Guarded Hearts (5 page)

L
ying in my bed, I think about how busy today is going to be. Tonight is our first major social event. I have so many things to get done and I don’t feel like getting out of bed. Waking up has become more of a struggle lately, more so getting myself out of bed. I don’t want to wake up, but if I don’t get up now I will be in panic mode later.

“Livi, wake up!” Mandy shouts, startling me.

“No, five more minutes,” I mumble as I keep my eyes shut and pull the covers over my head tighter.

“Get your ass out of bed!” Mandy shouts.

“Okay, mom,” I grumble.

“Stop being such a baby. Remember that it was your idea to belong to this stupid club and be this big popular girl. So move it, sister. I didn’t buy a stupid dress for nothing,” she complains.

“One, it’s called a sorority not a club, and second, you know that being friends with this big popular girl has its advantages,” I state, because everyone knows that sorority girls can get out of anything.

“Okay. Hurry up and go take a quick shower,” Mandy demands. “It will help you wake up.”

“Alright. Alright.” I stumble out of bed and head straight for the shower.

Finally out of bed and dressed, we head out of the house, and I finally feel like I can breathe.

“So how’s work? It feels like we hardly ever have time to talk anymore. And that’s sad, because we live together and have all our classes together,” I tell her with a sad sigh. I’ve been so busy these past few weeks with homecoming preparations, but we have never gone a day without any chit chat before.

“It’s work, Livi, what’s there to say?” she answers.

“Hell, I don’t know, you work at a freaking club. Any hot guys? Or girls?” I joke.

“Shut up! And no, I’ve been very busy at the club. We’re shorthanded, and even Taylor and Nix have been helping out after closing,” she says.

“Well, I’m glad that they’ve given you a small break tonight since you don’t have to work the party serving drinks,” I tell her. “I also want to thank you for helping with all my class work this past week. So the mani-pedi is on me. I don’t know what I would do without you in my life. Well, I have a good guess. I’d either be a junkie or pregnant at the trailer park.”

“No, Olivia, you have always been a fighter. You had goals even at a young age. One thing that has always been clear is that you have never wanted to end up like your mother. I had nothing to do with that. Anyone else would have completely given up with what you have gone through since early on. Because some of us aren’t as strong as we would like to believe we are, even if we have a complete support system in our lives. I admire you, Livi, you are my sister. My platonic other half. I just want you to value yourself worth, because I would love for you to see yourself like I see you.”

“I wish I could, but when you’re told since you are little that you are worthless, you let it define you. I can’t change what I feel or who I am completely. I can just pretend and carve my life away from her. But there are times I can still hear her voice when I’m doing something and don’t get it right, saying,
‘stupid, dumb niña, never can do anything right just like your asshole of papa.’
”

I sigh at the memory of her voice reverberating in my ear. I hate that I can’t block her voice during moments that I just want silence. The only thing I am grateful for is that she has no place in my life now. And I know that in a certain way I should be grateful to her because she made me work harder to leave all that shit behind. I just hope that with time and distance my worth will make an appearance.

I know it’s my predisposition to love her since she is my mother, but how can a woman give birth to a child and destroy that child and call themselves a mother? That bond that we formed when I was in her womb is broken, she beat it out of me a long time ago. That is why I decided to protect my heart from all her vileness, because I didn’t want her to contaminate it with her hatred. I knew that at some point in my life I would still want to fall in love with someone, to have that warm fuzzy feeling when you mean something to someone in the world even if it’s just one person. As all the memories of my childhood come flooding back, my eyes start to water.

“Livi, don’t be sad. Remember that we have a hell of a party to go to tonight, one that my BFF organized and also found us some sexy dresses and kick ass heels. Let’s show all these football players what they’re missing, and I can’t believe Nix agreed to DJ for us tonight.” She laughs and gives me a hug. I need her in my life. She is my divine intervention, my night light in my own personal darkness.

“Yeah, you are right. Let me shake this fugly funk I have,” I say as I shake my body, pretending that I can get rid of all the bad memories just with a shake of the body.

“You are going to look smoking hot in the red dress tonight,” Mandy tells me.

“Whatever. I just hope Brett gets super wasted tonight so I only have to deal with a few kisses before he passes out,” I say, rolling my eyes at Mandy.

“He is not going to like it when he finds out that you’ve been playing him,” she says.

“He won’t. He’s too stupid to realize that we haven’t had sex. I always make sure he is super drunk when we go to his room.” For the past month I have been pretending that our relationship has moved to a sexual one, but I always make sure he is drunk when he moves from second base to homerun, because he usually passes out. Then I change into his shirt and snuggle with him, so I can wake up in his arms the next day. We haven’t had sex. My fear in getting pregnant is beyond normal. I know Mandy worries for my safety because Brett is a bullying jerk, but I learned a thing or two from my mother and her cohorts. Some people are just all bark and no bite, and that is what Brett is.

