by A. T Brennan
“You’re calling me a loser?” She smirked. “I’m only here for spring break. You’re the one who’s moved home at twenty-six.”
“It wasn’t by choice. You know I lost my job.”
“Yeah, and that sucks. But you’re also the one who was living the high life, overspending, and pretending you were some sort of high roller. How does all that debt feel now?”
“Fuck off. You’re going to have debt too.”
“School debt, not ‘I’m an idiot’ debt.”
“You have no idea what it’s like out there. The world isn’t your oyster, Jen. It’s not all rainbows and opportunities.”
“Maybe not, but what did you expect? You dropped out of college. You took a job in an unstable field and acted like there was some endless money pit while getting Mom and Dad to bail your ass out every other month. Now you’re home with more debt than I’ll ever see, and you have no prospects, no girlfriend, and no friends who seem to give a shit about you now that you’re here and not paying their way anymore.”
When she saw her brother’s disbelieving face she knew she’d gone too far.
She’d only been home for three days, and he was already driving her nuts. Because of their six-year age difference Dan had left home when she was twelve, and she hadn’t really seen all that much of him in the past eight years. She heard plenty about him and his screw-ups, but she hadn’t had to live with him for so long she’d forgotten just how annoying he could be. How he seemed to bring out the worst in her.
They weren’t close. They were as different as night and day, and they couldn’t seem to find any sort of common ground when they did have to see each other.
“Wow, Jen. Tell me how you really feel.”
“I’m sorry.” She shook her head. “I’m in a mood, and you pissed me off.”
“But you still think all those things about me?”
“I haven’t spent more than a few hours with you at any given time in almost eight years,” she pointed out. “All I really know about you is what people tell me.”
“You mean Mom and Dad.”
“No, they don’t actually tell me anything. They never have. Other people talk. I’m on your social media sites. I saw the crap you were posting.”
“Everyone lies online. Not everything you saw was true.”
“I know people lie, trust me. I learned that the hard way.”
“Wait, what?” He looked at her sharply. “What happened?”
“Nothing,” she said quickly.
“Jenna—”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Did someone hurt you?”
“You care?” She snorted derisively.
“Of course I care.” He looked right at her. “You’re my little sister. I care what happens to you even if we don’t get along most of the time. If some asshole hurt you, then you can tell me.”
She looked at him for a long moment, gauging to see if he was telling her the truth.
“I tried online dating.”
“A lot of people are doing it. Did something happen?”
“I didn’t get all that many quality guys messaging me. Most were creepy or assholes or just plain gross, but one guy seemed nice. He seemed cool and I met him.”
“Jenna, what happened?”
“He seemed like the real deal. He was nice, and he seemed to like me, and he wanted to meet again. We did and he was great, again.”
“Jenna?” he asked when she paused.
“We went out again, and he asked if I wanted to go to his place for coffee. To hang out longer.”
“Jenna, what did he do?”
“He kissed me. It was nice and I was fine with it, but he got really aggressive and when I tried to push him off he just kept going.”
“Did he rape you?” She’d never seen Dan look so angry and so concerned at the same time. It seemed he really did care.
“No, I managed to push him off and tried to leave. He got mad, told me how three dates and accepting coffee meant more than just kissing, and I left. I didn’t realize it, but apparently coffee meant sex.”
“Did you report him?”
“Yeah, right.” She snorted.
“Why not?”
“Who would believe me? He didn’t hurt me, he didn’t rape me—”
“He still assaulted you if he didn’t stop when you told him to.”
“Maybe I did lead him on—”
“No, you didn’t.” He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter if you’d gone to his house promising to fuck him and all of his friends at the same time. The moment you say no it ends. You always have a choice, Jenna.”
She just stared at him and felt tears prickling in her eyes.
She’d never told anyone about that night. She had no idea why she’d told her brother, but it had been bothering her for months. She’d been afraid no one would believe her, or they’d say she was being a bitch for even caring or thinking twice about it.
Since that night with Clay almost two years ago, she hadn’t been with another guy. For almost a year afterward she’d had no interest in being with someone. She’d spent a lot of time grieving and a lot of time in her own head trying to figure out why it had happened. She’d been an emotional mess, and she hadn’t wanted to bring anyone in or open up to anyone.
In the past six months she’d warmed up to the idea of having a boyfriend, had even started to want to have sex again, but she couldn’t seem to find any guys at school who she clicked with. That was when she’d tried Internet dating and that had been her first and only experience. Since October she’d kissed three guys and had only had a handful of dates.
After so many disappointments she was ready to give up. She had her friends; she didn’t need a guy to be happy.
“I’m so sorry that happened to you, Jenna, and I’m sorry you couldn’t tell me right away.”
