by Mary Martel
Monica gasped as her hand flew up to cover her mouth and her admittedly big, pretty, green eyes began to fill with tears. I hated it when girls cried. Especially pretty ones. They reminded me too much of my mother when I was a little boy. It was the stuff of a little boy’s nightmares, that was for sure. And I didn’t like the reminder. Not today of all days.
“You dick!” Belinda hissed like an angry wet cat, and I was glad to hear the slur from earlier missing from her words. “This is a hard day for everyone, you don’t need to take your hurt and your anger out on the rest of us. Jesus, Riley, we’re your friends, for shit’s sake. We were Gin’s friends too! We all—”
I cut her off.
Her blustering was just a small part of the rest of the bullshit I could no longer take.
“Shut up, Belinda.” Her mouth snapped closed and her eyes bugged out. I leaned down into her face and whispered in a harsh tone I didn’t think I’d ever used on a female before. “Now you want to talk to me about how you and Gin were such good friends? About how much you loved her, really fucking loved her? You’re forgetting just who in the hell you’re talking to. You’re forgetting I know all of your secrets, and you should really think twice before you speak to me like that ever again.”
Fat, salty tears spilled out of Belinda’s eyes and trailed down her rosy cheeks. More fucking tears. Christ, I wanted to strangle the life right out of her. At least these tears weren’t fake and attention seeking. Still, I did not enjoy seeing them.
Belinda cringed away from me as if I’d physically struck her. The tears came faster and faster as Jason rushed to her side to comfort her. Jason wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her front into his much bigger side. She went willingly and my lip curled in disgust as she hurriedly wrapped her arm around his middle.
Yeah, our friendship was more than over and would never be whole again.
“Come on, man,” Jason said as he glared at me over the top of her head. “You two have been friends a long time. There’s no reason to treat her like that. Don’t do shit you’ll regret later just because you’re hurting now. We get it. You and Gin were best friends. But so were Belinda and Gin too. You’re not the only one here hurting, and you need to realize you aren’t the only person here who lost someone important to them. We all did. And we’re all going to grieve differently. So Belinda’s decided to get trashed and let loose a little. Who gives a fuck? At least she’s doing it here where she’s safe and amongst friends. Or she was before you showed up here and shut that shit down. Now we’re here and you need to stop being a fucking mega dick to your goddamn friends before you find yourself with none left.”
At this point, if these were the kinds of friends I’d be left burdened with, then I was pretty sure I didn’t want them.
Belinda began to visibly shake in Jason’s arms, and I couldn’t blame her. We both knew what was inevitably coming, and only one of us quaked at the thought of it. That someone was most definitely not me.
A cruel smile graced my lips, and I knew it was probably ugly and terrifying at the same time to look at. The blood drained out of Belinda’s face, leaving her pale and shaky as she slipped out of Jason’s arms.
Jason’s face morphed to a mask of utter confusion. “Babe? What are you doing? Get back here.” He turned in the direction she’d been backing into and reached out for her. She shook her head frantically and kept backing away.
Babe?
That one word on the tip of my tongue left a sour taste in my mouth even when not uttered.
When had they graduated to using pet names for each other over the course of the day, and did she have one for him as well? Any other day months from now I might not have found that so repulsive. It was the final nail in the coffin that made me ultimately snap.
“Babe,” I sneered at her, and she took another step backwards as she wrapped her arms around herself protectively. “You’ve got a lot of nerve, bitch. We’re at Gin’s fucking house, and you’re doing this. You’ve forced my hand and have no one to blame besides yourself. I want you to remember that later when you’re bitter and looking back at this moment in your life, thinking about how much you hate me.”
I lifted my hand and waved it slowly around in between the two of us. The rest of the room faded away into a haze until just Belinda and I remained in my sights. And my sights were locked in on her as if she were my prey.
I no longer gave a fuck that she was a pretty girl who cried big, fat tears. She no longer reminded me of my mother, and I couldn’t even believe she ever had, no matter the tears.
“Please,” she whispered urgently, while still backing up in order to get as far away from me as she possibly could. “Don’t. Don’t do this to me. It will ruin me. If my parents find out they’ll disown me and I’ll have nothing. They’ll kick me out of the house, Riley. You know how they are. Please, if you ever gave a shit about me or our friendship, you won’t do this to me. To us. Because if you do, I won’t be able to be friends with you ever again. This will be the end of that. You’ll force my hand.”
She raised her hand and swiped angrily at her wet cheeks with the back of it. The tears had thankfully stopped but they left a mess behind.
“Think about Gin, Riley,” she urged in a whiny voice that grated on my nerves.
I clenched my teeth painfully to keep from snapping at her. Gin was all I was thinking about. Well, her and her mint-haired twin. They were both front and center in my mind in a way I figured one of them always would be for the near future.
