Chapter 7
Lainey
“I’m really sorry Holland kidnapped you. Do you want me to kick his ass?”
Ellie asks, bringing two mugs of coffee into the living room. She takes a seat next to me and hands me my mug. I probably shouldn’t be having coffee this late in the day, but it smells too good to pass up.
I chuckle at the thought of Ellie, who is shorter than me, trying to beat Holland’s ass.
“I’m fully capable of kicking his ass myself, El. But no, it’s fine. I was bored anyway,”
I tell her.
It’s not entirely true. I was perfectly content sitting on the porch, reading my book.
She rolls her eyes.
“He’s so annoying. I mean, you don’t even like him. Why would he think you’d want to go with him anywhere?”
she inquires, her face scrunching up in disgust. Her and her brother do get along, believe it or not, but they butt heads… a lot.
I shrug.
“Does anything he does ever make sense?”
“No, I guess not,”
Ellie says, taking a sip of her coffee.
“Did you see the text from Gwen?”
My eyebrows furrow in confusion. I haven’t really checked my phone since we left the shop. I shake my head.
“No, what happened?”
“She’s freaking the hell out. I think the wedding jitters are finally hitting her. She might come visit this weekend,”
Ellie explains. Just then, a door opens from down the hallway and Haley appears, looking exhausted.
“I heard Gwen’s coming home?”
she asks, a smile growing on her face. She pads over to where we’re sitting in the living room and plops down next to me on the couch.
Ellie nods.
“We should plan something to get her mind off of the wedding for a bit. What do you think, Lane?”
“Yeah, I think that’s a good idea. We never did a bachelorette party. Maybe that’s what we’ll do. I’ll plan something,”
I tell my friends. I’m usually the one that has to plan things like this anyway since Ellie doesn’t go out much without me, and Haley is always busy.
I don’t mind making the plans, especially because I feel like I know my friends better than they know themselves most of the time.
While they’re shy and soft spoken, I’m loud and I go for what I want when I want it. I don’t even think twice about it or the consequences. This has gotten me into trouble in the past, but at least it helps me feel something other than emptiness.
I wouldn’t say I’m depressed or anything like that. I think I do quite well on my own, and ever since I accepted that this was my life, and my parents would always be shitty parents, I stopped being so sad about it.
I know Ellie feels bad for me. Whenever she brings up going home or her mom, I can feel the way she deflates a little, like she thinks she’s going to offend me or make me feel bad.
It’s crazy because I know I have a shitty home life, and it’s not been easy growing up alone, her family is going through shit too.
Ever since last year when Ryker, Holland, Mason, and Patrick confronted their fathers for the shady business they were doing, things have been rough in the Monroe household.
Ellie and Holland’s mom wanted their father out of the house for all the lies he told her. For putting their family in danger. I can’t say I blame her, but I know it’s been hard for all of them.
Mr. Monroe has been out of the house for about seven months now, and I imagine that’s been hard for Ellie and Holland to wrap their head around.
But Ellie is really good at putting aside her issues and feelings to make sure everyone around her is happy. She’ll talk about how she’s feeling, and she’ll vent to me when she needs to. Unlike me, who bottles up all of her feelings and refuses to show anyone any weakness.
I have to be strong. I’ve had to learn to rely on only one person, and that’s myself. Of course, I know Ellie would always be there for me, and when Gwen was here, she was always trying to get me to share my feelings.
Showing weaknesses only gives people a chance to exploit them. Call me a pessimist, but I’d like to think of myself as a realist.
No one in life has it perfect. No matter how much they try to put on a front of the ideal life, there’s always something sinister beneath the surface. If more people would realize that there’d probably be a whole lot less disappointment in the world.
Even with my unfortunate circumstances, I had to find ways to keep myself entertained. In high school, I partied a lot, more than a young girl should have. Without actual supervision and someone telling me no, I did whatever the hell I wanted.
I was out practically every weekend either at someone’s house party or up at the local community college hanging out with guys much too old for me at the time. But why would I care? No one else did.
Getting drunk, fucking random guys that would show me the slightest bit of attention, and forgetting about my problems was my specialty. I can’t say much has changed since high school.
I still party, and I’m still finding less than healthy ways to deal with my feelings, ways that would make my mother cry with disappointment if she actually gave a shit about me.
All this to say that I’m pretty good at being the life of the party, and making sure everyone has a good time.
Ellie claps her hands together, breaking me out of my thoughts.
“Perfect! I’ll tell Gwen to prepare the bail money,”
she teases with a wink. I roll my eyes.
“That was one time, and that cop had it out for us the second we walked into that bar,” I huff.
“Maybe because he knew we were underage and should not have been there,”
Ellie laughs. She’s not wrong.
“I promise I won’t plan anything illegal, and now we’re old enough to drink, so there shouldn’t be any problems.”
Ellie and Haley laugh, and I smile. I don’t know where I’d be without my friends, and I don’t even want to think about it. They’re one of the only things that keep me going.
“Alright, well I’m going to bed. It’s been a long day,”
I tell them, standing up from the couch and stretching. Haley looks at me, confusion in her delicate features.
“What did you do today? I thought you had no classes today,”
she asks curiously. Before I can give her an answer, Ellie steps in.
“My idiot brother forced her into going to get a suit for the wedding with him,”
she explains, rolling her eyes. Haley looks at me, her expression almost knowing. I don’t know what she’s thinking, but she clearly thinks she knows something.
“Oh, did he now? And you went?”
Haley asks. I nod nonchalantly.
“He threatened to get out of the car and make a scene. I figured I’d save myself the embarrassment and just give in,”
I explain, shrugging. I would rather him not get down on his knees and beg in front of everyone on our street.
Haley nods slowly.
“Right, yeah. That makes sense,”
she gives me a narrow-eyed look, like she thinks there’s more to the story. Well, there’s not.
“Yup,”
I say. I don’t know what else to say. Why is she being so weird?
Beginning to back out of the living room and toward my bedroom, I say, “Alright, well I’m going to take a shower and go to bed. Night.”
“Night,”
I hear Ellie and Haley call back as I shut the door to my bedroom and take a deep breath.
I don’t know what was up with Haley, or why she was acting like she knew something I didn’t, but I didn’t like it.
All I know is that I have to start coming up with a plan for this weekend. It shouldn’t be too hard. Maybe we could go into the city for the night. That could be a fun reprieve from the reality of life, and I could use that right now.