept doing it over and over again.
I began to feel angry at myself and Billy, so I walked back over to Tyler's room.

I knocked on the door and slowly opened it.
"Kate, I'm sorry I shouldn't have done that."
I walk over to his bed and stand right infront of him.
"Don't worry about it, because I shouldn't be doing this either." I say, leaning over and kissing him. 
He, not surprisingly, kisses back. We makeout for awhile until I decide to tug at his shirt. He whips it off as I do the same. He pulls me on top of him and lays down on the bed, grinning at me the entire time.

I couldn't sleep that night because I felt sick to my stomach. I was still in Tyler's bed, listening to his gentle snores. Even if I wanted to leave, I couldn't without waking him since he had his arm draped across me. Matter of fact, it was the same thing Billy used to do to me and I felt extremely uncomfortable having another man do that to me.
Eventually, I fell asleep for a few hours, before being awaken to Tyler's alarm clock. Thankfully, he woke up at the same time I did, so I knew I wouldn't be late.

We both sit up in the bed, rubbing our eyes and adjusting to the bright light shining in through his curtains.
"Good morning sunshine." He says.
"Morning." I respond, a tad uncomfortable.
"Last night was fun." He says, smiling from ear to ear.
I nod my head. "Yeah." I respond, clearly lieing. It was by far the worst decision I have ever made.
"I'm going to get ready now." Tyler states, obviously kicking me out of his room.
"Yeah me too." I quickly reply, standing up and running out to my bedroom.

After we get ready, we leave our apartment and begin to walk to school.
"Listen, I don't want what happened to change our friendship."
He nods his head. "Me too. But I promise it won't."
I smile at him. "Okay, good."
The truth is, I really like Tyler as a friend. But that's it, a friend. What happened last night was definitely a mistake, because it was just me trying to get revenge on my cheating boyfriend.

We finally arrive on campus and walk off our seperate ways.
As I walk through the halls to get to my class, I notice almost everybody  watching my every move. They begin to point at me and whisper behind my back.
"What's going on?" I ask this one girl  named Sarah. Sarah and I shared a few classes and we became pretty close.
"Uh, nothing." She responds.
I look her dead in the eyes. "Yeah there is."
Sarah was an awful liar and she was also very easy to convince. "Okay fine! There was a news article released and it talked about Hawkins and all of the weird stuff that went on there." She continues to ramble on. "It talked about the death of Chief Hopper and how he died in a secret Russian lab, or something like that. Anyways, somebody found out that the man was your dad. That's why everybody's staring at you."
My heart drops. I haven't told anybody about my father and I didn't plan on it, but now it didn't matter. The truth was out and everybody knew.
"Oh." I mumble out. As if I wasn't feeling bad enough about what I did with Tyler, I was now feeling ten times worse.
Sarah nods her head. "Yeah, I'm sorry this is happening to you."
I smile at her. "Thanks."

I turned away from Sarah to see that everybody was still watching me and whispering about me.
"Listen up." I yell, causing the entire hallway to go silent.
"I don't know what you all heard about my father, but he died a hero. And whatever you're saying behind my back, just say it to my face."
Everybody stared at me with shocked expressions on their faces. I know they did not expect this from me, a small, quiet girl.
"Now that it's all cleared up... Shut your mouths about it!" I flipped my hair over my shoulder and walked past everybody.
Every person in the hallway continued to stare as I walked through their pathway they made for me. I walked through the alley of people and made eye contact with each one of them. Some people looked scared of me, others looked confused and shocked.
Tyler suddenly caught my eye. I turned to look at him and he was smirking at me. He slipped me a thumbs up, causing a smile to appear on my face.
I felt like such a badass and I knew Billy would be proud of me.