Chapter 5 The Consequences
KNUCKLES
“Hey guys!” Ashley’s smile would have dazzled anyone else. I’d had her during our sophomore year and she was a little too repressed in bed to smile like that regularly. It was false advertising to anyone who didn’t know better.
“Ashley,” Simone snipped as she adjusted her graduation gown for the umpteenth time. “Don’t you just hate this stupid thing? It won’t sit right over my dress. I don’t understand why we have to wear them.”
“It’s tradition,” Ashley explained before she caught sight of something on Simone’s hand - a particular, shiny something.
Her eyes quickly darted over to my hand and my first instinct was to hide it but there was no point.
Everyone would know before graduation was over because Ashley had a big fucking mouth.
“Oh my God! Are you two married?” If her voice could have carried to another country, it would have, she was that loud about it.
“Would you please be quiet?” Simone growled at her.
That was weird because I would have thought she’d want everyone to know.
Then again, everyone would immediately jump to conclusions as to why we were married and she didn’t really want anyone to know about the pregnancy yet in case announcing it was bad luck or whatever.
“We don’t want our news to overshadow graduation. We planned to tell everyone after.”
We had no such plans and had discussed the fact that we lived in a small town and news would get around on its own as soon as Simone started to show.
None of the people I’d been so concerned with in high school seemed important enough to share the details of my life with except the two classmates of ours who already knew - Jasper and Cassidy.
One of which refused to come to our wedding even though she knew the reason for it and was supposedly still Simone’s best friend.
Ashely’s eyes grew wider but then she lowered her voice and in almost a whisper asked, “Does poor Cassidy know?”
“Poor Cassidy?” Simone shouted at her. “Why is she suddenly, ‘poor Cassidy’?”
“Oh come on!” Ashley groused. “She was your best friend for years and you married the only boy she’s ever set her eyes on.
The poor girl has never even dated anyone because she was holding out for him, and you knew it.
I can’t imagine how awful she must feel if she already knows.
” Ashley glanced down toward Simone’s non-existent belly.
“Especially if you got married for the reason I think you did.”
“It’s none of your damn business, Ashley,” Simone said before she turned and clutched onto me in a desperate move to hide her tears.
“Get out of here before you upset her more than you already have, Ash.” I ground the command out and luckily, she followed it without hesitation. Unluckily, it was probably only because she was off to spread the gossip to anyone who would listen to her.
The minute Ashley was out of sight, Simone broke into hysterical sobs. “Why couldn’t she put her jealousy aside and be there for us at our wedding? She knew that you could never be interested in her. Cassidy isn’t stupid.”
That made me want to throttle Simone. Of course I had been interested in the girl, anyone who spent any amount of time with her would have been.
She was amazing, talented, always ready to listen and give advice.
I’d taken her friendship for granted. Taken time for granted, too.
I thought I could fuck around now and allow Cassidy room to grow into womanhood before I claimed her as mine and made her my wife.
My grandpa had given me the advice years ago when I first thought I might like Cass.
He told me relationships that started too young rarely lasted because someone always felt as though they missed out.
Oddly enough, my father echoed his sentiments over the years that I’d lived with him.
“Don’t fall for the first girl who makes your heartbeat faster,” had been my grandpa’s words.
“Don’t fall for the first bitch who gets your cock hard,” had been the infinite wisdom my father passed along repeatedly. Same sentiment just one was cruder than the other.
Cassidy had been the girl on both counts.
So, when the rest of our schoolmates basically ignored her, I knew I should, too.
For my own sanity. If she was in my sphere all the time, how in the hell was I supposed to get it out of my system to be with other women?
Or how was I supposed to let her attempt to date?
I couldn’t stand by and watch as someone other guy got her first kiss, first time…
I had to ignore her, too. When I was home alone at my grandparent’s place, though, I could pretend that was our own special little bubble we could exist in for a time.
One day, it would be a norm, not a secret.
But we would both have a world of experience in our arsenal to know that we only wanted to be with one another for the rest of our lives. Zero room for doubt.
Only now I was married with a baby on the way and it was to Cassidy’s best friend. She would never be able to look past that even if the marriage thing didn’t work out for me.
“You have to calm down, Simone. This isn’t good for the baby.”
“I can’t. My best friend refused to be there for me - for us, James. Don’t you get it? She’s still so in love with you that I’m going to lose her and she’s all I have.”
“You have me now,” I suggested.
“That’s different. Cass knows all my secrets and even when she was mad at me, she never told a soul.”
“What secrets are you keeping?”
“That’s not the point, dammit. How am I supposed to get through a pregnancy at eighteen without my best friend by my side. My mom is already talking about moving away. What am I supposed to do?”
“You’ll have me, Jasper, my grandparents, maybe even my dad and his family,” I said.
“It’s not the same!” She wailed. “I need my best friend!” She sobbed into my chest again and eventually came up for breath long enough to stare at me with her swollen eyes and tear-stained cheeks.
“You have to put an end to her crush once and for all. She’ll never believe her hope to be with you is dead until you drive it home that she can never have you.
Not that she can’t now, but that she never could.
You have to make her believe it so I can have my friend back. ”
Doing what Simone asked would mean that I never got Cassidy back as a friend either.
They might still have one another, but I would be outside of that friendship, something separate, watching them from the outside in.
