6. Jenna #2
“I can’t believe you just left like this,” I choke out.
“After everything we’ve been through, after everything you put me through.
Now you’re just dead . I can’t believe—” My chest is heaving now.
I feel a full-on panic attack coming. “I can’t believe how much I loved you.
I must have been crazy.” My laugh sounds hysterical.
“I can’t believe the shit I put up with from you.
God, I hate you. You don’t get to die. You don’t get to just fuck up my life then die like this. ”
I decide suddenly.
“I’m getting my money back, asshole. I’m crashing the will reading or whatever.
You should know—” I’m fishing in my coat pocket for a Kleenex.
“Know that I have a wonderful man in my life who treats me the way that I deserve. We’re going to get married and have three beautiful children, and I’m clawing back every penny so that they can all have their own rooms that they can decorate however they want, and we’ll have central heating, no wood-burning fireplaces that spew smoke into the living room.
And I’ll have a nice kitchen to make them after-school snacks while they do homework at the island.
And everything you put me through will be worth it because it just made me stronger. So screw you.”
I lean over. I might not be pissing on Brock’s grave, but I am going to spit on him. Symbolically, mostly. I don’t want to go to jail for defiling a corpse. Bethany really would fire me then.
But as I lean over, there’s motion.
I’m literally losing it, I think.
His corpse hasn’t just smiled, has it?
“B-B—Brock?” I stammer, then I scream when a cold hand shoots up and grabs my neck.
“Vampire! Help! Zombie!” I slap at him.
Still screaming, I scramble back, tripping over chairs, falling and banging my knees. My dress hem rides up my stress-eating-enhanced thighs as I try to escape that unholy thing in the coffin.
It’s sitting up with cold, lifeless eyes.
“Call the police! Call the army! Help!” I look around wildly for someone with a flamethrower or a gun.
Except… I’m the only one upset. No one is freaked out that Brock has risen from the dead. No one is screaming from fear. Instead, they’re… laughing?
“Oh my god!” Brock is clutching his sides. “Oh my fucking god, your face! ”
His friends from the YouTube channel are circling vultures with cameras as everyone howls at me.
“Did you get her falling?” One of the camera men motions to the other.
I grab my skirt. “What the hell? Are you kidding me? This was a prank? ”
“I can’t believe you fell for it!” Brock’s laughing hysterically in the casket while I sob on the floor.
My ex leaps out of the coffin and swaggers over to me. “Surprise! I always knew you cared, baby.”
The cameras are in my face as he crouches down in front of me.
“Aww, you’re crying over me. Come here, give me a hug.”
I’m in shock; I don’t know what I’m doing as I let him wrap his arms around me.
My ex leans in to kiss me on the head.
“Hey, man, you’re ruining the shot,” one of the cameramen complains.
“I don’t give a fuck about your fucking bullshit YouTube channel.” A massive arm wraps around my waist, then I’m yanked upright and back.
I cling to McCarthy as he holds me, my legs jelly.
The room is spinning.
I’m going to puke.
I left Brock after he played one too many stupid jokes on me—and now this?
“Why would you do this?” I whimper. “Make me think you’re dead?”
“The content, man.”
“Don’t fucking talk to her.” McCarthy tucks me protectively to his side.
“This your fucking boyfriend?” Brock asks .
McCarthy’s voice is dangerously flat. “No.”
Mindful of that afternoon’s fight that I still have yet to do damage control for, I dig my nails into McCarthy’s arm, the muscle hard under my fingers. The twitch of his jaw is the only acknowledgement.
“We need to go,” I say, begging weakly.
As much as I’m sure Hannah will hate me for not letting McCarthy loose on my ex and his juvenile friends, I can’t clean up two PR messes today.
“Please, McCarthy, just… I can’t.” The tears run down my face. “Please.”
Way back in the history of my mom’s revolving door of boyfriends, one “new dad” with a balding mullet had drunkenly accused twelve-year-old me of using tears to manipulate men.
Right now, I don’t care if the tears are enough to prompt McCarthy to grab my things and push through the still-snickering crowd of people I had thought were my friends, had thought were my family.
I take a shuddering gasp of cold, wet air when we’re out into the drizzly evening.
My legs finally working, I pry his hands off me and rush to the car, Truman loping after me.
I need to put on his raincoat. I don’t want his long hair to mat, except I can’t get the stupid electronic key to work and I don’t know where my umbrella is and my freaking ex-fiancé is alive, not dead.
A large hand encases mine, takes the key, and unlocks the door.
“Thanks,” I mumble, teeth chattering and snot running down my face. “I’ll, um, take you back to the office.”
“Jenna… ”
“I need to figure out what to do about that fight.”
“I’ll call a driver.”
“No, I need to get the hell out of here. If I can just get the key in the fucking—” Finally, the car starts.
“Jenna, what…”
Is that pity on his face?
No. He’s just gearing up to mock me.
“Just fuck off, McCarthy.”
His face is stone at the venom in my voice.
“We’re not friends,” I say. “I don’t fucking like you. I tolerate you, because that’s my job . I don’t want to listen to any more of your shit today, understand? It was already going to be a terrible day, and you made it unbearable.”
“Message received.”
My shoulders are so tight I think my spine is going to snap.
Numbly, I grip the steering wheel.
McCarthy’s seat belt clicks.
He’s judging me from the back seat—judging my relationships, my poor taste in men, my failure at managing his PR.
It suddenly hits me as I’m trying to navigate through the pouring Seattle rain through rush-hour traffic—I’m not getting my eighty thousand dollars back.
Which freaking sucks because I am definitely losing my job.