“It’s not a big deal—”
“Yes, it is.” He cut her off. “It is a big deal, and you shouldn’t have had to go through that. I haven’t been the best brother, I know that, but I’m here for you if you need someone, okay? From now on you tell me if you’re hurting or if someone hurts you. That’s what brothers do—we take care of our sisters.”
“Thanks.” She gave him a real smile, touched by how concerned he was, and how kind he was being. They’d barely spoken in eight years, but maybe they were getting to the point in their lives where their age difference would start to shrink and they could connect as adults.
* * * *
Six days had never passed so slowly in her entire life.
Every other time she’d come home from school it had been her and her parents. Her parents worked and had lives so she’d pretty much had the run of the place. Now that Dan was back he was always around. She never had even a moment to herself unless she holed herself up in her old room or went out.
Her spring break seemed to be a week before everyone else’s, the same as it had been last year, so at the moment no one was home. They would all be coming in tomorrow, and she’d be heading back in a few days.
For a week she’d tried to find something to do every day to keep herself busy, but there were only so many times she could go shopping without buying something. Or go for a walk listening to music.
Kaylee had called her earlier in the day to tell her there was a party tomorrow night at Chase’s house. It would seem his parents were gone for a week, and he was inviting anyone from their graduating class who’d come home for break. Chase had hosted a party the year before, but she hadn’t been in the right headspace to go.
At the time she’d only been a few weeks away from when her due date had been, and she still hadn’t fully come to terms with the loss. As her due date had approached she’d found herself more and more distracted by it, and the week before, the day of, and the week after had been incredibly hard for her. She’d spent most of her last break faking a stomach flu so everyone would leave
her alone and not question why she wasn’t eating or looked so tired and ill.
This year she was going to go. She hadn’t seen anyone from high school since the summer. Even then she’d really only gone to a few parties and spent time with Kaylee—when Kaylee wasn’t busy with her summer boyfriend.
She was curious to see everyone. To see who was still in school, who was working, if anyone had gotten engaged or even married. She had a lot of people on her social media, but there were a lot of people missing and she was curious about them.
She hadn’t seen Clay since that night in his car. He hadn’t gone to any of the parties over the summer. She hadn’t seen him during winter break, and she didn’t even know where he worked or what he was doing. She did know he still lived in town, but she didn’t know anything else.
After almost two years she was curious, but she wasn’t going to seek him out. It seemed he’d shied away from the Internet, and while she’d searched for him online she hadn’t been able to find anything about him.
She didn’t hate him. She wasn’t even upset with him anymore. She was still a little hurt from the social fallout of their little tryst, but she wasn’t angry at him for what he’d done. If anything she was confused by how she felt. She wanted to know about him, wanted to see him again, but the thought of talking to him after lying to him, after going through what she had, was enough to make her anxiety kick in. She didn’t think she would be able to face him.
She’d always been passive-aggressive, but she was finding it harder and harder to stand up for herself and deal with her anxiety. She didn’t know if it was because of her life situation or if it was just her personality, but she found herself struggling a lot of the time when she’d never really had problems before.
School was stressful. Trying to fit in and keep friends and not be the loser in the dorm was hard. Keeping her grades up so she could keep her partial scholarship was wearing her down, and being alone was compounding the problem.
She had friends, but she didn’t have a best friend anymore. She and Kaylee were still friendly, but they were living separate lives in different cities and really only connected when they were home, and always on Kaylee’s schedule. She didn’t have that one friend she could call when she was freaking out, or hang out with on a Saturday night when she didn’t have anywhere to go. It was lonely, and being alone was making everything seem harder and making her feel as though she was slowly losing control.
At least she had the party to look forward to. She had one more day of occupying herself and trying not to rip her brother’s head off. Then she could go to the party, see everyone again, and a few days later she would be back in school and back to her life, even if it was a lonely one.
* * * *
“I’m not going.” Clay shook his head and shifted the phone to his other ear as he looked down at the pages in front of him.
“Come on. You never want to do anything when I’m home.”
“I told you I didn’t want to go to any stupid reunion things. I never said I didn’t want to do anything.”
“Just this one. I’m here for like, a week. Just one party.”
“Tanya, I hate those things. You know I hate those things.”
“Come on, just an hour. I want everyone to see us together.”
“We’re not together.”
“We are when I’m home.”
He just sighed and put the clipboard down. There was no way he was winning this argument, or reading the invoice with her talking his ear off.
“If you don’t go to this with me, then you can forget about seeing me this week. I can find someone else to hang out with.”
“Really, you think that’s going to make me bend to your will?”
“An hour, just one hour.”
“Fine, one stupid hour, and then I’m leaving, with or without you.”
“Fine.”
“Glad we understand each other.”
“Pick me up at eight.”
“Fine.”
“Great.”
The connection went dead in his hand, and he sighed as he hung up.
“Why do you do this to yourself, man?” Ian asked, and Clay just glanced over at his mentor.
“What do you mean?”
