Terry went for Jen in an instant. I wasn’t able to block what was coming for Jen. Terry’s arms seemed to have extended a meter longer because I just blinked, and when I looked again, her hands were all over Jen’s hair. I was hopeless to stop her.
“What did I do to you?! Why? He was everything to me!”
Although she was screaming in anger, I could tell that she was crying.
Jen wailed, trying her damn best to get Terry’s lethal grip out of her hair.
“Girls, girls!” I tried to pull Terry away. “Stop it!”
Jen’s mother came out when she heard the commotion. When she saw that her daughter was being attacked, she didn’t hesitate to pull Terry’s hair. Now, mother and daughter launched their assault on Terry.
Terry was on the ground, shielding her face from the two women. If before I was trying to protect Jen, I now found myself in front of Terry, protecting her from being murdered by Jen and her mother.
“Stop!” I told both of them. I felt a sharp pain in my back. It was doubtless from the sole of a slipper.
Thank God Mrs. Gracie was not wearing stilettos!
“Please, stop,” I pleaded as I tried to hold the sobbing Terry in my arms.
Then somehow, it stopped. The surroundings turned quiet, and the only things I could hear were the quiet sobs of Terry and Jen. I pulled Terry to her feet, and then I faced both Jen and her mother.
“You’re siding with her?” Jen asked me angrily. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“I wasn’t siding with her!” I argued. “I was just preventing you from sending her to the ER, so she couldn’t file a case against you and your mom for frustrated murder.”
“How dare you come to my house and assault my daughter?” Jen’s mother was obviously not going to let it go.
“How dare your slut of a daughter sleep with my boyfriend?” Terry fired back.
“What?” Mrs. Gracie echoed.
“Yes!” Terry said. “The whole town is talking about it! JD was telling all his friends how he banged her!”
To Jen, Terry tearfully said, “You were my friend. I trusted you. You know I have liked JD since we were ten! It took a long time before he finally noticed me. I told you all my pains whenever he cheated on me. I told you how I found out about the other girls. I told you how happy I am now, how we finally are in a happy place! How could you do this to me?”
“Is this true?” Jen’s mother asked her daughter.
Jen didn’t say anything. She looked down at her toes, and tears kept flowing from her eyes.
“Did you sleep with JD because Nicholas Atkins was completely ignoring you? That he kept ignoring your calls? You can’t accept the fact that while your guy was rejecting you, mine was finally becoming faithful to me! You can’t accept that I’m happy and you’re not! That you can’t get rid of Ken Clarke long enough for you to get laid!”
My head snapped up. I stared at Terry with narrowed eyes. I felt the temperature of my face quickly rising.
Terry wiped the tears from her cheeks. Her hair was in total dishevel, and her eyeliner was forming black lines down her cheeks. She looked like Joker, but I couldn’t find it in my bleak soul to laugh at her condition. I was still busy processing what she said about me being the only thing standing between Jen and “slutdom.”
“It’s true, you know! Jen hated you for being overprotective! She hated you for ruining her chances to get dates, to meet boys, to get laid! You thought you were good for her?” She shook her head. “Well, she certainly didn’t think so!”
I couldn’t believe what I heard. I was hoping that it wasn’t true. That maybe Terry wanted to get back at Jen for what she did to her.
“Is that true?” I asked Jen.
Jen stared at me for a long moment. She couldn’t answer. She just kept crying. Her mother placed an arm around her. I wanted to press her for answers, but then I remembered that I couldn’t do that. No matter how angry I was, I couldn’t pressure Jen to admit the truth.
I turned to Terry. “I hope after this, you break up with that scumbag and move on. You deserve better. Only a dog will cheat on you over and over, and only a worthless piece of shit will cheat on you with your friend.” I looked at Jen and then back at Terry. “You girls got to have more respect for yourselves than fighting over a piece of worthless crap.”
