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She blew an even larger bubble and giggled when it popped over the edges of her glasses. “Did you see that? Wow.”
I was kind of impressed but mostly I felt like I was in the home of a serial killer. “I did. Well, I should-”
“Oh, my god! I didn’t even show you the best part of the house!” She grabbed my arm and tugged me back into the living room. Pushing me down on the powder blue couch, she rushed over to the entertainment center and grandly opened the cabinet doors at the bottom. “I have every season of Friends, Buffy, and Angel!”
I watched in horror as she pulled out the first season of Buffy and put a disc in the DVD player. She wasn’t seriously about to start a season of a TV show, surely. There was no way.
“Stay right there. I have to get something.” She ran out of the room, her jelly slides clacking against the wood floor. “Don’t you dare move, bestie!”
I glanced at the door and screamed when I saw an older woman standing on the other side of the glass storm door. Jumping to my feet, I stumbled backwards into a glass table with a set of Destiny’s Child dolls starring on top of it. Beyonce fell over and Kelly Rowland fell completely off the table.
“Bee! Kelly! You have to be careful, Bella!” Jamie rushed back into the room with an unpopped bag of popcorn just as the theme music to Buffy started. “Oh, my god, Mom! You scared Bella! Go back to your room!”
The woman with her face pressed to the glass pouted. “Jamie, I just need to use the bathroom!”
“Mom! God!” Jamie straightened the dolls and tossed the popcorn on the floor. She even stomped her foot. “Leave me alone in front of my friends! You promised!”
I wasn’t sure why but I felt the need to correct Jamie. “Um. My name is Ella.”
“What?” She stared back at me with pieces of the bubble gum balloon still stuck to her glasses and the dolls clutched in her fists.
“Nothing. Sorry.”
“Jamie, I’m sorry to bother you but I need to pee. You know I get infections if I hold it.” Her mom pulled open the door and wedged her way past Jamie. “And your father is going to need to poop soon. Did you tell your new friend we all share the bathroom? The last girl wasn’t very good about sharing. Your father had to poop his pants that one time and I still can’t get the smell out of the washing machine, Jamie.”
“Mom! You’re embarrassing me!”
I moved towards the door but Jamie all but transported to appear in front of me and pushed me down on the couch. She sat down next to me, still squeezing poor Beyonce and Kelly, and nodded to the TV. I looked at the TV and back at her, unsure of what she wanted. All I knew was that she wasn’t all that sane and I wanted to escape before she turned me into a giant doll that she enjoyed squeezing.
“Push play, Bella. We can just turn it up so we won’t hear my mom peeing. She pees louder than anyone I’ve ever known. I think she has a medical problem.” She waited for a second and then slammed the dolls down on the couch to push play herself. “God. Do you ever have such a bad day that you just want to scream, Bella? I mean, I could just scream. I-”
She screamed and it scared me so bad that I screamed too. Grasping my chest, I leaned away from her on the couch just as the opening scene of Buffy started.
“Welcome to Sunnydale, Buffy.”
Oh, hell no. I jumped up, vaulted over Jamie’s legs, and nearly ripped her storm door off its hinges as I busted out of her house. I climbed in my car, locked the door, and started it just as Jamie came running out of her house, shaking Beyonce at me. I gunned it out of her driveway, nearly took out a soccer mom and her van of merry kids, and then peeled away from that house of horrors like a bat out of hell.
I had to shout at google a few times before it understood my command to call my mom. As soon as the call connected, I screamed at her. “She was a crazy person, Mom! She had dolls and she tried to make me watch Buffy! She wanted me to sleep in her closet and share a bathroom with her loud peeing mother and her poopy father! I had to run out of there before she murdered me.”
Mom was silent.
“Did you hear what I said? She wanted to skin me alive and stuff me with that cheap polyfill so she could play with my dead body, Mom!”
Mom’s laughter oddly enough helped calm me down. She laughed so hard that I could tell she was crying. “You’re so dramatic!”
“I wish. I really wish I was being dramatic, Mom.” I took a deep breath and pulled over on the side of the road, being sure to keep an eye on the rearview mirror for signs of a Beyonce wielding Jamie. “I give up. Send me Vaughn’s number. Please.”
When she finally stopped laughing and sent me the number, I’d almost calmed down enough to rethink what I was about to do. Then a kid on a bike rode by my car and I jumped so hard that I pulled something in my back. Admitting defeat was never easy but admitting defeat when it was over a guy who’d spend three years bullying you? It was just one step up from living as a life size doll with Jamie.
3
***Vaughn***
Iwalked into the coffee shop I’d agreed to meet Ella at and nodded at the guy working the counter. I’d completed three practices in less than twenty-four hours and I was fucking exhausted. The only reason I’d agreed to meet my ex-step sister was to see what she wanted and to see if she was still a nerdy kid with a too-big head for her body.
“Can I get a coffee? Black. Nothing fancy.” I leaned against the counter and looked around as I held my card out to the guy. The place was mostly empty. It was farther from campus than anyone I knew liked to go. There were only three tables occupied in the entire space.
“How’s it going? You going to bring home a championship ring this year, you think?” He charged my card and handed it back before grabbing a basic mug. “I caught most of the games last year and y’all were robbed, man.”