“For over a year I’ve seen you jump whenever this girl says so, and all you do is complain about how much you dislike how she treats you.”
“I don’t know.” He shook his head. “I honestly don’t know why.”
“Are you doing it because she’s available and you have no one else?”
“Probably.” He nodded. “And she’s familiar.”
“The devil you know isn’t always the best devil to mess with.”
“Yeah, I know you’re right.”
“Being alone isn’t the worst thing.”
“I’ve been alone for a long time. No one ever seems to want to stick around,” he pointed out.
“Think about this. If you’re so busy dealing with Ms. Wrong, you could pass right by Ms. Right without even seeing her.”
“How’d you get so smart?” Clay shook his head, grinning as he looked over at Ian.
“Two divorces and a lot of alimony.”
He just laughed as Ian pointed to the invoice in his hand.
“Finish up, and think about what I said.”
“About the alimony or the devil?”
“Both, because one will eventually lead to the other.”
* * * *
Jenna wasn’t in the best mood.
It wasn’t anyone’s fault, not even her own. Her parents were being great, even Dan was making a point to be nice to her, but when she’d woken up she’d been in a funk and she was having a hard time shaking it.
She didn’t even want to go to the party anymore, but Kaylee wanted her there and she couldn’t think of a valid excuse. She would go to the stupid party.
She was glad she’d already figured out what she was going to wear because at that moment she really didn’t care to expend the energy deciding.
She pulled on a pair of skinny jeans and a loose top with a slightly asymmetrical cut. It wasn’t exactly in style, but she liked how the blue of the shirt set off her eyes and it was comfortable. She put on a pair of flats and went to go find her brother. It might be lame, but he’d agreed to drive her down on his way out so she wouldn’t have to worry about driving. If she couldn’t find someone to catch a ride home from, she could always call a taxi.
She had to wait about twenty minutes for Dan to finish getting ready and spent the time talking with her mom. She was trying to boost her mood, and her mom always seemed to know what to say when she was feeling down. She really appreciated everything her parents did, and she was really starting to get closer with her mom. After so many years of feeling as though she didn’t understand and couldn’t connect with her, it was nice to finally start having an adult relationship with her parents.
The drive over was relatively quick, and by the time she was climbing out of the car she could see this party was going to be a lot tamer than the ones from the summer. A lot of people went away on spring break, or stayed at school, so it wouldn’t be as big of a crowd as it had been in the summer when nearly everyone had come home.
She took a deep breath, shouldered her purse, and walked into the house, trying to find Kaylee.
She found her in the living room, and surprisingly she was alone.
“Hey, girl, I almost gave up on you,” Kaylee said as she gave her a big hug and a bigger smile.
“Hi, yeah, I got a little sidetracked.” Jenna took her coat off and put it on a stack of other coats on a nearby chair.
“It sucks you have to leave tomorrow. I just got here.”
“True, but that just means you’ll have a week with lover boy and not have to worry about me trying to steal your time.”
“True.” Kaylee laughed. “But I still miss you.”
“I miss you too, Kayl. Where i
s lover boy, if I might ask?”
“He went off with a few guys from the team, said he’d be back.”
She just raised her eyebrow at Kaylee. It wasn’t like her to let a guy just leave her alone at a party.
“I knew you were coming, and I wanted to hang out with you.” Kaylee smiled.
“That means a lot to me.” Jenna grinned. “So, tell me everything about your life, and don’t spare a single detail.”
Kaylee just laughed and nodded to her purse. “I hope you brought enough for two.”
“You know I did.” She grinned and pulled out two large water bottles filled with a mixture of vodka and soda. “Careful with the tops, I might have shaken them around a bit.”
Kaylee just laughed, and they both gripped the top of their bottles, only twisting them open a fraction in hopes of venting off some of the built-up carbonation and avoid a vodka/soda volcano.
* * * *
“You’re late,” Tanya said sulkily as she slid into his car.
“Not really. You said eight.” He waited for her to close the door and put on her seatbelt before he put the car in gear. “It’s eight.”
“If you were a real man, you would have shown up early, shown me some courtesy.”
“A real man keeps his word. I said eight, not before eight.” He resisted the urge to roll his eyes at her. It seemed she was in another one of her moods.
“Whatever. Let’s just get there.”
“That’s what I’m doing,” he muttered.
He was still thinking about what Ian had said at the shop. Every time Tanya was in town she called him and he gave in. He told himself he was done with her every time she left to go back to school, but then she’d call him up and he’d give in.
It wasn’t even the sex. Most of the time they didn’t even hook up. She just wanted him on her arm, and there wasn’t a whole hell of a lot of private time together.
He guessed he put up with it for the companionship.
He was lonely. There was no way around it. He’d finished his program at school, and now he worked full time to get his certification, and he worked extra hours to afford to live. He was busy. He didn’t get a lot of time to meet people, and his coworkers were all older and in different places in their lives.