Until the End (5 page)

August

A couple days later, Lauren was packing the last of her things in the car when she felt a sense of déjà vu. After all this time, it was getting ridiculous.

“If I promise to call whenever I make a stop, will you stop crying?” Lauren asked trying not to smile.

Susan and Ross were standing next to the car, the former sniffling as Ross kept a comforting hand around her shoulders. Lauren would think that Susan would be done crying at this point.

“Every hour,” Susan amended looking far too serious.

“Okay, let’s just stick to whenever she’s stopped,” Ross butted in, kissing Susan’s forehead.

Shutting the trunk, Lauren hugged Susan first, accepting the bawling and the kisses until she finally let go. Ross was next, his arms like bands around her.

“I’m sorry about what I said,” he whispered in her ear. “I just want you to be safe.”

She nodded against his chest. She knew he meant well, even if she wasn’t ready to hear it yet…just like he’d said

“Do you still have that gun I gave you?”

“
Ross
.”

He held his hands up innocently. “Just making sure you’re safe.”

Funny thing was, the gun was still tucked away in her desk.

Waving goodbye, she climbed into the car. As she started the engine, and the view of Susan and Ross faded in the rearview mirror as she pulled away, she had no idea what to expect when she got home, but she was ready for anything.

Several hours later, Lauren climbed out of her car, staring up at the familiar brownstone just outside of the city. Almost a year ago, she had relocated here to escape small town living, moving in with Amber who was more of a best friend rather than a roommate.

She couldn’t wait—

“You fucking asshole!”

She swung around at the sound of Amber’s angry voice, spotting her barreling down the stairs towards her, but she wasn’t alone. Rob was hurrying behind her looking sheepish. For a moment, Lauren stood in dazed confusion, wondering why Amber would be upset with her, but she wasn’t the target of Amber’s rage.

Pulling up, Lauren hadn’t noticed Rob’s shiny black BMW parked a few blocks down, but now that she had, she could see Piper in the passenger seat, oversized sunglasses shielding her eyes, but judging from the way her mouth was set, she appeared smug.

Amber reached the passenger side, yanking at the door handle as Piper lurched back, trying to get as far away as possible in the confined space. Foregoing her bags—and hoping to stop Amber from doing anything she might regret—Lauren hurried over.

Rob had the nerve to look relieved as he tried unsuccessfully to calm Amber down. “Lauren, please. Can you talk to her?”

“I don’t really know what’s going on,” Lauren said looking between the two of them.

Then suddenly, Amber took a deep breath, letting go of the door handle, holding her hands up. “I’ll explain. Robin decided that because I didn’t have a real ‘job,’”—she air-quoted the last bit—“he needed to take my cousin, the conniving bitch,”—this screamed at the car—“to the office party at his law firm. Then, because I was out of town visiting my sick father, he brought her back to my apartment and
fucked her in my bed
!”

And there went the calm before the storm. Drawing her arm back, Amber slugged him in the nether regions, dropping him to his knees. Deciding it was a good time to intervene, Lauren grabbed Amber by the back of her shirt, pulling her away. Amber didn’t struggle much, though she did hurl insults as they stumbled backwards towards their building.

Rob eventually struggled to his feet, climbing into his car and driving off, not doing less than ninety miles per hour.

“I’m fine,” Amber said again and again as they climbed the stairs to their apartment.

But she wasn’t and Lauren knew that. Amber was a beautiful girl, with extremely curly blonde and brown hair that now fell just past her shoulders since the last time Lauren had seen her. She also had wide expressive brown eyes that were currently brimming with tears.

Amber went in the apartment first, easily stepping over all the little, white fluff that seemed to cover the majority of the floor. Actually, it was everywhere. On the counters, all over the couch, some floating through the open window where one of Amber’s paintings was sitting on an easel waiting to dry.

“What did you do?” Lauren asked looking around in wonder.

“I murdered a mattress.”

Sure enough, inside Amber’s bedroom, her once queen sized mattress was ripped to shreds, long gouges down the center of it, the springs sticking out.

“Oh,” Amber said snapping her fingers. “We should go mattress hunting sometime today now that you’re back. Speaking of, does he know?”

He meaning Mishca, Mishca Volkov. There were no words to describe how she felt about him adequately, it was too complicated.

“No, I haven’t talked to him yet.” Not that she planned to talk to him at all.

Amber blinked, hearing what Lauren wasn’t saying. Good friend that she was, she didn’t question it.

“Mattress first, then margaritas.”

Four hours later, Amber had a new bed set, and they were well on their way to being beyond drunk—at least Amber was. Lauren was still working on her second margarita while Amber was raising her hand for another Long Island iced tea.

“
Piper
, of all people?” Amber said as she pulled the pineapple from the other drink she had yet to finish, nibbling a piece of it. “I really shouldn’t be surprised though. She has a habit of going after other people’s boyfriends.”

