The Secret That Intervened

by Lisa Marie Stum

  Chapter 14 - Cody

  After the set ended I quickly left the stage. A petite blonde grabbed my arm to catch my attention as I tried to breeze past crowds of people. I looked over my shoulder. “Can’t talk right now, sorry.” It might have been rude, but I was eager to get to Hailey. I had pretty much left her alone all week. Not that it was easy, but I didn’t want to push it with her. I’d call her every day to make sure she was all right and feeling better.

  The blonde’s hand slipped off my arm as I continued weaving through the crowd.

  I was shocked when Hailey walked in, but I had hoped all week that she would come. When I saw her at Frankie’s without Jason the day she came back, I’d decided I would never lose her again. I’d do anything in my power to keep her in my life. I couldn’t picture ever again feeling the way I did when she left for New York.

  Hailey stood up from the bar stool as I got closer, ignoring the guy in a gray polo shirt that had been trying to talk to her. While onstage, I’d watched as he approached her. It made me lose my place in the song.

  I wrapped my arms around her tightly. “I’m so happy you decided to come,” I said, lifting her off of her feet. “You look gorgeous.”

  She hugged me back with the same intensity. It felt so good to have her in my arms.

  “You sounded really good up there,” Hailey said.

  “You looked really good down here.” I looked her over.

  Matt and Zach, my drummer and bass player, interrupted to give her a hug and welcome her back.

  “Hey, pretty lady,” Peyton said as Matt and Zach took the two seats next to Taylor. He wrapped his arm around her lower back and gave her a hug. “It’s great to see you. I was going to help out with the move, but something came up. I’m sorry I couldn’t be there.”

  “It’s all right, Peyt, we managed just fine. It was an easy move, it only took us a few hours.”

  “I’m glad you’re back, Hail,” Peyton said, and then looked over at Taylor, who was talking to the gray polo shirt guy’s friend. He looked at me. “Dude, I’ll let you guys be.”

  Hailey smirked at me and we watched as Peyton interrupted Taylor’s chatter and placed his arm around her shoulders before he kissed her on the cheek. “What’s up, babe?”

  The polo-shirt guy turned on his heel and headed back to his friend.

  I folded my arms across my chest and gave Hailey an amused look as I watched Taylor and Peyton.

  “Why did you have to do that?” Taylor asked. “I was only chatting with him.”

  Peyton winked at her. “Because I can.”

  “You’re ridiculous, and get your arm off of me.” She flicked his hand from her shoulder.

  Peyton stepped aside, and leaned against the bar next to Taylor. I’ve never really understood their relationship. Not that I had anything to really compare it to. But I did know that if Hailey and I ever got together, it would never be anything like it was with the two of them. It was almost like Peyton didn’t want her, but didn’t want anyone else to have her. On second thought, it reminded me of Jason and Hailey.

  I turned back to Hailey. “How’s the house coming together?”

  “Pretty good, I just need to…” She stopped when two girls interrupted; it was the blonde that had stopped me earlier and one of her friends. She pulled on my arm again.

  Before I could say anything, Hailey said something completely out of character.

  “We were in the middle of a private conversation.” Hailey looked at them, waiting for them to leave.

  She must have seen the girl stop me earlier.

  They apologized and went back to the dance floor.

  I remained silent, not saying a word to the girls before they walked away. Hailey’s tone and uncharacteristic assertiveness cautioned me not to.

  “I hate that,” Hailey said before taking a seat in the stool.

  I stepped toward her and held her hand in mine, caressing the back of her hand with my thumb. “I know you do, sorry.”

  “It’s just so rude to interrupt people, assuming whatever you have to say is more important than a conversation that’s already taking place,” she said.

  “Completely agree with you.”

  ***

  We finished up the second set. I was standing next to Hailey and Taylor when I saw JT coming toward us. Erin and Samantha had followed behind him but stood several feet away from the rest of us.

  JT approached Taylor and asked her, “Round of shots?”

