7. Luke
CHAPTER 7
Luke
Well, I’ll be damned. Zoey’s news was probably as explosive as ours. With the way Kai took Zoey to his room and announced to us that they were going to have a private conversation , I’m guessing he was none the wiser. I know what private conversation means. They’re having a bloodbath in there.
Gigi, Zach, and I sit at the table, smiling awkwardly and trying our best to pretend that we can’t hear the other twos’ screaming match.
“So,” Zach finally breaks the not-so-silence from the other room. “I guess that settles your dorm situation, huh, Gigi?”
“Yeah,” Gigi answers in a weak voice. “I’m kind of bummed out that Zoey is going to move. I was definitely not expecting that.”
I take Gigi’s hand in mine, and she gives me a grateful smile in return.
“By the way things are going with her and Kai, some distance might not be a bad idea.” Zach says what everyone is secretly thinking. “They’ve been fighting all the damn time.” He flashes us a grin before taking a sip of his beer. “Not you two, though. You two are adorable.”
Gigi breaks out in laughter, shaking her head. “You’re the first one to think so, but thanks.” The look in her eyes makes my cheeks heat up. “I guess we are adorable.”
“You’ve been back to Marble Crest recently?” I ask Zach, trying to change the topic before I blush even more.
He shakes his head. “Nah. Don’t get along with my folks that well.” I know your pain, man . “What about you guys?” He looks at us, unsure, shifting his gaze from me and then to Gigi. “Have you, uh, told his parents yet?”
Andrew’s parents.
Gigi is about to say something. To sugarcoat the situation, no doubt. I don’t give a flying fuck, so I give him an answer. “We’re not talking at the moment.” Not since we saw the video Andrew made.
Zach jerks his head to the side, shock written all over his face. He knows that I was close with Andrew and his family. When we all started hanging out together, I told him as much. I wasn’t surprised when he told me that he only knew Andrew in passing. Their high school’s basketball and football teams had some weird segregation thing going on. It was nice of him to come to the funeral, though. He might have only made the two-hour drive to meet his other classmates there, who knows, but he still made it.
“Because you two are dating?” he asks.
I’m debating on whether to tell him the truth about my fucked-up family or not, but Gigi beats me to it. “Andrew made a goodbye video and his dad hid it from us. He only showed it to us last month at the start of the semester.”
“You’re shitting me.” Zach’s eyes pop open. “Really? Why would he do that?”
“Andrew was angry at his dad, and he said some things I guess he didn’t want us to know,” I quickly answer before Gigi gets the chance to tell the truth.
Despite everything that happened, I’m not sure I want other people to know about Uncle Mike. Not yet at least. Not until I fully understand the whole fucking situation.
“Why was he angry at his dad?” Zach asks.
Ignoring his question, I decide to use the moment to talk about something else. “Do you know if Andrew was bullied?”
With all the pregnancy stuff going on, I pushed my cousin to the back of my mind. I had to. It has been a crazy month and we had bigger fish to fry. We still do, but the opportunity might not present itself again. They might not have been best buddies, but he went to school with Andrew. He’s the only shot we got.
Zach chuckles, his gaze confused. “Luke, your cousin was one of the jocks. Who the fuck would have bullied him?” Someone who was really pissed off at his dad . “Do you remember how tall he was? How bulked up he was? No way someone shoved him around in the hallway or gave him a swirlie.”
“Do you know if anyone else from Marble Crest High is going to Ravensfield?”
“That’s a long fucking list, man. There aren’t many from my class year. After Covid was over, everyone wanted to move as far as possible, you know? Probably sick of the same view. But a shit ton from the year above us. And your year.”
“I guess you’re right.” And he is. It could be anybody. Maybe it was Aiden, one of his basketball teammates. They were buddies before Aiden left for college. He’s a year below me. That guy never made an appearance at the funeral despite how close they used to be. Which is weird, since not only did they go to the same high school and played basketball together, they also went to the same college. Maybe they had a falling out.
“Why are you asking, anyway?”
“Nothing,” I murmur, still stuck in my own head. “Just something he said.”
Zach studies me for a few more seconds, but then turns his gaze toward Gigi instead and starts asking her about her pregnancy. He probably knows that it’s a sore subject and doesn’t want to push it.
While the two of them are in the middle of talking about weird cravings, I suddenly remember something Andrew said in his video.
I’m done with his mind games.
“What if Andrew wasn’t bullied in a sense that he was beaten up?” I ask, interrupting their conversation. “What if he was emotionally bullied? Like the person broke him down mentally, piece by piece.”
Zach looks at me like I’m losing my mind. If he had seen the video, he’d understand. If he had known Andrew better, he’d get it. Andrew is a big softie. It wasn’t hard to guilt-trip him and make him feel bad about things.
“I have never heard of mental bullying before,” he answers, narrowing his eyes.
“It’s a whole thing,” Gigi chimes in. My future therapist . “It’s called emotional bullying. It happens with women all the time. Instead of physical fights, you go the mean-girl route.”
“I wasn’t close to him, sorry,” Zach says, giving us an apologetic smile. “You know the basketball and the football teams never hung out together, right? So I never spent a lot of time with him to notice shit like that.”
After that, the mood of the dinner shifted to something more somber. To be honest, everything was already going downhill the moment Zoey and Kai disappeared. I guess Zach must have finished his beer and has something better to do because he’s getting ready to leave now. I honestly don’t blame him. With a fighting couple in one room, a dead guy’s cousin shooting ominous questions that you don’t have the answers to, and a pregnant chick, we’re not exactly the go-to Saturday hangout for a sophomore jock looking for a good time anymore.
“Look,” he says to me as we give each other a bro hug at the front door of my apartment. “Sorry I can’t help with your cousin, but I might be able to help you with your living situation. The girl I’m seeing, her sister is a realtor. I’ll text you the number, if you want.”
“You’re the best, man,” I tell him with a smile on my face, and then we seal our goodbye with a bro handshake.