The walk upstairs was a slow one. I kept thinking of what I will say to Amanda. Telling her the truth was not even an option but I felt awful anytime I had to lie to her. It had to be done anyway, if I was to come clean and tell her that I am not really Rebecca, she won't believe me and even if she does, she will hate me for lying to her for the past few weeks.
I just couldn't risk it. We got into my room and she closed the door behind us. I felt like I was trapped inside my room's four walls. I couldn't breathe. Amanda must have noticed it because she rushed to my side and offered me some water. I gulped it down in a hurry. When I was done, I gave the bottle back to her. She looked at me worried and asked "You okay Becks? What happened at the therapist must not have been that terrible. Or are you going through this because you haven't taken your drugs yet?"
I looked up, "How do you know I haven't taken my drugs yet?"
"Because the drugs are right there unopened." And she pointed to where my drugs were. I didn't purposefully take the drugs. With all the drama I had this morning, I guess I just forgot about it. Amanda went to the bathroom and came back with a cup of water, she opened the drugs and gave them to me to take. I took it obediently because she had that mom's look on her face and I did not want to provoke that character out of her.
After I had finished taking the drugs, I gave the cup back to her and thanked her. She sat down close to me and asked "Becks, what's going on?"
I stammered "What? Nothing is going on."
"Why are you lying? Something is wrong. I know you had that accident and you lost your memory but Becks, you have been changing. You are not shy or quiet anymore. You stand up to your jerk of a brother by the name of Jeff. You speak your mind. And you always get uncomfortable when discussing certain issues. So tell me honestly, what is going on because this is not the Rebecca I know."
"Wow, I don't know what to say. I am perfectly fine, this is the new me. You know, I just got really tired of taking all the insults. And what are you going on about, I have always been like this."
"No, you have never been like this. You won't remember this but one time back in school, this bitch poured orange juice all over you because she thought that you called her a stupid slut behind her back and you just stood there and took the insult. And there was a time when your brother, Jeffrey, stole all the money in your piggy bank and spent it on a girl and you just allowed him to get away with it. Now, all he does is tell you that you are a nut case for going into therapy and you want to kill him."
"Well, I just could not take it anymore. Maybe the accident did something to me. I mean, I faced death right in the face. That made me a little scared, I started thinking about all the stuff I let people do to me and get away with it and I just got really angry at myself. I remember thinking that if I could have one more chance, I wouldn't let people rule over me as they did before. And I guess God heard my prayers because, well here I am."
"Oh well, that does make sense. I guess when you are given time to look at your life, you will make some life-changing decisions and start treating yourself better. But I still wanna know about what happened at the therapist."
Just then, dad walks in to announce that we have a guest. And, boy was I grateful for that. Amanda and I headed downstairs to see who it is and it turns out to be one of Rebecca's friends. She hugged me immediately after the door was opened. She then looked at me with her cat eyes and said "OMG, I cannot believe what am seeing! So, it's true. You really are alive. You know when Amanda told me about it, I thought she was just pulling my legs. I remember vividly that I told her, "girl stop that nonsense, people don't just come back from the great beyond" and then she invited me to come to join you guys for bowling and I agree. At first, I was kinda scared because, well to be honest I thought I would be seeing a ghost. But you are not a ghost, you are a real-life girl."
Why I stood still listening to all that is still a mystery to me. I looked at Amanda and sent messages to her through my eyes, it read "you invited her? why would you do that?". I don't think she understood me so I speedily turned it to a death glare. She moved a step backwards, went to the girl's side and said "now Rebecca, Julie here is a very good friend of ours. You may not remember her but trust me when I tell you that you love this girl and yes, I invited her over because I thought that it may be nice for you to get out and go catch fun, and you always loved bowling. So I thought why not?"
"Okay, but why couldn't we just go by ourselves?"
"Because I think it's about time you start knowing other people in your life. Life doesn't just revolve around me and your family you know."
"Yeah, but that's what school is meant for. I am not ready for this."
"What is there to be ready for? It's just blowing with friends. You need the exposure."
Julie cut in "Umm, guys am still here. Am even standing outside."
