Chapter 26: Aaron

I looked down at the canvas in front of me, eyes scanning the soft curves of Renee’s neck in the sketch I’d been working on. The classroom was quiet. Everyone seemed to be hovering over their textbooks, deep in reading. No one bothers to mention or even notice that a classmate is missing.

Renee is not here today, but I was not really surprised. Fat chance she’ll show up, too, if the rumors of what Carly did are true.

I push my pencil to the paper, adding a few more flowing strings of silky hair. I wanted to make things right with Renee. I wanted to be there for her, comfort her, and ensure she was okay. But I couldn't. None of us could. She hasn’t given anyone the opportunity.

“Dude,” Jake said, elbowing me in the ribs. “That picture is super weird.”

Annoyed, I slipped the sketch of Renee back into my bag, rolling my eyes at him. Jake is shaking his head, smirking, and I wanted to punch him. I’d wanted to punch him out since the moment he and Matt decided to take revenge on Renee and, in the process, successfully destroy her life.

“Shut the fuck up, Jake,” I hiss. We both glanced at Matt simultaneously, waiting for him to chime in. He didn’t say anything. In fact, he didn’t even look at us. He’s staring at the tabletop, and even though his textbook is open, he isn’t reading it. He looked bad.

“Dude,” I whisper, reaching across the table to flick his hand. “Are you okay in there?”

I know he heard me, but he didn’t bother to look up.

“Shit,” Jake muttered next to me. “Do you think he’s broken?”

“I think he regrets what he did, douche.”

“Whatever,” Jake said, folding his arms stubbornly. “She deserved it.”

“No one deserves this, Jake, and don’t pretend they do.”

Our professor cleared his throat loudly at the front of the classroom, shooting eye-daggers at us. Jake and I fell silent. Matt didn’t seem to notice or care, and nobody said much of anything for the rest of the class, but we were all thinking about it.

Where is Renee? And is she okay?

After class, I dragged Jake and Matt to the library, and it was only on the way there that I finally found one of the flyers everyone’s been talking about. A photo of Renee, with the fancy writing underneath. As I stand in the hallway and stare at it, my heart tightens painfully in my chest. I was so angry at my friends, Carly, and myself for not trying harder to stop this. Renee’s decision to sleep with Jake was a shitty one, and it was even shittier to sleep with me right after, but this is still hard to see despite how things worked out. Bringing Carly in on this wasn’t the way to go.

“Do you see this?” I said to Matt and Jake, crumpling up the paper to throw it at them.

“Who fucking cares?” Jake asked, but somewhere underneath the bitter resentment, I sensed a moment of hurt. I look at Matt, who has already pulled his cigarette to hold between his lips. He won’t look at me. Hesitation.

“This is despicable,” I pushed. “We made Renee’s life in high school horrible. Like, really bad, guys. And then, as soon as we start to make it up to her, we turn around and do this?”

“No one expected Carly to do this,” Matt snarled, picking the crumpled paper off the floor and ripping it to shreds. “This isn’t on us. This is on her.”

“It was your idea to tell Carly about Renee having sex with Jake,” I reminded him. “Because you were pissed. We were all pissed.”

“Fuck.” Without warning, Matt throws me against the wall, arm under my throat, seething. The cigarette hung out of his mouth, but he hardly noticed it.

“Is this your solution to everything?” I asked. He’s not pushing hard; I know he’s not trying to hurt me, but it was annoying nonetheless because he was still bigger than me, and he knows it. “Is this how you solve your problems, Matty? Violence? Hurt? Unbridled fury?”

After a moment, he drops me. I start to crumple to the floor, unsteady, but he grabs me by the back of my jacket and hauls me back to my feet, shaking his head.

“All Carly was supposed to do was make a scene, okay? Give Renee a hard time for fucking her date. I didn’t know she’d take it this far.”

“Would it have changed your actions?” I asked, rubbing my throat. Jake is still standing there with us, but he hasn’t said anything one way or the other. I know he’s feeling hurt, too.

“Yeah,” Matt said, and I believed him. “I wouldn’t have done it.”

“Look.” I sit down on the arm of the couch and fold my arms. “We need to talk to Renee. We need to apologize.”

“Fuck that, dude,” Jake said suddenly, hands in the air. “I am not ready for that.”

“Of course, you’re not ready. You’re pissed. And you’re hurt. I am, too.”

“Then why do you think we need to apologize?”

“Because it could be too late by the time you’re ready to face it.”

“For who?” asked Matt.

“For all of us, dude. For all of us.”

There’s no more discussion about Renee or Carly until we finally get home well after dark. As we approach our apartment complex, I spot a car running out front, not far from our front door.

“Shit,” Matt said. “Isn’t that—-”

“Carly,” finished Jake, and the three of us stopped walking, eyes on Carly’s vehicle. I didn’t think she had seen us yet, but there was no way to reach the front door without her spotting us.

“Should we leave?” I asked, and Matt shook his head, looking at Jake.

“Fucking Renee wasn’t a one-man show,” he said. “You need to face her now, Jake, after leading her on to get into Renee’s pants.”

“What if she kills me?”

I grin, punching Jake playfully in the shoulder. “You’re the quarterback, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, but—-”

“Then run fast.”