Ryan shrugged. “What else do you want me to say?”
Jayla leaned back in her seat, sipping her latte, considering. I continued to play the part of silent observer. “I’mma come back to you,” she nodded to Ryan and turned to me. “Let’s talk about you for a minute.”
I actually glanced over my shoulder, as if there might be someone else she was talking to. “Me?” I even pointed at myself as if we were both confused. Jayla, to her credit, completely ignored my comically dumb confusion.
“You know, when you first moved here, I thought we could become friends, but ever since you started hanging out with the A-hole jocks, it’s like you just don’t have any time for the rest of us.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way. I’m not trying to ignore anybody, I just have a really full schedule. I know that’s hard for people to understand; it’s the biggest reason I don’t keep a lot of friends. I keep thinking, once I’m done with school I’ll have all this free time. But I’ll also be traveling a lot more so maybe not. I’d really like it if we could be friends, you just have to know my crazy schedule is part of that.”
“And that’s why you had to pre-plan a meet-up for coffee days in advance,” Jayla concluded.
“Was that weird?” I asked.
“A little bit,” Jayla set her coffee on the table and slowly twisted it in a circle in her hands. “Okay, so, what about Dominic?”
I thought it was a weird transition. “What about him?”
“You’re friends with him too right?”
“Yeah.” I knew she didn’t like Dominic, or any of the jocks for that matter, but I couldn’t remember if I knew why — if there even was a why — other than Ryan’s douchery. She wasn’t saying anything more so I nudged for an answer. “Is there more to that, or?”
Jayla let out a low breath and twisted her latte in another circle. After a minute she lifted her head toward Ryan and said, “You remember Niles?”
Ryan’s expression soured. “Unfortunately.”
I had exactly zero idea what they were talking about, except for some vague memory floating in my head about Jayla having been into some guy with a water name something like River or Rain. Or maybe Niles?
Jayla leaned her elbows on the table steepling her fingers above her cup. “It’s almost kind of sweet that you wanted to apologize to me for being a fuckboi, but those are your issues. I’m over it. The thing that’s a little bit harder to get over than a crap lay is the fact that you and Dominic beat the shit out of my boyfriend, just for being my boyfriend, and making it so that no guy at our school even dares talk to me for fear of you two beating them up for it. Even the foreign exchange kid dumped me two days before the winter dance because someone thought he should know that I had older brother types who didn’t like me dating.”
“Seriously?” Ryan leaned back in his chair. “Because that is kind of fucked up, but I’m not going to apologize for Niles. He got what he deserved and you’re better off. And I never told anybody not to date you, I only told people not to fuck with you, so you’re welcome. ”
“Are you kidding me right now? You’re admitting all this and you’re also totally fine with it?” Jayla huffed as her jaw and her grip tightened. “You guys beat up a guy just for going out with me, and somehow you think that’s not the message? It’s semantics.” She threw her arms up in the air before dragging them down in front of her face, but not actually touching her face, probably because her makeup was flawless and she wanted to keep it that way. “I can’t even right now!” she said, turning both of her palms toward him and making a frustrated grumbly growling noise.
“So, you want me to apologize for telling people not to fuck with you? Or you want me to apologize for beating up Niles?” Ryan sounded confused.
“How about all of it?” She made a circle in the air with her hand. “It’s all the same thing, thrashing my boyfriend for no reason, threatening others with the same fate if they talk to me, making me a complete social outcast and basically ruining my life.”
Ryan’s brow furrowed. “Okay, maybe some things got taken to the extreme. But Niles wasn’t one of them.”
“Hey,” I leaned in, holding my hands up in a time out. “Sorry. There’s a lot going on here, and I’m so far out of the loop. I get that it’s not really any of my business or anything but if somebody wants to clue me in, that’d be great. And if not, that’s cool too. Maybe I could go get us some scones or something?” I was already half way out of my seat hoping for scones.
Ryan spoke first. “Niles is this complete waste of space who graduated from Parkwood last year.”
Jayla sipped her latte. “I really don’t get the jealousy—”
“It’s not jealousy,” Ryan cut her off. “It’s disgust.”
