The next day, Bella tried to convince me to go to a party.
"You must be mad," I said, staring at her like she was crazy. "A party is the last thing on my mind right now."
I was still upset over the visit to the house yesterday, and Kane's radio silence wasn't exactly helping matters.
"Exactly. You need a distraction, or you'll just continue to brood, and be all grumpy," she told me.
"I'm not brooding, or grumpy," I said, scowling at her.
She looked at me for a moment, and then burst out into loud laughter. My frown only lasted for a minute, before I was joining her in reluctant giggles. Bella's laughter had always been contagious; it used to get us into quite a bit of trouble when we were younger. A big jock, a few lockers down from us, glared over at the noise.
"Please, Zoe," she said. Laughter subsiding, her face turned pleading. "You won't regret it, I promise."
"I don't have anything to wear," I told her. And for once, it wasn't an exaggeration. I wouldn't be seen dead at a party in any of the clothes I currently owned.
"You can borrow one of my dresses," she said, shrugging like that wasn't a ridiculous suggestion.
"Are you kidding me? Your dresses are like shirts on me," I said, incredulously, seeing as I was half a foot taller than her.
"And that's a problem?" she said, a mischievous twinkle in her eye.
I crossed my arms. "I'm not going."
She grabbed a folder out of her locker, slamming the door shut with an elbow. The jock once again turned to eye her. Seriously, where had he been for the past three years? Her loudness wasn't anything new, in fact it was something that I'd always found incredibly endearing about her. Her clueless ability to draw attention to herself.
"I'll pick you up at eight tonight, and I'll bring clothes with me," she said, unfazed by my protest.
To my dismay, Mom agreed that I should go to the party when I told her about it after school that evening.
"It's Friday night, what else are you going to do?" Mom asked, reasonably enough. She sat on the couch beside me, sorting through the clothes we'd gotten yesterday. Her Friday night plan was to go to the laundromat, and get all our laundry done. Not exactly the most exciting of evenings. So I thought it was a bit rich for her to be questioning me on my social activities.
"I'm just not in the mood for a party," I told her, putting my knees up to my chest and wrapping my arms around them.
"Bella will have you enjoying yourself in no time. It's impossible not to be in a good mood around that girl," Mom said, her face sympathetic but unyielding. "You should go out and have fun. This past week's been a lot harder on you than the twins. I don't want you looking back at your senior year of high school, and only having bad memories."
I sighed long and hard, finding it bizarre that Mom was guilting me into going to a party. Normally, it would have been the other way around.
"I won't be good company," I said, looking down at my knees.
"Go, see how you feel once you're there," Mom said. "You deserve a night of fun."
"So do you," I told her, not remembering the last time I'd seen her do something just for fun. The past few years, for her, had been all about us kids, work, and survival.
"That's kind of you to say, Zoe," Mom said, blonde waves falling into her face as she concentrated on the clothes in front of her.
"It's true," I insisted. When Mom didn't say anything, I continued, "You know that, right, Mom? You're doing a great job."
"I just feel like David would have known what he was doing, if he was here," Mom admitted quietly. "He would know how to fix things, and he wouldn't have made such a mess of it all like I've been doing."
"I know you miss David, Mom, I do too." I cleared my throat. "But this isn't your fault. You've done the best you can... with how little we have." That pretty much summed it all up.
"It doesn't feel like enough. I feel like a failure. I've let you kids, and him, down. Look at where we are. He wanted better for you kids." She gestured around the apartment, looking hopeless.
"Don't say that, Mom. Things won't stay this way forever. " I hugged her, wishing for the right words to say. "David would be so proud over how strong you've been. How you've taken care of everything alone."
"If the home insurance payout doesn't come through... this is it. It'll take a lifetime, if ever, to work us back up to where we were."
"Why... why wouldn't it come through?" I said, fear lacing up my spine.
"Oh, Zoe." Mom slumped, looking like the weight of the world was on her shoulders. "Our fire alarms didn't go off that night. They should have. They would have woken us sooner, and we would have been able to call the police earlier. Part of our cover policy stipulated that we had to have working fire alarms at all times."
With all the chaos of that night, I hadn't even thought about our alarms not going off.
"So what does that mean?" I asked, dread tightening my throat.
"I don't know." Mom shrugged, helplessly. "It all depends on that fire report. We just have to wait and see. And we need to be prepared... just in case we get nothing."
We sat in silence for a moment, the horror of it too much to fathom.
There was a knock on the door, making me blink.
"That'll be Bella," Mom said, getting up. "Will you answer? I should go and check on the twins, get them out of the bath."
I got up sluggishly, feeling like I was a hundred years old as I opened the door. Bella stood there, all decked out in black, her smoky eyes lighting up as they landed on me.
