The Lonely Girl (11 page)

“Oh, thank God. Becca, how many did you take?” What is he talking about? He holds the pills up to me. Oh, I didn’t put them away, crap!

“Jake, I’m
fine, I just took them to sleep. I didn’t want to scream.” I’m still tired.

“How many
, Becca?” He’s not going to stop, is he?

“I took two. Then when they didn’t work I took two more.” I feel him pull away. He opens my door and checks the hall. He comes back and lifts me up, grabs something and shuffles me into the bathroom before anyone can see us. He locks the door and turns the shower on. He steps in it with me in his arms, and he puts us under the showerhead. It’s not hot, but I barely notice. He sits us down and brushes my now wet hair out of my face.

“Becca, I know what happened. Did you do this on purpose? You can tell me. I’ll understand.”

Jake thinks I tried to commit suicide. I feel pretty pathetic right now. He thinks I did it because of a guy. That’s not why, so I tell him the truth. I can’t lie to Jake. My head is clearing up a bit.

“No, Jake. I didn’t. I just wanted to sleep. I thought I’d built up a tolerance to them since I used them all summer.” He nods. “I would never do that to my family or to you.” He hugs me tight to his body.

“When I saw the pill bottle,
Becca, I lost it. When I couldn’t wake you I started to panic. I thought I’d lost you.” I sigh. I never thought I would have anyone that cared as much about me as Alec, but I do. Jake cares, and I care about Jake.

He gets us up and turns the shower off. Now I’m cold. He gets us out and looks at me. “I’m going to help you out of your wet
clothes. I brought us towels from your room.”

He helps me out of my shirt and my jeans. He wraps the towel around me. I still have my bra and panties on. He tells me to turn around. He unclips my bra then reaches up and pulls my panties down. The whole time I’m covered by a towel. There was nothing sexual about what just happened. Like always all I felt was how much we cared about each other. He tells me not to turn around yet. I hear him taking off his wet clothes. When he gives me the go
ahead, I turn around. In that moment, I see him, and I feel so thankful to have a best friend like Jake.

“Jakey, I love you.” I go on my tiptoes and kiss him on the mouth.
When I pull back, he’s smirking at me. What a goofball. I look down, and he’s wrapped in a fuzzy pink towel.

I laugh. “Nice towel.” He laughs too. He hugs me and kisses me back.

“I love you too, Beckers.” We are both in towels. He grabs our clothes and opens the door. As soon as it’s open there are two girls from our floor gawking at us. He bends down to my ear and whispers, “Well, we definitely know what they’re going to be talking about for the next week.”

I laugh. He puts his arm around me, and I follow
by putting my arm around his waist. We walk like that until we are outside his room. He opens his door and pulls me in. He gives me a pair of his boxers and a t-shirt. He shuffles on a pair of his pj pants and turns around so I can get changed. I’ve never worn guy’s clothes before. It’s oddly comfortable. He comes up to me and wraps his arms around me. He pulls me to his bed, which I realize I have never been here. It is the same as mine, but it screams Jake. I notice on his corkboard there’s a picture of us at the party when I visited last year. He has posters all over his walls. I know he’s a fan of music. He puts the TV on, but it’s mostly for background noise. We talked until the sun was coming up. For the first time in our crazy friendship, we slept in his bed.

I hear a knock at the door. I look around, but I know I’m not my room. Jake stirs beside me and tells me to keep quiet and cover up. I do as he says, and he approaches the door. I notice it’s just before noon.  He opens the
door, but not enough for them to peek in and see me.

“Have you seen Becca? I knocked on her door. I can’t find her anywhere and Alec doesn’t know where she is either. Please tell me you know where
she is?” It’s Keegan. Oh God. I pull myself completely under the blankets.

“Keegan, she’s fine. I think you just need to give her time.” I hear him. He’s breathing heavy. I’d swear he’s
crying, but that can’t be.

