“This is so cool!” I exclaim as Emmett is on my left and Eli is on my right. It’d taken a whole year of begging my brothers to get them to bring me to one of their parties before they caved and actually brought me to one. “I can’t believe you actually brought me here!”
“Well, you have to behave,” Emmett warns me. “You can drink but don’t take drinks from other people and you can dance just don’t go upstairs with anybody.”
“Yes, Dad,” I roll my eyes teasingly at him. The large house is full of seniors who are just graduating, so they’re all a year older than me but Emmett and Eli are just so popular at school that they can get invited to parties that are exclusively for seniors. I guess I’m popular by association, so they won’t like, kick me out or anything if I just act like I belong. I am wearing a dress that is tight on top but below the waist, it flows to just above my knees and shoes with a low heel so I look like I’m at a senior party but I have a wonderful boyfriend so I’m not going to fall into bed with anybody.
“I’m just looking out for you,” He justifies with a small laugh. “I have my phone so if you need me, just call, alright?”
“Em, I’ll be fine,” I tell him.
“I’ll have my phone too, Vi,” Eli says.
I grin excitedly and force them both into a group hug. “You guys are the best brothers ever. I’m going to go dance now.”
I leave them to do whatever it is that they do at parties and I find myself in the living room, dancing with everybody else. The people around me are pretty drunk because it’s already pretty late. I don’t drink though, so I just dance soberly and make sure to keep my distance from those guys that just randomly go up behind a girl and start dancing with her.
“Hey, you’re the governor’s daughter, aren’t you?” A senior girl asks me, yelling over the loud music.
I nod eagerly, kind of flattered that somebody noticed me. They are only a year older than me but it’s still pretty cool to be noticed by a group of girls who are older than me. “Yeah, I am.”
“Dance with us!” She invites me to dance with her and her friends and so I do. I dance with these girls as if we have been best friends forever. After a few songs though, I get thirsty so I go into the kitchen where one of the girls tells me that there’s drinks. When I get in there, I can see that most of them are alcoholic, but I find a can of Pepsi in the fridge and drink that. A guy offers me a cup of beer but I reject it, remembering what Emmett told me earlier about taking drinks from people.
“How are you doing?” Eli asks me, coming into the kitchen.
“Great!” I chirp. I am like a little girl wearing her mother’s heels, trying to be bigger than she really is. Taking on more than she really can handle. I don’t notice it though because to me, I’m just having fun at this party of people. “This is so much fun, El.”
“We’ve been taking care of her,” One of the girls in the group that I’d been dancing with says to my brother and she’s smiling at him suggestively.
They start flirting and then he walks away with the girl. I’m no scientist, but I think I know what they’re going to do. It’s disgusting, but I know that that’s what Eli does at parties. I mean, Emmett hooks up with girls sometimes, but most of the time, he’s a girlfriend kind of guy.
“Your brothers are so hot,” Another one of the girls coos at me.
I don’t know how to respond to that so I just smile at her and drink my pop. They realize that this is the end of our short-lived friendship and go off to dance somewhere else after saying goodbye. I think that they were only dancing with me to get to my brothers but honestly, I don’t mind all too much because it was fun dancing with them and it’s not like I’ll ever see them again. I pull my phone out of the pocket in my dress and see that I’ve already been here for an hour and a half. I told Nate that I’d call him at midnight and it was 12:15 so I should go do that. He didn’t come with me because he had his huge AP Government exam on Monday that he had to stay in and study for. I told him that I’d stay in with him and help him study but he told me that I should come to the party because my brothers probably wouldn’t ever let me go to another one and he knew how badly I really wanted to come tonight.
I go down a hallway and find an empty room that looks like a second living room. There’s a couch and a TV and a coffee table but it’s pretty small. I shut the door to drown out most of the party noise and dial Nate’s number.
“Hello?” He answers on the second ring.
“How’s studying?” I ask him.
“Oh, it’s a blast,” He says sarcastically. “How’s partying?”
“It’s fun,” I say. “It’d be better with you here. Are you sure you can’t come just for a little bit?”
“I’m sure,” Nate sighs. “My mom will flip if I get anything lower than a B on this exam.”
I start playing with the hem of my dress. “Okay. I’ll come over after the party or do you think you’ll be asleep?”
“You should come over,” He says. “If I’m asleep, just wake me up.”
“Will do,” I giggle. We haven’t done the deed yet because I’m a virgin and I want it to be special. I know it sounds cliché and ridiculous to some people, but I want my first time to be absolutely special. I want it to be with Nate too, considering we’d been dating for nine months now. I love him and he says that he loves me so we’re going to do it. Right after exams, next weekend, I’ve decided. “I’ll text you when we leave here.”