"I found the perfect outfit for you," she squealed, pushing past me.
"I thought you were bringing options?" I asked, it taking me a moment to switch gears. Clothes. The party. Right.
"I was, but then I found this number at the back of my closet, and just knew it would look amazing on you," she said, confidently. "Trust me."
She was right.
The white lace top was gorgeous, and paired with a pair of jean shorts that probably made my legs look miles long, I felt great. Sexy. Though I had only been able to glance at my top half in the small bathroom mirror.
I was suddenly dying to get out of the apartment.
"You are a genius," I said, grateful for so much more than just the outfit.
"I know." Her smile was smug. "Ready to party?"
"Sure."
The party was in full swing by the time we arrived, the thrum of music reaching us before we even entered the house. I could see a group of people standing outside; some having a smoke, others just clutching their drinks.
It got even louder as we stepped inside.
"Welcome, welcome, beautiful ladies." A guy, wearing a pink feather boas and hairband, beamed at us. "Drinks are through there." He gestured towards the kitchen. "And the hunks are in there." He winked, pointing towards the living area, before disappearing into the crowd.
"Drinks first?" Bella asked, raising an eyebrow at me.
I nodded, following her into the kitchen. As I looked around, I realized that I wasn't seeing any familiar faces.
"I don't recognize anyone here," I hissed in her ear.
She avoided my eyes, looking a little guilty. "Don't freak out, okay, but this is a college party."
"A college party? How the hell did you even find out about it?"
"I got invited by-" Her eyes drifted to the side, focusing in on someone over my shoulder. I turned to see what had caught her attention, and knew immediately what - or who - it was.
I'd never seen him before, but he was one hundred percent Bella's type on paper. He had dark black hair styled in a mohawk, a silver piercing in his left eyebrow and another one under his bottom lip. His eyes were dark, and a wicked smile played on his lips as he approached Bella.
And suddenly things were making a lot more sense. He was why we were here, I just knew it.
"Hey, baby, you made it," he said, putting an arm around her shoulder.
"Wouldn't have missed it," she said, eyes bright. "Dev, this is my friend, Zoe. Zoe, this is Dev."
"I've heard a lot about you," he said smoothly, nodding in my direction.
"That's funny, she hasn't mentioned you at all." I eyed him up and down.
Bella elbowed me in the stomach, hard.
"She's a joker." She laughed, placing a hand on Dev's arm. He smiled back at her, indulgently.
I was wary, but not because of anything he'd done so far. It was just Bella's taste in guys. If she was into him, then there was probably something wrong with him. It could be a secret girlfriend, a tendency to break into people's houses while they were out and rob the place, or perhaps an assault and battery conviction. And that was just some of the crap that Bella's previous boyfriends had hid from her.
"Here, let me grab you some drinks." He put his own drink down, and grabbed two bottles of beer, handing one to Bella and then to me after opening them.
"Thanks."
"You here by yourself? I can find a mate for you," Dev offered, taking a sip of his drink.
No way.
"I'm good," I told him, but he wasn't paying attention to me.
"Hey, Aiden!" he yelled, looking across the room. "Come over here."
I turned, hoping that I was not about to bump into my ex. There were probably dozens of Aiden's here-
Of all the rotten luck. I cursed, wondering why I was so surprised. Luck had not been on my side lately.
A redhead had been yapping away at him, but when Dev called his name, he detangled himself from her and sauntered over to us, a delighted gleam appearing in his eyes. He looked great, as always. The black shirt he wore clung to a body that I knew was rock-hard and well developed. His hair was longer than I'd ever seen it before, falling into his eyes. But he was just... it wasn't the same anymore. He no longer affected me, or made my heart race. I tried to tell myself that it had nothing to do with meeting Kane.
"Hey, bro. There's someone I want you to meet. Aiden, this is Zoe." Dev gestured towards me. "Zoe, my mate, Aiden."
So, he and Aiden were friends. My estimation of him was falling rapidly by the second.
Introductions made, Dev looked at Bella like he was expecting her to leave with him now that he'd set me up with someone. She however was busy looking at Aiden like he was something vile stuck at the bottom of her shoe.
"It's good to see you, Zoe," Aiden said, a lazy smile appearing on his face.
"You guys know each other?" Dev said, looking confused.
"We dated last year," Aiden said. "How's school, Zoe? Bella? Miss seeing my face between classes?"
For a second I was confused. Of all the things he could have said, he asked about school?
"Whoa. You're still in high school?" Dev said, taking his arm off Bella's shoulder. He stepped back, both hands raised in the air like someone had threatened to shoot.
Judging by the smirk on Aiden's face, he'd been hoping for just that reaction with his carefully formulated question.
