50. Booth
50
***Booth***
“ Y ou boys should be ashamed of yourselves. This place is disgusting. I refuse. When I took this job, I told you I wasn’t going to clean up after parties. Have you even tried to clean up? Have you seen the bathrooms? I quit.” Mallory scowled down at Fisher and then turned around and stomped out of the house, slamming the door behind her.
He looked over at me and winced. “Well, that sucks.”
We both sat there, staring at the TV even though it wasn’t turned on. When Vaughn came in through the front door a few minutes later, he looked confused. “I think I just saw Mallory burning rubber getting out of here.”
I crossed my arms and nodded. “She quit.”
Fisher decided to turn the TV on finally but quickly realized it was broken. He checked the remote while I watched and I saw that the batteries were missing. He sighed. “Who comes to a party and steals the batteries from a guy’s remote? I wanted to turn the volume up so I wasn’t forced to talk to our roommate.”
Vaughn made a frustrated noise. “I said I was sorry. I’m trying to make it right. With Ella and Dad both hating me right now, I don’t need you two hating me, too.”
“I don’t hate you.” I stood up and walked past him on my way to the kitchen. “I just don’t want to see or talk to you right now. Maybe ever again.”
I gagged at the smell coming from the sink and swore. Four days had passed since the party and we hadn’t bothered touching anything. Every time I thought about cleaning I just didn’t see the point.
Vaughn followed me into the kitchen and stood in front of the sink. He started pulling dishes out while holding his shirt over his nose. “It’s not like I haven’t tried to fix things. This isn’t what I want.”
Fisher laughed angrily from the doorway behind me. “It’s exactly what you wanted. If you couldn’t have her, we couldn’t either. None of us have her. Congratulations.”
“Are you beating yourself up as much as you’re beating the shit out of me? You were cruel to her, too. You made everyone think she cheated on you, the darling quarterback.” Vaughn tossed a plate onto the counter a little too hard and it shattered. “And you, Booth. You think you didn’t do any damage? None of us are innocent. Yeah, I fucked up first and started this shit, but you were both eager to trash Ella as soon as you got your feelings hurt. So fuck this. Fuck you. Fuck me. Fuck everyone.”
I watched as he stormed past us and out the front door. “Where are you going?”
He stopped and spun around. “I don’t fucking know. I don’t want to be on campus. I don’t want to be here. I’m a grown ass man thinking about running away. Okay?”
Fisher rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Jesus, Vaughn. Just come back inside. You can’t run away. We have practice in two hours. We need to clean this place because apparently the only person who hates us more than Ella is our housekeeper. If you’re going to be a baby about us being pissed at you… I guess we can be okay again.”
Vaughn looked at me and I could see how he was barely hanging on. Sighing, I shrugged. “Whatever. It doesn’t mean I’m over it. I just don’t have the energy to replace you as a roommate if you drive your truck into the ocean.”
Hanging his head, Vaughn slowly came back inside and shut the door. “I know I deserve a lot worse than what you’re giving me. I’m sorry. I can’t put into words how sorry I am.”
“Did you try to see her?” I asked with a great amount of hesitation and worry. So far, none of us had been able to get to her. If she was getting our texts and calls, she wasn’t acknowledging them.
“I tried. I spent an hour on the phone with Dad this morning, begging him to give me her address. He’s not budging.” He leaned against the stair railing and rubbed his tired face. “I walked around campus the rest of the morning, hoping to spot her. Nothing. I did get a message back from her friend, though. Natalie.”
Fisher stood up straighter. “What’d she say? She’s ignored everything I’ve sent her.”
“Thanks to me, people around campus are being assholes to Ella. Calling her names and being cruel to her. Natalie let me know that I deserve to rot in hell and that she hopes a football gets shoved up my ass and we never win another game.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I don’t know what to do. In all the time I’ve known Ella, she never retreated. She was alway up for a fight when I pissed her off.”
“People are treating her like shit because of me. You were right about me making people think she cheated on me. You started the shit ball rolling down the shit hill but I made it worse.” Struggling with his own guilt, Fisher sat on the stairs and held his head in his hands. “I should’ve known better. I don’t know why I believed you. She didn’t care about Billy anymore. She cared about us. She trusted us.”
I swallowed down the urge to vomit. It was all I felt like doing since waking up and realizing just how severely I’d hurt Ella. I had an ever present memory in my head of some chick dancing on me while Ella watched, her eyes pooling with tears. I’d felt so vindicated at that moment. I was proud of how I hadn’t crumbled, despite how weak I felt over the idea of Ella not being in my life. I couldn’t stop imagining the look on my face that she’d watched. Proud, cocky, mean.
“I’m going to go out and look for her again. If I hear anyone talking shit about her, someone will have to bail me out of jail.” I yanked open the door and looked back to see that they were both coming with me. “Think your dad will bail us out, even though he hates us?”
Vaughn shook his head. “Not a chance.”
Fisher shrugged. “My parents would be too ashamed to have a kid in jail. They’d get us out.”
“I need you to know something, Vaughn.” I waited for him to look at me. “If I hit someone today, at least one of the punches will be me imagining it’s you I’m hitting.”
He nodded. “That’s fair.”