Bad Taste (Part I) // Colby Brock

51 - Rebecca

          Katrina downed the rest of her coffee shortly after that, giving up on the silence between us. We had finished the terrible paninis and now had absolutely no reason to stay. She was carrying out the typical 'I'm about to leave but haven't told you yet' routine whilst I just sat there and stared through the window.

She shouldered her handbag, finally, and tapped the table. "So I think I'm going to head back to wait for Tara to wake up. I don't know if the other girls will come with us but..." She shrugged.

"Just give me warning and I can't complain." That was a lie.

Katrina stood up and walked around the table, about to leave when she stopped just beside me. She looked down at me for a second, contemplating something. I just stared back at her weirdly. I saw what she was doing before she did it, but I didn't stop it.

She leaned down and hugged me. It felt uncertain and hesitant, yet weirdly necessary. I took a moment to process the tiny bit of warmth in my chest before I hugged her back — barely touching her, though. She sighed slightly into my hair and stood back up straight. There was a little smile on her face.

"See you later," she said, walking away. I didn't reply.

I sat there at the table for a little while just thinking. My thoughts ranged from blue eyes to Katrina's hazel eyes. So different. So, so different. One of them literally drove me nuts and the other one pissed me off by being unnecessarily nice all the time. But both of them had accepted me in some way: they'd put up with me for the benefits. The question was whether the benefits were good enough for the trouble. I didn't see myself in that light; I didn't really have good qualities and I didn't change for anyone.

Eventually, my sad mind came to an end, and I forced myself out of my seat. My hands felt quite heavy as I walked out of the cafe. My head felt empty, like something was missing that I couldn't put my finger on. It didn't make sense to me; it didn't seem right. Everything about my life ever since I'd met Tara — no, ever since I'd bumped into Colby at the gas station — didn't make sense. Little things here and there that I had brushed aside were popping back up.

The world was changing around me and I'd been too bitchy and selfish to see it happening. Angela — she had changed; she wasn't high when I saw her, she wasn't off in some other world. She was grounded, scared and being followed, hunted. And she'd tried to come to me for help, or to warn me, yet I'd told her to leave me alone and sent her out. What if her stalker had been out there, then? What if she ran into him or her and they'd taken her for whatever they wanted her for? Could I live with that thought, even if I hadn't liked her to start with?

The world started to spin around me, my head pounding. I hadn't had a migraine since I was a child, before I turned into the emotionless, angry bitch I was. This sign of change I didn't want to see. I hated it; I needed it to go.

And just like that, with the anger at myself bubbling up through my veins, the migraine eased. I was sitting in my car somehow with my head resting on the steering wheel. I was panting under the pain. But as it disappeared, my need for hatred and anger returned. A momentary lapse in my character quickly replaced by myself. This was the new me: the one who didn't get migraines, didn't give a shit, didn't take anything from anybody. And I liked her, as dysfunctional as she was.

My foot flew into the pedals now. Clubbing. Drinking. Friends. I needed all of that — not to make out with a random equally-fucked-up guy.

That was what I would do rather than mope or allow the hole in my chest to weigh me down. What would I accomplish like that? I had designs waiting for me at my apartment and at the studio, I couldn't ditch it just because I was a little sad. This was my future — a future that I wanted. I always got what I wanted because I fought for it with such vigour and aggression that it would be a miracle not to get it.

So:

Girls' night. Then my life.