I felt sick. Even worse, it was a nightmare for me.
I loved Cassidy. She might have never known it, but those feelings didn’t just vanish because I did the stupidest thing I could have possibly done by sleeping with her best friend.
I wanted to go back and throttle the men in my family for giving me shitty advice.
I wanted to find Cassidy and run away with her.
And then, I saw the way Simone held her belly.
Our baby was growing in there and he or she was the most important person in my life now.
I couldn’t let them down, not even for Cass.
“I’ll handle it, after we get our diplomas.”
“Good,” Simone said and then she turned to walk away.
“Where are you going?”
“I need to go fix my makeup,” she said without pausing a step.
It was like night and day the difference between her sobbing herself to death and walking away to fix her makeup like now that it was settled, her outburst never happened.
Jasper’s concerns about her playing a game came back to haunt me but it was already too late to do anything about it.
“Cassidy Billups,” Mr. Flemming called. She was only the fourth person to walk across the stage.
Everyone else at least had someone clap for them, but Cass had no one.
It was silent as the grave as she made those first few, hesitant steps toward the center of the stage.
I caught the way she glanced out at the audience just before she was called.
It was clear she looked for someone there - her dad, most likely - and she ended up disappointed.
It made me want to scream and punch someone.
She deserved better and I was going to make her day so much worse.
All so she could remain best friends with Simone while I pushed her further away.
By the time she reached Mr. Flemming, my grandparents started to clap for her.
They were the only ones. Even the other students didn’t join in.
Cassidy didn’t even look out to see them.
Her shoulders shook, though. I figured she didn’t want anyone to see her cry if her own dad couldn’t be there to see her achievement.
Fuck, I felt like a villain in someone’s story because I knew what I had to do to break the connection between us completely.
I hated myself for it and at the same time knew it wouldn’t stop me from doing it. Simone needed this and so did my baby.
“We have to meet my grandparents,” I called to Simone who was preening and showing off her wedding ring to everyone.
“You have something to take care of first,” she nodded toward where Cassidy had just come from the restrooms. I was hoping not to see her before we left. No such luck as she was headed straight for us to get to the exit.
“Cassidy,” I called out to her. She startled and then gave me a stiff smile as she took a few more steps in my direction.
“James?” My name was a question. She wanted to know why I would choose now to speak to her openly. All of my friends were around. The same friends who had ignored her for years.
“Who the fuck do you think you are?” I asked, allowing my anger and frustration over the whole situation - but especially for Simone who didn’t need the stress - to breach the surface.
“Excuse me?” Her voice wobbled on those two words and looked as if I’d struck her instead of asking a scathing question.
“You fucking heard me. Simone asked you to stand up for her at our wedding and your jealous ass couldn’t be bothered to be there for your friend.
You know she’s pregnant,” I hadn’t meant to say that and felt Simone flinch beside me as everyone gasped and whispered.
“Yet, you’re cool with upsetting her by not showing up and standing there beside your best fucking friend.
Hell, Simone’s the only friend you have in the world.
” I could tell that leaving myself off that list stung just as much as the rest of it.
“Married? Pregnant?” She questioned as tears dripped rivers down her cheeks and soaked the front of her shirt.
“Yeah. Did you think we wouldn’t get married just because your jealous, bitter ass refused to show up? Simone is carrying my baby. Nothing on this planet could stop me from marrying her. She’s the love of my fucking life.”
I wanted to choke on those words because I was shouting at the love of my fucking life.
She would forever be the one that got away.
The one I pushed away with such gross, venomous hatred that she would probably be sick any time she had to be within a few feet of me.
It had to be that way, though. Simone needed her more than I did.
Cassidy stood there stunned, unable to get a word out, so I finished nailing home my point in the only way I knew how to.
“Newsflash, Cassidy, I would never pick someone like you. Stop being an asshole friend to Simone. She doesn’t deserve this shit and she sure as fuck doesn’t need the stress while she’s pregnant with my baby.
” I kept reiterating that point more for me than for her.
I needed to remind myself why I was being an absolute bastard to her.
“Enough , asshole!” Jasper yelled and stepped between Cassidy and me.
It snapped me out of the red haze long enough for me to see what I’d done to the girl I once vowed to spend the rest of my life - even if she didn’t know it.
Her skin lost every bit of color it once had as her body shook and tears streamed down her face.
Her eyes darted all over the place from me to Simone - who seemed oddly smug - and then to all the other classmates who were gathered around and just as stunned by my outburst or the news of a pregnancy and marriage on graduation day.
I realized, too late, that I’d probably done more harm than good. Cassidy might never speak to Simone again because I was the man at her side and I had just publicly humiliated her.
Jasper didn’t say another word to me before he gently took Cassidy into his arms and walked her away from the gawking masses.
“Fuck, Simone, I’m sorry. I think I went too far.”
“No, babe. It’s okay. I think you went just far enough. She’ll get over it, then come apologize to me in a few days.” She grinned up at me like I’d just given her a diamond tennis bracelet. “She might not want to see you when you’re around, though.” She shrugged. “We’ll figure it out.”
I couldn’t watch my own best friend with his arms around the girl I really wanted. He didn’t have feelings for her like that, but I was still jealous because he was holding her, something I never got to do.