On the Plus Side

Page 25

I picked out a cute pair of strappy black shoes with a two-inch heel. Then we spent the rest of the day getting our nails and hair done. My mother would have died if she knew.
By the time we got back to our apartment we had bags and boxes galore, new hair, and huge smiles on our faces. We did a quick cleaning job on the apartment, threw together a quick, unhealthy dinner followed by something smothered in chocolate, and then spent the rest of the night in front of the TV.
I spent the entire time checking my phone to make sure I had signal or that my battery wasn’t dead. My phone was fine and yet there was still no phone call.
That night I barely slept.
The following day, Sunday, I opened the store for Mrs. Franklin and spent the day stuck to the front counter with my phone beside me. I was getting pretty pathetic, and by the end of the day I decided to give up on the thought that he might call. It was a fun night and that’s all it would ever be. I decided to let it bounce off of me and forget about it him and his mind-blowing green eyes or his soft kisses or…
“OK, you’re doing it again, Lilly!” I said out loud to the empty store.
Valerie, Mrs. Franklin’s niece who comes over twice a week to go over the books, came from the back of the store.
“Did you say something, sweetie?” she asked confused.
“Just talking to myself,” I said as I swiped my bangs from my eyes.
“Gotcha…want to go grab some lunch?”
I couldn’t even pretend like I had an appetite.
“Nah, I’m good—rain check for next week?”
I spent the rest of the day selling jewelry when and if we had a customer. If it wasn’t for me randomly buying expensive pieces of jewelry every now and again I think Franklin’s Jewelry store would’ve closed months ago.
It’s worth it to me and I’m sure the children’s charities that receive anonymous expensive diamond rings and necklaces are happy about it. I always send to children’s charities. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I can’t have kids.
I remember how sad I was when the doctor told me that I’d never bare children. Apparently, if you get kicked repeatedly in the lower part of your stomach by a bunch of angry teenage girls it causes internal bleeding as well as affects your ability to reproduce. The memories of that day six years ago still stung.
I thought I’d made some new friends when in reality they called me to their little meeting in the woods to let me know that they didn’t like me very much. I’d never been called so many horrible names in my life and after a while I didn’t even feel the kicking anymore. I should have known then that something was wrong.
“I’ll sue those little bitches for everything they have!” My mom was irate when she found out what had happened.
“Mom, they’re a bunch of teenagers…they don’t have anything at this point in their lives. Just let it go.”
That’s exactly what I did. There was no way in the world I’d let those girls know what they’d taken away from me. Instead, I switched schools and never saw any of the girls ever again. Yeah, it was the coward’s way out, but if I had said anything I would’ve been hated by the entire student body for the last three years of my high school life for getting rid of half of the cheerleading squad.
It’s a memory that I keep hidden in the back of my mind, but I’ll always be reminded of that day every time I see a cute little baby smiling back at me. I get sad just thinking about how lonely I’m going to be when I get older. I dream of having a huge family with tons of kids that I can love who’ll love me in return.
The girls, and Randy, say I could always adopt. Honestly though, who in their right mind would give a single woman a child? No matter that I’m a secret millionaire—a child should have a family, a mom and a dad. At least that’s the way it is in normal families. Then again, I grew up with a relatively “normal” family and look how shitty I turned out.
The following night we all met at McCrady’s, the Irish pub close to my house. They were having karaoke and I tried really hard to have a good time even though all I could think about was how stupid I was to think that I stood a chance with such a good looking guy like Devin.
Deep down, I wished that I’d never even gone on the date in the first place. At least then I wouldn’t be sitting around wondering if I said or did something wrong. Or worse than that, I wouldn’t be sitting around picking out all of my flaws and cursing my fat ass.
Even with my craptastic mood, I couldn’t help but laugh hysterically when Randy got on stage and sung “Like a Virgin.” Not only was it funny because, well… he’s a guy singing Madonna better than Madonna sings Madonna, but Randy was so far from being a virgin that it just wasn’t even right.