“Stop!” I screeched, pissed off.
I wasn’t even thinking about my parents. The only good thing about Gavin’s betrayal was that it took precedence over my nightmares.
“I’m not here to tell you what you want to hear, Scarlett. I’m here to help you.” She closed her notes. “Go home and think about why you are really holding back. And if it comes down to guilt or blame, think about it again until you have a concrete answer.”
I grabbed my things and left without a goodbye.
When I walked outside, I groaned when I saw Isaac parked next to me.
“Seriously!”
“I’m sorry. Please don’t put a restraining order on me. I’m just following orders.”
“Tell him to leave me alone!” I shouted at Isaac because I was frustrated. Then I thought better of it. “Sorry.”
He gave me a small smile. He then took some things out of his car.
“These are for you,” he said as he handed me a small box.
He seemed to hold his breath to see if I would take it or not. Curiosity got the best of me.
I took the box and drove home. When I parked in the driveway, I threw my head back, annoyed that the girls were all home. I could see their heads in the living room.
Making my way inside, I hoped for a quick getaway to my room, but the girls were sitting on the living room floor with bottles of wine.
“And she’s home,” Delia shouted.
“Hey,” I said, starting to make my way to my room.
“Not so fast.” Kenny sat up and made her way to me, guiding me to the living room and making me sit. “Join us.”
“I have shit to do,” I told them.
“Like what? Mope?” Audrey questioned.
I stayed quiet.
“Look, whatever happened with you and Gav, it’s not enough for you to act like the world ended. No dick is that big,” Delia told me.
The girls giggled.
“It’s not that.”
“Look, we’re your friends. I know that might be a foreign concept with a best friend like Gigi, but we are here to help with everything that brings you down.” Delia kept talking, and I just looked at Kenny and Audrey shaking their heads.
“Here.” Audrey handed me some wine. “You don’t have to tell us all of it. Just let us help you.”
I took a sip of wine and listened to them talk about cheer, their classes, boys. I stayed quiet and drank my wine, and they refilled me up again. I couldn’t shake these girls. At one point, I started giggling with them too.
“You don’t get it, Scar.” Kenny’s gaze was intense and on me. “Gigi ruined your date because Audrey and our coach decided to suspend her. Her grades have been slipping this year, and I guess seeing you with Gav got that bitch triggered.”
Delia screeched, “Triggerrrrrrred.”
But I had stopped paying attention. My stomach fluttered with relief knowing nothing happened with her and Gav, but that still didn’t change things about her miscarriage.
“It’s not that simple,” I found myself saying.
“But it is,” Audrey said. “Jesus, Scarlett, you need to stop letting other people define your happiness. You let Gigi define most of your life in high school. You joined dance because she wanted to cheer, you went to parties because she dragged you. It’s like ever since she got Gavin, you let her make the choices so you wouldn’t get hurt.”
My chest started to rise and fall, and Audrey’s voice mixed with my therapist. What are you so afraid of?
“You don’t get it,” I told them, clutching onto my wine.
“What is there to get? Gavin likes you, and you like him, the end,” Kenny stated.
“It’s not that simple.”
Delia rolled her eyes at me. “But it is.”
“We made her lose her baby,” I whispered.
“What?” Kenny shouted.
“Fuck,” Delia whispered.
“Explain,” Audrey said.
Because I was tipsy and I trusted them, I told them what I knew.
“That bitch!” Audrey got to her feet, pissed.
I looked up at her from where I sat on the floor.
“What happened?” Kenny asked the question I was thinking. I was already tipsy, and that made me chatty Cathy.
“If that’s true, it’s not your fault, Scar.” Audrey looked at me. “You were so lost in your grief senior year, and Gavin was lost in you. Neither of you noticed how much partying Gigi did. That bitch was drunk on prom night. If anyone is to blame, it’s her and not Gavin, and certainly not you.”
Everything was spinning. It could have been the wine or the news, but probably the wine.
“I’m going to be sick,” I said.
“I’m going to beat her skinny white ass!” Delia shouted angrily.
Kenny started to giggle. “You’re white too.”
“But I have a fat ass,” Delia added.
I couldn’t help but snort.
That’s when I noticed that they seemed sober except for me.
“Did you guys get me drunk?” I asked. Audrey was texting, but she gave me a guilty smile.
“You weren’t opening up to us.”
“Friends take care of each other. Always.” Delia put a pillow on her lap and patted it.
I felt tired. A type of tired that was from years of running. I laid my head on her lap while she played with my hair.
When I woke up, I was in my bed, and I wondered how I got there. I sat up, hugging my knees to my chest, and thought about what Audrey said. I needed to clear my head, so I changed into running gear.
When I walked out of the room, a shirtless Ollie was in the kitchen, grabbing some juice.
“Hey,” he greeted me.
I waved.
“I put you to bed and you can’t say thank you?” he teased. When I stayed quiet, he kept going. “You’re coming to our game Friday?”
“I don’t think so.”
“You should come. If we lose and people find out it’s because their wide receiver was moping over his girlfriend…well, things won’t be pretty.”
I shifted. “I’m not his girlfriend.”
“You keep telling yourself that,” he said before he went back to Delia’s room.
I watched him go. He had zero tattoos, and Delia looked like a work of art.
Shaking the conversation out of my head, I started to jog. I cleared my head, the same question on repeat. You keep punishing yourself for what? I wasn’t punishing myself. I wasn’t—but the more I told myself, the more it felt like a lie.
When I got home, I remembered the box Isaac had handed me yesterday at therapy and got it out of my car. I was walking into the house when Nick’s car stopped in the driveway. He was in running gear already.
“Damn, I came to see if you wanted to hit a trail with me,” he said by way of greeting. He came to me, hugged me, and kissed my head. “Feels like I haven’t seen you in forever. You’re good?”
“I’m okay,” I told him.
“What’s in the box?”
I stayed quiet, not sure what to tell him. For some reason I didn’t feel like lying. Nick motioned for me to sit on the front step of the house.
“You and Gavin, huh?”