The Kings of Kentworth

137.

After dinner that evening, Stephanie made her way up to her room. She dropped to the bed, pulled out her novel from her drawer and turned away. She just laid there with her eyes fixed to the ceiling and her mind lost in thought. She allowed herself drift through the events of the entire year.
It had been eventful, without a doubt.
She an hour before dinner, she and Lenny were at the hospital to visit Lance again. He still hadn’t woken up from the induced coma. Every time she saw Lance’s mother, she didn’t want to leave, but she had to.
Stephanie sighed and shook her head when she remembered what Trevor and his gang had done to the poor boy. She felt the bile rise in her throat when she recalled all the times she saw Lance and Trevor together.
It was all a bloody lie.

She felt even angrier when she remembered Trevor’s best friend, Caleb. She remembered the nights of intimacy, she remembered how she had given herself to him……..and when she remembered asking him about Lance, she felt her blood boil when he lied to her face. All the memories were going through her mind, and all the while, Stephanie didn’t know she had a fist-full of her bed-sheet in her right hand.
Her phone started to buzz on her reading table and she suddenly exhaled with rage. It was probably him; the bastard. He had giving her eight missed calls today alone. She felt sick when she looked into her phone earlier that day and saw six messages from him alone. She didn’t bother reading them. Like, what part of ‘Leave me alone’ didn’t he understand?

The phone continued to buzz and Stephanie finally reached out to silence it when she couldn’t take it anymore. She gave a gasp when she held the phone to her view and saw it was Caleb who was calling. She tapped the green button and pressed the phone to her ear.

“Hey Tess,” she uttered. “What’s up?”

“Took you long enough.”

“Shut up,” Stephanie replied with a smile as she laid back down in bed.

“You busy?”

“No, why?”

“I’m bored,” Tess was almost groaning.

“So?” Stephanie replied. “Watch a movie.”

“Nah,” Tess answered. “Not in the mood.”

There was a short silence.

“Spoken to Caleb yet?” Tess finally asked.
“Why should I?”

“Cuz….he likes you…and you like him?”

“I don’t like him,” Stephanie retorted.
“Yes you do.”

“No I don’t.”

“Oh come on Ste-”

“Okay, can just drop this?” Stephanie hissed. “Please?”

“Fine,” Tess answered.

There was another moment of silence.
“Wanna meet up at Blinley’s?” Tess asked.
“I just had dinner,” Stephanie exhaled.
“We don’t have to eat anything,” Tess replied. “Just to hang out. Get sodas?”
Stephanie exhaled again and turned to her alarm clock.

“7:39pm.”

“Pleeeeaaase?” Tess hummed from the speaker.

Stephanie dropped her shoulders and exhaled again. “Fine. On my way.”

Stephanie had been sitting in her booth for the past twenty minutes and there was no sign of Tess. She had called her earlier and Tess had told her she had stopped to get something at the drug store nearby.
“Just give me two minutes. I’m a few blocks away,” Tess had said.

Stephanie got a coke and waited for another ten minutes. She was beginning to think Tess wasn’t going to make it. She pulled her phone out of her pocket and started to type in a message to Tess.
Stephanie: Tess! What the hell, where-
“Hey Stephanie,” the masculine was familiar.