“Lani’ll be right, man,” Brett slurred. “She’s the strong one.”
I got him on his bed and started pulling his shoes off. “She’s broken, mate. You might not see it, she might not see it, it took me too fucking long to see it. But, she’s as broken as the rest of us. I don’t know what to do anymore, mate,” I said as I got his jumper off him and pushed him to lying down. “Lani’s tether’s about to snap over you, mate, and I don’t know how the fuck I’m supposed to help.”
Brett mumbled something I didn’t understand and flung his arm over his eyes. I dropped onto the floor and leant against his bed. With a sigh, I leant my elbows on my knees and hung my head between my knees.
“I wish you could talk about it, Granger. Chick-flick bullshit aside, I’m here for you, man.” I sighed as Brett chuckled in a way I knew he wasn’t listening. “I just don’t know how to help anymore… Whatever I’m doing isn’t working, is it?”
I sat there on his floor until his breathing got slower and more even, just wondering how the hell I could help. If I even could.
Because, what I was doing wasn’t helping. Not in the long run. Sure, it kept him alive. For now. What about when he decided to go out without me again? What if I missed his call? What was going to happen then? Would anyone get to him in time? Or, would he have finally done something that couldn’t be undone before someone found him?
“Oh, mate…” I breathed out, telling myself I wasn’t on the verge of tears.
I just didn’t know what to do.
My best mate could disappear on me at any minute and I didn’t know how to help him. Everything I’d read about depression and suicide made it sound so simple; be there for them, offer them support, tell them they weren’t alone. But, when the whole topic was taboo, how did you do that? I guess I was a coward; I was scared I’d lose him sooner if I pushed.
But, I could hardly begin to deal with my own problems, let alone have any hope of helping Brett. I just had to hope that my particular brand of help was actually doing more help than hurt until I worked out how the hell to really help him…
For now, I just had to hope that sitting on his floor all night would be a good start.
Which is where Lani found me, and we fell asleep against each other for a few hours. I found far more comfort in just holding her hand than I ever could at the bottom of a bottle or with some girl, no matter how many times Brett and I had tried that.
e
“Whoa, dude!” I yelled, but I could see he was ignoring me.
I watched helpless as he flung the board and it smacked into the upright, snapping the deck in two.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I snapped, running over and grabbing it off the ground where he’d tossed it.
I looked down at the broken deck, then back at Brett, and back down again, trying to comprehend it. I couldn’t believe it was gone.
I’d never even really liked skateboarding. But, that board had been one of the last things Jonny had ever given me.
It was my last piece of Jonny and now it was gone just like him.
By the time the shock and numbness had worn off and I’d looked up, Brett had swanned off. And, that was as apt a description as you could get as he pulled his hands out of his pockets and held an arm out for Imogen to duck under as he walked off to do God knew what.
“You fucking wanker!” I screamed after him, my voice cracking, and heard a rather lame, “language, Casper!” from somewhere in the distance.
“Uh, there something we should know, mate?” Nick asked slowly.
I’m not proud of it, but I snapped. My heart raced, my mind was nothing but noisy static, and I was restless with pent-up energy. I was just about this close to crying, too.
“You’re one to talk, dickhead,” I ground out, rounding on him.
“Come on, Cas…” he said.
“Don’t ‘Cas’ me, Nicholas. You think you get to take Lani’s virginity and there are no consequences?”
“Oh, damn!” Trent yelled.
“Shit! You had to know this was coming, Nicky-boy,” Ashford chuckled and Nick glared at him.
Nick visibly steeled himself. “All right. You get one free one and then I start swinging back,” he warned me.
I felt my eyes narrow and I rammed my shoulder straight into his chest. We went down in a pile of flailing limbs.
“Dude, I know I shouldn’t have done it. But, it was years ago!” Nick grunted.
“That is so not making this better, fucker.”
“It’s not like I meant to. It just happened.”
“How does something like that just happen?” I asked him, my fist flying and ignoring the fact I knew damned well how ‘it just happened’.
I don’t know how many hits each of us landed, or how long we were at it. But, I didn’t register much else until I heard Trent say, “I know it’s Lani, Drake, but surely even this is overkill?”
I whirled around, tripped over on Nick, and pointed at Trent from the ground. “You take that back, arsehole!” I snapped as I shoved Nick’s arm away from me.
Trent and Ashford shared a look before Trent gave me a knowing smirk.
“There actually something we should know, Drake?”
“What?” All my anger was being replace by panic and a slightly unusual tinge of fear. “What?”
Nick propped himself up on his elbow and wiped at his chin while he sniggered. “Sounds like there’s something you need to get off your chest there, mate.”
I tried to scoff, but it came out a more wheezing gasp. “Like what?”
“You and Lani have been acting weird of late…” Trent said with a rueful grin.
“Weird? Because we haven’t spent the last three years screaming at each other.”
“Yeah, but lately there’s been a lot less screaming and an awful lot of touching…” Ashford said in a stupid sing-song voice.
“Touching,” I scoffed. “I’ve known her her whole life, of course I hug her and shit.”
