The Choice (a Painful Past)

25

She raised her eyebrows in surprise.

"Oh, really? I didn't know you could juggle two guys! And a younger one, at that. You go, wid ya bad self!" She shimmied in her chair a little, making me laugh.

"Oh my God, never say that again!" I exclaimed, shaking my head at her. "Jesus, he's a freshman anyway. We're just friends. I don't think he has many friends. I'm just being nice."

In all honesty, it had started that way, but now, I considered Colby one of my best friends. Like my little brother, in a way. I liked him more than I liked Daniel, though.

"Hey, yeah, I'm still up." I texted back. "I'm spending the night with Sherri. How was the party? Did you have fun? Kiss anymore girls? lol." I hit send and went back to my pizza.

I felt my phone buzz a minute later, but I wanted to finish my damn food. I was hungry! Colby would understand.

When I finished, I threw away my paper plate, and washed my hands, before I picked my phone back up.

"Ha fucking ha. You're so hilarious. No, we didn't play any kissing games, so I didn't kiss anyone. I was wondering why you weren't here though. Your boyfriend was. He just left." The text read.

I remembered being on the phone with Will earlier, and hearing the people talking in the background. He must've already been over there, hanging out with Dustin. Made sense, as Dustin was his best friend.

"Yeah, Sherri isn't allowed to go anywhere this weekend, so I promised that I would chill with her. Was he? I knew he was hanging out with friends though, so it's no surprise." I texted back.

I stuck my phone back in my pocket, then joined Sherri in the living room. We only chose to hang out in here, because the television was so much larger.

"Dude, when are your parents gonna be home? They must be partying their asses off!" I exclaimed, catching a glance at the time. "It's almost 1 o'clock in the morning!"

My own mom never drank, or did much of anything fun, that I could tell. We would travel to go see my aunt, who lived out of town, and my mom would play poker with the family there, but honestly, I didn't know that she did anything else that I would consider fun. She watched soap operas on TV, ran errands, and took care of me and my nephews.

She still tried to take care of my adult siblings, when they came to visit, but that was it. It seemed so boring to me. I couldn't even imagine having kids.

I couldn't stand the little things. They were loud, obnoxious, gross creatures and I didn't want any part of it. Hell, I didn't even think that I wanted to be a mom, when I grew up.

I wanted to travel the world and experience new things, before I got too old to enjoy them. I didn't need a kid tying me down and making it even harder to do. My mom literally lived to be a mom, and she was happy with that.

Sherri and I stayed up until 3am, when her parents finally stumbled through the door, smelling of alcohol and cigarettes.

"Excuse me, do you know what time it is?" Sherri asked them, while she tapped her foot.

They both giggled and held onto each other.

"Time for be-eeaddd." Her mother sang, laughing.

Sherri and I looked at each other, then cracked up.

"Come on, let's go to my room. We do need to get up early, since you're leaving me." She whispered.

"Oh, shut up." I responded, rolling my eyes.

We went to her room and watched some show on cable, until we fell asleep.

The next morning, I woke up to Sherri shaking me.

"Come on, you lazy ass! Time to deep clean this fucking house." She said, while I stared at her with bleary eyes.

"Uuughh, too early! What time is it?" I groaned.

"It's a little after 8. Come on. You know this shit takes forever and Dad will make me redo it, if it's not perfect. He's so fucking anal." She grumbled.

"Fiiinne." I moaned, then threw the covers back, to get out of bed.

We ate a bowl of cereal, then got to work.

The "deep cleaning" of this house required so much attention, that I didn't have time to think about anything else.

We had to scrub the lines in the linoleum to get out the dark spots, scrub the bathtub and shower off all of the soap scum, dust the ceilings and the walls, pull out the furniture and kitchen appliances to clean behind them, and so many other things. When we finally finished hours later, I leaned back against the large freezer that they had in the extra room.

"Is my ass still there?" I asked Sherri, turning so that she could look.

"What?" She laughed.

"My ass. Is it still there? Cuz I feel like I worked it off." I responded.

"Oh my God." She laughed again. "No, it's completely gone. Probably left somewhere around the time we were sweeping the fucking ceilings."

"Damn." I replied jokingly. "Guess I gotta deal with having no ass now. I'mma look like Charlotte."

Charlotte was Dustin's girlfriend and one of the girls that hung out with our 'clique.'

She was a friend of Kat's from middle school. She was okay, I guess, but she literally had no ass. She was flat as a board.

Once her parents looked everything over, I chilled with Sherri for another hour, just to hang out and rest. My phone buzzed about halfway through our chill time.

I pulled it out and saw a text from Will.

"Hey, are you coming home? I've been here since 9. Really want to see you! Love you, beautiful."

That warm feeling, that I always got when he said things like that, spread through my chest.

"Hey, my love. yeah, I'll be home soon. Just got through cleaning, so I'm resting and talking to Sherri for a little while. I'll probably leave in about 30 minutes." I texted back.

"Was that Will?" Sherri asked, putting her own phone down into her lap.

I nodded and smiled.

"Yeah. He was just asking when I would be home. Said he can't wait to see me." I groaned and lay back on the couch where I was sitting. "Uuugh! Sherri, is this what love is supposed to feel like? He says the sweetest things to me, like how he can't live without me, and how I light up his whole world."