“I just need to find her. I never meant to be so cold. I didn’t know that she thought
I backed off because I didn’t really like her. I do like her. I just didn’t think I deserved it. Please just tell me where she is, so I know she’s fine. I just need to see her and Alec is panicking because her phone just rings. It’s in her room, I heard it, but I don’t think she’s in there. What if she took off?” My heart sinks. Keegan is a disaster. I want to go to him, but I know it would change nothing. I need time to figure out what I want, and if I can deal with his betrayal of my trust.

“Key.”

I hear a grunt. “Jake don’t call me that anymore, please.” He sounds so broken. Is it because what I said about him that he doesn’t want to use his nickname?

“Keegan, she didn’t take off. I know she’s fine. Tell Alec I’ll take care of her. She just needs some space from the both of you.” He knows me so well. I don’t even have to tell him these things.

“She’s in there, isn’t she? Can I just talk to her?” I hear the door swing. I peek out, but it’s Jake pulling it tighter.

“
Yes, she’s in here. No you can’t see her, Keegan. She... She doesn’t want to see you, man. I’m sorry.” He sighs. Why do I feel so guilty? He’s the one who made me out to be just like Sarah? 

“
Fine, Jake, you’re her best friend I get that. But I’m not going anywhere. I’m not moving on. This isn’t over Becca. I’ll give you your time and space. But I won’t move on so please don’t ask me to. When you’re ready come find me.” I hear footsteps, and I hear the door close and lock. There are tears coming down my face. Jake pulls back the blankets.

“Beckers, are you okay?” I shake my head. He slips under the blankets beside me. “Becca
, for what it’s worth, I think you should hear him out when you’re ready.” I look up to Jake what he’s saying is so terrifying yet so true. But there is also such sadness in his eyes that I don’t understand. Yet I know, maybe not this week or even this month, but I will have to hear Keegan out.

Chapter 9

The next three weeks fly by.
It’s already October. It’s colder up here than back home. I’m bundled up with mittens, a hat and a scarf. The last two weeks have been uneventful. Alec finally got it after calling me for three days straight that I just don’t want to talk. He sent me a text just asking for a message every day to let him know I was okay, or he’d show up. I haven’t heard from Keegan, but I know from my brother’s message, he hasn’t stopped asking him if I’m checking in. Alec said if he asks again, he might hit him. Well, maybe he would think this is exactly how I feel about his daily pestering.

I sit at a new table on the opposite side of the café, and neither of them tries to sit with me. Jake is a constant. He sits with me every day and walks me to classes when he can. He’s been a lifesaver for me in more ways than one. We have continued to sleep in his room
. It just sort of became a habit after the first night. I feel better because I know Alec or Keegan won’t knock on Jake’s door because they know he won’t let them in. I got an email a few days ago. Right now, that’s the major crisis in my life. It was from Dillon, and it was sent to my school email address. How did he get it? I didn’t want to read it, but I felt like I had no choice.

Becca, I hope your classes are going well. I hope we can chat soon. I have some much needed news to
tell you, about someone very close to you. I hope this reaches you and you know that I will be seeing you soon. Love Dillon.

There was no way I was responding.
I wouldn’t know what to say even if I did want to respond. He has something to tell me about someone very close to me. What does that even mean? I know I should have told Alec or Keegan, but I still won’t to talk to them. I haven’t even told Jake, that’s really what’s making me feel so guilty. I think he’s just trying to scare me.

Jake is working out at the gym, so I figured I’d head to the library and study and then go see him and do some running at the gym since it’s too cold to do it outside. I’m walking down the hall, and I see my brother with Keegan. They see me but don’t make a move to come near me. I turn from them to go back the way I came, so I don’t have to ignore them and pass them. I look in front of me and stop dead in my tracks. This can’t be happening. In front of me is the one person I don’t want to see even more than my brother and Keegan. It’s Dillon.

He starts to walk towards me, and I start backing up. “Hello Becky, I told you that you’d be seeing me soon.” I turn to run and smack right into my brother’s chest. His chest is rising and falling so fast you’d think he’d been out for a run. I look up at him.

“Becca, go with Keegan. I need to talk to Dillon.”