“Okay. I’ll see you in a little bit then. Go have fun at your party,” He laughs a little bit.
“I sure will, nerd,” I say teasingly. “I love you.”
“I love you too, Vi,” And then he hangs up. I put my phone back in my pocket and I’m about to stand up and leave the room again when there’s a knock on the door.
“No!” I scream, thrashing around in my blankets. “Get out! Get out!”
“What’s wrong?” Eli runs into my room only wearing basketball shorts because I guess that’s what he sleeps in and two seconds after that, Emmett is right behind him.
I’m shaking and I’m sobbing and I’m screaming and I’m just a really big mess right now. I pull my knees up and bury my face in them as I start to scream as loud as I can, trying to erase the memory from my head but I can’t- it’s burned into my skull. I hear my dad’s voice and then my mom’s and apparently, my shouting woke up the whole house.
Emmett is the first person to actually come over to me. He puts a hand on my shoulder and pries my face out of my knees. I flinch away from his touch but he doesn’t let go of my shoulder.
“Vi, what’s wrong?” He asks me in a tired voice. “What happened?”
“Bad dream, I guess,” I gasp through my sobs, digging my fingers into my hair to try and pull myself back to reality.
“What can make it better?” He wonders, sitting on the edge of my bed. My dad has stepped forward now too and he’s standing right beside Emmett, but Eli and my mom are staying back by the door because they feel guilty. They know that they are partially to blame for this.
I think about all of the things in the world that could make the pain go away. I think about everything. Money, food, friends, I run through it all and I flash back to Mr. Erickson because he used to be the person to make the pain go away, but it was only temporary. What is the one thing in this whole world that could take away this pain forever? “Nate,” I say pathetically. “I want Nate.”
He hugs me and I cry into his shoulder because the pain isn’t going away and because I don’t have Nate and I really need him. I could numb this pain out for seven months but now it’s not as numb as it used to be and I don’t know what to do to make it go away.
“If I can’t be helpful, I’m going back to bed,” My mom says with a yawn before leaving the room.
I’m crying in Emmett’s arms for what feels like a really long time and when I pull away from him, I look over at my alarm clock and see that it’s five o’clock in the morning.
“I’m going to go take a shower,” I say, my voice shaky and raspy from crying for so long.
“Are you sure that you’re okay?” My dad asks, who is now sitting beside Emmett on my bed. Eli is leaning against the wall by my door with his arms crossed in front of him.
I nod and push myself onto my feet. “I’m just dandy, I just… yeah, I’m fine,” I mumble, grabbing an outfit from my drawers before I push past Eli at the door and I leave my room without another word, leaving three speechless people in my wake.
I cry again in the shower but by the time I get out, I remember that I’m not that old Venice anymore. It doesn’t matter what happened to her because I’m new. I’m Venice now and I’m changed. I’m wearing a pair of insanely ripped skinny jeans and a black sweater that reads “Sweater weather is better weather” in small white type.
When I return to my room, Emmett and my dad are gone but Eli is still there, sitting in my desk chair at my desk.
“Can I help you?” I wonder irritably as I go over to my dresser that is backed with a mirror so I start brushing my hair.
“I don’t know,” He mumbles, running his fingers through his hair. “I mean, I know what happened was terrible but I thought you were over it by now.”
“It’s not really something that one gets over, El,” I tell him dryly.
“I guess, but I never meant to hurt you, Venice. I hate myself for doing this to you, I really do,” He starts to rant and I drown it out by starting my hair dryer and drying my hair with that. It takes me ten minutes and when I pull it away and turn it off, Eli is still there, which I was hoping he wouldn’t be.
“I hate you for what you did to me too, so I guess that’s something we have in common,” I say with a sarcastic chirp in my voice. “Get out of my room, you’re very annoying.”
“You used to idolize me,” He says quietly. “You used to think I was the coolest person ever.”
I nod in agreement. “I used to look up to you like crazy, but that was before you ruined me and so now all of that is pretty much down the drain.”
“I was so messed up that night, Vi,” He tells me just like he did the morning after it all happened.
“I know, I’ve heard the story,” I nod as I start on my makeup. “It doesn’t make it not happen. It still happened no matter how fucked up you were that night.”
He sighs and stands up from the chair. “I really am sorry, Venice,” He mumbles before leaving the room.
I put Eli and everything else in the back of my mind as I finish my makeup and then look at the clock- its six now and we leave for school at eight so I decide to go out for Starbucks before school. I slip some hot pink pumps onto my feet and get my bag from my table.
I don’t have a car yet, so I go into Emmett’s room after knocking and hearing him invite me in.
