Slutty Shaughna

#12 Ground rules

When Caroline wakes up in the morning, she gets up on her own and finds me on the couch, where I'm still wide awake, staring at my phone. I never went back to bed after my conversation with Dshawn. Instead, I stayed up texting Joshua, who was awake as well, watching a Formula 1 race that he didn't mind missing half of to text me. I feel bad using him like this, to get my mind off of the crap going on in my life, but then again... that's exactly what he is to me. A distraction. Just someone to hook up with. He knows that, I know that, we both know that.

"Hey," I tell Caroline with a smile. "How are you doing?"

She shrugs. "I feel alright. Little sore. Thanks for taking care of me last night."

"Of course!" I get up to give her a closer inspection. She still looks horrible with the dark bruises in her neck and the scrape on her face, surrounded by angry red and blue skin. She looks like someone banged her head into a wall while choking her. Which is probably exactly what happened.

"Don't look at me like that," Caroline complains before rushing to the bathroom to examine the damage in the mirror. "Oh God, I can't seriously go to work looking like this on Monday!" She grunts and takes a closer look, touching the sore spots with her fingertips.

"Caroline, that is the last thing you need to worry about," I tell her, feeling a little annoyed. I still don't know the whole story. "What the hell happened last night?"

She just shrugs, looking at herself in the mirror again, her fingers hovering over the blue skin. "Ah crap, the dance is Friday," she complains. "I'm gonna have to get a new dress, something with a turtleneck. Or a matching scarf."

"Caroline!" This is getting really tiring. "Stop talking about covering up your bruises. Tell me what happened last night!"

"Danny was drunk, he grabbed me, and I hit my head against the wall."

Fucking hell, she doesn't seriously think I'm going to settle for that crappy explanation, now does she? When she sleeps with Dshawn, I have to listen to every single thing they did to each other, but now she's holding out on me? Come on.

"And he choked you by the looks of it," I add, motioning at her throat. "Why don't you want to turn him into the police?"

She doesn't even answer. She just shakes her head and rummages through her stuff to find her toothbrush.

My phone buzzes and I take it out of my back pocket to see that it's the guy I shouldn't be thinking about. The one whose lips never should have touched mine. "Dshawn will be here soon," I tell Caroline, trying to sound normal. "Maybe you'll talk to him."

She turns away from the mirror, looking at me in a way she's never done before. Like she doesn't know who I am anymore. "Why's he coming over? Do you want to snog his face off again?"

"Oh shit," I say, wanting to just disappear. "You saw that." How much does she know? Does she know that it wasn't our first kiss? Did she see it, or did someone tell her? That Yord guy maybe? "Caroline, I'm so sorry. I suck. I totally suck." My voice breaks. I'm the worst friend ever. "You're getting beaten up by Danny and I'm kissing your guy. I'm so, so sorry."

"He's not my guy." Caroline's voice is void of any emotion. Before I can reply, she pushes me out of the way and stalks out of the bathroom.

I hurry after her, rushing into the bedroom just like she is, watching her get dressed in jeans and a shirt. I try to say something, but she shuts me up with a single look.

"He's got every right to kiss whoever he wants. So do you." She watches me, waiting for a reaction, but I don't know what I could possibly say to make this better, so I just stare right back at her, feeling my cheeks heat up even though I try to stay calm. "Wait... do you actually like him?"