She looks shifty as she recognizes me and I stand tall, not willing to ease her with friendliness as I just stand there boring holes into her.
“Name?” she asks, affecting a bored tone, but I hear the wavering under it as she clicks her tacky nails on the table. They are too long, the type of claws that you wouldn’t want serving you food because they look unsanitary.
“Oh, come on now,” I snort with a laugh. “It’s Kat Clary, though I can understand how you wouldn’t remember it since you mostly just called me ‘bitch’ in highschool.”
She looks stricken as I pull my lips into a dazzling, but mocking smile. I see in her eyes that she knows she peaked in high school and recognizes that I did not, and the knowledge keeps me from continuing the verbal assault. She is bereft of words as she checks off my name and fumbles to hand me a tag.
I quickly retrieve it and shoot her a last look before walking off. There is no place for it on my dress, so I slap it on my purse with a shrug before continuing on.
“You are a vision,” Kayla says as I approach, before leaning forward and lightly kissing my cheeks. “I’m not sure what you said to Robyn, but she’s staring at us like she’d like to slap us around for a spell.”
“I called her out, and I’d do it again. Gotta slay those high school demons,” I say, looking back at her smiling, watching in delight as she looks down at the names, flustered.
“She was wretched and such a bully,” Kayla agrees. “The best revenge is us coming back here successful and strong.”
“Absolutely true, and I feel some vindication now. Maybe this reunion won’t be soul crushing after all,” I say, holding her hands in mine before meeting eyes with the goddess next to her. “Is this your girlfriend?”
“Yes, this is Cara,” Kayla says, indicating regal Barbie. “And this is Kat, one of my best friends from my school days here.”
Cara smiles, and her face is like bottled sunshine as she leans over to hug me. “It is wonderful to meet you.”
“Shall we go up in this bitch?” I ask with a laugh, motioning to the ballroom which is pumping with music from our high school days, and completely over the top with mood lighting. It’s showtime.
Chapter 4
Kat
We all grab a welcome glass of champagne as we approach the doors. Kayla and I share a slight look of reluctance, but she gives me a comforting nod and we complete our entrance, our arms linked in solidarity.
When the music doesn’t stop and no one visibly gawks at us I feel better, but as I scan the room and don’t see Erik, the butterflies in my stomach begin to beat wildly to the Black Eyed Peas tune blasting.
“Well,” Kayla says as we park at a high table. “No one threw anything at us.”
“Why would they?” Cara asks, swaying in place and sipping her champagne.
I wonder if Kayla has told her anything about how we left as I grab a passing appetizer and eat it quickly, wanting to calm my stomach. Give it something else to do besides just jump unhelpfully.
“You didn’t do anything to anyone,” Cara says, indicating that she’d heard the story. “It had nothing to do with anyone else at school, right?”
“It was more an issue of it being so sensationalized,” Kayla says with a sigh. “People wanted us expelled, groups of parents picketed us. We were the talk of the town until we were basically forced to leave.”
I am taken aback at how easily she talks about it. I’ve never been able to embrace it, and have only ever mentioned it briefly to any boyfriend, friends and even my parents and I never utter a word about it. Then again, Kayla saw the aftermath, but wasn’t present for the main event.
“My god, how awful,” Cara says, holding her hand to her voluptuous chest. “As if you hadn’t been through enough.”
The words hit me more poignantly than I’d expected. Besides in therapy, no one had never indicated that we may have been hurt by the events as well, and perhaps it was because of my inability to talk about it, but it still freed a part of me. I swallowed back tears and took a deep breath.
“Thank you, Cara,” I choke out, and Kayla looks at me with a sympathetic expression. She sees my inner flux and indicates it by squeezing my hand gently, keeping her meaningful expression trained onto my eyes.
I feel my resolve fading and those tears threaten to start spilling until we are fortuitously saved by “Bad Romance”. It’s impossible to cry when Lady Gaga starts, especially when the song accompanied our good times in high school, the memories from then that I actually want to keep. Kayla and I both laugh and sing dutifully along, linking arms and crooning into the air in tandem with Cara gamely joining in.
As I warble along I feel a gentle tap on my shoulder, and instinctively know that now is the time to be nervous. I turn around quickly and I’m immediately confronted with the ghost of high school past. The one who has haunted me all these years.
“My god, Kat!” Erik says, eyes alight as he stares me up and down, feasting on me.
I’m still at a loss for how to react until he steps forward and takes me in his arms, spinning me around in a circle as I clutch around his neck. He sets me down and stands back to appraise me, all smiles. Be still my heart.
He