"Oh, we are so sorry Julie. Please come in, and make yourself comfortable. I will just take Rebecca upstairs to go change." Amanda quickly added. Amanda and I left to go upstairs and help me change. I was not happy about this and Amanda saw it by the expression on my face but she chose to ignore it. We got dressed and headed downstairs to meet Julie.
We met dad talking to Julie so I just told him that I was heading out with the girls for bowling and he was very happy to hear that. He encouraged us to have fun and left to go tend to his garden again. We walked together to the bus stop and I got to know a little about Julie and she had a very nice personality. She was smart and funny and sophisticated.
She came from a family of lawyers, both of her parents are lawyers and she has two siblings: a brother and a sister. But she is the oldest. She told me that sometimes she has to miss hanging out with her friends just to babysit her siblings. She also wants to be an orthodontist because according to her, she loves inflicting pain on people and in a legal way, this is the best approach to that. And I could not agree more.
We took the bus and it stopped at its bus stop, so we had to walk to our destination which was a mall. I was a little bit confused, I turned to Amanda and asked "why are we at a mall? Thought we were going bowling."
"We are going to bowl, right after we have done some light shopping and had a quick "break lunch"."
"What's a "break lunch"?" It was Julie that chipped in to answer.
"A break lunch is a tradition that we always observe. We take a quick break to eat and after that, we continue our fun. That way we don't have to take a break from our fun just to eat."
This just proved that these two girls were big-time gluttons. But it was also kinda stupid. "You do know that it doesn't make sense, right? You still do take a break after shopping to eat. It's the same thing as taking a break from having fun." They looked at each other and they appeared to be surprised.
Amanda finally spoke out after a few minutes of silence. "You're wrong. You can't be right about this. This is our tradition and we are going to stick by it."
I raised my hands in surrender "hey, I did not say you should stop your tradition. I just showed you that it's a lot like other people's normal way of living."
We moved into the mall. It wasn't as fancy as the one we had back in my days but it was good. Julie moved so quickly to the perfume section and she opened the tip to be perceiving the smell. The store had a policy that you couldn't spray the perfumes.
We spent about an hour there picking out clothes, trying them on, taking pictures, and hanging them back because we didn't have any money to use and pay for them. When the store owner noticed that we were just trying out clothes and taking pictures and that we didn't really buy any of those clothes, he asked security to walk us out. But Julie saw him talking to the security men and pointing at us and we made a run for it. We didn't take any of their clothes though.
We ran all the way to the pizza place where we stopped for some break lunch. I could see why Rebecca was friends with these people, they were really fun. We finished eating and our next stop was bowling.
We met a bunch of people Amanda told me were our classmates there. Maybe this was their own way of wanting to end their summer on a fun note. Amanda started the introduction and everyone was shocked to see that I was still alive. Most of them said they didn't believe it when they heard the news. It was stressful having to remember all their names.
I was getting a little bit bored when one of the girls suggested we start a competition:boys against girls in bowling. That was the name they gave to it. We were about to start the game when one of the girls asked what the price for the winner was. A boy suggested that whichever team lost had to contribute money to send the winning team to The Bells.
I did not know what "The Bells" was so Amanda whispered to me that it was a very fancy restaurant that just opened. Everyone agreed to the terms and soon we were playing a tedious game of bowling.
I wasn't a really good bowler and that surprised Amanda because according to her, I was perfect at that game before. The girls all tried to keep me from playing but Amanda and Julie stuck up for me. They told the girls that I would never get better if I didn't actually practice. Still, the girls didn't want to risk seats at The Bells just for me to learn how to be better at bowling and I did not blame them.
Close to the end of the game, one of the girls called me to come to watch and I enjoyed it but then Amanda took the ball and placed it in my hand. She told me to concentrate and focus on the pins. I did what she said and then I rolled the ball and somehow it brought down every pin in that pin bowl.
The girls all started shouting because it was obvious that they had won. I felt really proud of myself. The girls lifted me and started shouting "we're going to The Bells." It became a song way too quickly.
Just then, my phone rang and out of excitement, I didn't care to check for the name ID. I just took out the phone and answered the call. It turned out to be Ms Nicole calling to let me know that my schedule is out and that she thinks it will be best for me to come down to the office and get a copy. She did say that she had already sent one to my father but she still wanted me to have one. I told her that I will come when I am free and then I hung up.
What a great way to ruin a fun day.