Pregame

by Taylor Wade

  Jade and Luke were still gone so I silently made my way from the kitchen and back to Wes’s room to grab my purse and shoes and wordlessly walked out of the apartment. I refused to look over at Wes on my way out but I could feel his gaze on my back as I walked past.

  When I got outside I made it to the bottom of the walkway stairs before realizing I needed to find a ride. I sat on the last step and grabbed my cell phone from my purse and dialed Elle’s number silently praying for her to pick up. As I got her voicemail I sighed knowing that she and Colin wouldn’t be up this early after going out the night before. I called Savanna but the call went straight to voicemail. I had two options: I could call Gabe or I could call Jade. They were the only other people that I knew well enough from the campus to give me a ride. Unfortunately, Jade was here, and I didn’t want to even speak to Gabe just yet, never mind ask him to pick me up at Wes’s apartment of all places.

  I checked my wallet hoping that I would have enough money for a cab since I wasn’t sure where Wes’s apartment was in relation to mine. I had left my debit card at the apartment in case I were to lose my wallet and all I had on me was eight dollars and a couple of pennies. I looked up the number of the cab company that all of the university students used, figuring that I could just grab my visa from the apartment when I got back. Problem solved.

  I dialed the number to the local cab company and was placed on hold, stuck listening to elevator music as I waited for the customer service representative to get my location to send a cab.

  “Brookelyn.”

  I turned to see Wes strolling down the walkway now fully dressed with a ball cap on his head and his car keys in his hands.

  “I know, I’m leaving, I just have to wait for a cab. I’m on the phone with the cab company now.”

  He sighed. “C’mon let me give you a ride. I’m not making you take a cab back because I was being a jackass. I shouldn’t have kicked you out like that or called you a stuck up bitch. I’m Sorry.”

  He stood in front of me, looking down at me from where I sat. He held out his hand for me to take, and I grabbed onto it as he pulled me up from the step.

  “Are you sure? No one’s awake right now to pick me up but I’m fine with getting a cab, really.” He just shook his head as if it wasn’t a problem and gestured to his truck. I smiled to myself when we walked around to his side without opening my door. He wasn’t trying to impress me or act like a gentleman. He was just being himself, which was truly refreshing.

  As he backed out of the driveway I looked over at him and the relaxed way he sat with one hand on the steering wheel and the other propped on the middle consol. He had a natural coolness about him that wasn’t practiced or pretended.

  “Thank you, Wes. I’m sorry about accusing you like that. It wasn’t right.”

  He didn’t turn his eyes from the road but a smiled a small smile. “It’s all good, don’t worry about it.”

  I gave him directions to my apartment, which turned out to be only a few streets over from his place.

  “Besides, you did me a favor.” I looked over at him and crooked my head, confused.

  “When Jade came back out of Luke’s room she was ready kick my ass and that was before she noticed you were gone.” He explained.

  I thought about Jade’s reaction to Emmy and the possibility that Wes was dating her.

  “What was up with that, anyways? Why’d she get so upset?”

  Wes sighed as he pulled in front of my building and placed the car in park before looking over at me.

  “Jade and Emmy are from the same town so they’ve known each other for a long time. The rest is Jade’s story to tell, not mine.” I understood, and I also appreciated his silence. There was clearly a better side to Wes than what was depicted in Gabe’s story.

  I grabbed my purse and thanked Wes again and stepped out the car.

  “Brookelyn?”

  I stopped walking and turned back to peer back inside the truck at Wes through the lowered window. He was wearing that boyish grin and my heart hammered in my chest despite myself.

  “You’re too good for him.”

  Before I could even process what he’d said, Wes drove away, leaving me more confused than ever.

  SIX

  “You know, for someone who has sworn off all men, you sure have two very hot ones wrapped around that little finger of yours.”

  I looked up from my textbook at Elle as she worked out math equations in her notebook.

  “No one is wrapped around my finger. I haven’t seen or spoken to Gabe since the party or Wes since he dropped me off Sunday morning.” I rolled my eyes at my best friend. “And I haven’t ‘sworn off all men.’ I’m just protecting myself.”

  “From what?! Brooke, if you keep letting what happened stop you from being with either of them,” she paused, “or both of them, then he wins. Don’t let that bastard win.”

  “I’m not going to let him win, Elle, but I’m also not going to force myself to be with someone.” She opened her mouth to argue but I stopped her. “Besides, if I was going to get into a relationship it wouldn’t be with either of them.”

  “Yeah, you’re right. I hate to admit it, but you are.” Elle sighed, stuffing her calculator and notebook into her backpack. “Gabe lost his chance when he got wasted off of his ass and called you Emmy and Wes doesn’t seem like the boyfriend type.”

