The Day I Almost Committed A Felony Read online

I Almost Committed A Felony

  A Dark Young Adult Comedic Short Story

  By Kimberly Van Meter

  Copyright May 2011 by Kimberly Van Meter

  What do you do when your best friend in the whole world starts dating a Class A Superior Scum Bucket? You’re in luck. I have experience with this very thing. Listen up, because this is choice advice.

  First and foremost, you must sabotage their love-fest at all costs. The less bodily fluids exchanged the better (especially if you are unfortunate enough to be present when they are swapping spit. Ugh.)

  Second, if at all possible, set up surveillance (high quality digital is best) so that you can catch the Scum Bucket doing something disgusting, such as picking his nose, butt, ears or any other pickable extremity (bonus points if he eats his find!) but mostly, what you’re hoping for is Scum Bucket macking on some other chick because you’d be surprised how forgiving girls can be when it comes to the “love of their life.”

  Then, you must download, print (8.5 x 11 glossy is a must) and distribute — anywhere and everywhere. You can post on your social media but it’s much easier to pin down who sent what from your IP address and then you could be facing harassment charges and whatnot so going old-school is preferable. If performed with diligence, the aforementioned Scum Bucket should disappear and you won’t have to share your best friend with a knuckle-dragging Neanderthal. That solves that problem.

  But here’s the thing…what do you do when your best friend in the whole world starts dating a psycho who enjoys using her as his own personal punching bag, doormat, and Kleenex? And worse, she insists, in spite of it all, she loves him. Now you’re getting where I’m coming from. This goes beyond Scum Bucket. This calls for bigger action. This is when it gets complicated…and messy.

  Confession time: I can’t say what I did was right, but it worked. I definitely can’t say I recommend it, because unfortunately (or not) results will vary, and prison sentences never look good on a college application. But let me start from the beginning so you can decide for yourself.

  It all started when Jon Pinkerton, a senior who had transferred from Riverside High, came strolling over and started talking with us. I guess we were kind of awe-struck, at first. I mean, most seniors didn’t spend too much time hanging around with sophomores. Not that we weren’t superior sophomores, of course, but things being the way they were with high school hierarchy, technically, we were still lower classmen. Anyway, I digress. (Ha! I’ve always wanted to use digress in a sentence.)

  I could tell right away Mareka thought he was cute because she has this funny little giggle when she’s flirting. When she liked Ben Whats-His-Face I thought her IQ had actually dropped from all the Playboy Bunny hair-twirling and fake smiling she’d done to get his attention. Thankfully, that obsession hadn’t lasted long or I may have lost my mind. Anyway, the giggle was in high gear with Jon Pinkerton. Personally, I was over it. When you got past the whole I’m-An-Upper-Classman thing, his personality wasn’t much to write home about. Frankly, I didn’t like him. Why? Well, for starters he monopolized every conversation like he was the end-all-be-all and if you happened to know more than him and called him on it, he scowled like a pinched toddler until someone — usually Mareka — soothed his ouchie. And I don’t know about you but that kind of attitude doesn’t do it for me. I guess I’ve always been a bit mature for my age (unless you hold my anime collection against me) and Jon was an immature, insecure douche. Unfortunately, Mareka was too busy fawning over his biceps (which I admit were pretty impressive) and flirting in overdrive to see his true character. Before I knew it, he had Mareka’s full attention, and I was left to shred blades of grass for entertainment.

  They started to spend more and more time together, which inevitably edged me out of the picture. I was cool with it, I mean a girl’s gotta have a social life, right? And I certainly wasn’t a nun but the fact that she was blowing me off to spend time with Douchey-McDouchey rubbed me the wrong way. I even brought it up, not that it did any good.

  “Wanna hang out? Go play Mall Rat?” I asked one day when walking to English Lit class. I hadn’t seen Mareka in weeks and I was missing her. I was even willing to troll the most awful place on earth — the mall — just to spend some time with her and I think that said a lot.

  “I can’t,” Mareka said, biting her lip. “I’m sorry.”

  “How come?” I asked, whining just a little. “It’s been forever since we hung out and I’m seriously jonesing for some bestie time. You know?”

