The Lifeguard Hates You (Completed)

August Chapter 5

I... I literally have no words.

For starters... Rory was supposed to inherit a clothing company. A clothing company that was clearly doing really well for itself if the state of her parent's house was anything to go by.

But I think what was really throwing us, what really had us confused was that Rory had a brother. A brother that none of us knew about. A brother she never told us about. A brother that people seemed to think she had killed?

I don't believe for one second that Rory killed someone, she cried over drowned animals in our pool, and held funerals for them. I really highly doubt she actually straight up murdered anyone. But knowing how easy it is to guilt Rory, I can one hundred percent believe that she thinks she did, or was at least directly responsible for what happened.

We left the party shortly after Rory did, except both she and the car we had taken there were gone.

It took a while to get us a cab, and then it took us even longer to get back onto the estate because no one answered the calls from the gate for the longest time. When we were finally let in, no one met us at the door like we were used to either, and the fact that we were used to a servant meeting us at the door to open it for us spoke volumes to how spoiled we had gotten in less than 48 hours.

I knew I should have been worried about Rory, but honestly I'm pissed. I'm pissed she left us at that party. I'm pissed that she lied to us and hid so much from us.

And I want to yell at her. Like right now.

What I get instead is this stunning brunette in a floor length black dress looking like a bombshell descending the stairs. She stares at us, this calculated icy look on her face that had all of us frozen at the foot of the stairs.

"You are Rory's friends I presume," she asks in the dry clearly annoyed way.

"I remember you," Jay breathes out beside me and I'm immediately confused, because when the hell could he have met this person. "You were at Coog's!"

"You mean Brandon's," she says. "God I hate that nickname." She says that last little bit to herself. "And I hear you heard about Riley."

I'm not sure if we did.

"Is that her brother?" Shawn asks and the woman nods.

I had no idea she had a brother named Riley, I didn't think any of us did, but Jay seems to recognize the name.

"Are you her mom?' I ask hoping to introduce ourselves, so that way she'll move aside and let us go check on Rory.

So I can yell at her.

She nods. "I'm Ava Schuester, and yes, I'm that Schuester of Schuester and Goldberg," she says shaking all of our hands.

That is just the most prestigious law firm in New York. They had branches all over the world. And her mother's name was on the moniker. Holy shit.

"Rory is currently sequestered in her room. She will no doubt refuse to come out before it's time for you to return to the North. If that is the case rest assured that we will have her driven up."

Really she was that upset?

"Have you talked to her?" Jay asks.

"No. She doesn't talk to us about her problems unless they become too much to handle. Like her deal with Polished Elite."

Wait a second... had her mother had to go up to Muskoka to get Rory out of her Polished Elite contract? It would explain how Jay met her, though not why she was staying at Coog's.

"Can... can you tell us what happened? Why do people think she killed her brother?" I ask because honestly I just want to understand what's happening.

Her mother looks annoyed by this request and we hear her mutter: "Damn that Peyton Finnigan. She really is an insufferably cruel child."

She then sighs at us and when she turns to us we see tears brimming in her eyes. "The short of it is, Riley went to pick Rory up from a club one night. They were t-boned by a drunk driver only a few blocks away from the club. It was no one's fault except the drunk driver, but Rory has always felt that if she hadn't asked him to come get her, he'd still be alive."

Yep. That was exactly like Rory.

"We have tried telling her, over and over, that no one believes that except her. But... well... you know what she's like."

Yes, yes we did. And now we knew that Muskoka wasn't a penance, it was a punishment. She blamed herself for what happened so she banished herself to a boring meek existence up North with us.

Had she ever been happy with us? Or had it all been a lie?

Now I was afraid to find out.