Page 4 of The Drop

Chapter Three

Brooke

Sitting on top of the toilet seat with my head in my hands. I now have a small collection of people outside the bathroom door as I try to convince them that I will be out soon. I can tell my mom’s calling bullshit, but she will not show herself up for being a terrible mom in front of everyone; image is everything..

My anxiety is through the roof. I stand up shakily, clutching my phone and pace the bathroom. Cami has been keeping me up to date, and she said she's around ten minutes away. My idea of leaving out the bathroom door is currently out of the question.

“Hey, babe,” Josh’s voice comes through the door; I stop pacing and stare at it wide-eyed. “People are getting a littleimpatient out here. I know you have just got your um...” He coughs.

I roll my eyes,can he not just say period? We have been together for five years, and he practically falls off the face of the earth when it is my time of the month.

“But, um, could you hurry up?”

I check my watch and notice it has been an hour; this is the first time he has come to check on me, and that lights a rage in me.

Could I just hurry up? I scream inside my head. Am I losing my mind? Could you not have let my mother pay you to date me?

In the hour I have been trapped in here, I have had time to think about everything that has happened since my dad passed. The puzzle pieces are coming together. The year we graduated from high school, I wanted to travel for a year before starting college. Josh was against it, and we came close to breaking up before suddenly he changed his mind. He said it was not worth losing me over, but had my mom paid him off to get him to agree?

The entire trip, he had been miserable and uninterested, trying to convince me to go home early at every opportunity. He finally got his way when his dad got him an offer to play for our college baseball team in Boston.

Then, when we got to college, we agreed to spend a year in the dorms separately to truly enjoy the college experience, and I would regularly go a week without seeing him. When texting him, I would often get no reply. I remember mentioning it to my mom halfway through the year, and suddenly things picked up, and he was more present.

Had she intervened then?

I am still staring at the door, fixed to the spot; I do not know what to do. Cami will be here soon, and I still need to get out of this bathroom, but I am not going to do that with everyone on the other side of that door.

I want to rip the door open and tell everyone behind it what my mom and Josh had done, but the embarrassment is keeping me at bay. I do not want anyone to know I'm that so unlovable that he had to be paid to be with me.

I need to think.

I need to think like Cami.

She wouldn't be stuck in a bathroom; she would have burst her way out by now. I just need to think, “What would Cami Logan do?”

Like a lightbulb going off in my head, I stride to the door, mustering as much fake confidence as I can, pull it open, and take in his surprised expression. Internally, I want to punch him in the face. “I’m sorry.” I smile sweetly, “I lost track of time, but I’ll just clean up and come straight down.”

A smile spreads across his face because, of course, nothing is wrong; to him, I have always been perfect, and I would not intentionally ruin an event like this. “Of course, babe.” He turns to the people behind him. “She’s fine, everyone, we’ll wait downstairs for you.” He says over his shoulder as he ushers people down the hall.

“Perfect.” I plaster the smile on again.

My mom lingers, glaring at me before walking down the hall with the rest of them.

I shut the bathroom door again, leaning against it. I look over towards the window behind the toilet I was just sitting on.Thats my way out, If everyone is on the back side of the yard,no one will be near the side of the house, which is below where this bathroom window is.

I gather up my heels and bag, step up onto the toilet seat, and swing the bathroom window open, taking a second and looking at the tall tree outside of it before making my final decision and stepping onto the branch. I carefully tiptoe across to the main trunk using the window to balance.

Fortunately, the yard stops before the side of the house, and it’s just overgrown foliage. I will be able to climb down and hop on the fence without anyone being able to see me.

I make it to the trunk and slowly climb my way down branch by branch without too much trouble, mentally thanking myself for retaining my balance from those gymnastics lessons when I was little and also for picking a loose, above-the-knee dress. Stepping on the ground, my foot sinks to the ankle in the soil.

What the hell?

Looking around, I notice the entire area is wet and marshy. I groan, wading ankle-deep through the mud. I retch because it feels and smells gross. A vague memory of Josh’s mom saying the landscapers had been before the party makesme think they may have overwatered this area. I make it to the fence, and luckily, there, right in front of me, is a small gap. I wiggle the board and breathe a sigh of relief as I manage to slip myself through it.

I straighten up on the other side. This is going better than I planned. I should have left through the window sooner.

My escape and victory are short-lived as I move to step down off the fence post on the other side, and my foot slips into more mud. I slide down the steep bank and roll through the marshy dirt until I land face-first at the bottom.

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