  “I’m sorry…I’ve just been really busy.”

  “Doing what?”

  “You know…stuff.”

  Stuff. Somehow I knew stuff included Jon. Blech. “C’mon,” I pleaded. “I’ll spring for smoothies.”

  Mareka looked tempted — smoothies were a secret weakness and I was not above exploiting it for my gain — but she turned me down. “Sorry. I wish I could but I told Jon that we’d hang out later. Plus, I’m trying to give up the sweets. You know, to lose a few pounds.”

  My stare narrowed. “Lose a few? You’re perfect. Who said you need to lose weight? Let me guess…Jon?”

  “He’s just looking out for me. He knows I like to look my best,” Mareka said, immediately on the defensive. “Anyway, I can’t. Catch you later.”

  You can imagine how that conversation had not sat well with me. Let me give you some background. Mareka was one of those incredibly beautiful girls who thought she was ugly because in junior high she hadn’t exactly been a knock-out. But over summer break our freshman year, she turned into this, like model-hot, chick that kinda made me jealous until my boobs grew the following summer before our sophomore year and then it was all good. We were two hot chicks, only I had a bigger rack and I wasn’t afraid of using it.

  So, now Jon was really pissing me off. Who was he to tell Mareka she needed to drop a few pounds? I might’ve said something to that effect, I don’t remember exactly, but it didn’t matter. By this point, Mareka was drinking the Kool-aid and riding the crazy train with Jon Pinkerton at the throttle.

  More weeks went by and Mareka all but dropped out of society. No parties, no weekend get-togethers, no nothing and I called her on it.

  “I’ve never been much into the social scene,” she’d said when I’d managed to corner her at her locker. I hated to resort to stalking but she was my best friend and I was getting a weird vibe.

  “There’s a difference between being an introvert and a hermit,” I’d protested, angry that she’d cancelled yet another of our plans for reasons that sounded suspiciously like something the Superior Jackass would say. “What’s going on with you Mareka? I’ve known you since kindergarten. I’ve seen you pee your pants in the first grade. I know you. Something is up. I can feel it.”

  She slammed her locked shut when Jon started walking toward us. I fought the urge to scowl. “I’m fine. Really. I promise we’ll get together soon,” she said just before Jon slipped his around her shoulders in a way that made me want to take a crowbar to his ugly mug but seeing as I didn’t actually pack hardware of that nature in my backpack, I settled for a mean glare. Of course, it bounced right off him. He could care less what I thought about him.

  Then came that fateful day in the gym. The showers were going and steam filled the room. The dance routine we’d practiced that day completely wiped me out and sweat poured down my face. I felt as if every muscle in my body was quivering at the abuse but I didn’t care. I’d totally mastered the dance steps and I’d wanted to crow a little.

  I turned to give Mareka a hard time for missing a few steps. We were highly competitive with each other and usually she danced circles around me, but that day I wa
s actually able to keep it together and I couldn’t wait to rub it in a little. Before she could pull her jeans up, I saw the bruises. Holy hell. Big purple, black and burgundy fringed with yellow bruises to be exact. Her thigh looked like one of the maps hanging in the history class…or as if Mike Tyson had used it as a punching bag.

  As banged up as she was I don’t know how she had kept up with the class… or was even able to walk for that matter. For the first time in my life, I didn’t know what to say but tears welled in my eyes. “Mareka?”

  “I’m fine. It’s nothing,” she muttered, quickly dressing. “I ran into something. It looks worse than it is.”

  My brain finally clicked on and I found my tongue. “Did he hit you?”

  “It was an accident,” she said. “It’s no big deal.”

  Some accident. Her leg just happened to accidentally get in the way of his fists. Later, I learned there had been a lot of accidents.

  But what could I do?

  “He's a nice guy, deep down,” she said.

  Especially when she made bone-headed comments like that?

  “How far are we digging?” I answered back. “I have a feeling I'll hit oil first.”

  Knowing that I was going to lose the argument with Mareka on the subject of Jon, I backed off. But, I wasn't going to forget. I swore if I saw any marks on my