Walking back into the house, Kylie shouts, “What time are we heading out to the party?”

Looking over at Mandy, I am not sure what to answer. I just stepped a foot into the house and I didn’t know how long I would take to beautify myself. “Um, two hours,” I reply a little hesitantly.

“Two hours? What are you going to do, wax your entire body? We need to be there to set up and make sure all things are there as planned, Olivia,” Kylie says, rolling her eyes at me.

I’m really unsure how long it is going to take me to get ready. Mandy and I had woken up early to get our brows waxed, a mani and pedi, and picked up my dress at the seamstress. The only thing I had to worry about was my hair and makeup. It shouldn’t take me long, but tonight I really do want to look my best. It is my first major party as president of S.O.S., and everyone is going to be there. I don’t want to disappoint.

I have chosen a simple, short, off the shoulder red dress with cute, strappy, gold jeweled heels. I needed to match the team colors, so it is a good thing my olive skin tone goes well with red. Mandy’s dress is gorgeous on the hanger in the store and even better on her. It’s a black strapless dress with specks of red along the bodice, it’s fitted and it accentuates her flawless slender figure, her shoes make her three inches taller and like a model. Like she doesn’t look like one already, even if she considers herself a nerd.

“I hate that you always look so perfect,” I tell Mandy as I eye her up and down. She has a beautiful body, she’s tall 5’8”, slender long legs, wavy fire-red hair that sits above her waist. I swear she could be a model even if she wears those nerdy looking glasses, because she’s beautiful. My body is just not made that way. I’m Hispanic, so I’m rounder around the hips, smaller around the waist, but Mandy? She’s just perfect. “What? I would kill for your body, do you know what I have to do to try to look like I have an ass? I have to walk like this.” She walks, slightly arching her back so that it curves her ass out. “And when I stand I have to stick out my hip to whichever side I think the guy I want to impress is standing so he can think I have a figure. You, on the other hand, don’t even have to try, your ass sticks out all the way around and guys are always looking at it,” she says, looking at my ass and waving her arms towards it.

“They are not. It’s you they look at because I’m with you, dumb ass.” We both start to laugh.

I just want this night to be over. Parties are the one thing I hate about being president because I have to be present at every one of them. They make feel like I’m back at home, people being drunk and some doing drugs. It is the very thing I was running away from.

“Hey, Livi, are you ready?” Mandy asks.

“Yeah,” I tell her, looking at her through the mirror.

“Okay, then let’s go. I’ll go get Miss Universe so we get this show in the road,” Mandy says, walking out the door.

We ride to the Frat house, and since they expect me to stay, I hand Mandy my keys as we arrive. As I walk inside the house I start to feel butterflies in my stomach. I have never had this feeling before, but I had heard about it from some of the other girls when they describe how they feel when they meet a hot potential boyfriend. Why now? I can’t feel this, my heart is not available for anyone; it doesn’t even know how to work properly. I know this feeling isn’t for the man I am seeing, but for the man I am hoping to see, Nix. Even saying his name in my head makes me nervous.

Walking in the house, I can feel the trepidation.

“Mandy, come with me to make sure all of the tables are set up where they are supposed to be,” I say.

“They should be. I told the guys where we wanted them,” Kylie mentions.

“In that case they’re probably in the wrong place,” I tell her. Guys never do as they’re told. They actually always do the complete opposite. And sure enough, I walk out to the back-yard and find the tables in two rows. Yeah, lined up like we are in elementary school. As we set up the tables, I hear someone open the back gate and set some stuff down. It’s him, Nix, but before he can notice me I rush inside.

The turn out is awesome, and it seems like everyone on campus is here and having a good time. Everyone except me, because all night I’ve been with Brett. Everyone who is anyone at the campus is at the party. The music is pumping loud, and it seems that Nix really does know what he is doing. The dance floor hasn’t been empty all night. The people have spilled over onto the front and back-yards. I hope the campus police don’t make an appearance, because the football players are all drunk. They’re probably going to get yelled at tomorrow by their coach. That’s why they all decided to drink, so that coach won’t be able to suspend the whole team.

It’s already midnight and the party has not slowed down. There is even a tag football game out in the back-yard. I can hear the yells from the football groupies, cheering them on.

I stand against the wall, the first moment of rest I have had all night. I start to think about the eyes that have been following me all night. How no matter where I am in the room, I know he is watching.

The party is beginning to wind down a bit, and as I am telling Mandy and my sister’s goodnight, Brett throws me over his shoulder, carrying me upstairs. Oh boy, I can’t believe he just did that in front of everyone, and I am wearing a dress. Now everyone knows what we are about to do.