Page 86 of Plight
I shook my head and stepped back inside the house. “I haven’t gotten anything wrong. Friends should never fuck … unless you’re Chris and I.” I pointed to Chris, whose eyes had near widened to the size of the dumbbells he was carrying. “Because when we fuck, we know how to respect each other afterward.”
The realisation on Elliot’s face as he looked at Chris and then me was all I needed to know that I’d successfully rubbed salt into the wound, and as I ran up the stairs, the sound of the two of them scuffling below, I wasn’t sure whose wound I’d just rubbed it into.
His.
Mine.
Chris’.
Or all of the above.
“What happened?” Chris asked, the creak of my bedroom door sounding as it slowly opened.
“We fucked and fucked things up. The usual. End of story.”
“The Danielle I know doesn’t pit people against each other.”
I stopped pointlessly rearranging the items on top of my tallboy and glanced into the mirror, noticing his dishevelled state in the reflection. “That wasn’t my intention.”
“Sure it was.”
Turning to face him, I burst into tears. “It wasn’t. I just … I just wanted him to feel the pain he’d caused me to feel when he abandoned me.”
“When he abandoned you?” Chris walked in to my room and took a seat on my bed. “When did he abandon you?”
“He always abandons me. I should’ve known better. They all do. Everyone does … except for you and Mum.”
He patted the bed. “Come here.”
I plodded over and flopped onto the mattress, curling up into a ball and laying my head on his lap.
“I don’t understand, Duck. How does pretty boy geek always abandon you?”
Sniffing, I wiped my nose with the back of my hand. “He did it the day we were stuck in the storm drain, and when he moved away, and then again after we started fucking the other day.”
Chris stretched toward my bedside table, grabbed my tissue box, and handed it to me. “Let’s start with the storm drain. What do you mean he abandoned you there? You never told me that. You said you were both rescued together.”
“We were, but, before that, he left me there, alone. He said he was going to get help.” The memory tore right through me: the raw of the water, the darkness, the terror of not knowing where he was. I trembled uncontrollably, just like I had that very day. “I was so scared, Chris. I thought he’d drowned.”
“But he didn’t. You were both rescued.”
“Yeah.” I sniffed again. “But he left me. Everybody leaves me.”
“No, they don’t.”
“Yes, they do. Every boyfriend I’ve ever had has left me. My dad left me—”
“Dani, you can’t compare your shithead exes and your poor excuse for an old man with pretty boy geek.”
“Yes, I can. He left me when he moved away. He didn’t have to abandon me then. We could’ve still remained friends. He only moved a town over, for fuck’s sake.”
“So you’re gonna hold that over him … seventeen odd years later? Come on, kiddo, you’re better than this. You were both kids back then. And anyway, what stopped you from keeping in contact with him, huh?”
I sat up. “Whose side are you on?”
“Yours.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