Then I turned on my heel and got in my car. I drove fast without having a particular destination in mind. I wanted to clear my head. I knew, deep inside, that what Terry said was true. They were friends, and I knew Jen spent hours on the phone with her friends.
Last weekend, when I was with Nicholas, his phone had kept ringing. He ignored those calls.
Was that Jen?
But I thought Nicholas was out to get her, and if it weren’t for me, he would have succeeded already. He’d jump at the chance to speak to her. So maybe it wasn’t Jen calling him at all.
I found myself parking in front of Rhythemes. I needed to talk to someone. I needed to process the whole thing. I endured not speaking to Jen for a whole week because I was hoping she would miss me. It turned out she hated me so much, and she couldn’t wait to get rid of me.
Fuck!
I freaking studied Psychology because I wanted to be there for her. She will need help to make sure she holds on to the tiny string of mental strength she has, long enough for her to live a normal life. Her parents were too naïve to realize this about their daughter. I knew she was going to need me beside her. I made sure I was, that I will always be.
Then there she was, hating the fact that I was beside her all the time. She didn’t feel protected; she felt caged. She didn’t feel cared for; she felt restrained. She didn’t feel loved; she felt suffocated.
I leaned on the car door for a moment. I contemplated whether to go inside and lose myself to the beat of the music. Forget about Jen for a moment, have a go with the Green Fairy, and wake up in a bed that’s not mine.
“Well, she’s okay,” I heard a voice say. I turned to see a group of guys coming out of their cars. “Jen Gracie is not the world’s greatest fuck.” And then they laughed.
I recognized JD Collins with his friends.
Seriously, this guy kisses and tells? What an asshole!
“I mean, I’d do her again just because she has a hot ass. But everything about her is just the same—boring. Unexciting.” They laughed again. “At least, now I have proven to Terry that I’m too hot even for the friends she thought were loyal.” And they laughed again.
It felt as though all the blood in my body went to my face. Heat coursed through me, and I felt as if I would explode at any moment.
I started for them, but I felt something pull my arm, preventing me from moving further. I turned around and found Nicholas Atkins behind me. He shook his head as if he’d been inside my head all this time, and he knew exactly what I was going to get into.
“Let me go!”
“Ken, you’re outsized and outnumbered,” he warned me, maintaining his tight grip on my elbow.
JD was with three other friends. They were all huge, as though they played football without shoulder pads. I understood what Nicholas was trying to say. But I knew how to throw a few punches, and I only needed to get back at JD.
“Let me go!” I said in a murderous tone.
“Please, Ken.” His voice was seriously pleading.
I snatched my elbow from him and started for JD.
“Collins!” I shouted. “If you can’t keep your dick in your pants, at least keep your fucking mouth shut!” I said angrily.
I was fast. He didn’t see me coming. I didn’t give him a chance to explain. I launched one solid punch to his jaw. He staggered back slightly. It was not enough to knock him out, which was my real intention.
He stared down at me, unable to believe that I had the guts to go at him in front of his bigger friends.
But instead of getting mad, he started chuckling, and so did his friends.
“Defending your friend’s honor, I see,” he said. “Sorry, Clarke. You shouldn’t be going at me. I wasn’t the one who popped her cherry. Ask the dozen other men before me.” He laughed again. “Although, I wouldn’t mind a visit from you. You know, you’re hot and—”
I punched him again before he could finish his sentence.
He turned his head sideways for a moment. He didn’t even take a step back.
Shit! Is this guy on steroids?
He looked at me with an amused expression and said, “You punch like a girl!” Then he and his friends roared in laughter.
I was going to go for him one more time, just to prove to him that size didn’t matter and I could take him down, but then somebody pulled me from behind, making me step back.
Bam!
The next thing I saw was JD Collins sprawled on the ground, holding his hands to his nose, which I could see was now bleeding.
“Unfortunately for you, I punch more than your face could take!” Nicholas said to JD.