“The whole school’s noticed something’s changed, Cas. Even if Brett hasn’t,” Nick said.
Trent picked it up from there. “You spend as much time with her in your arms as you do any of the other girls. And, I heard from Jen that you’ve been rather neglectful lately.”
“First Holt, then Trent… Now, Nick. It’s a trend, Drake,” Ashford added. “And, that trend leads to one end…”
“Poetry?” Trent looked at him.
Ashford grinned. “I amaze myself with my wit sometimes.”
“I know I shouldn’t have touched her, Cas. But, I would have thought that applied to all of us,” Nick said meaningfully while Trent and Ashford finished babbling.
All three of them were staring at me intently. They knew. All they needed was confirmation. But, could I risk giving it to them? It wasn’t clear if Trent and Ashford had known about Nick and Lani. I looked between them.
“Did you two know?” I asked.
They shared another look.
“That you were fucking Lani?” Ashford asked, then shook his head. “No, never would have–”
“About Nick and Lani,” I growled with a glare as I pulled myself off the ground.
“Oh, that? Well… We don’t know exactly what happened…”
“I mean, we knew Nick was the one to do the honours…” Trent added.
“She fucking deserved better than you, arsehole!” I said to Nick.
“Like you’re any better. Look, Lani and I happened then we went our separate ways. I wasn’t stupid enough to make it more than a one-time thing. Unlike some people…”
I jerked towards him, but Ashford grabbed my arm and held me back.
“All right,” he said, “let’s recap. Nick popped Lani’s cherry, Drake’s been doing the nasty with his best mate’s little sister, and said best friend is completely oblivious to either of these facts, and has now busted up Jonny’s skateboard. Yes?”
I sco
wled at them. “I haven’t–”
“You react like that mate, and it’s obvious you’ve done the nasty in Lani’s pasty more than once. I’d call habit on that shit,” Ashford said calmly.
“I told you, I–”
“Right, sorry,” Trent amended, “you and Lani make love.” They all snickered.
“You want to fucking try me right now, mate?” I asked and Ashford’s hand tightened on my arm.
“Mate, it was inevitable,” Nick said and we all looked to him, still on the ground.
“What?” I asked.
“You and Lani were inevitable.”
“In what way? And, how the fuck do you know what inevitable means?”
Nick smirked at me and held his hand out. I pulled my arm from Ashford, took Nick’s hands and pulled him to standing.
“In-fucking-evitable. The two of you have been inseparable since fucking birth, Cas. You think the rest of us haven’t just been waiting for you to get your head out of your fucking arse and see what’s obviously between you?”
“Aside from Brett,” Ashford amended.
“Aside from Brett,” Trent agreed. “But, seriously, dude. We’re your best mates. You think we’re as stupid as the rest of the school? We know you. We knew you’d turn around one day and realise that she was the only girl for you.”
“Have we fallen into some fucking chick flick? What is this bullshit?” I looked around at them. “You think that I’m capable of any of that shit then you don’t fucking know me at all,” I snarled.
They shared a look I couldn’t decipher. Then Nick sighed and broke out into a grin. “Fucking oath, you’re not!” he said cheerfully as he thumped me on the back.
I looked around in surprise as they all started laughing.
“So, we were–” Trent asked, pointing between himself and Nick.
Nick nodded. “Well, I was. I got a little–”
“No, I know!” Trent laughed. “But, I was like, why not!”
“Oh!” Ashford suddenly gasped. “We were totally fucking with him!”
“We were totally fucking with you.” Nick looked at me, fully deadpan.
I threw on a smile to save face, ignoring the fact my heart was pounding out a staccato faster than a good flamenco. “You utter wankers!” I huffed.
Ashford put an arm around my shoulders. “Well, you know, mate…”
“Yeah, we just had to check,” Trent added.
I nodded. “And, consensus?”
“Well, you’ve obviously got balls of fucking iron,” Ashford whistled. “Granger finds out you’ve been banging his sister and you’re not whipped for her, then you’re in worse shit that Nick will be.”
“What do you mean will be?” Nick asked.
I was jostled as Nick and Ashford started scrapping, trying to still the panic in my heart. Because it had been put into words now. Other people knew I was sleeping with Lani; it was like it was real now and a hundred emotions bombarded me.
What the fuck had I been doing?
I had no idea what I’d been doing.
This went beyond what Brett would say if he found out. This went beyond whether Lani and I should have been doing it in the first place. This went beyond a promise that it was all just physical.
I was pretty sure I knew the boys well enough that no one was going to be saying anything outside the four of us; the risk of it coming back to Brett was too high. Nick definitely wouldn’t; I hadn’t said anything about him, so he’d repay the favour. Brett would lose it on him far worse than I had.
Still, it was all far too real now.
I had to talk to Lani.
e
It wasn’t until later that night that I had a chance to talk to her. And, let’s just say it didn’t go so well. I mean, it started fine, then it got a little rocky, then looked on the up…but, then it didn’t end well.
The story of our entire relationship really.
“Cas, you right?” she asked, as I paced the balcony.
