Page 74 of For Three Seconds

The girls giggled.

“It’s not that.”

“Look, we’re your friends. I know that might be a foreign concept with a best friend like Gigi, but we are here to help with everything that brings you down.” Delia kept talking, and I just looked at Kenny and Audrey shaking their heads.

“Here.” Audrey handed me some wine. “You don’t have to tell us all of it. Just let us help you.”

I took a sip of wine and listened to them talk about cheer, their classes, boys. I stayed quiet and drank my wine, and they refilled me up again. I couldn’t shake these girls. At one point, I started giggling with them too.

“You don’t get it, Scar.” Kenny’s gaze was intense and on me. “Gigi ruined your date because Audrey and our coach decided to suspend her. Her grades have been slipping this year, and I guess seeing you with Gav got that bitch triggered.”

Delia screeched, “Triggerrrrrrred.”

But I had stopped paying attention. My stomach fluttered with relief knowing nothing happened with her and Gav, but that still didn’t change things about her miscarriage.

“It’s not that simple,” I found myself saying.

“But it is,” Audrey said. “Jesus, Scarlett, you need to stop letting other people define your happiness. You let Gigi define most of your life in high school. You joined dance because she wanted to cheer, you went to parties because she dragged you. It’s like ever since she got Gavin, you let her make the choices so you wouldn’t get hurt.”

My chest started to rise and fall, and Audrey’s voice mixed with my therapist.What are you so afraid of?

“You don’t get it,” I told them, clutching onto my wine.

“What is there to get? Gavin likes you, and you like him, the end,” Kenny stated.

“It’s not that simple.”

Delia rolled her eyes at me. “But it is.”

“We made her lose her baby,” I whispered.

“What?” Kenny shouted.

“Fuck,” Delia whispered.

“Explain,” Audrey said.

Because I was tipsy and I trusted them, I told them what I knew.

“That bitch!” Audrey got to her feet, pissed.

I looked up at her from where I sat on the floor.

“What happened?” Kenny asked the question I was thinking. I was already tipsy, and that made me chatty Cathy.

“If that’s true, it’s not your fault, Scar.” Audrey looked at me. “You were so lost in your grief senior year, and Gavin was lost in you. Neither of you noticed how much partying Gigi did. That bitch was drunk on prom night. If anyone is to blame, it’s her and not Gavin, and certainly not you.”

Everything was spinning. It could have been the wine or the news, but probably the wine.

“I’m going to be sick,” I said.

“I’m going to beat her skinny white ass!” Delia shouted angrily.

Kenny started to giggle. “You’re white too.”

“But I have a fat ass,” Delia added.

I couldn’t help but snort.

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