Virulent Interlude

My friends are the one thing that completely matter to me. I don’t know where I’d be without them. Especially Holly. She’s been there for me through everything, ever since I moved here to Indiana when I was 10. I’m now 16.
Have you ever had one of those days that it started out perfect then ended terribly? Well that’s how today was. The weather was beautiful. A perfect temperature of 80 degrees, with a light breeze and a little bit of humidity.
When I got up that morning, the sun was shining through my window, and green curtains. The green glow that everything had was so cool looking! About every week, I changed my curtains to a different color, of course only colors that matched my comforter or lithograph. This week is green, well obviously. Anyway, as I started to get ready, wearing my normal black or gray shirt and nice fitting jeans I knew today was going to be wonderful. Boy was I wrong!
I went into the kitchen and got out a bowl and a glass. The fridge has this cool measured fill thing, so I can just hit it and the glass will be filled with the amount entered. I got out the Sugared Flakes and poured a bowl of them. I grabbed my glass and went to sit at the table, where my brothers, sister and mom were sitting
My oldest brother, Matt, looked at me curiously. He always gives me the weirdest looks, and since he’s only a year younger than I am, he usually ends up liking my friends. It can be pretty awkward. The fascination he had with Holly a couple years back was almost stalker-like. Her mom had considered getting a restraining order. Matt would show up at her house at like two in the morning. Every time he saw her with some other guy he’d slap her, bruise her, and hurt her in some form. A couple of times he mentally abused her.
Now his newest crush is one of his friends. Thankfully, but I do feel bad for Annie. She’s drop-dead gorgeous. Like her dark brown hair is long, thick, and perfectly wavy. And she has the very rare blue eyes that can look gray at times. Naturally, all the guys eventually develop crush on her. For some odd reason she’s friends with my brother when she can be hanging out with college guys. Now I’m not saying my brother is a freak, but he isn’t the most popular guy. I guess you could call him cute, but since he’s my brother I don’t think of him that way. But he has a six-pack, works out a lot. Matt is on the football team. He hangs out with some of the other football players, and a couple of other jocks. And he has the perfect tan. Yet, he isn’t part of the group who always party and are well respected by everyone in the school, including the principle.
Anyway, Annie is my brother’s newest crush since he just recently realized how ‘hot' she is. His words, not mine. He hasn’t gone to the stalking part of some of his crushes, but it could happen. Though I think this time is different because he thinks he has a chance to actually be with her. Who knows, she might actually like him and not say anything about it. I might ask her about it. “Hello? Earth to Danielle!” Matt said turning my attention away from my thoughts.
“You say something?” I said taking a bite of my bowl of Sugared Flakes. I’ve noticed the entire family hates it when I go off into my own little world, a usual thing for me to do.
“Uh, yeah. I asked if you think Annie likes me.” Matt says giving me another look. This time it was one like he thought I was stupid or something.
“Well excuse me for spacing out!” I said and my slight country accent came out. It tends to come out at random times. Though when I’m tired or hyper I talk with a country accent. “And it’s a possibility. You want me to ask her what she thinks of you?” I asked him and he shrugged.
“You can if you want to, I guess…” He said my sister snickered. Ali thinks it’s funny how Matt tries to be all nonchalant about Annie.
I roll my eyes at Ali. She’s the prep out of us. Naturally she is a cheerleader, only dates the football team. Has perfect blond hair with brown eyes. Weird, I know. Everyone loves her, well almost everyone. The band and other freaks of the school either fear or hate her.  Most people try to suck up to her to be her friend. It never works.  “You really think the whole nonchalant attitude makes people thing you don’t like her?” Matt rolled his eyes at Ali. “News flash Matt, it makes it more obvious.” Ali stood up and put her bowl in the sink, trying very hard to not touch the sink itself. Apparently even brushing her hand against it will ruin her manicure.
“Hey Ali, I don’t really know how to tell you this but no one says ‘news flash’ anymore. They say ‘by the way’ or ‘f.y.i’.” I say and smirk. I take a big bite of my cereal and she sneers. Many times before she has told me that my eating habits are disgusting and I will be obese when I am older. She has even said that guys do not like girls who eat a lot. Ali walked out of the kitchen in a pissy mood like always, and drove to school.  Unfortunately, she is my twin sister and we could not be any different. That just makes it worse. The differences were not just superficial, they were everything. She was overly optimistic; I was pessimistic. Ali has blonde hair and brown eyes and I have brown hair and purple eyes.  She loves football players and I love band geeks.  That has just to name a few.  I finished my cereal and looked at Matt. “Ready to go to school?” Every day I give him a ride to school since he cannot drive just yet. He nodded and got all of his books. I grabbed my car keys and we were off to school.