“I…” I stopped.
“Okay, that’s a no. What’s up?” She put her book down and looked at me.
“The guys know about us.”
She blinked a couple of times like she was waiting for me to elaborate. I didn’t. “Sorry, what?”
“They know.”
“Okay. Going to need more than that, Drake.”
“Brett smashed Jonny’s board–”
“What?” She stood quickly and threw her arms around me.
I disentangled myself from her, feeling too antsy to be touching her.
“Cas…?” she said slowly, obviously confused.
“They know and it’s like…” I grunted in annoyance and walked into her room.
She padded after me. “It’s like what, Cas?”
“Oh, come on. Who are we kidding? This was a terrible idea. You said so from the start. Now, they know and they’re going to give me shit about it forever. You know they actually accused me of being in love with you!” I scoffed, something niggling at me uncomfortably.
“They what?” she asked, her voice small.
“Yeah, can you imagine!”
“Is that really such a completely ridiculous notion?” she asked, sounding far more affronted than I’d expected.
“What? That I’d fall in love with you?” I maintained what I thought was a fairly good impression of bluster. “That something you want?”
I really shouldn’t have started this conversation; I was far too emotionally raw to deal with it. After my holiday babysitting gig, my realisation I was a shit best mate and could in fact not help Brett no matter my good intentions, losing the last piece I had of Jonny, and whatever the fuck was running through me now the guys knew about Lani, I was so done.
I was done and I was in no state to be having something that should have been a serious conversation. As usual, I was heading into fight territory with Lani and I had a sneaking suspicion that it wasn’t going to end up with us in bed.
“Well, when you say it like no one could possibly ever fall in love with me… I certainly don’t want that. Who wants to hear that no one could possibly love them?” she snapped.
“Oh, because you haven’t told me that plenty!” I retorted.
Her mouth opened and closed a couple of times before she seemed to find something to say. “Well, it’s not like I’m an authority on the matter, am I? I’m hardly more capable of love than you, Cas.”
“Hey, you’re the one who wanted no emotions. I was just sticking to my side of the bargain.”
“What?” she asked, incredulous.
“You heard me.”
“Bargain? That’s what this was? Some kind of enemies with benefits bargain? Oh, good. So pleased that’s all I am to my oldest friend!” she hissed.
“What else would it be? We were fucking. It meant nothing.”
For a split second, she looked sucker punched; all colour drained from her face and I was sure she was about to cry. But, then she went bright red in anger and those more brown than hazel eyes went stony.
“Of course it didn’t mean nothing, you idiot!” she said harshly. “It couldn’t have meant nothing!”
“Why not?” I countered.
“Because it couldn’t.”
I nodded. “Right, and why is that? Because we used to be so close? Because our families live in each other’s pockets? Because secretly neither of us is as closed off and broken as we look?”
“No… I mean…” she stammered, for once at a loss for words.
I could see her mind working, but I had no idea what was running through it. And, frankly, I didn’t care. I was hurting on so many levels that I just wanted everyone else to hurt, too. I didn’t care who it was or what damage it did, I couldn’t stop myself.
“What? You thought this was something else? Something more than harmless fun?”
“Cas, I–”
Chapter Eighteen
Lani
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“After all, it’s just sex. Isn’t it, Lei?” he taunted.
“No, it’s not just sex. It never has been just sex!” I yelled and the anger in his face turned to surprise. I was a little surprised at the confession myself.
He steeled his expression. “You could have fooled me.”
“I’m not you, Drake!” I spat. “I don’t just sleep with people because I have a problem keeping it in my pants!”
“You’re the one who’s dictated every step of whatever the fuck this has been–”
“That’s not true and you know it.”
“You seem to have a better idea of what’s been going on than me. Why don’t you tell me what the hell this is!” he yelled.
“I needed you!” I screamed back before I could stop myself. Now I’d started, I figured I may as well finish. “I needed someone, Casper! I needed someone and the only one who felt right was you. I couldn’t take it anymore. First Jonny. Then Paddy. Then Brett. Then Emma. Then you! I couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t be the person you all needed me to be.”
He got that annoyed but sympathetic face he used when he thought we’d suffered in silence unnecessarily. “Why didn’t you just ask, Lani? Say something? You know I would have been there for you without hesitation, through anything, no questions asked.”
“Because I don’t know how to talk to you anymore!” I cried and felt tears in my eyes. “I don’t know what happened, Cas. I don’t know who we are and I don’t know how to fix it!”
“And you thought sex was the answer?” he scoffed.
“It wasn’t just me. It takes two. And, I didn’t see you complaining.”
He raked his hand through his hair with a humourless laugh. “Of course, I wasn’t. I’m the guy who fucks anything that moves, remember? And, unlike you, I wasn’t busy pretending this was something else.”
“And what did you think it was?”
He looked like he had no idea what to say after being caught in a seriously compromising situation. And, given I’d found him in plenty of those and he’d always been able to talk himself out of them, that was impressive. He opened his mouth and those big green eyes stared at me as though he was begging me to understand without having to say it out loud.
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