  I was surprised at how easily Elle backed down. When I had gotten back to the apartment on Sunday and gave her a rundown on what happened after she left the party she was no longer Team Gabe and instead declared herself Team Wes.

  The past few days went by slowly and I found myself getting bogged down with work as the semester drew on. The time I spent in the library made it easier to avoid Gabe who hadn’t yet stopped texting and leaving me voicemails apologizing for the party and asking if we could talk. I also hadn’t seen Wes anywhere on campus or even at the athletic center when I went to work out with Elle. I was annoyed by the fact that I found myself looking for him and was then bothered when I didn’t see him. I kept thinking about what he said when he dropped me off but finally decided that he didn’t mean anything more than to let me know how little he thought of Gabe.

  Elle stood up from the table and grabbed her bag blowing me a kiss as she hurried off to her Biology class. It was only noon and I didn’t have class for another hour so I decided to text Jade and see if she wanted to meet up for coffee before our psychology class. She responded letting me know that she was already near the school’s coffee shop and that she’d save us a table.

  I looked around the quad as I left the library hoping to avoid seeing Gabe and was relieved to see that he wasn’t anywhere nearby. I got to the coffee shop a few minutes later and spotted Jade at a corner table, smiling as she looked at her phone.

  I dropped my bag in the seat across from her and went over to the counter to order an iced coffee. As I was adding sugar to my coffee a shadow fell across me and I looked up to see Emmy leaning against the wall with her arms crossed just staring at me. I was surprised to see that she was wearing a cardigan with ballet flats and a diamond pendant around her neck. This girl looked so different from the one that was with Wes last weekend that I wondered if I had mistaken her for someone else.

  She flipped her curly brown hair over a shoulder and leveled me with an icy glare.

  “So you’re Gabe’s new plaything?” she emphasized the last word, venom dripping from each syllable.

  “I’m not Gabe’s anything, don’t worry.” I rolled my eyes as she began to smirk, satisfied with my answer.

  “Yeah, that makes sense. He always said that he could never get serious with a girl he couldn’t take home to meet his mother.” Her smirk turned into a fake sugary smile, her voice seemingly friendly to anyone who overheard the conversation.

  I mirrored her actions, “hmm, I wonder what his mother thought of you after you slept around behind his back.”

  Fury flashed in her eyes and she dropped the façad
e, leaning into my face. I appeared amused by the confrontation knowing that it would only get to her more but inside I was fuming. How dare she come up to me and act like that. I’d never even formally met the bitch!

  “I heard about what happened after I left the party on Saturday.” She took a step back but her eyes remained glued to mine, unblinking. “Stay away from Wes. I won’t tell you twice.”

  With that, before I could come up with anything to say back, she turned on her heels and walked out of the coffee shop.

  “Was the Emmy that you were just talking to?” Jade questioned when I got back to the table.

  “Yes, but I wasn’t talking to her so much as she was talking to me.” I gave her a run down on the conversation, or should I say confrontation, but then wondered if I should’ve kept it to myself seeing the pure hatred all over Jade’s smooth completion.

  “God, I hate the bitch. I can’t believe she told you to stay away from Wes as if she has some claim to him. They’ve hooked up all of three times! I swear, if he keeps hanging out with her I will never speak to him again.”

  It was odd to see Jade like this. Other than her brief outburst Sunday morning, I was used to her laidback personality. I wondered why there was so much hostility between the two girls but I decided that if she wanted to than Jade would tell me.

  After a few minutes of silence between us as we both sipped our drinks Jade finally spoke up. I finished typing out my response to Skyler who was checking up on me as usual and braced myself. I knew that whatever Jade was about to tell me was significant. She wasn’t the type of person to make a big deal out of something small.

  “Emmy and I are from the same town. We’ve known each other since I was five, and she was six. Our mothers were in a book club together and so whenever the club would meet, Emmy would come with her mom and she’d play with my sister, Jenna, and me. Jenna was a year older than me and so they were in the same grade. As we all got older Jenna and Emmy became more distant. Emmy became friends with the mean girls in our town who had always picked on the two of them until they decided Emmy could join their group.”

  Jade took a deep breath and I saw the sadness in her eyes and it broke my heart. I reached across the table and took hold of her hand, giving it a gentle squeeze.

  “You don’t have continue, Jade. I can see it’s hard for you to talk about.”

  “No,” Jade shook her head and I could see her forcing back the unshed tears in her eyes. “I want to tell you. I want you to understand.”

