Kayla

Kayla is caught up in a bad situation at Brian Kepler’s party…  Kayla has been a frequent character at OGW, and is now a main character in my next book, Somebody’s Daughter.  To catch up with Kayla and her friends in earlier parts of this thread, read OGW 10/1, 11/5, 11/12, 12/10, 12/31, 1/14, 2/11.

Kayla:  I feel weird.  Everyone is looking, and I don’t like to be looked at.  I’m Rain’s best friend, but I’m not like her, especially not tonight.  She’s more than her usual self, like possessed or something. 

“Come on, Kayla,” Rain whispers.  “You want Brian to notice you!”

I look around the hot tub.  Brian isn’t noticing me, that’s true.  He doesn’t even know I’m here.  I want to pretend he’s looking at me out of the corner of his eye, and he isn’t talking to me because he respects me too much to grab my breast the way he just did that other giggling girl, oh shit, I am a loser.  I can’t believe it took me two beers and this stupid, insanely stupid, visit to the hot tub for me to realize that.  Where is Casey?  I want to just go home, so I stand up. 

Like an idiot, like a little baby, I want to cry, and I’m just standing there, shivering, when Rain stands up next to me, and she’s all “Oh yeah, you go Kayla,” and she’s bumping my skinny hip to make me dance and now everyone is looking and we look so stupid, Shit Rain stop!

She doesn’t stop.  Before I can even say, “let’s go,” she’s pulled off her bikini top!  Before I can even grab her and pull her under the water and ask her what she’s on and why she’s doing this, before I can even—

She pulls off my top!  Holy shit!  My nipples are cold and hard, and I don’t feel good, but now Brian is looking, and he’s forgotten about the other skanks, and he’s cheering us on! 

Someone hands me a jello shot, which I swallow, and then a beer, which I chug, and then I, little, meek, pathetic eleventh-grader at a senior party, not-even-invited girl, I wiggle my hips, and dance with Rain.

She says, “They want to see a show, Kayla, should we give them a show?”

My head is a little swimmy.  I see Casey coming toward us, and she looks concerned and nervous and as if she’s about to put a stop to all this.  For a moment I’m torn between the comfort of my old self, promised by Casey, and the promise of following Rain’s lewd behavior and branding myself in Brian’s mind forever -- but then Brian’s best friends Kris and Damien from the basketball team, they get in the way so I can’t see Casey anymore.  All I see is how happy Rain and I are making the boys and I’m thinking, Brian will never forget me, and when Rain squirts me with beer, I squirt her back with the beer that magically appears in my hands, and now those other girls who were in the hot tub before have disappeared, fucking disappeared!  It’s all Rain, it’s all me!  We play fight, and everyone is cheering, everyone loves us.

We put on an awesome show.  Rain spreads beer foam on me and you won’t believe this, but I lick it off her stomach, because that’s what the crowd wants!  They love me!  Afterward, when I’m sweaty and breathless and drunk, Brian – Brian Kepler! -- gently lifts me out of the hot tub and ties my bathing suit top back on for me.

“You don’t belong up there” he says. He smiles at me!  He likes me, me!  “Come on,” he says, grinning, “let me get you a beer or something.”

Arm in arm, Brian and I walk to the keg, if you can call what I’m doing walking.  Really, it’s more like I’m floating.