I shake my head. “No, Alec come with me. I don’t want you to do anything stupid.” He gives me a big hug and tells me he really is just going to talk to him. He promised not to hurt Dillon, not that I cared. What I cared about was Alec getting arrested. He puts me into Keegan’s arms which surround me. My body instantly relaxes even though I’m still mad with him.

“Don’t worry
, Becca. Everything will be alright. Your brother’s just going to threaten to call the cops if he doesn’t leave you alone.” Keegan and I continue down the hall out of hearing distance. I look up and see my brother pulling his hands through his hair. This isn’t a good sign. He only does this when he feels trapped or frustrated. He keeps looking over at me. Keegan just keeps his arms around me the whole time. Eventually, my brother comes back over, but he looks distant and a million miles away.  He stops in front of me and just stares.

“Alec
, what is it?”

He just shakes his head, but then speaks. “Becca, he promises to never contact you again if he can say goodbye. He won’t try to touch
you, and if he does I’ve told him I will kick his ass, and I don’t care who sees. If you don’t want to do this I understand.” For some reason, I think Alec wants me to say no but on the same hand he doesn’t.

Keegan speaks first, “You can’t be serious
, Alec after what he did to her?” My brother gives him the look I’ve seen a few times. It’s not one to be messed with, and it means shut up and don’t start. Something isn’t right here. It hits me. He must know something about Alec. Something Alec doesn’t want me to know. I’m going over there now for sure.

“I’ll do it. I just want him gone. But I’m doing it alone.” Before they can object to it, I walk towards Dillon. He looks so smug.

“Well, this is goodbye my beautiful, Becky. I do love you and I wish you would come with me but I know your brother would never let that happen. Love you, Butterfly.” He turns to walk away. I grab his arm, and he looks down at me touching his arm. He looks satisfied.

“You said you had something to tell me.”

He just shakes his head. “No, I made an agreement with your brother ask him.” There’s no way I will get it out of him if it was worth subjecting me to Dillon.

“You didn’t come all this way not to tell me.”

He smiles. I’ve got him now. “You’re right, Becky but I have two things to tell you.” I turn to see my brother holding Keegan in his spot. I smile to let him know I’m okay. “Becky, I was the car that ran Michael and you off the road. It was an accident but I guess it was kind of sweet justice after what he did to me on Canada weekend.”

OMG, Dillon ran us off the road? He was the person behind those headlights?

What Michael did? He didn’t do anything. We had a fight that night, and he got drunk. I went home alone.

“Dillon, Michael didn’t do anything to you that night. He was drunk.”

He shakes his head and laughs. “He wasn’t too drunk to have sex with my girlfriend.”

What? No, he couldn’t have, we were together. He wouldn’t cheat on me. I start to feel the tears streaming down my face. I feel my brother and Keegan on either side of me. “
No, it’s not true Dillon.”

He gives me a smirk and says, “Ask Alec he was there.”

My brother instantly tenses and at that moment, I know Dillon’s not lying. Michael cheated on me seven weeks before he died. In an accident which Dillon had been a part of. 

My brother finally says something, but it’s nothing I wanted to hear. “You swore you wouldn’t tell her.”

Oh my God. It is true. He just confirmed it and worse, he knew and never told me. I pull away from him and cling to Keegan.

“This was better justice then me trying to screw Becca. At first I only went after her to get back at Michael, but then I fell in love with you. This is better because now you know that Michael wasn’t this perfect boyfriend you have in your head. He was just as bad as the rest of us. Though, now that I think about
it, maybe he’s even worse because he got your own brother to lie for him.” I feel like my whole world is crumbling. Alec and Michael both lied and betrayed me. I start to slip down to the floor, bringing Keegan with me. I hear Dillon walk away saying, “See you soon, Butterfly.” I never wanted to see another butterfly in my entire life.

I’m shaking. I feel Alec crouch down beside me to grab me, and I scream, “Don’t you touch me.”  He flinches like he’s been stung. I can’t even think about him. I don’t want to look at him. I start shaking again and just keep saying it’s not true. Keegan tries to pull me up, but I won’t let him. Alec again tries to touch me, but Keegan responds to him.