Jayla sighed and began her version as I slid my whole butt back onto my seat. “Niles started Parkwood as a senior last year. He was a linebacker, on the varsity team and he was beyond cute; tall, blond, green eyes, muscles for days.”
“He looked like a tree stump with hair,” Ryan chimed in.
Jayla glared.
“You’re telling it,” Ryan ceded.
“We met during homecoming week. Totally liked each other. We weren’t like hard-core dating yet but things were good and we were definitely headed in that direction right up until Ryan went all aggro and told Niles to stay away from me or else and then he and Dominic beat the shit out of him, just to make sure he understood how crazy serious they were. Emphasis on crazy.”
I couldn’t picture it. I didn’t want it to be true, but I also couldn’t imagine Ryan and Dominic just randomly beating the crap out of someone.
“That’s an oversimplification,” Ryan defended.
Jayla rolled her eyes and made a gargled scoffing noise. “No shit,” she shifted in her seat, leaning closer to me. “You want the longer version? No problem. I had this friend, Lindsay. She was a senior here last year too.”
“She used to date Dominic?” I surmised.
Jayla’s brows lifted. “I’m surprised he’s even mentioned her.”
“Not a lot, but I know they dated.”
“Betcha’ didn’t hear how they broke up.”
I shook my head, no.
Jayla took a deep breath. “Ryan threw this big party last year, first part of December, and basically everybody was there. Even I was there, because this was back when I went to parties. Niles and I had only barely started going out. Like we’d maybe been together a couple of weeks is all, but we went to the party together. Dominic and Lindsay had gotten into a fight before the party, so he was basically ignoring her, and flirting with other girls right in front of her and shit.”
“You saw that?” Ryan cut in, doubtful.
“Yeah, I saw him talking to other girls,” Jayla snipped. “Adria, Katlynn, Janie, that girl with the dreadlocks.”
“Maren?”
“Whatever. It’s minutia.”
Ryan rolled his eyes. “You know that talking isn’t the same as flirting right?”
Jayla scowled at him.
“Okay,” Ryan put his hands up. “Please continue.”
“So, while Dominic is off flirting, Lindsay decides to drown her sorrows in drink and — shocker — gets drunk. She starts feeling sick so she asks Niles if he’ll give her a ride home and he says he totally will, but if she’s gonna puke he’d rather she do it at the party and not in his car, and says he’ll help her find a bathroom. So now the guy I came with is taking care of Dominic’s mess? I don’t think so. So I go tell Dominic that Lindsay is sick and he needs to give her a ride home. So Dominic goes to find Lindsay, and when he finds her, and he sees that Niles and some other guys are in the same room as her, he completely loses his mind and starts beating the crap out of people.”
“Holy shit, that is not what happened!” Ryan pitched.
“Uhm, yes it is,” Jayla defended.
“You saw this too then?” Ryan asked.
“No,” Jayla hissed. “But both Lindsay and
Niles told me what happened, later.”
“So it’s hearsay,” Ryan shrugged.
Jayla rolled her eyes. “Okay,” she grumbled. “So, the next thing I saw — with my own eyes — was Niles who looked exactly like someone had punched him in the face, because his lip is swollen and bleeding. He grabs my arm and says, ‘C’mon, we’re going.’ We’re almost to the car when Ryan gets in front of us and tells Niles to get way from me, and stay away from me, and to never speak to me again. You want to deny any of that?” She narrowed her eyes at Ryan.
“Nope” Ryan leaned forward. “Hell, I’ll even finish this part of it for you. Basically, Niles said no. So I hit him, and so did Dominic, and we kept hitting him until he agreed to leave without her,” Ryan leaned back in his seat looking satisfied.
I put my hand on my chin to keep it from smacking against the table.
Jayla huffed and then sighed. “Yup. So, long story short, Niles dumped me and I basically became an outcast that no guy even dares talk to because they don’t want to have the shit beat out of them by Ryan and Dominic.”
I put my hands up, because at this point I was ready to surrender. “I don’t understand. Was there a reason you and Dominic beat the hell out of this guy?”
Ryan’s expression fell. “Well, yeah. When Dominic found Lindsay—”
“No, no, no, no, no!” Jayla put a finger up. “Hearsay.”
