Page 3 of Your Side of the Offense

"And here, I got this for you." I shove it in Harvey’s hands and walk away.

Archer grabs me and holds me. "Please, Peach, don't leave. We can work this out. We can explain. He was—"

"I don't care, Archer," I say in a low, now tired voice.

I stand there unmoving, staring at him, sniffling as my tears fall freely.

Realizing he is hurting me by keeping me here, he loosens his hold after a few seconds. I remove his hands and walk out, not looking back.

Never looking back.

The Uber back to my house is a blur, the night is a blur.

So is the next one and the next and the following week.

The last month of high school is torture with them constantly in my face with their empty apologies.

But I have no forgiveness for them. Any of them.

1

STILL IN LOVE

Caleb

I walk into the living room of the pad we've called home for the past two months. It's been a long summer, forgetting about things, or at least trying to…well, as much as we can. But today is the last day. We leave for college tomorrow and we need to have the conversation we've all been dreading since that day.

Since she left us.

Tomorrow we are officially college students and we’ll run into her again. None of us have been able to get ahold of her. She blocked all of us. One would expect us to move on, but we are all still very much in love with her.

Our girl.

Archer throws a beer my way and I take a seat. Jaden called this meeting. Always thinking he runs this little squad and none of us care enough to correct him.

We all remain quiet for a minute.

Harvey looks like he's still drunk from yesterday's binge. Shit. He may as well be. He has been drinking excessively and getting high every day since she left. He feels responsible for us losing her.

We all stood by him, so we are to blame, too.

We should have said something when that bitch handed him the drink. We should have known something fishy was going on after he got sloppy drunk over a few cans and she offered to take him to his room. I’ve never wanted to strangle a girl so much.

We didn't even know she recorded it. As soon as we found her riding him, we had ended that shit, and she scurried out grabbing her phone.

We didn't check.

After he threw up, we all took turns giving him a few punches.

How could he fuck someone else and cheat on our girlfriend? It made no sense until he told us what had happened.

We agreed to keep it a secret until he got the balls to tell her. But we didn't bet on the eagerness of Jaden's ex to be spiteful. We should have, those girls hated Summer, and they never forgot how she 'stole' all of us from them.

"I miss her." Archer is the first to break the silence, echoing something we’ve all had to deal with for the past three months.

We miss her. Terribly.

Our fifth musketeer.

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