On the Plus Side

Page 36

Great…it was exactly what I needed. Now she wanted to go all psycho girlfriend on me. What is it with women and marking their territory? Renee was perfectly fine being a fuck buddy until she thought that someone else was moving in. She was acting exactly like I thought she would and I was about three seconds from telling her to go straight to Hell, but Jenny spoke before I could.
I saw that angry spark hit Jenny’s eyes and I knew it was going to be bad the minute I saw her hand come up and the outraged look on her face.
“OK, first of all, don’t you ever yell at my brother like that because I will climb your tall lanky ass like a tree! Second of all, nobody even likes you, so the best thing that could…”
I cut her off by grabbing her arm.
“Jenny, let me deal with this,” I said as I turned back to Renee. I almost laughed at the shocked look on her face.
“Are you gonna let her talk to me like that?” Renee asked in anger.
“Renee, whatever we had going on is over. The only reason I let it go on as long as I did was because you were a quick and easy lay,” I said calmly. I turned toward Jenny. “Come on, let’s go pay for this and get out of here.”
“Wait a minute! You’re not serious!” Renee called out. “You are breaking it off with me?” She stabbed herself in the chest with her too long fingernail. “Oh. My. God. This is epic! You, a dirty old garage boy and me, the hottie with a body! This is so funny I can’t even…”
Her next words never made it out of her mouth and for once I didn’t punish Jenny for acting like a boy. Renee never knew what hit her. I taught Jenny how to throw a punch and I’ll be damned if she didn’t throw one that landed right in the center of Renee’s face.
She covered her bloody nose with freshly manicured fingers. Bright red blood covered the white tips of her long nails.
“You broke my nose you little dike!” Her cries were muffled.
I had to pull Jenny back as she went in for another hit. She wasn’t having it, so I lifted her and carried her out. She fought and cursed the entire time.
We slipped out as store employees came to help Renee. After an hour of shopping, we left our buggy full of groceries in the aisle.
Later that night, I got a shower and then relaxed in my bed. My life was going straight down the shitter. We were about to lose everything, I had just broken it off with my semi-girlfriend/side piece, and now the one female that I actually enjoyed being around didn’t want anything to do with me. The shitter.
There was a light tap at my door that broke into my deep thoughts.
“Yeah,” I called out.
Jenny walked in and handed me a Twizzler.
“You OK?” she asked as she snapped off the end of her Twizzler with her teeth and started to chew.
“Yeah, I’ll live.”
“So…this new girl that you won’t let me meet, is it because she’s overweight?”
“What?” I started to panic.
Alarms went off. How the hell does Jenny know anything about Lilly’s size? Does Jenny know what I’ve been up to?
“Renee said you were at a party with a fat girl and I just kind of figured that maybe that’s why you won’t let me meet her. Devin, you know me and dad don’t care about stuff like that. I think it’s great.”
I felt a sudden burst of relief. The last thing I wanted was for my sister and my dad to know what a complete and total ass I really was.
“Yeah, she’s a little on the plus side, but that’s not why I haven’t let you meet her. We just aren’t in that zone, yet. Technically we aren’t in any zone anymore because she won’t talk to me.”
“Send her something nice. I’m not the most girly-girl in the world, but I know I’d like for a guy to send me something nice, especially if he did something to piss me off. When Josh does something, he sends me candy.” She held up her Twizzler. “He accidently broke my Gameboy today at school,” she shrugged.
“Josh cares about you, Jen.” I shook my head and laughed at her enlarged eyes. “I’ll think about sending her something nice.  Go get in bed, you got school tomorrow. I’ll see you in the morning, OK?”
I watched as my little sister, who now seemed so grown up, walked out of my bedroom. I jumped up and immediately when to my dresser and snatched up the little jewelry box that I got from Franklins Jewelry store the day I met Lilly.
I popped it open and stared down at the little locket. It really was perfect for her. I smiled to myself.
A week later, there was still no communication between Lilly and me. Of course, I’d given up on calling her. I knew the best thing for me to do was to just forget about her. That whole date someone for money thing was a bad idea to start with, not to mention it kind of backfired in my face considering that I was starting to really like Lilly.