  “Hell yeah!” she responded. She shook her bottle of beer back and forth, holding it in the air until the bartender caught sight of it.

  JT ordered nine shots after the bartender returned with Taylor’s beer. After the bartender finished pouring them, JT handed them out. As he reached to give one to Hailey, I shook my head at him and said, “She doesn’t drink, man.” Hailey had never had even a sip of alcohol.

  “You’re missing out,” JT called over to Hailey.

  She smiled back in quiet disagreement.

  “Come get the shots I bought you, girls,” JT called to Samantha and Erin, who were standing several feet away from the bar.

  When Taylor turned around and noticed Erin for the first time, she elbowed JT. He laughed in response. Erin and Samantha traipsed up to the bar and took the shots from his hands.

  “To a good drunken night,” JT said as he lifted his shot in the air. They clicked their glasses together and tossed back the shots. I turned down the shot JT bought me, knowing he would just take it himself.

  I caught Erin staring at Hailey, and then I looked back at Hailey, who had an insincere smile on her face. I was sure Hailey was trying to break the tension.

  Taylor must have caught a dirty look or something because she said, “Hey, Erin did someone punch you in both of your eyes again or is that your attempt at applying makeup?”

  Taylor always did shit like that and Hailey hated it; she didn’t need anyone to defend her. Hailey never responded to Erin’s insults because she was kind, not because she was weak.

  I grabbed Hailey’s hand and led her through the crowd, eager to get her away from the situation.

  I leaned against the brick wall beside the entrance of the Dark Horse with one foot against it. The air was crisp but not too cold, the sky was clear, and a bright moon peeked through the skyline. Hailey stood in front of me and watched as I lit my cigarette. As I exhaled the smoke, I made sure to blow it up in the air and not in Hailey’s direction.

  “You really should give those things up you know,” Hailey said.

  “You always tell me that. I’ll make it my next New Year’s resolution just for you,” I said, brushing her hair behind her shoulder.

  We turned our heads when a drunken girl tripped and fell on the sidewalk as she walked out the door. Two of her friends quickly got her back on her feet. It was the girl I saw falling earlier when I was onstage. I overheard Kyle telling the girl she couldn’t go back in because she was too drunk.

  “That girl flashed herself to JT,” I said, shaking my head, and regretting that I said it knowing what Hailey thought about the environment.

  “Drunken girls, doing drunken things that they will probably regret tomorrow,” Hailey said.

  I adjusted her shirt to cover the chain of her necklace. She pressed her lips together with a sparkle in her eyes.

  “I think I’m going to head home in a little bit. I’ve got a lot to do tomorrow. I just wanted to come out so you knew that everything was all right between us.” She paused, and I nodded my head at her.

  “I called Frankie earlier today and he told me that I can start on Wednesday. I’d like to get started painting, and I also need to make my mother’s meals tomorrow.” Hailey drew in a deep breath. “But at least I was able to unpack everything and get settled in.”

  “I have a quick job to do tomorrow morning, but I could stop by afterward and help you out,” I said.

  “That would be great.”

  Normally, she’d at least try to refuse
help.

  My phone went off in my back pocket. It was a text from Peyton letting me know it was time to go back up onstage.

  I took a final drag of my cigarette and flicked it into the street. I held the door open for Hailey, and followed her back in to the bar.

  Chapter 15 - Erin

  “Thanks for coming out. Tonight was a blast.” Cody’s voice rang out, competing with the applause, as the lights once beaming from the stage dimmed.

  JT pulled the strap over his head and leaned his guitar against the speaker. He jumped down from the stage, almost knocking into me. “Stick around and have a few drinks with me. We still have half an hour before the bar closes.”

  “Yeah, if you can give me a ride home. This one wants to leave.” I pointed across my chest to Samantha.

  “No problem. I need to help load the equipment, but I’ll be back.” JT reached up and took the guitar case from Cody’s hand.

