Chapter 37 #2
Our limo door opens, and the guys escort me to the main building.
Once I step inside, I smile. Behind the large, curved info desk are the glass column cases displaying various North Carolina native animals.
The main gift shop is to the left and the escalators and the coastal exhibit hall are to the right and back, respectively.
The dinosaurs, bugs, and huge nature dioramas are upstairs.
The newer building that opened years and years ago houses labs from different universities in the state.
The last time I visited, I watched a fossil being painstakingly and meticulously excavated from the plaster cast it was encased in.
I kept thinking while I watched that I wanted to do something like that.
Become a scientist and discover new things.
Which got me thinking about medical school and oncology.
Maybe, one day, I can find a cure for cancer.
Maybe, one day, I can help someone like Ryder.
“Ready to mingle?” Fallon asks me. “Because honestly, I hate these events. They’re boring. But I have a feeling that you and I can find something naughty to do to pass the time.”
My mind just went straight into the gutter with that remark. It must be the pregnancy hormones that are making me a little loopy around Jayson and Fallon these days.
Luckily, a blur of red catches my eye and saves my brain from further inappropriate thoughts. “I’ll catch up with you guys in a minute. I want to say hi to Beth.”
“Want company?” Jayson offers.
Now would be the perfect opportunity to figure out why Beth has been avoiding me at school. Hailey and I will be starting Highland High on Monday, so it may be a moot point. At least Celeste and Davis are still talking to me.
“Thanks, but I want to talk to her privately if you don’t mind.”
Of course, I get three separate brooding scowls.
“Please,” I add, giving each of them my brightest smile that has a ninety-nine percent success rate of getting me what I want.
Fallon elbows me. “Dad texted and said for us to go to the third floor.”
“I’ll meet up with you guys in a minute. I can count to three and ride an escalator all by myself,” I quip.
“Now you see what I had to put up with for weeks,” Fallon tells Jayson who has the nerve to nod his head yes.
“Oh, for goodness sake. You guys are moodier than any girl during her time of the month.”
Julien covers his ears. “Lalala. You can stop now. I don’t need to hear that.”
Giggling, I kiss each of their cheeks and leave to find Beth. I get distracted by the seascape displays and the large aquariums. My all-time favorite, however, is the humungous whale fossil that hangs overhead.
I hear Beth talking to someone as I round the corner in time to catch up with her. Beth has on a pale-yellow halter dress that gorgeously contrasts with her red hair.
I call out, “Beth!”
Just when I get to her, she shifts to look over her shoulder, and when she sees me, her eyes widen. But it’s the person stepping around her side that I’m locked on.
“What’s going on?” I question Beth and then my eyes slide to Maria standing in four-inch heels which puts us at eye level. I stopped wearing heels weeks ago. I don’t want to tempt fate with my two left feet and risk falling and hurting baby gummy.
“Oh, hey, Elizabeth. What are you doing here?” Beth asks me, her voice strangely high-pitched.
“I’m here with Fallon, Jayson, and Julien.”
“Of course you are,” Maria snipes. “Selfish as always.”
“Excuse me?” I annunciate each word, getting ticked off by her attitude.
Beth just stands there, wringing her hands. I guess I now know why she’s been avoiding me.
Maria backs up a step, putting distance between us. Good. She knows I’ll now punch first and ask questions later. I go with ignoring her and touch Beth’s arm.
“Can we go somewhere and talk?”
Beth’s red curls bounce around her shoulders as she looks around the room. “I’m sorry, Elizabeth. I can’t. My parents would kill me if they saw me hanging out with you.”
A grin splits Maria’s face. Bitch.
I want answers from Beth and she’s not willing to speak with me privately, so I guess I’ll have to do this in front of my ex-best friend who hates me.
“Is that why you’ve stopped talking to me?”
“I really am sorry, Elizabeth. My parents think you’ll be a bad influence on me, and they don’t want me around you. They said they would pull me out of cheerleading and take away my car and my phone.”
My eyes must roll onto the floor with how hard I scoff. “And Maria is the epitome of innocence and good behavior? Are you serious?”
