The Return

Chapter Four

"Heaven!" Holly hollered picking up her pace across the hall.

Heaven seemed...busy. Slamming her locker shut, she was gone, down the hall, past a line of locked class doors.

"We need to talk, Heaven," Holly whizzed past the baseball team. With their branded varsity jackets, they weren't a hard miss. Especially since they hissed and hollered at her.

Pigs...

"And what do we have to talk about?" Heaven mused. "How about how you insulted our parents, degraded them even if all they're trying to do is figure out their relationship." She spat, her voice sending a chill down Holly's spine.

Oh good, they were diving right in.

"I'm not saying I'm innocent." Holly glared at the girls by the stairs that stopped in their tracks. She looked back at Heaven. "You know I didn't mean that..."

"Do I, Holly? You were gone three years and unless you've forgotten, you never called... You didn't text back..." Don't fight. Don't make it worse. The words reran in her head. She would be poking holes in her own plan. The perfect family had to start somewhere. An empathetic sister was a good enough place as any.

Holly bit down on her bottom lip. "I should have called." She drew a strained breath. "I lost myself in the pain of letting go of you and Vaughn," She hated lying.

"What do you want, Holly?" Heaven asked, she looked sad, tired. "For me to throw you a welcome back party?" Heaven cleared her throat. "Hey, Everyone, listen up!"

No!

Shit!

Shit!

Shit!

Holly winced.

"Party at my house. We'll be welcoming my ungrateful and fucking entitled sister Holly," She turned to her. "Are you happy now? Or what, you want me to hug you and pretend we have some fucking connection?"

"I didn't cause this," Holly murmured. her eyes, a black-brown narrowed at the floor.

"Of course, you didn't. Mom and Dad did." Heaven rolled her eyes. Shifting the weight of her books to one arm, she jabbed a finger at Holly. "They are the reason I lost my best friend?"

Holly swallowed the lump in her throat.

"Heaven, I..."

"Save it." She puffed her cheeks. "All because of a damn divorce, Holly, how does that even make sense. Grow the hell up. You can't keep blaming them for everything." Heaven reprimanded. "Take some responsibility and stop gaslighting."

Holly was unsettled. Her first day back was nothing like she anticipated. Less than an hour into her new semester as a high school senior, she gathered a crowd by the stairs. Bodies clustered in a small circle, phones a natural attachment to their hands. She didn't know any of the eager grinning faces egging her on. Their shrieks and shouts had her gut tightening; pulse pounding in her wrists. She didn't want to know them.

"You're not the one I'm mad at, Heaven,"

"How can I make it any easier for you, because I can tell you're still drunk as shit." Holly shook her head. Heaven didn't want to hear it. "You mess with them; you mess with me. We're a family, and you can either join us and celebrate that they're trying to fix their mistakes or you can be alone, fighting a battle you've already lost."

The man who heard the ruckus and pushed through the oasis of pretentious fight-hungry teenagers found the two sisters that started it all. "Alright, alright, break it up. We will not tolerate this level of disorderly conduct in our campus. Detention, both of you."

Fucking hell.