by Elle Kennedy
“I don’t need a psychology lesson right now,” I interrupt. “Please. Just leave it alone.”
There’s a short beat of silence.
“All right, I’ll leave it.” Another beat, and then she somberly says, “I’m here for you. Anything you need. I’ll drop everything.”
“I know. You’re a good friend.”
With a smile in her voice, she replies, “Yes, I am.”
After I hang up with Sasha, I go back to my shows and stress-eating. A few episodes later, there’s a knock at the door. I’m confused for a minute, wondering if I’d forgotten I ordered something else, until I hear another knock and Abigail’s voice asking me to let her in.
Fuck.
“Before you tell me to piss off,” she says when I reluctantly open the door, “I come in peace. And to apologize.”
“It’s fine,” I reply, just to get rid of her. “You apologized. Bye.”
I try to close the door, but she pushes it open and slips her skinny ass in before I can slam her foot in the doorjamb.
“Abigail,” I huff, “I just want to be left alone.”
“Yeah…” Scrunching her face at my never-to-be-seen-by-another-human-person sweat ensemble, she says, “I can see that.”
“Why are you here, dammit?”
Being Abigail, she waltzes over to one of the stools at the tiny kitchen island and takes a seat. “I heard you broke up with Conor.”
“Seriously? You want to start with that?” Fucking unbelievable.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” she says quickly and takes a breath before starting over. “I mean, I think you made a mistake.”
Her pretenses drop. That air of permanent bitchiness. For the first time in a long time, she’s regarding me without a smirk of cruelty or sarcasm. It’s…sort of creepy.
Still not ready to trust her intentions, I stand against the opposite counter from her. “Why do you care?” Not that I give a shit what she thinks.
“Okay, look. I do this too.” There’s a chord of sympathy in her voice. “You’re upset and embarrassed and you want to push everyone away. Especially the people closest to you. That way they don’t see the pain you’re going through. They don’t see you the way you feel about yourself. I get it. I truly do.”
First Sasha, now Abigail? Why can’t everyone just leave me alone?
“What the hell do you know about anything?” I mutter. “You run through boys like makeup wipes.”
“I have issues, too,” she insists. “Just because you don’t see my insecurities doesn’t mean they aren’t there. We all have scars on the inside.”
“Yeah, well, I’m sorry about your deep personal traumas, but you’re one of mine, so…”
If Abigail is feeling some remorse because her assheadedness blew up in my face, she’s going to have to turn elsewhere for absolution. She might have sympathy for me, but I have none for her.
“That’s exactly what I mean,” she says ruefully. “I was so insecure about you kissing a guy I was dating on a stupid dare that the only way I knew how to cope with that was to take my hurt out on you. After the kiss he wouldn’t shut up about oh her huge tits and have you ever thought about implants and all kinds of shit. Do you know how humiliating that is?”
A crease cuts into my forehead. I didn’t know that. I mean, sure, I knew she was pissed. But if a guy I was seeing kept going on about it, comparing us, I’d have lost my shit, too.
“In high school,” she confesses, drawing patterns on the countertop, “I was called pancakes. I didn’t even have enough to fill out a training bra. I know you probably think that’s a stupid thing to obsess about, but all I’ve wanted, for my entire life, was to feel good in my clothes, you know? To feel sexy. For guys to look at me the way they look at other girls.”
“But you’re gorgeous,” I say, exasperated. “You’ve got a perfect body and a beautiful face. You know the last time I wore a bikini? I was still sleeping with a nightlight.” I gesture to my chest. “These things are a fucking burden. They’re heavy. They don’t fit any apparatus known to man. I’ve got back problems like I’m seventy. Every guy I meet is staring at my boobs to distract him from the rest of me.”
Except Conor. Which sends another pang of loneliness stabbing through my gut.
“And yet, I never feel good enough. I never feel confident in who I am,” Abigail counters. “I make up for it with—”
“Being a bitch.”
