28. Serena
Serena
It’s complete chaos.
Graham instantly steps between Alex and me, like he’s my hired bodyguard. On the far side of the room, Travis calls for security, curses, and yells something about everyone being “Totally fucking useless!”
Ryan walks toward my ex-boyfriend with his hands up, like he can talk Alex down from the fit of rage he’s currently in. And Alex, himself, the man I spent more than a year of my life with, the man I thought would be my husband, maybe even the father of my children—he looks like a stranger to me.
The only thing I feel when I look at him is a distant, latent anger about my record player. He didn’t have to ruin that. Didn’t have to go as far as he did.
When security doesn’t come through, Travis is at Graham’s side.
“—fucking assholes!” Alex spits, shoving Graham in the chest. It must be infuriating to him that his brother doesn’t so much as sway under the force of his push.
“Let’s try and calm down,” Ryan says, “or we could always go to a bar—lots more chairs and bottles for smashing there, far more fun?—”
Alex alternates shouting at each of them, even taking a shot at Ryan, calling him a “pretty boy,” which doesn’t seem like much of an insult.
His copper hair is standing on end, his face flushed and ruddy, his eyes practically popping out of his head. He looks deranged. Far angrier even, I note, than I was when he threw all my stuff out on the lawn.
Alex might be the one screaming, the one whose flashing eyes land on me for a second before jolting back to his brothers, but he’s not the one I’m focusing on. He’s not the person in this room whose presence feels like a sucker punch directly to my gut.
“Alex, please, don’t do this—” Bianca tries again in a whiny voice, reaching for him, but I catch her gaze, and her words peter out on a whimper. Today she’s wearing a sundress, a nice pair of heels, and I wonder where the two of them have been together.
Were they having a nice lunch on a sun-drenched patio? Was the breeze rustling through her hair? Did she reach across the table, put her hand on Alex’s arm, and tell him how handsome he looks?
The men continue shouting around us, but Bianca and I just stare at each other.
It’s like we’re standing amidst the crashing of violent waves, eyes locked through it all. “Bianca,” I hear myself say, finally, but it’s like I’m floating outside my body. “What are you doing here?”
It’s a stupid question, and we both know it.
Suddenly, everything falls into place. Her obsession with the Oakleys.
How absent she’s been lately. Our other roommates not knowing what’s going on with her.
I asked the question to get her to say something.
To get her to come up with some sort of explanation that makes sense.
Some sort of excuse that doesn’t throw years of friendship down the drain. Flush it like it meant nothing. A pointless destruction, a record player on the lawn.
For a bewildering moment, I’m actually rooting for her.
Bianca is my best friend. The girl who sat with me through the norovirus our sophomore year of college.
Who read poetry to me in the car on our way to South Padre so I could finish my mid-terms in a gas station parking lot, just before Spring Break.
Bianca has seen all the worst parts of me. We’ve held each other’s hair back, and been there for the biggest celebrations—graduation, negative pregnancy tests, Bianca getting her internship—so there has to be something. Some logical explanation.
Instead of, Isn’t it obvious? I’m fucking your ex-boyfriend, Bianca says, “I’m—I’m sorry, Serena, it just s-slipped out?—”
Oh.
Bianca skipped right over sleeping with my ex—starting a relationship with my ex—and got right to the part where she betrayed my confidence to the one person who would cause the biggest mess by knowing about it.
She tattled on me to Alex, and now he’s here, blowing up the best thing I’ve had in forever.
Because what would Alex be doing here without that information? How would he possibly know that I slept with Travis, that he had some feeble ground to stand on, that he could accuse his brothers of betraying him, if Bianca didn’t tell him?
Bianca and I had our fight last night, which I was still reeling from this morning.
I was sick enough that I couldn’t eat dinner, then couldn’t eat breakfast. My hands shake now, and my stomach lurches.
While I was crying into Lillie’s shoulder, Bianca was running off to tell Alex Oakley about what I’ve been choosing to do with my time. Or, rather, who.
The truth of the entire situation settles down over me. But before I can say anything to her, the rest of the world comes back into glaring focus, sound and sight rushing in again in the form of Alex in my face, yelling loud enough that my ears ring.
“And you,” he spits, looking me up and down with a sort of disgust that should be funny, given the number of times he begged me for sex, only to leave me unsatisfied in the end. “Are nothing but a worthless fucking slut!”
There’s an instant dark blurring to my left. Travis steps forward, faster than Graham or Ryan, meeting Alex’s nose not with his fist but with his elbow, a quick swing that strikes his brother in the face and sends him sprawling to the ground.
I’m too shocked to really process any of it.
Alex groans, and Travis says, matter-of-factly, voice low, “Talk to her like that again, and I’ll knock out every one of your teeth.”
Graham makes a noise of agreement, and Ryan sidles in closer to us, his hand settling on my lower back. I lean against it immediately. Dots swim in my vision as Alex drags himself up off the ground, swatting away Bianca’s help with impatient slaps.
Once he’s on his feet, he sort of hunches over, clearly trying to keep from getting blood on his nice shirt. “It’s over for all of you,” he spits out. “I’m going to make Dad look like a fucking saint.”
And with that, he turns on his heel and stalks out of the office, past the security guards who have finally arrived, looking bewildered, like they’re not sure who they’re supposed to be protecting.
“You’re fired,” Travis barks at them.
Bianca goes sulking out of the office after Alex.
My best friend.
The dots swimming in my vision expand, and darkness takes over. The last thing I feel is hands and arms coming around me, sweeping me up before I can hit the floor.