"You're a real asshole, you know that?" Bella said, glaring at Aiden, when Dev disappeared into the crowd with a muttered "gotta go".
"Trust me, I'm doing you a favour." Aiden shrugged, unconcerned. His eyes perused me up and down. "So how you doing, Zoe? It's been a while. I've been trying to calling you. You look... stunning."
"Thanks," I said unenthusiastically, taking a sip of my beer. "And I had to get a new number."
Mom hadn't been able to keep up with the payments on my old cell plan, so I'd had to change to a cheaper provider.
"Really?" he asked, skeptically.
"Yes, really," I said, shortly. I was suddenly remembering how paranoid he could be. How convinced he would be sometimes that I was lying to him. We'd been heading for a break-up for a while, there was just too many things wrong with our relationship, but the final nail in the coffin had been when I'd found out that he was doing drugs. Dealing too, if the rumours were correct.
"Well, I've been calling and texting you over the past few days," he told me.
"Why?" I was mystified.
He shrugged, nonchalantly. "Just to see if you wanted to hang out."
Bella looked at him in utter disbelief. I was sure I had the same expression on my face.
"Aiden, the last time I saw you, you called me a patronizing bitch." I was so done talking to him.
He looked chagrined. "You had just dumped me, Zoe. I was angry, and upset. What did you expect?"
Bella made a noise in the back of her throat, and Aiden shot her a scowl.
"I don't know," I said, exasperatedly, before they started bickering, "but you can't honestly say that you didn't see it coming."
He knew how I felt about drug use, which was why he'd hidden it from me the whole time we were dating.
"Babe, I'm done with all that stuff," he said, leaning closer to me.
"Are you?" I said, not believing a word of it. He attended Grenward, too, and though I - thankfully - had yet to bump into him there, I had heard about his reputation.
He nodded. "You know I wouldn't lie to you... again," he added, seeing my incredulous look. Bella choked on air. "Do you mind?" he said, coolly.
"I'll be over there," she said, pointing to a group of guys. She was still smirking as she wandered off.
"So what do you think? Wanna hang out?" he asked.
It's what he'd said to me over a year ago when he first asked me out. I'd been so flattered to get his attention. He'd been a senior, and was popular, and hot. I'd been left swooning for days. Things had gone downhill after he'd started college, and had started hanging out with a whole new crowd.
"I don't think so, Aiden. I've got a lot going on right now," I told him. I was not interested, at all, in starting anything back up with him.
"Aw, don't be like that, babe," he said, putting an arm around me.
I immediately took a big step back, but Aiden moved with me.
"I've got to go. I... I'm seeing someone else now," I lied, looking around for Bella. She was dancing with some guy across the room, smiling up at him. I was surprised to see it was the jock from the hallway in school earlier.
He paused. "You are?" he said, sounding surprised, and for some reason, that pissed me off.
"Yes," I said, not hiding my annoyance.
"Who?" His eyes narrowed, a muscle on his jaw beginning to tick.
Unbelievable. He was unbelievable. I knew he'd hooked up with other girls while we were still together, and he had the audacity to act all possessive after the fact? I was regretting ever starting this conversation with him. I should have walked away as soon as he approached.
"You don't know him," I said, beginning to edge away from him.
I glanced towards Bella again, but another surprising figure caught my eye. My mouth parted open as I saw Kane with a group of guys. I could see his profile as he talked to someone, and it was perfect. He was perfection. A girl walked past him, eyeing him hungrily. In fact, there seemed to be a number of girls glancing in his direction. He didn't seem to notice, immersed in his conversation.
As if sensing my gaze, he rubbed the back of his neck and scanned the room. I knew the second he saw me, his body seeming to tense as his penetrating gaze captured mine. His eyes darkened as they moved down me, lingering on my legs. Just as quickly, his eyes moved to Aiden, the prick, who still had an arm around me. Before I could do anything, he glanced away, turning back to his friends.
Shit.
"Who-" Aiden was saying.
I pushed him away, seriously annoyed. "We're not together. So what does it matter?"
"I want to-" he started.
"No. Just no. I'm not going to 'hang with you'." I stomped away from him, annoyed at him, and annoyed at Kane, who asked for my number and then didn't text. Most of all, I was annoyed at myself for caring what Kane might have thought seeing me with Aiden.
Before I made it over to Bella, resolutely not looking over in Kane's direction, there was a flash of blue and then red light across the room. What the-?
I looked out the large living room window, and saw multiple blue and red flashing lights.
"Cops," someone yelled.
I looked down at the beer in my hand. Shit.
A/N: I'm on a role. Three chapters in four days! Please let me know what you think, and don't forget to vote!