She smiles, rolling her eyes. “Mostly, yeah. My point is, I’ve felt like shit and pushed people away, too. That’s what you’re doing with Conor and it sucks. I don’t know or care at what point you two stopped messing with me—and don’t bother denying it. I saw right through that bullshit. But at some point it changed and you made it official. Yeah, I noticed that too. He obviously loves you, and if your sudden change in attitude the last couple weeks is any indication, you loved him too. So what sense does it make to lose that because someone else did a shitty thing?”
“You don’t understand.” Because she can’t. And I don’t know what else to tell her that doesn’t sound like an excuse. Even the thought of facing Conor after this makes my throat close up and my legs shake. “Thanks for coming by, but—”
“Fine.” She pivots, sensing I’m about to tell her to beat it so I can get back to conversations that take place exclusively in a Manchester accent. “We won’t talk about Conor. Or that the flowers he left for you are now taking up the entire living room coffee table. Have you gone to the police yet?”
You’ve got to be kidding me. “Did Jules send you over here?” I demand.
“No,” she says quickly. “Nothing like that, I promise. Just if you are going to report the video, I’ll go with you. I can explain how Jules got access to it and everything. Be a witness, if you want.”
This topic is getting exhausting. “You know, I’m getting a little sick of people pushing me. Everyone has their ideas of what I have to do and it’s pretty damn overwhelming. Can I have like a fucking minute.”
“I know this is scary, but you really should go to the police,” Abigail insists. “If you don’t attack this now, it will spread. What happens when one day you apply for a job or, who knows, you want to run for office or something and this video pops up? It will live with you forever.” She flicks up her eyebrows. “Or you can do something about it.”
“You’re not the best person to be giving me advice,” I remind her.
It’s easy for others to say this is what must be done, tell me to suck it up. If our positions were reversed, I might say the same. Things look a whole lot different on this end, though. The last thing I want to be doing is weighing the impact of court cases and depositions, headlines and news vans, with tucking myself under my blankets and never, ever coming out again. The latter is a whole lot cozier.
“You’re right. I’ve been terrible to you. I didn’t know how to deal with my feelings.” Abigail looks down at her hands, picking at her nails. “You were my best friend during pledge.”
“Yeah, I remember,” I say bitterly.
“I was so excited about us being sisters. Then it all went wrong. That was my fault, I should have done something about it then, talked it out or whatever, and instead it’s only gotten worse. I lost a friend. But I’m trying to start making up for that. Let me help you.”
“Why should I?” It’s all well and good that Abigail has reached her epiphany, but it doesn’t mean we’re going to be besties now.
“Because with shit like this, women have to stick together,” she says earnestly. “This transcends all that other bullshit. Jules was wrong. No one deserves what she did. I want her punished for you but also for all of us. Even if you never talk to me after this, I’ve got your back. Every single Kappa does.”
I admit, she sounds sincere. Which I suppose means she isn’t entirely devoid of humanity. And it did take courage to come here. She gets bonus points for laying her shit out and taking the blame. That takes integrity.
Maybe it’s never too late to become a better person. For either of us.
“I won’t promise to go to the police,” I tell her. “But I’ll think about it.”
“Fair,” she says, with a smile that reads as hopeful. “Can I make one more suggestion?”
I roll my eyes with a smirk. “If you must.”
“At least let me get my mom to send takedown notices to any sites hosting the video. She’s an attorney,” Abigail explains. “Lots of times she can scare people with just the letterhead. You don’t have to do a thing or talk to anyone.”
Actually, that’s a great idea. I was dreading trying to figure all that shit out. If Abigail’s mother can just use her fancy law degree and make it go away, that’d be swell.
“I’d really appreciate it,” I say, my voice sounding annoyingly shaky. “And I do appreciate you coming over.”
“So…” She twists on her stool like a child. “We’re not sworn enemies anymore?”
“Maybe more like stepsisters.”
“I can live with that.”