“You’re sleeping with multiple guys and don’t even know who the baby daddy is,” Maria chimes in, pleased with her comeback.
“I am not,” I seethe through gritted teeth.
“Then whose is it?” She points at my stomach, and my hand automatically covers the area as if I’m trying to shield my baby from her accusation.
Taking a step toward her, I voice low, “I’m three seconds away from laying you out right here in front of everyone, so please listen very carefully.” I take another step closer. “It’s none of your damn business.”
“It really isn’t,” a girl’s voice says from behind me.
“You need to shut up and get lost, you sleezy man-stealer,” Maria tells Jacinda.
Jacinda and Maria? I have to be stuck in one of Marvel’s multiverses. This cannot be reality. It has to be one big cosmic joke. Right?
Jacinda flips her long ponytail over her shoulder.
It’s a classic diva move for her. “If Marshall really loved you, he wouldn’t have slept with me, now would he?
You seem to have a problem with keeping your men, Maria.
First Ryder, now Marshall. Perhaps you should stop blaming me and Elizabeth and realize that the problem is all you. ”
I’m struck stupid by Jacinda’s defense of me, so when she grabs my arm and pulls me away from Beth and Maria, I let her.
And in another classic Jacinda move, she tosses a little revenge bomb at Maria.
“Oh, and by the way, you should be more careful who you trust to help you do your dirty work. Did you know that Samantha videoed what you did to Elizabeth’s locker and car?
I’m sure Principal Stubbs will be very upset when she sees it. The police, too.”
Maria’s mouth unhinges with shock, her face turning a violent red like a volcano erupting hot lava. But Jacinda doesn’t wait for her response. She drags me out of the exhibit hall and into the nearest women’s restroom.
As soon as the door swings closed, I confront Jacinda. “Does Samantha really have video?”
If there is proof that Maria was behind everything, it would solve all my problems and hopefully convince Daniel to let me and Hailey stay at Fallen Brook.
Jacinda goes to one of the sinks and washes her hands. “No. But you have to admit, seeing the look on Maria’s face was priceless.”
I can’t stop the snicker from coming out. I walk over to the side wall and lean back against it. Jacinda dries her hands in the hand dryer, then takes out a tube of lip gloss from a small purse hanging off her wrist.
“Who are you and what have you done with the real Jacinda Blanchard?” I ask. I’m having trouble wrapping my head around the entire situation.
Jacinda turns around to face me. “Really? That’s what you’re going with?”
I cross my arms. “Well, yeah. You and I hate each other. You kissed Ryder at the bonfire party. You tried to sleep with Jayson. You even sent him a selfie of you in your underwear.” That brings back a whole slew of awful memories.
I straighten up, my green eyes burning fire as those memories fill me with unrequited anger.
Jacinda holds her hands up in front of her. “Before you can rip my head off, I’ll say this quickly. I did not spike Jayson’s drink at Fallon’s party.”
That night was one of the worst nights of my life. Finding Jayson upstairs in one of Fallon’s bedrooms with Jacinda. Visiting him in the hospital the next morning after Ryder rushed him to the ER to have his stomach pumped once he figured out what was going on.
“Then who did?” I seethe, my hands curling into fists at my sides.
“I don’t know. I swear, Elizabeth. But I didn’t do it. Samantha handed me that drink. She said she got it from a guy at the party. I gave it to Jayson when he and Maria came up to us while we were at the keg.”
“But you did all those other things. You have been nothing but a pain in my butt since we were in third grade.”
“I know, and I will own up to those things. But not to that and not to what happened to your car. Those weren’t me.”
I stare her down and she meets it, unflinchingly. After a long minute, I relax my stance. “I believe you. We both know it was Maria who has been messing with me at school.”
Jacinda rings a hand down her ponytail. If I didn’t loathe her so much, I would think she was very pretty.
Long, straight hair she recently dyed chocolate brown, denim blue eyes, curvy figure.
She looks much older than eighteen years.
No wonder she gets the attention of the college guys in our town.
“Why are you suddenly being nice to me?” I ask her suspiciously.