“Think about what this will do to Gin, Riley. She’s dead and you’re going to tarnish her reputation, and it’s really nobody’s business. Don’t do this to her. Think about how her mother would feel if she were to learn this. You think about that, what you’re going to do to your precious Gin. And don’t you dare think I missed how you were looking at her sister today,” she spat out. “It’s disgusting, and here you are, standing there telling me I ought to be ashamed of myself. Take a good long look in the mirror, Riley, before you go around judging me. I don’t need any more of your hypocritical bullshit coming my way. Why don’t you think about what I lost and stop being such a selfish prick and thinking only about yourself.”
Yeah, keep talking, sweetheart. Dig your own grave.
I could feel the disgust and confused anger start to radiate off of the people around us. I hadn’t lied when I said they were here because they’d loved Gin. She’d been easy to love and way more popular than the girl standing in front of me.
“Gin didn’t give a fuck what people thought about her sexuality,” I said loud enough for everyone to hear, and watched in satisfaction as Belinda went from pale to green in two seconds flat. “She liked girls, big fucking deal. The only reason she kept that secret is because the one she was in love with was you, and you have a problem with people knowing your sexuality. Don’t put that shit off on her. And who gives a fuck if her mom doesn’t like it? She’s dead, there isn’t shit you can do to her now. The only person you’re hurting here in this situation is clearly you.”
I turned on Jason and grabbed him by the collar, fisting my hand in his shirt. He was breathing angrily through his nose, his nostrils flaring out wide with each inhale he took. What he didn’t do was try to jerk out of my grasp. His eyes were locked on Belinda, and it was almost like he didn’t even see me or notice I was there, right up in his face.
“What’s he talking about?” Jason growled at Belinda. “What was going on between you and Gin? You better answer my damn questions right now, Belinda. You owe me that much and we both know it.”
“Jason, don’t.”
I let go of him and stepped back in shock. Not Jason too. I knew she’d fooled around with guys all the time and cheated on Gin, but it had never been with someone we’d been friends with. Not someone tight in our friendship group. That was taking things too far, even for Belinda. It usually went down at parties and with kids from out of town who were there to get drunk after a football game or some shi
t. But never Gin’s actual friends.
“What was going on between you and Gin, Linds?” Jason demanded, and even though I had wanted this to come out to fuck with Belinda, I had a sick feeling in my gut now that we were actually here and had made it to this point.
“They’ve been together since freshman year,” I shared helpfully. “As a couple. They shared words of love and had their whole entire futures mapped out together. Belinda didn’t want people to know she was dating a girl, so Gin kept it on the hush-hush, need to know just for her. That’s how much she loved her. She would have done anything for Belinda, and yet here the bitch is on the day we put her body in the ground, getting frisky with you. Tell me something, Jason, how long have you two been hooking up? From this little show you’re putting on now, it would appear like things have been going on a whole lot longer than just today.”
“They’ve been hooking up since homecoming,” one of Jason’s football buddies threw out there.
Good Christ, it was a whole lot worse than I thought.
“Did Gin know?” I snapped at Belinda. I prayed to a god I wasn’t even sure I believed in that my girl had not found out about this betrayal before she died.
A gut-wrenching sob escaped Belinda and the tears were back on. The total look of devastation on her face was answer enough, and I knew Gin had figured it out.
“When?” I ground out viciously. “When did your girlfriend find out you were sleeping with one of her good friends?”
Belinda crumpled to a heap on the floor. Her dress rode up indecently. Nobody moved forward to lend her a helping hand this time, and her bare ass cheeks were on display for all to see. A thong might have been a good idea to make sure there were no lines on her ass in her dress, but in this situation it left her exposed to the rest of us. She was either too drunk or too deep into her own bullshit to care.
“What’s it matter now?” she wailed pathetically as she sobbed into her hands. “It’s over and there’s no going back.”
Jason spit at her feet, and for a second there his face morphed to something so ugly he looked like he might even kick her. I didn’t care. At this point I figured she even deserved it, and I sure as shit wouldn’t step in to put a stop to it.
Jason crouched down in front of her and his body practically vibrated at the violence he was attempting to keep contained. He swiped her hands away from her face and grabbed ahold of her chin, forcing her to look up at him.
“It matters to me,” he whispered in a harsh voice. “Goddamn you, how could you think it wouldn’t matter to me is beyond me. I love... loved her and I would never have wanted to do anything to hurt her, not someone like Gin. She helped me when my sister needed a place to stay to get away from her abusive boyfriend. She had someone...” He hesitated briefly before continuing, “Now I’m thinking she had her sister take care of mine and get her somewhere safe. I had no one else to turn to and couldn’t afford to get her out on my own, so I asked Gin and she didn’t hesitate to take care of it for me. I tried to pay her back, and she refused to accept any form of payment from me. She said that’s what friends were for and she’d have my back whenever I needed her to.”
He paused, swallowed thickly, and looked away from Belinda. “I never would have touched you had I known. Not fucking ever.”
He let go of her chin as if her skin had burned him. He stood up quickly and looked at me over his shoulder. “You gotta know, Riley, I never would have done anything to hurt Gin. I loved her too. She might not have been my best friend like she was yours, but she sure meant a whole lot to me.”
I nodded as I clapped my hand on his shoulder. “We’re good, man. No hard feelings from me, but I’m going to ask you to do something, and if you can’t then I don’t see us being able to keep on being friends after this.”