41
Conor
A horn blares. Jolted, I snap up but make it only inches before my head slams into I don’t know what. I can’t feel my legs. Something is digging into my side. My arm is trapped under my body and the other one is numb, wedged under—
Another horn. Jarring. Earsplitting. A long succession of deafening wails.
Fuck me.
“Wake up, dickhead.”
The screaming horn stops. My head drops toward blinding light as I stare up at a bright blue sky and Hunter Davenport’s face. I realize then that I’m stuffed on the floor of the backseat of his Land Rover, my head now hanging out the open passenger door.
“The fuck?” I grumble, struggling to get my limbs or wits about me. But I’m unable to pry myself free of the tangled puzzle.
“We’ve been looking for you since last night, dipshit.”
Hunter grabs my arms and yanks me out of the SUV, then drops me in a heap on the pavement. With effort and tingles buzzing through every sleeping nerve, I climb to my feet and reach for the vehicle to prop myself up. My brain is blurry, eyes unfocused. My head erupts in pain. For a second I think I’ve got it under control. Then I sprint, unsteady and clumsy, to the grass to upchuck what tastes like Fireball, Red Bull, and Jäger.
I hate myself so much.
“Feel better?” Hunter asks cheerfully, handing me a bottle of water.
“No.” I take a few swigs, swish, and spit it out in the bushes. I know these bushes. I’m near my driveway. I don’t remember leaving the party across town, though. And I definitely don’t remember getting in Hunter’s car. Where’s my Jeep? “Wait. You said you’ve been looking for me?”
“Man, you went MIA last night.”
I check my pockets and find my keys, phone, and wallet. So at least I’m good in that department.
We go back to Hunter’s Rover and lean against the trunk while I take inventory of my last recollections. There was a house party at some friend of Demi’s. The guys were all there. We played beer pong, the usual. I remember pounding shots with Foster and Bucky. A girl. Shit.
“Where’d you go?” Hunter asks, apparently seeing the realization creep across my face.
“I made out with some chick,” I say half as a question.
“Yeah, we all saw. You two were all up on each other in the kitchen. Then you disappeared.”
Fuck. “She took me into one of the bedrooms. We were going at it, you know. Kissing and whatnot. Then she tried to get my pants off to blow me and I bugged out. Couldn’t do it.”
“Whiskey dick?”
“Limp as a piece of raw chicken.” I search my brain. “I think I sort of left her there.”
“Demi saw her come down, but we couldn’t find you after that,” Hunter tells me. “Nobody could. We all started calling. Fanned out looking for you.”
It’s all pretty fuzzy. There are gaps. Starts and stops of a jittery picture. “I left the house, I think, out the back. It was too crowded in the yard and I couldn’t find the gate in the fence, so I think I hopped it.”
I look down at my hands. They’re all scratched up and my jeans have a fresh tear in them. I look like I went rolling down the side of a mountain.
“Then I think I was going to walk home, but I couldn’t figure out which way I was pointed or where home was. I remember being real fucking confused about where I was, and I think my phone died, so I was like, fuck it, I’ll just wait for one of you to take me home. I don’t why, but I guess I crawled in your backseat.”
“Jesus, dude.” Hunter shakes his head, laughing at me. Rightly so. “I left the car at the party last night after we suspended the search. Demi and I walked home because we’d both been drinking. Foster called this morning and said you never came home, so I went back for my car so I could start driving around checking ditches for you. Found you in my backseat and drove you home.”
“Sorry, man.” This isn’t the first time I’ve woken up in a strange place after a night out. But it’s the first time it’s happened since I came to Briar. “Guess I got a little outta hand last night.”
“You’ve been a little outta hand all week.” Hunter turns to me, arms crossed. He’s got his captain’s face on. The I’m not your daddy but face. “Maybe it’s time to take it down a notch with the partying. I know I was Team Drink It Out of Your System before, but now I’m calling it. Going missing for twelve hours is the limit.”