  I nodded and gave her a minute to collect herself before she continued. When she spoke again, her voice was shaky.

  “I was only a freshman at the time and I was unaware of what my sister was going through. They teased her, bullied her, and pushed her around. She never said a word, not even to me. She was beautiful and all of the boys would ask her out and I knew that the girls were jealous of her. I just didn’t know how far that jealousy would take them. I found out later that the girls forced Emmy to tell them all of Jenna’s secrets or they threatened her that they’d kick her out of their group. So, Emmy told them everything, and they told everyone else. Eventually, Emmy became worse than all three of the other girls combined. She would trip Jenna in the hallways and call her names. My sister was so strong. She had never let them know that they were hurting her, but at the same time, that strength made her a more desirable target.

  The day I found out what Emmy and her friends had been doing to my sister I skipped the rest of my classes that day and ran home. I was so furious and scared for my sister that the six miles between my house and the high school didn’t even faze me. I got home and found my mother baking Jenna and my favorite confetti cupcakes with pink frosting. I told her everything. I told her about the rumors and the secrets and how they tortured Jenna and were sometimes even physical with her. My mother got on the phone with the principal of the school a few minutes later and started demanding that school officials step in or she’d call the authorities. This all happened before anti-bullying laws were passed and so there was nothing that the school could do except suspend each girl for a few days. I didn’t hear about anymore bullying when the girls returned to school and the next few weeks Jenna had begun smiling more and acting like her old self again.”

  Jade’s voice was stronger now and instead of tears, her eyes were filled with hatred so strong that I’d only ever seen it before in my own eyes, when I thought of Jesse.

  “One day, not long after, Jenna hadn’t been feeling well and so my parents let her stay home from school. They both had to work but left soup and crackers and ginger ale…anything that she would need to feel better. I remember getting off of the bus at the corner of my street and making my way to my house, all the while I was excited, hoping that Jenna was feeling better so we could bake those damn confetti cupcakes.

  When I got to the end of my driveway there were three police cars and two ambulance trucks. I remember worrying that Jenna was sicker than we realized and maybe had something more serious than the flu. But then I saw her being wheeled from the house on a stretcher. There was blood everywhere.”

  Jade’s voice started to crack and I could tell she was suppressing a sob. I squeezed her hand again to let her know that I was here for her and she took another deep breath.

  “There was so much blood. My mom was sobbing and my dad, who never cries, had tears running down his face as he made phone calls. They took Jenna to the hospital and I found out later that she had slit her wrists.”

  “Jade…” I whispered, my vision blurry with unshed tears for my friend and what she’d gone through. “I am so, so sorry for your loss. I can’t imagine what you’ve gone through.”

  She shook her head and wiped away at the tears that had escaped. “She isn’t dead, Brookelyn.”

  “But you talked about her like…” I said, confused.

  “My sister died that day but she still breathes. She sits in a mental institution and doesn’t say a word to anyone twenty-four/seven. My sister is gone. She slit her wrists, but Emmy might as well have given her the knife.”

  I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t say anything at all. Instead, I brought my chair next to Jade’s and held her as she cried for her sister. I understood what it was like to lose someone yet have them be still be there. Jade had lost her sister, just like I had lost myself.

  ~~~~

  We decided that we should skip today’s psychology lecture and go get pedicures instead. I had already done the next two assignments for the class so I wasn’t nervous about missing one day, and I knew that after everything we had talked about, Jade was in need of some pampering.

  Elle had finished her last class of the day around the time that we were making plans and so I invited her to tag along, and as I had figured, Jade and Elle got along great. By the time we had parted ways, Jade had agreed to meet up with us the following night at Dusty’s. While Jade was oblivious, I knew that Elle had ulterior motives, despite her earlier declaration about Wes. Elle knew that Jade would bring Luke along and that meant that there was a decent chance that Wes would be there as well.

  “Did we not talk about this already today?” I asked as we drove back to our apartment.

  “I take it back! I was talking to Colin and it turns out that he and Wes are actually really good friends. They’re both in Zeta Pi!” I chuckled at her excitement as she continued. “Plus, Colin said he’s actually a really good guy. Yeah, a little rough around the edges but that’s kind of sexy. Why not go for it?”

  “End of conversation, Elle.” She whined, as I got out of the car and headed towards our door. I wasn’t surprised that Savanna was nowhere in sight. She hadn’t been around much this past week and between studying and her sexual escapades with her new boy toy we rarely spoke except for a few text messages here and there.

  “I’m gonna hop in the shower and then do some more work. Did you want to order in tonight?”

  Elle popped her head into my room. “Yes! Can we get Chinese? Please say
yes.”