He turned around and put his back to Belinda, completely shutting her out and blatantly ignoring the sobbing mess she’d turned into. “Anything.”
I nodded, believing him. “Belinda is out. She might be breathing, but she’s as good as dead when it comes to our crew. I want the word spread that no one is to even so much as talk to her in passing. Not a fucking phone call or a text picked up and responded to. Hell, I’d be happy if people just went ahead and blocked her number from their phones permanently. No hanging out with her or even going to the goddamn mall with her. She’s done and that goes for more than just the summer. When we hit school again in September, she’s a ghost. You down with all of that?”
His answer was important to me, because if he said no, then that would be the death of our friendship as well.
“Consider it done.”
His words and tone left no room for questioning, and without a doubt, I believed him.
With that, he gathered up his two football buddies and left with them. That left me with Monica and a sobbing Belinda.
Not a place I really wanted to be, so I took a page out of the football players book and I left as well.
My feet carried me to the only place I really did want to be, and that led me to Gin’s bedroom door, where I stood mooning over a girl I didn’t even know and probably had no shot in hell at getting.
Still, that didn’t stop me from sitting on my ass just beside the door with my legs stretched out in front of me and my head resting back against the uncomfortable wall.
It was a long and restless night for me where I got no sleep but none of that mattered. All that mattered was that Gem hadn’t been disturbed in any way, and I got myself out of there before she came back out again the next day.
All the while, I died a little on the inside knowing she was in there with that creepy fucking whack job.
Chapter Four
It’s Been A Long Day
Gem
Two days later, my dad had a heart attack and dropped dead.
God, for whatever reason, had decided he hated my guts, and I clearly needed to be punished for something. I had no clue what, but I figured since my life had already gone to hell, I’d embrace my inner demon. We’d keep each other warm at night, and I’d roll with it.
The world appeared to be all about kicking me when I was down.
What was the worst thing that could happen? I’d already lost the most important person in my life, so fuck it.
Three days later, I found myself sitting in another uncomfortable metal folding chair under a canopy that had been put up to keep us all out of the rain. It had also been up a week ago when we’d been right here in this exact same place, but then it’d been up to keep the sun at bay.
Fuck holding up an umbrella, money really could buy you whatever you wanted, and no way was my snob of a mother holding up an umbrella for the duration of her ex’s graveside funeral. She simply couldn’t be bothered. Besides, her dainty wrist might snap under the weight of the thing, seeing as she was so thin she looked like she’d stopped eating about roughly five or six years ago.
My ass was even in a chair in the same place as it had been last time. My mother sat beside me, and since my father was dead, there was no one to put between the two of us to act as a buffer.
Franks sat in a chair directly behind me and beside a sobbing nanny. I couldn’t blame the woman for crying. Her meal ticket had just been punched for the last time, but at least she’d been fortunate enough not to have had children with the man.
Now the two women seated beside that particular nanny were not crying, and they were both the mothers of three of my half-siblings. They were holding hands and clinging to each other. But there were absolutely no tears in sight. They thought that because of their children, they’d actually just traded their meal ticket in for a golden one, and once the will was read, they’d be raking in the dough.
Joke was on them. Illegitimate children did not count in the grand scheme of things, and I would not be surprised if he had more of those little bastards out there running around. My dad had not acknowledged these women’s children publicly, even though they’d lived with us and he’d loved them very much. In our h
ome, and away from the eyes of the world, they had been his children. But outside? Not so much.
He never went to their school programs or conferences. If they got injured and had to be taken to the hospital, my father had expected their mothers to phone in with updates, but he was not there holding hands and making sure everything was okay.
It was fucked up, but it had worked for them and the women had never complained. I bet if the one who was now bawling her eyes out had a kid with my old man, she’d have complained when she went down and he let them fly on their own. Probably why she didn’t have any kids so far. The man was smart, I’d give him that.
There’d be plenty of complaining later coming from all of them when they found out everything my dad had was left to Gin and me. With Gin being dead and all, it would all become mine. I didn’t care about the money. What I cared about was the constant headache I knew I was bound to end up with when these women turned to me with their hands held out expectantly.
I certainly wasn’t feeling the love for my dad as the same pastor who had waxed poetic at Gin’s funeral droned on and on. I noticed he didn’t hold up his own umbrella either. He had a younger, similarly dressed, and far more attractive minion do it for him.
Insanely, I wondered why my mother didn’t have minions. Then it hit me she actually did. Her house staff. Driver. Landscapers. Assistants. Probably someone to wipe her ass for her if she didn’t feel like it. If she could pay someone to do it for her so she didn’t actually have to do anything for herself, then she did.
So she totally had minions.
I jumped at the soft touch of her hand landing on mine. I didn’t look at her while I turned my hand over until we were palm against palm, and I threaded my fingers through hers. Her grip turned so tight it caused me pain and I winced. What I didn’t do, but desperately wanted to, was pull away and shove her away from me. Instead, I held on tighter, taking small comfort in her own wince of pain. But she didn’t let me go either.