She looks away from my gaze while flicking imaginary lint from her dress. “Because I was you.”
Does she mean…? Oh, my God.
“Jacinda.”
She waves me off, tears in her eyes. “It was a couple of years ago. No one knew. It didn’t matter anyway. I miscarried at ten weeks.”
She wipes her eyes and turns suddenly toward the mirror to check her makeup. Groaning at the sight of runny mascara, she uses her thumb to try and swipe it away. It only smears the mascara more, giving her a really bad case of Harley Quinn eyes—the crazy female character in those DC movies.
“I know what you must think. I deserved it. It was my fault. If I was a better person, a nicer girl, then maybe…” She stops talking as the tears fall like rain.
I immediately go to her, turn her around, and wrap her in my arms. “That’s not what I think at all. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry that happened to you. I promise I won’t tell anyone.”
The mere thought of losing my baby sends a tsunami of terror through me. It would kill me. And knowing that Jacinda survived the loss of hers opens my eyes to the girl crying in my arms.
I reach over and pull a couple of paper towels from the dispenser and wet them under the faucet.
Then I begin cleaning up her makeup-streaked face.
I think this is the first time in our lives we’ve ever talked to one another; as in, had a conversation and not just hurled insults and snarky one-liners.
“Can I ask you a personal question?”
“Alright,” she replies.
“Why did you sleep with Marshall? You and Maria were supposed to be friends.” Not that I really care if she and Maria are at odds. Maria deserves whatever comes her way for what she’s done to Ryder. To me. To Hailey.
Jacinda counters with, “You used to be friends with her and then you hooked up with Ryder, her ex-boyfriend. Isn’t that the same thing?”
I can see how the two situations may look the same to those outside our group, but Ryder and I were inevitable since the day we met.
Just like Jayson and I were. Just like Fallon and I becoming friends.
When it comes down to it, everything in life happens for a reason.
Everything is a result of the choices we make.
I wonder what would have happened if I never made those choices.
Answering her, I use Jacinda’s words against her. “That’s what you’re going with?”
Her pink-glossed lips curve up. “I like this new version of you. You’re scary.”
“Thank you?” I say it as a question, not knowing how to take it, then accept what she said as a compliment. “And nice try at deflection.”
She laughs. “I forget how smart you are.”
Uh-huh. “So why Marshall?” I ask again.
Jacinda huffs out a deep breath. “When you’re told your entire life that you’re nothing but trash, you eventually start believing it.
I know that guys only want one thing from me.
But sex is the only time I feel good about myself.
It’s the only time anyone ever tells me I’m pretty.
But then after we’re done and he walks out, I go back to feeling like that unloved person again.
So, I find someone else. It’s a never-ending cycle. ”
She sounds like she’s repeating something a therapist would say. I wait until she raises her eyes back to mine so she can see my sincerity.
“First, you are beautiful. And second, you’re hanging around the wrong guys. There are more good guys out there than bad. I’m lucky to have found four of them.”
She does a half-hearted effort to pop her hands on her hips, but clasps them in front of her instead. “I know. That’s why I’m so jealous of you. That’s why I want what you have. That’s why I tried to take them from you.”
Wow. Okay. Brutal honestly. At least I now know why she hated me since we were kids.
But then she shocks me even more when she says, “I’m really sorry, Elizabeth. For everything.”
I look at her. Really look at her. Behind her mean girl persona is someone who is vulnerable and damaged.
Someone who feels unloved and unworthy. Someone like Hailey.
The abuse my sister endured and the harm she inflicted upon herself is similar to Jacinda letting guys use her for sex.
Both were ways for them to cope with feeling unloved, unworthy, ugly.
Coming to a decision, I ask her, “Want to hang out with me for the rest of the night?” I toss the paper towels into the trash bin.
Jacinda actually looks nervous. “I highly doubt Fallon or Jayson would be too happy about that.”
“Well, guess what? They don’t decide or make choices for me. New, scary Elizabeth, remember?”
Her smile returns as I take her hand in mine and walk us out of the restroom to find the guys.