She's Broken

Chapter 30

                “Sorry, what did you say?” I asked. Carter chuckled, leaning back against the fence post.

                “I said,” he started, drawing out the word. “What time is Ally’s wedding tomorrow?”

                I chewed the inside of my lip. “Well, the wedding itself is at three and then the reception goes on through dinner and into the night. Why?” Carter gave me a one shouldered shrug, glancing at Jenna.

                “Dale gave his plus one to his girlfriend so I can’t go with his ticket and when I asked him to bug Cooper about letting me go, he forgot. He’s not answering his phone, either so I think I’ll end up going anyway and hope that Cooper isn’t too pissed about it.”

                Dale, when Cooper lived in the flats in town, was one of his close friends, alongside Josh. I’d never really met him or his girlfriend properly but as cousins, Dale and Carter were closer than most.

                “I’m sure he won’t be too fussed, don’t worry about it,” I said, waving my hand dismissively. Carter nodded, brushing some of the grass from his jeans. Jenna sighed into her hands, letting out a deep breath.

                “Is Dean going to be there?” she asked. I shook my head.

                “He shouldn’t be. Eli’s only going because he’s my plus one, the families don’t know each other.” Jenna nodded along with my words.

                “You shouldn’t get any trouble, then,” she assured. I rolled my lower lip into my mouth and sighed.

                “He’s been surprisingly nice to me, actually.” I filled them both in on how he helped when Steven had confronted me and how polite he’d been when he showed up at the yard the other day, looking for Eli.

                Carter and Jenna had reacted exactly how I’d expected when I sat them down and told them the whole story about Finn. Obviously, they’d been surprised, but they hadn’t called me on it or asked many questions, just told me that if I needed them, they were there. Anything else would’ve been unwelcomed, they know that I didn’t like questions being fired at me all the time but they also knew that things being ignored weren’t the best way to go about them, so in a way, they made the right decision.

                “Maybe it just hit home that you weren’t making it up,” Jenna offered, pushing herself up to roll onto her back. She put her sunglasses down over her eyes and looked at me expectantly, waiting for an answer.

                “I don’t know. I think it’s going to be pretty bad when I get back to school,” I said. Carter grimaced.

                “Might not be. Before, everything was kinda out of the blue, this time, there’s something to back this assault up” he reasoned. I decided against answering and merely shrugged, glancing over at Eli. Unsurprisingly, his back hit the floor, again.