“Hey, feeling better?” He asks me when I open the door.
“Oh, I’m stellar,” I assure him with a smile. “Can I use your car and you can ride with Eli to school?”
“Why?”
I shrug. “I’m ready and it’s early so I’m going to go get something to eat before school.”
“Okay,” He nods, handing me his keys from his dresser. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“Absolutely not,” I chirp, taking his keys and leaving the room. “I’ll see you at school.”
I leave the house and drive Emmett’s car to the Starbucks that’s near the school that’s pretty busy right now, but I get through the line and order my caramel Frappuccino and a bagel before finding a small table in the corner to sit down and eat at. Usually, I’ll just get my coffee and leave, but since I have so much time before school starts, I just sit down and pull out my phone, texting Lexi to tell her where I am. She texts back and tells me that she won’t be able to meet me because she just started getting ready.
“Oh my, gosh,” Somebody gasps near my left side. “You’re that girl, aren’t you?”
I look up and see that person looking at me. I blink a few times before thinking of something to say. “It seems that way.”
“Holy shit,” The girl says, sitting down in the chair across from mine. “You have to tell me what happened. I heard that you got put into witness protection but I also heard that you got kidnapped and sold into some prostitution ring. Are either one of those true?”
“It’s a secret,” I say with a half-smile.
“So neither one of them are true?” She asks persistently. “I knew it!”
“I’m sorry, but who are you?” I ask her. “I have no idea who you are and you’re beginning to trouble me.”
“Oh, yeah I go to your school but I’m a sophomore. I was a freshman when you went missing.”
“Yeah, I can do math,” I nod at her. “Is that all that you wanted or is there another reason that you’re still sitting here?”
“Um, I guess that was it. Have a good day, Venice Forrester,” She chirps before standing up.
“You too,” I say back politely as she gets back in line to give her order.
I start playing Draw Something while I eat and I ignore the whispers around me as people start to recognize me. I don’t want to sound rude but I’ve obviously had a bad morning and I can’t help but be a little snappy and irritable.
“I’m just saying that I don’t need to do that,” I hear somebody say as they walk into the café. It wouldn’t have caught my attention if the voice wasn’t so familiar.
I look up and immediately, my chest starts searing painfully. It hurts worse than when I saw him in the cafeteria because now, he’s so close to me and there’s not that many people in the café anymore and I want to disappear and be right in that spot at the same time.
“Well, I’m just saying that you need to or you’ll probably go crazy,” Joe, his best friend, informs him as they walk to the end of the line that’s only like, three feet away from my table. Before they notice me, I look down at my phone and focus on my game instead of looking up at Nate and Joe.
“No, I’m not going to do it,” Nate says.
“Maybe you don’t have a choice,” I hear Joe mutter. “She’s right there.”
That’s when I discover that they’re talking about me and not only is my chest burning with an empty ache, but my throat becomes dry and I’m lucky that I started my day off crying to get it all out of my system before I got here because if I didn’t, I’d probably be crying right now.
“I’m not going over there,” Nate says and even though he sounds stiff and perturbed, I still revel in his voice that I haven’t heard in seven months.
“Okay, well I am,” Joe decides.
“Don’t be a dick,” He warns.
“I’m not being a dick,” Joe defends. “I’m just being a good best friend, actually.”
“Joe, don’t-“ But he stops talking.
I don’t know what I want to happen right now. I don’t know if I want Joe to come over here and talk to me or if I want Joe to just completely ignore me or if I just want to jump off of a cliff right now. However, no matter what I want, it happens anyway.
“Venice,” Joe says my name as he approaches the small table I’m sitting at. I am now obligated to look up at him. “I heard that you were back.”
“Hi,” I smile up at him, standing up to give him a small hug. “I have also heard that rumor.”
He hugs me back because while I was dating Nate, we became kind of friends. “I’m glad that you’re not dead.”
“Aw, that’s so sweet of you,” I coo, reminding myself to not let my shakiness show. I am Venice Forrester. “I’m glad that you’re not dead too.”
He laughs and I sit back down while he sits down in the chair across from mine. “Nate wants to come over and say hi but he has to keep our spot in line.”
“I bet,” I say with a forced laugh as I cross my right leg over my left one. “How have you been, Joe?”
“I’ve been picking up the broken pieces of Nate,” He sighs. “But other than that, I’ve been good. You?”
“I didn’t have the pleasure of having somebody else to pick up my broken pieces so that’s what I’ve been doing. How is he?”
“Hey, Nate!” Joe calls over to Nate who is standing in line looking anywhere but here and he finds refuge by texting on his phone or pretending to text, I don’t know. “She wants to know how you are. What should I say?”
