Illegally In Love

Chapter Twenty-Four: "Load Of Bullshit"

"She speaks!" Jeff exclaims, jokingly mocking me, making everyone laugh.

"Shut up, dummy!" Jessie smacks Jeffrey's arm lightly. "What do you mean, Pen?"

"I mean," I drawl annoyingly. "If you pour water on your shirt and that makes your shirt wet, how can the water not be wet itself? And if water isn't wet that technically makes it dry. How can you have dry water?"

Once again the room goes silent. Jeff and Jess look between each other before looking over to me. I raise an eyebrow and smirk smugly waiting for their response.

"Yeah, water's definitely wet." Jeffrey finally breaks the silence and nods his head multiple times.

"It's for sure wet." Jess agrees in a mumble then turns her attention back to Jeff's lips.

"Speaking of wet water, I think I need some." I slur, blinking a few times to clear my vision, before getting up and stumbling to the kitchen.

As I move around the kitchen, my limbs feel heavy. It's like I have to actually put in the effort and think about moving instead of just being able to do it. But at least breathing is still involuntary, because if I had to do it myself I would surely forget to breathe.

Even though being this high can be scary, I welcome the fear. I accept the fear because I get to feel numb. There's no pain, no remorse. And I'd take all the bad side effects any day to be blessed by the numbness.

"Hey," I hear from behind me as I'm filling my glass with water.

I turn the water off and swivel around to see Jeffrey with his hands behind him on the counter as he leans against it.

"Hey Jeffy," I giggle softly, taking a sip of my water.

Jeffrey rolls his eyes. "I hate that nickname." He groans.

"I know, that's why I gave it to you." I say in a 'duh' tone.

"Yeah, whatever." He laughs half-heartedly. I notice his eyes travel down to my stomach for a millisecond before connecting with my gaze again.

What the hell?

"You're acting weird." I point out the obvious.

"Listen," Jeff starts, taking a deep breath, making my nerves spike. "There are some things I've heard." He tells me, crossing his arms.

"Like?" I drawl, trying to appear unbothered by his demeanor.

"Like you were fucking stabbed!" He whisper yells.

My eyes widen in surprise. "How do you know that?"

"You forget that I have eyes and ears everywhere, Pen." He walks across the kitchen until he's right in front of me. He grabs the bottom hem of my shirt and lifts it up, revealing the bandage covering my stitches. He carefully pulls the dressing away so he can see the wound. "Holy shit, Penny! Did the guy fucking gut you?!"

I immediately bring my finger to my lips to gesture for him to quiet down. "Basically." I nod, answering his rhetorical question, before covering my injury back up. "Does Jess know?"

"No, of course not. If she did, she'd be in jail for murder." He answers, pulling my shirt down over my abdomen.

"Speaking of murder," I run my hand through my hair and exhale. "Do you remember a girl named Hannah Mayor?"

"The girl that was stabbed to death or whatever?" He asks nonchalantly as he picks a grape off the bunch in the fruit bowl.

I roll my eyes. "Yeah, 'stabbed to death or whatever'."