An accident

CHAPTER FOUR

Kayla's POV

“That was close, Mel! Why weren't you watching the road!?” I yelled at her, my body practically vibrating from the near accident.

“I was! I just took my eyes for a second and…”

“And we almost died! Gawd Mel!”

“Don't you yell at me, Kay!” she gritted. “I wouldn't be on this fucking road, driving this fucking car if it weren't because of you!”

“Heck, Mel! I wouldn't even have been in this situation if you didn't invite me to that stupid party where I unconsciously gave my virginity out to some guy I didn't know anything about!”

Silence descended on us like an atmosphere and I realised I'd said what I'd been wanting to keep away from her.

“What?” she glanced at me with creased brows. Then her brows raised in surprise that made my insides cringe so bad. “OMG, that actually happened!? So my imaginations were correct!?” she uttered, but I just stared out the window into the road, not giving her a reply. She got that I didn't want to talk about it and she didn't push further till we got to campus grounds and reached our dorm.

We alighted for the car after she'd parked and I headed up first before her, she following behind.

The moment I opened the room's door, I felt she wanted to say something.

“Don't say it,” I told her. “Allow me to take a shower first,”

She didn't say anything as I took my bathing equipments and headed out to the bathroom to have a shower, and the moment I locked myself in one of the shower cubicles and turned on the shower above my head, my mind drifted to the incidents of last night, and I followed each memory carefully as the icy cold droplets of water rushed down my skin.

I'd gotten to the house last night with Mel, and I'd been sane enough. Mel had greeted some guys and girls and the place had been pretty crowded. I remembered not liking it there. I'd somehow found a place at the bar there to sit after Mel had left me to greet some other people, and someone had passed a drink to me, a someone I didn't wait to look at before I'd gulped up the drink one second, thinking it'd been water because I had been parched when it was alcohol.

It was silly of me to think they'd serve something as low as water at a booze party, as Mel told me it was.

I guess my low alcohol tolerance got triggered at that one shot and I lost my sanity. But the last image I remembered seeing clearly were broad shoulders. Nothing else after that.

I released a sigh and washed up myself, then headed up to a room empty of Mel.

Guess she's gone off to some other person's room. I thought.

I was used to coming back to a room that's mostly empty of Mel. She never stayed in a place. If she wasn't partying, she was hanging out with her goth friends or boys.

Sometimes I questioned why I'd been friends with her.

Because friendship with her has gotten me to this point…

Opening my wardrobe, I took out a new set of clothes to wear, but at that moment, my phone began ringing. I glanced in it's direction on the bed and reached for it.

Mom, read the caller ID.

My heart's beating, like a trigged machine, began pullulating.

It took five rings for me to finally bring myself to answer the call.

“Mom,” I uttered.

“My Gawd, Kayla! Why haven't you been picking my calls? I've been trying to reach you in like…forever!”

“I'm sorry, Mom.” I apologized. “I've just been busy, with homework.”

A pure blant lie.

I couldn't believe I was telling a lie to my mom. But I couldn't tell her the truth either.

“That wasn't what Melanie, your friend told me,” she said.

Crap! My heart's beating speed increased by seconds as I plopped down into my bed on the other side of the room (we'd divided the room in two sides; the blue painted wall as my side, and the dark painted space close to the window as Mel's).

What did Mel tell my mom?

“I called her and she told me you'd gone back to the library because you forgot your phone there –”

“Yeah, yeah, I did. I totally did forget my phone in the library after studying, but I wasn't able to retrieve it last night because the library keeper had locked the doors and…”

Heck, when did I become like this? And when did I have this guts to lie like this to my mom?

Recently, My subconscious reminded me. When you decided to listen to Mel and go with her to that party.

“...I just got my phone this morning,”

“Okay,” Mom said, believing everything I'd said. “I'd just wanted to check up on you to see how you were doing, ” she added. My heart, being ever so soft as it was, cried, literally.

It would crush her to know I'd had a one night stand with a man I could barely remember.

And I'd do anything to stop that from happening, even if it meant lying some more to cover it all up.

“I'm perfectly fine, Mom. You don't need to worry about me,” I told her.

“I can't help it, Kayla.” she sighed into the phone. “I just want to constantly be aware that my baby is okay and not losing her focus from what matters,” she said.

What matters. Following the right path and focusing on my books, which was the reason I came to college in the first place, were the things she'd told me that mattered before I'd left home to UC (University of Canada, my current college).

I'd always kept it at the forefront of my mind, because I'd always literally never wanted to disappoint Mom.

Unfortunately, I have disappointed her, even if she didn't know about it.

And like I'd said, she's never going to find out about it.