Immediately upon our arrival, Holly came running up to my car in an unusually happy manner. I could tell that something interesting had happened. I got out of my car and she didn’t even give me a chance to say ‘hi’ before beginning to talk. “You will never guess what happened this weekend!” She didn’t give me a chance to respond. “So you know how I was hanging out with Josh and couple of the other football players and some cheerleaders on Friday?” I nodded. “Well guess who I’ve been hanging out with since.”
I sighed. This could only end badly if she was with the person I was about to say. “I’m assuming Josh.” By the way she squealed and nodded furiously I knew I had it right. Now, the reason it would only end badly with him is that he “dates” a girl for a bit, sleeps with her, tells everyone and the rumors begin. They always make it seem even worse than what actually happened. I’ve seen so many girls driven to depression, drugs, and being whores because of this one kid.
That must have showed on my face because Holly sighed. “Dani, he assured me he wants a relationship with me, but wants to court me first. And those other girls threw themselves at him just to be able to say they got with the quarterback. He’s going to be around for a while, so please be nice.”
“Fine, I’ll be nice. Just promise me you’ll be careful. I’ve seen this sort of thing happen before.” And I had. Before moving to Indiana I had an older sister. Her name was Miyuki, rather that was her middle name but she preferred to go but that. I was about 8 or 9 when this happened so that made her about 16 or 17. Even though we had that age gap, we were really close and she told me everything. Well one night she came into my room and lay in bed with me and just cried for an hour without saying anything. Once she finally was able to talk she told me all about this football player she had been seeing, how he made her feel like a princess and was “courting” her, and how she had slept with him for the first time a couple of days ago. They weren’t in a relationship; they’d only been talking for about a two weeks. She told me that by the next day, everyone knew that she had slept with this guy so easily and were bullying and propositioning her. That night, lying in my bed, was the last time I saw Miyuki. She kissed my forehead, whispered she loved me, and left my room to hang herself.
Holly gave me a weird look. Even though she is my best friend and like a sister to me, I’ve never told her about Miyuki. My family doesn’t like to talk about her much. “You okay Dani?”
I snapped out of my memories and gave her a slight smile. “Yeah, I’m fine. So since I have to be nice about the whole thing you have going with Josh, you cannot say anything about whatever you want to consider my fling with your brother anymore.” Jake, Holly’s brother, and I have been an on and off thing for a long time.
“Yeah, yeah fine. I’ll shut up about your guys’ stupidity and annoying drama. Well I’m going to find Josh; I’ll see you at lunch.” She walked off towards the field and I walked into the school.


The day was completely uneventful, except for Josh actually making an effort to show that he was with Holly.  I will admit he gets points for that, I mean considering this school is all about stereotypical cliques.  Anyway, it elicited many dirty and curious looks from people.  I digress from my story though. That night Holly had called me, crying and hyperventilating. “Honey, what is wrong?” I asked once she calmed down some.
“You mean you have not seen it? It is all over Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter. There is a video. Josh recorded the things we did and leaked it everywhere!” She sobbed.
I tensed up; I knew this was going to happen, just not this soon. “Are you okay? Do you need me to come over?”
“No, I think I will be okay. Hold on, someone is calling me.” I waited for her to come back onto the line, seething. I knew he would do that, but that did not lessen it. He had no right to disgrace her like that when she trusted him. I heard her sigh. “That was Josh. He says it was not him who leaked the videos. He had them on his phone and left it unlocked in the locker room, so someone else posted them.”
I growled. “Bullshit. He is just trying to save his ass. Look, tomorrow after school we will go to the police for this okay?”
“Uh, okay. That would be good I guess. I am tired so I will see you tomorrow at school. Later girl.” I hung up and paced my room. Holly surely was not okay. I knew her better than she thought. I knew that she was anti-depressants and yet still hurting herself. This could send her over the edge.


Eventually I gave up on trying to figure out what to do to help her and fell asleep. The next morning seemed normal once again, and once again I was wrong. I got to school sooner than usual just to be there for my best friend. There was a commotion by the west wing of the school, so I went over there.
Unfortunately, I had not gotten there soon enough for Holly. I worked my way to the small mob, looked over some shoulders and saw it. There she was, lying on the gray pavement. Her limbs sprawled out in awkward positions, her neck in worse condition, and the dark pool of blood surrounded her head. Her once pristinely white blond hair had blood matting it down to the back of her head.
A sort of numbness hit me then, and I lowered my heels so I would not fall forward.  My best friend jumped off the roof of our four story high school because of a guy. As I started to see the world spinning, I felt a reassuring grip on my arm and a hand slide into mine. I look at the person beside me and smile at him.
Josh and Dani look at each other and then Holly’s body with sad expressions in their eyes. Slowly, without anyone noticing, they retreated from the group that was growing hand-in-hand and seemingly lighter than before.