“Fine,” Ryan threw his arms up. “I saw Dominic, looking pissed, I asked him what happened, he told me he found Lindsay getting gang banged and he lost it. And then, she stopped him and told him it had all been her idea.”
“Bullshit.” Jayla folded her arms across her chest.
“That’s what he said,” Ryan shrugged. “And then Lindsay came in the room crying, telling him she was sorry, but that it was all his fault anyway. And he said, ‘Fuck off Lindsay, we’re done.’ And that was it. No fuss, no fight, she just turned and left. And then I saw Niles looking like he’d just been punched, dragging you outside so I asked Dominic if he was one of the guys involved and he…” Ryan wavered. “He said yes, basically.”
“Basically?” Jayla raised a brow at him.
“It was more graphic than that,” Ryan admitted. “But I wasn’t going to let him leave with you. No fucking way. What I did to you was shitty. What he had just done, what he might do to you — I couldn’t let you go with him. No way.”
Jayla rolled her eyes. “Niles would barely talk to me after that but insisted he was just standing near Lindsay when Dominic flipped. And Lindsay told me basically the same thing. She was in the bathroom with Niles and some other guys, and Dominic came in and got super jealous and started punching people.”
Ryan laughed, “Jealous. That’s funny.”
Jayla was shooting invisible death daggers from her eyes. But I had to agree with Ryan. “That really doesn’t sound like Dominic. I’ve never seen him do anything even near jealousy, overprotective maybe.”
“Yeah, I get it,” Jayla pushed a strand of ombre behind her ear. “You’re friends, you can’t imagine him doing anything terrible. But the whole thing was so bad Lindsay stopped coming to school and then she transferred out and basically ghosted everybody she knew from Parkwood.”
Ryan leaned his elbows on the table. “Wouldn’t you? Any way you look at it Lindsay was fucked up — she had problems, a lot of them. What happened at the party was just one thing in a long list of messed up stuff. And things would have been a lot worse for her if certain involved parties hadn’t thought Dominic and myself would beat them into next week if they ever talked about what happened. Hopefully she got some help, got a fresh start.”
Jayla huffed. “You’re just so sure that it would have been Lindsay’s reputation that would have been ruined. You’re so arrogant, Ryan,” she growled.
“Obviously nothing I say is going to convince you and I doubt you’d believe Dominic. What about one of the other guys that was there? Lance maybe?”
“Lance Correy?” Jayla huffed. “ I don’t think so. That guys a sociopath.”
“Aaron Downey was there too,” Ryan offered.
Jayla’s face scrunched. “Fine. We have biology together. I’ll talk to him Monday.”
“Or we could talk to him today,” Ryan offered. “Pretty sure I know where he’ll be.”
“Fine,” Jayla agreed.
・❀・❀・❀・
We found Aaron at Parkwood City Rec Center, folding towels. I recognized him from Visual Arts. He had this weird obsession with anorexic figures and was always trying to incorporate skeletal figures into everything he did. Like, everything. One of our early assignments was to draw a bowl of fruit, all his fruit were emaciated, dried and had bones. It was creepy, and not in a cool way.
“Hey Aaron,” Ryan nodded.
“Hey,” Aaron grinned then saw me and Jayla and grinned even wider. “Ladies.”
Jayla rolled her eyes. “Hey, Aaron,” she forced a quick half smile. “Not a social visit. You remember the December party at Ryan’s last year?”
“Uh…” Aaron glanced to Ryan. “Yeah.”
Ryan held a finger up and stepped closer to Aaron. “You remember that thing I told you never to talk about? I need you to talk about it with Jayla.”
Aaron swallowed hard, his eyes darting around between the three of us. Ryan looking chill, Jayla looking pissed, and me looking confused.
“We’ll give you a minute,” Ryan slipped his hand into mine and pulled me across the room.
Jayla stood stone faced as Aaron sheepishly relayed his version of events. His face contorting uncomfortably every now and again. After a minute or five Jayla folded her arms and huffed impatient, “Spit it out, Aaron!”