  “I owe you one,” Cody said to JT, having overheard the conversation. “We got it.”

  “Thanks, man.”

  That Cody didn’t care that JT and I had been fucking really drove me nuts. I obsessed over it, and I mean OBSESSED over it. All I wanted was for him to feel a twinge of jealousy and there he was encouraging it. I wished I had it in me to hate him, but the truth was that I had been in love with him since the eighth grade. It didn’t matter to him; he’d never really paid attention to me until the night that Hailey left. Now that she was back I was sure he’d never pay attention to me again.

  Samantha grabbed her purse from the edge of the stage and swung it over her shoulder. “Call me tomorrow.”

  “Yeah, I will,” I said as Samantha glided past me on the way to the door.

  JT put his guitar in its case while I went to the bar to order drinks.

  While Cody was a good guy, JT was another story. He was the kind of guy that thought a woman’s heart was just life support for her vagina. And I’d be the first to admit I was a bitch who didn’t care… about him. He had already proven that the only point his drug-fried brain served was to pump enough blood to the massive man meat between his legs. Sure, he was good-looking, but dumb as dirt, and he was also kind of a dirt ball. He didn’t stink or anything like that. But he wore the same clothes all the time and they were always wrinkled and sometimes stained.

  Have you ever met someone who had zero, and I mean ZERO manners? Well, that was JT. I made the mistake of letting him over to my parents’ once. He’d announced he had to take a shit in front of them. That’s right, in front of MY PARENTS. All right, so he didn’t know they were getting ready to leave when I opened the door and he didn’t see them. But still.

  I got a lecture from my mom for that one, to which I replied that he was just a fuck buddy and it wasn’t like I planned on marrying him. Of course she ran off and told my dad about what I’d said. He docked my allowance that week. That’s the way he was: money was the only means he had to control me and the secret that I had been forced to conceal.

  Shouldn’t there be some kind of code between females in a household? A rule where a mother doesn’t out a daughter for, oh my God, you won’t believe it, ENJOYING SEX. Yeah, I should be treated like a leper simply because I enjoyed something that was part of being a human being. GASP. So, I guess my bitch of a mother won our argument in the end. Five-fucking-hundred dollars she cost me, because she couldn’t keep her big mouth shut. She must have been out of her pills that day…probably because I had been stealing them, ha ha. I really did have a way of fucking myself like that.

  My brother moved out of my parents’ house the second he turned eighteen because of her. He was ten years older than me and worked as a firefighter in town. He worked with the bottle blonde’s brother. That bitch was worse than Hailey, but I had respect for her because she didn’t take my shit and cower in my presence.

  JT took a seat as the bartender sat the beers in front of me. I slid one over to him.

  “Let’s test what you’re made of,” JT said to me while drumming his index fingers on the edge of the bar. He signaled the bartender. The bartender approached, tossing the towel he had used to wipe down the bar over his shoulder. “Two shots of Everclear.”

  Why was this mother fucker trying to test me? He certainly knew he didn’t have to get me drunk to get laid. If he was trying to get me to confess my undying love for him, well, there was no level of drunk that could have made me say such a vile thing…about him.

  He wasn’t about to win whatever game he was trying to play. I lifted my eyebrows at him. “All right.” I turned to the bartender and said, “Make it four.”

  We toasted. When the shot glasses clashed into one another, some spilled out of the glass and dripped onto my hand. I licked it off, knowing he was watching, hoping it would make him think about the last blow job I gave him.

  He stared at me as I tossed down the first shot, and then the second in quick succession. I restrained my reaction to the burn in my throat and the awful taste in my mouth. That wasn’t an easy task, so I was quite proud of the accomplishment.

  “Now I’m impressed.” He slid his second shot in front of me.

  Oh, hell NO. I didn’t want another one, but he wasn’t going to win at this. I picked up my beer and took a long sip, and considered how to turn this on him instead.

  “It looks like you’re just being a pussy.” I challenged him back.

