By the time that he had decided not to kill himself, he had gone into three different rooms (kitchen, bedroom, bathroom) and had written four drafts of his suicide note, which he wasn’t really pleased with. His reason to stay alive came from rather likely sources: two calls on his cell phone. He wasn’t going to answer the first one, but he looked down at the name on the phone, and he picked up immediately.

“Hello, Kyle.” A voice, smooth as silk, connected to just past shoulders blonde hair and startlingly blue eyes, rimmed with eyeliner and long mascara lashes. She was an inch or two shorter than him, with a façade like no one else’s he had met. With all the outward confidence of a Lauren Bacall but all the inner insecurity of Marilyn Monroe, she was a living, breathing paradox, tempting as an apple and venomous as a snake.

“Hi, Heather.” Heather Pacific. A name that belonged to a soap opera or a porn star.

“How are you, Kyle? Holding up well?” She was a perceptive girl, sure, but it’s harder to be perceptive when she hadn’t seen him for several hours, and had no clue what he was going through.

“Oh, I’m just fine and dandy. And you?”

“I’m okay. I don’t really know why I called. I’m bored.”

“That’s the only reason you’d call, dearest,” Kyle said, not bothering to hide his regret.

“I know. But you should feel special, because I’m calling you.,” with the slightest emphasis on the second “you.”

“This plebeian is greatly pleased to receive such a message from the great empress…”

“You can’t see me curtsying right now, but I am.”

“…whose attentions are far more valuable to him than his own lady friend’s.”

“Good. Janine is a bitch.”

“Can’t argue with you there,” Kyle said, not bothering to hide his regret.

“Why haven’t you gotten rid of her yet, Kyle? You two don’t even hug each other for days at her locker anymore, which means that you haven’t touched her in some time.” Heather had found it hilarious that they hugged each other for a good minute at a time instead of kissing or sex. She wasn’t the only one: one of Kyle’s baseball teammates had started hugging Kyle while he blushed and loosened his hold on Janine.

“The mere sight of her is starting to sicken me, to say nothing of her body. She’s not unlike my eleven year old brother in how contentious she is.”

“Then why don’t you just dispose of her?”

Kyle paused for a few moments before answering that question. The answer he came up with, “I’m not sure,” did not please Heather. It didn’t please him either.

“You’re just going to hurt her more if you continue doing this, kid. Get rid of her.”

“How vehement of you.”

“Don’t play around with her anymore. Other girls you may try to win don’t like it.”

“Even when the girl being diddled with is a bitchy one?”

“We put on an outward persona of disdain,” Heather said coolly, “but we laugh at her in secret conversations in the bathroom.”

Kyle smiled. “So that’s why girls always go to the bathroom in groups of two or more. And why the lines to get in are so long, I’d assume.”

Refinedly, royally, regally, Heather chastised him again. “How ignorant you are. Sometimes we actually pee.”

“But never crap. Y’all don’t eat.”

“Damn right. My body is too pure to defecate.”

Almost true. But alimentary systems will always triumph over beauty.

“Absolutely, belle fille. I’m sure that someday you’ll save a fortune on your water bill because of it.”

Certain women should be struck regularly, like gongs. Bless you, Noël Coward.