Aaron stumbled on. Jayla stopping him with a raised hand every now and then to ask questions. Every time she did, he flinched. After a minute or two she reached forward, grabbed his collar and yanked his head close to hers. I couldn’t hear what she was saying but Aaron’s response, “It’s the truth, I swear!” was telling enough.
Jayla took a moment to compose herself. Aaron mumbled an apology. She let go of his shirt and marched herself over to us and asked me to take her home.
Nobody spoke in the car. The radio was on, but it was mostly a very quiet ride until we got to Jayla’s house and Ryan leaned forward and said. “I never meant for you to get hurt, Jayla. I’m sorry Dominic and I caused you to become a social pariah. I don’t want that for you. I didn’t know that’s what happened, I swear. I just thought that after what happened you hated all jocks altogether and never wanted to speak to any of us ever again. Will you please come to my party tonight?”
Jayla took a slow breath in and let in out again. “I’ll think about it.”
Chapter 32
Jayla texted me about 3 hours later.
JA: Can I get a ride to this stupid party?
Kayley was so excited to go you’d think she hadn’t hosted her own party just days earlier. Somehow she’d gotten Aunt Josie to agree to let her use her car to drive friends. I’d heard part of the pitch, I think the biggest selling point was that with Kayley driving she’d have to be the responsible one. She was bringing her friends Sara, Monica, and April. Kimber was riding with Zack and he had his own passenger list that included Claire and Erin. And my car would be transporting me, Ambree, Mika, and Jayla.
I was happy things were on the mend with Jayla and Ryan but with each new passenger I picked up there was a twisting, knotting, sick, feeling that was grinding its way around my insides. And the closer we got to Ryan’s, the worse it got.
My pace from the car to the house was decidedly slower than almost everybody else who was jovially bouncing up the front walkway. Jayla and I slowed to a stop in the driveway while the others walked ahead. I was failing miserably at not thinking about discolored, and misshapen, and thick make-up, and perfectly cropped pale blond hair.
Jayla was probably thinking about her boyfriend being pummeled on repeat by Ryan and Dominic. I couldn’t really imag
ine it, but I was thinking about that too now.
Ugh. Dominic and Ryan fighting was a weird thought, but I hadn’t actually seen it so it didn’t have the same impact on my psyche. Easy enough to let go of. But how the hell do you run away from drama when it’s a memory? Is this how goth emo phases start?
Ambree and Mika had turned around and were slowly walking backwards toward the front door, with expressions that wondered what the hold up was.
“Guys?” Ambree shrugged at us.
“Yeah, yeah. Go ahead,” Jayla waved at them.
They looked to me for some reason.
My stomach turned, threatening to empty itself if I didn’t get back in the car and leave this horrible place at once! Post-haste! I nodded at them flapping my hand in their general direction, happy to not be any nearer to the house of horrors.
Jayla turned toward me but her eyes were on the driveway. “It’s hard to rethink what I thought happened, with what I don’t want to believe happened, you know?”
I nodded only half hearing her words. “Bad shit happened here,” I blurted.
We were talking about different things but it didn’t matter, Jayla sighed and agreed.
Suddenly, Dominic and another guy appeared. I want to say they came from out of nowhere but the more likely scenario is that in the misty drizzle of my building anxiety I hadn’t noticed them approach. Worse, I had no idea what this other chap’s name was. I knew he was on the football team. We’d even causally chatted on occasion — typically during lunch when I met up with Ryan and Dominic in the lunchroom. I even had recollection of passing him in the hallways every now and again, though we didn’t have any classes together. It’s not that this other guy wasn’t noteworthy, he was. Impressively tall, thick with two C’s, plenty of muscles, dark brown eyes, short black hair, a crooked smile, and a dimple on one cheek. That sort of makes him sound lopsided, but dashing is more accurate.
For a second, or seven, I considered just asking after his name, but that notion was overwritten by the consideration that doing so would most definitely make me look like a total stuck up bitch who can’t even be bothered to remember people’s names. Furthermore, I was so discombobulated I couldn’t decide if that was a true statement, or just the musing of a vexed mind. Worse, I was having some sort of weird anxiety reaction that was causing me to regress into bouts of Elizabethan era literary lingo.
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