He’s right. I’ve been out every night since Taylor dumped me. Knocking back drinks like it’s my job, trying to lose the memory of her in some other girl’s face. Only, it doesn’t work. Not for my heart and not for my dick.
I miss her. I miss only her.
“You should try talking to her again,” Hunter says gruffly. “It’s been a few days. Maybe she’s ready to come around.”
“I’ve texted her. She won’t text me back.” Probably blocked my number by now.
“Look, I can’t begin to understand what went wrong there. But when she’s ready I know you two can work it out. I don’t know Taylor well or anything, but anyone could see you were both happy together. She’s going through something. Like you were before.” He shrugs. “Maybe it’s her turn to figure stuff out.”
She already has. She finally figured out that she’s too damn good for me. I might be making strides to better my life, but I’m not there yet and Taylor knew it and she didn’t want to wait around, I guess. I almost don’t even blame her. What the fuck have I ever done for her aside from giving her some orgasms and standing her up at a dance?
I choke down the rush of bitterness that fills my throat. Hey, at least it’s not puke anymore.
“Anyway, whatever you need, man. You know I’m here for you.” Hunter pats me on the back then gives me a shove. “Now get the hell off my car. I’ve gotta go wash the piss out of the backseat.”
“Fuck off. There’s no piss there.” I pause. “Just some vomit maybe.”
“Asshole.”
“Thanks for the ride,” I say, laughing as I back away. “See ya later.”
I head into the house, where I take a ragging from the roommates about last night. Won’t be living this one down for a long time. They invite me to brunch at the diner, but I’m exhausted and I’ve got a shit ton of packing to do before I head back to Cali in a few days. So I go take a shower, and they go out and bring me back some waffles and bacon.
About an hour into laundry and packing boxes, our doorbell rings. The guys are deep into a video game, so I wander over to the front door and answer it.
On the other side I find half a dozen of Taylor’s Kappa sisters, led by the infamous Abigail.
Before I can get a word out, she says, “Truce. We’re on the same side.”
I blink. “Huh?”
I don’t invite her in so much as she invites herself. Plus the six other girls trailing behind. They march into the house and take a stance like a troupe of angry townsfolk in the middle of the
living room.
Foster gives me a wary look from the couch. “Hunter said no more parties.”
“Shut up, dumbass.” I focus on Abigail, who’s clearly the leader of this invasion. If it has something to do with Taylor, I want to hear it. “Why are you here?”
“Listen up.” She steps forward, hands on her hips. “Taylor didn’t dump you because she doesn’t love you anymore.”
“Oh snap!” Foster exclaims then buttons his lips when I shoot a warning glare at him.
“She dumped you because there’s a video going around of her from pledge week freshman year. It was never supposed to be public, but someone uploaded it to embarrass her. Now she’s humiliated and scared and she didn’t want you to know about it so she broke up with you first.”
“What kind of video?” I demand, confused with the vagueness of it. “And if she didn’t want me to know, why are you here?”
“Because,” Abigail says, “if I rip the Band-Aid off for her, maybe she’ll stop being afraid and fight back.”
If she means what she’s saying, I guess she isn’t quite the enemy anymore. No telling what brought on this sudden change of heart, but that’s another conversation entirely, and one I’m not sure is mine to have. I’m not ready to trust her completely, but this would be a hell of a long way to go to pull a prank.
“Fight back against what?” Matt asks from his spot in the recliner.
Good question. The other guys sit up, anxious and interested. The controllers and game are all but forgotten.
Abigail looks around awkwardly. “On the last night of pledge week, they had us in tank tops and underwear, and the seniors hosed us down while ordering Taylor and another girl to make out. They recorded it. Last week someone stole the video and posted it on a porn site. It’s…graphic. As in, you can see, you know, stuff.”
“Oh hell no.” Foster looks at me, eyes wide.
Motherfuckers. An overwhelming urge to punch a wall flashes through my mind, but I stop just short, remembering the last time I did that I hit a stud in the wall and broke my hand.