Suddenly, Joe’s phone bings with a text so he pulls it out of his jeans pocket and reads it.
“He says ‘get your ass back over here’ which doesn’t answer my question,” Joe plays stupid, reading the text that Nate apparently just sent him. “Nate, you didn’t answer my question, man.”
“You can tell Nate that I’m not going to eat his face off if he talks to me,” I say with that half smile that seems heavy on my face.
“Wait, so you didn’t turn into a cannibal while you were gone?”
“Strange enough, I didn’t. It’s crazy, I know.”
“You’ve changed though,” He says. “You’re wearing heels and smirking and stuff.”
“My broken pieces fit together in a different way after they were put together again so yeah, I’ve changed,” I tell him.
“Well, what happened?” He asks me. “You know, like why you left and why you were all broken?”
“Story for another time,” I shake off just as he gets another text.
“This one says ‘I’m going to murder you with a fork’,” Joe announces. “He’s in a gruesome mood, I see.”
“It seems that way,” I say as I sip my hot drink. “You’d better go.”
“Yeah, I’ll go before he has a hissy fit or something. It’s good seeing you, Venice,” Jo tells me, standing up from the table. He takes the last bite of my bagel as he walks off.
“You too,” I chirp, taking my coffee, I stand up from the table too because I don’t want to be there anymore. I leave the café and go back to Emmett’s car with another half an hour until school starts.
I’m about to cry, so I pinch my wrist as hard as I possibly can and blink my eyes rapidly to prevent any tears from leaving my eyes.
I drive to the school even though I’ll be incredibly early and I wait in the car for ten minutes before I decide that I’m emotionally ready to deal with other people. I get out of the car and I walk towards the building, not feeling the pressure of having to strut because there aren’t really that many people around.
When I get inside, I’m walking down the hallway to get to the cafeteria where everybody sits when they’re early, when I feel a hand on my shoulder. I figure that it’s one of my brothers or Lexi, so I turn around and this time, the ache in my chest isn’t nostalgic or the burn of heartbreak. My heart starts beating so fast that it hurts inside of me but this isn’t the same kind of hurt I feel when I see Nate or think about Nate. This was raw, excruciating fear.
“Hey,” He breathes. I remember that disgusting reddish brown hair and his slight acne and his over powering Axe scent. I remember it all and it makes me want to throw up. “Can we talk?”
I shake my head, proud of myself for being able to move at all. “No.”
“Venice,” He says and I cringe when he says my name. I wonder if he notices how badly I’m shaking. “I just want to talk, okay? I know that you’re mad and everything, but I’m really glad to see you. I mean, I was really worried that you went off and did something really stupid and gotten yourself killed or something.”
“No,” I repeat in a low voice. “Stay away from me, Cole.”
I start to walk away, but he grabs my wrist. “Venice, I-“
He doesn’t get to continue talking because I react to him grabbing my wrist and I push his shoulders as hard as I can. He stumbles and his back slams into the lockers, knocking the wind out of him and he groans. The crash of the lockers is so loud that I worry that somebody else heard it, but when I look around, nobody is around so I assume they either don’t care or didn’t hear it because it wasn’t as loud as it seemed to me.
“If you touch me again, I might castrate you with a rusty spoon,” I seethe before stomping away towards the cafeteria.
“What was that?” I hear somebody ask after I’ve gotten farther down the hallway. I turn towards the voice and see that Benson guy standing there, looking down the hallway where Cole is still standing, but he’s not crumpling against the lockers anymore.
“That was the beginning of a very bad day,” I inform him as I pass by, going into the cafeteria.
“Was that Cole Knight though?” He follows after me.
I nod. “That it was.”
“Your brother’s ex-friend?”
“Why all of the questions?” I ask him.
“That’s just weird, I guess. Pretty intimidating too,” Benson admits with a small shrug. “Remind me not to piss you off like that.”
I stop walking, spin around and stare at Benson. “If you ever even try to do what he did, I’ll cut your dick off and feed it to you through a tube. The last thing you would be worrying about is being slammed into some lockers."
“I thought you were dating Nate before you left?”
“I didn’t know you were so obsessed with me,” I tell him.
“I’m not obsessed with you,” He scoffs.
“Great, so I’ll see you around then,” I say as I get into the cafeteria and I find Lexi sitting at a table with a few other people. I hold my head up high like this morning didn’t just royally suck ass and I tell myself that I need to stay strong. I forget about the nightmare and I forget about Nate and I forget about Cole and I just forget.
I’m not weak. I’m Venice fucking Forrester. I don’t need Nate. I don’t need anybody.