Page 40 of Valentine Dare

“Excuse me,” I chuckled, thinking Jenny never spoke like that. Maybe she’d been staying here a little too long. She was picking up our bad habits.

“The fake thing. Let’s show Kurt.”

“Hungry?”

She nodded.

“I mean, he deserves it. He spat on me. Do you know how disgusting that felt, him doing it?”

“And fucking humiliating.”

The rage and frustration I felt seeing him do it grew inside of me once again. It was as if I was reliving the moment in the country club all over again. I couldn’t get the picture out of my head, no matter how hard I tried.

“Just a sandwich, right?”

She nodded again.

“So, what’s up with Kurt and his precious daddy?” I turned to face her once I got everything out of the fridge to make her a killer sandwich, and she laughed. At least her dark eyes weren’t dull, not the way they were when I came home a few minutes ago.

“Well, seems that Walter posted bail for dad, but I don’t know the ins and outs of it all. Tracey heard the girls talking about it in the bathroom, but she said that they were talking in riddles.”

This wasn’t the first time Jenny had told me Tracey had heard a conversation in the bathroom, and I was curious about how come, even now, she was still spending too much time in there. It wasn’t healthy.

“How comes she spends so much time in there?”

She sighed. “You really want to know?”

I shook my head and put my hand up. Somethings were best left to the imagination. I didn’t need to know.

“Ok. So what does she know?”

“She says that if my dad gets sent down, then Kurt’s will too. And this is probably why Kurt hates my guts.”

I stopped making the sandwich, thinking this made no sense.

“What did all this have to do with you?”

She sat on the stool and faced me with her hands underneath her chin.

“Typical narcissist behavior. They cannot take all the crap going on in their lives so they have to blame someone. They have to take their frustration out on someone else. This has nothing to do with me, but somehow it is my fault. He just wants someone to blame.”

I started making the ham sandwich and then handed it to her. I didn’t even put anything away, because I had a feeling once we finished this one, which I must admit was going to taste too good, we may want another.

“You sound as if this is no surprise to you. As if you’ve been down this road too many times.”

She agreed. “I have, and then Tracey heard that Veronica dumped his ass. She said she didn’t want to be around when the shit hit the fan. So, he’s even more frustrated than usual.”

“How can you be so calm about it all?”

I had to ask her, and I couldn’t eat because she was already eating the sandwich and acting as if this was no big deal.

“Because, I’ve been made homeless, parents disowned me in the last few months, and I’m with you three that make me feel special. Oh, and let’s not forget Tracey who has taught me so much in such a short space of time. Kurt, and the issues with his family, don’t feature into my worries. I’m past it. I left school earlier ‘cause he spat on me. I went to the bathroom to wash my face, but it still bugged me. I still felt dirty, so I came here and took a shower. Feeling a lot better now than I did earlier.”

She held my stare as if she was challenging me, expecting me to say something more about the topic.

What more was there to say?

I lifted my hand up and said, “Hi-five, Jenny! You’ve come a long way, girl!”

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