“Don’t let them get you down. They’re not worth it.”

Amber nodded, but Lauren doubted she believed that. The pain was too fresh for her to just let it go so easily.

“Enough about me and my pathetic excuse for a cousin. What’s up with you and Mishca?”

“We…well, it just didn’t work out.”

Lauren didn’t want to tell her any more than that, not because she didn’t want to—it would be great to finally talk with someone about this—but she didn’t want to involve Amber in it, not when she was already worried about her own safety.

“Well if you ever want to talk about it, I’m a great listener.”

There was no one else she’d rather talk to.

It was considerably cooler when they left the bar, making Lauren zip up her jacket, fumbling with the zipper several times before finally tugging it up.

“Where do we go from here?” Amber asked in a whimsical voice, spinning in circles while nearly falling off the sidewalk.

Lauren giggled, hurrying to catch up to her. “What about Florida? I’ve never been to Florida.”

“Really? You should come with me to Cali for a few weeks.” She slung her arm around Lauren’s shoulders, gesturing out to everything around them. “That would be fun, right? I’d show you the coast, we’d surf, and meet all the hot surfers out there.”

“Sounds good.” But she wasn’t sure about meeting other guys. Maybe it was because her breakup with Mishca was so fresh that she wasn’t ready to move on.

Lauren fiddled through her purse, searching for her phone—feeling the buzzing against her side—falling behind. She was still looking when she stumbled into Amber as she stopped abruptly. Looking up, she didn’t have to ask to learn why Amber was no longer walking.

Rob and Piper were exiting a restaurant—one that Lauren had wanted to go to since she moved to New York—hand in hand, acting every bit of the sophisticated couple they were pretending to be. Grudgingly, Lauren could almost understand Rob’s twisted view of what kind of girl he should be with.

Piper was everything that Amber wasn’t and that seemed to work for him, not that his opinion really mattered to Lauren. She would have chosen Amber over Piper any day.

“Let’s just go,” Lauren said so that Amber was the only one that could hear her.

“I’m fine,” Amber muttered holding her head up, the sadness radiating in her eyes.

It seemed their movements attracted Piper’s attention. She slinked closer to Rob, holding onto him like she thought Amber was going to attack her at any moment.

Rob leaned down, whispering something in Piper’s ear that had her laughing softly. Amber was trying to put up a good front, but Lauren could see the tears brimming in her eyes and she had had enough.

“Time to move on,” she said in a voice laced with steel. “I’m sure you have something better to do.”

Piper tried to look down her nose at Lauren—an act that was hard to do since Lauren was a few inches taller—as she pulled away from Rob. In her mind, she assumed Lauren was the more passive one which would make her the easiest target, but she couldn’t possibly know that in the span of a few months, Lauren was no longer the same girl.

“Who do you think you’re talking to?” Piper asked, actually getting in Lauren’s face like she wanted to fight.

It was for the crowd of people waiting in line behind them, Lauren assumed.

“You got what you wanted, no?”—Shit, now she sounded like him—“Why don’t you leave.”

“Or. What?”

“Do you really want me to answer that?” Lauren challenged. “You think because you have his attention for a few minutes that it’ll last? Please. You’re the pretty little gem whose shine will wear off in a week tops. Get over yourself, Piper. I’m sure your mouth isn’t all that great despite what you can do with it.”

Her face mottled with red as the bystanders around them broke out in laughter. It even managed to get a smile out of Amber. Never in her life had Lauren been so bold, but she hated seeing her friend hurt, and alcohol could make anyone brave enough to speak their mind.

Piper raised her hand, as if she meant to actually hit Lauren, but Amber was done with her shit. In the blink of an eye, Amber balled her fist, slugging Piper in the face.

Amber yelped in pain, cradling her hand. Piper cried out, stumbling in her heels as she touched her face, sobbing dramatically. Lauren didn’t doubt that the hit hurt, but she was sure Piper was just making a scene.

“Call the police!” Piper shouted, reaching for Rob, but he was too busy trying to talk to Amber to notice.

“Let’s go.”

Lauren grabbed Amber’s arm, dragging her away in case someone
was
actually calling the police.

“Amber! Can we just talk about this?” Rob called after them, his hands in the air.

“Screw you!”

Just their luck, there didn’t seem to be any taxis in the vicinity.  Her next option? Finding somewhere crowded enough for them to blend into without being noticed for a while.

Music was pounding through the walls of a building across the street, scores of people standing outside it. Perfect. Lauren hurried them across, checking behind them to make sure thy were no longer the subject of attention.

They weren’t even on the sidewalk yet when the bouncer unclipped the rope, waving them ahead. The first couple of patrons in the line complained, but Lauren was too grateful to care.

Passing the rope, however, she felt strange, like this was the last place she needed to be.