  He snickered at me, picked up the shot while staring me in the eyes and chugged it. “Never.” JT blew a breath out forcefully to cool the sting in his mouth. Ha ha, he had a physical reaction to something I was sure tasted worse than gasoline.

  JT signaled the bartender again and asked for two beers. Turning back to me, he said, “Let’s get hammered. I’m only four blocks down the road. We can come back to get my car in the morning.”

  Duh, I know where you live, moron. I’d only been there twenty times, in between the times he left with the gross groupies. I didn’t care that he did it, not even a little. The only time it bothered me was when I was horny and out of options.

  “Sounds good to me,” I said.

  I was looking forward to another night of hate-sex. Yeah, I kind of hated him, but it made the sex AWESOME.

  My hatred for him had started the one time he decided to tell me that he wasn’t interested in me “like that.” There was no need for him to let me know that he wasn’t interested in a relationship; I’d decided that shit about him the second I met him.

  That he felt the need to tell me he wasn’t interested in anything other than sex was insulting, to say the least. It made me feel rejected even though I hadn’t even put myself out there like that. Feeling rejected by someone you looked down upon was the absolute worse fucking feeling, like you’re automatically less worthy of breathing than you determined the other person to be. I wanted him to fall in love with me because of it.

  I chugged back the remainder of my beer in an attempt to wash away the taste of the Everclear. The heat of it kept rising up into my throat, and it stung my nostrils when I exhaled, but I still restrained any reaction to it.

  JT picked up his beer and swiveled his chair in my direction. “What’s the deal between you and Hailey?”

  “I don’t even know where to start.” I rolled my eyes. Is this why he wanted to get me plastered? To get the scoop? “The girl is just such a liar and has had it in for me since I moved into town.” I interlaced my fingers around the bottle in front of me. “She has Cody fooled into thinking she’s little miss innocent. He’s delusional about her. She always went after the guys I was interested in when we were in high school. She slept with half the football team and basketball team in high school and came out unscathed because Cody always protected her.”

  My thoughts roamed to the ninth grade assembly, which almost pissed me off as much as seeing Cody with Hailey earlier that night.

  At the ninth grade assembly, everyone had poured into the hallways and stared at me when I came through the doorway. I had sat in one of the fron
t rows, so almost everyone had exited before me. When I stepped into the hallway, Cody had a picture held over his head of me that said “LIAR” on the top. The other guys had Hailey’s picture and it said “INNOCENT.”

  I was fourteen, and I’d made up a rumor that I was certain was true. It was funny to me, how every time I slept with someone I’d spot her flirting with them soon afterward. So, I told Taylor she was sleeping with them, all six of them, and Taylor was the biggest gossip in school. Shit, I didn’t even spread the gossip myself. Little weak Hailey of course became friends with the person that did.

  People didn’t care about the truth –- they only cared about their perspective and what they needed the truth to be. Most people also think they’re good at reading people. But most are not. What they were good at was imposing their preconceptions and judgments on other people.

  JT interrupted my thoughts. “Cody seems to really have a thing for her.”

  That hurt.

  “She’s just a tease and likes the attention he gives her. It damn near killed him when she moved to New York with Jason.”

  “Who’s Jason?”

  “Her kid’s father. They started seeing each other senior year.”

  “Interesting,” JT said.

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if she’d slept with Peyton or the other guys in the band. She’s so good at hiding who she really is. I bet you could sleep with her.”

  Hailey was a whore in my opinion, always going after the guys I liked, and I’d spent what felt like a lifetime trying to show Cody how worthless she was. See, the difference between a whore and someone like me was that I didn’t put out because I wanted someone to love me. I put out because I genuinely loved sex. Hailey wasn’t the type of girl that would just love sex, I knew that. It would probably kill her if she ever discovered how I knew.

  “Seriously?” JT asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “No. I meant do you want to make a bet? Two hundred dollars,” JT said.

  Another test.