My Brother's Best Friend (7 page)

I cringed at his words and opened my mouth to say something, but no words came out.

Instead Devin stepped forward. “I think you better leave, Gunderson.”

“Devin Malone, is that you? I wouldn’t have pictured you with this.” He pointed at me. “Though I have to ask, how is she? Much improved since I last had her, I’m guessing. ‘Cause I have to be honest, she was pretty lousy four years ago.”

“I’ll say it only once, leave us alone and I’ll leave your face in one piece.” Devin stepped forward aggressively.

“I’ll leave, I’ll leave, but can I just ask how you went from making her the laughing-stock in high school to actually dating her?”

“Let’s just say I have you to thank for that. Now leave.”

I watched as the one person I hated most walked away. Before I could even thank Devin, he pulled me toward him in a hug. “Are you okay? I’m sorry I didn’t do more.” He stepped back and looked down at my face, his hands on my shoulders. “I just thought it best he leave instead of beating him to a bloody pulp and having to face murder charges.”

I smiled and wrapped my arms around his neck, catching him off guard “What you did was perfect, though the bloody pulp thing is tempting. Thanks, Dev.”

“For you, anytime, CJ.”

I was about to ask what he meant when Larissa and Zach walked up.

“What happened? We didn’t see much except that you were upset at someone.” Larissa said. “You looked like you wanted to punch his lights out. Who was it? We didn’t catch what he looked like.”

“Did I hear that guy say you were dating her?” Zach asked.

“Yes, but—”

“I knew it!” Larissa shouted excitedly over the music. “I told you, didn’t I?” she said, looking at Zach.

“Fine, you win, but the others won’t let you win so easily next time.”

Devin interrupted before I could say anything. “You guys had bets that I was dating Christy?”

“Not Christy exactly, just someone. But then I saw Christy this afternoon and I went double or nothing on her. And guess what? I totally just won two hundred bucks!”

“I hate to break it to you—” Devin tried to tell them.

Larissa interrupted again, “So who was the creep?”

I looked up at Devin suddenly, unable to speak. He gave me a sympathetic smile and put an arm around my shoulders. “He is Christy’s ex from high school. The biggest asshole in the world.”

“So can I ask a question?” Zach hesitated. Devin nodded his head but kept a tight grip on me as if he was afraid the question would physically weaken me. “What did you do to make Christy the laughing-stock of school?”

Larissa hit him in the arm.

I cracked a smile. “It’s okay. I don’t mind that part of the story,” I told them. “A long time ago I wrote in my journal that I was going to marry Devin.”

“How cute,” Larissa cooed.

“Well, my brother showed Devin and Devin brought it to school—mind you, I was a freshman at the time—and he showed it to everyone as a joke. So people knew me as the stupid little girl who loved Devin. But I guess the thing that made it worse was the fact that because Devin and my brother made fun of me for it, everyone else thought they could too. So until I graduated, people still remembered me as
that girl
.”

“Wow, Dev, that’s pretty harsh stuff. It’s a wonder you managed to get her to go out with you in the first place,” Zach said.

“I’m still not completely in her good graces.” Devin smiled and looked down at me. I saw it in his eyes the moment he realized they still believed we were dating. But before he could say anything, Larissa’s phone rang.

“Hey! Yeah, we're at the club. Okay, I’ll tell him. Yeah, all right. See you in a bit.” Larissa looked at Zach. “That was Kevin, he said the others are at his place.” I recognized the name of one of their fellow cast members. They were probably having their own get together.

“Okay, awesome.” Zach looked at us. “Sorry to cut this short, I really want to hear more about this little duo that’s going on here,” he said, motioning to the two of us. “But we got to head out. See you tomorrow?”

Devin tried once more to tell them the truth but Zach and Larissa just waved as they ran off.

“I’ll just tell them tomorrow.” Devin shrugged.

“Poor Larissa. She’s going to have to give them their money back.”

“She’ll survive. She seems to win any bet she makes,” Devin said. “Do you want to leave now?”

“I just need to get my jacket.”

I walked back toward the VIP room, pushing through the crowd. I looked back and couldn’t see Devin behind me.

“Looking for your boyfriend?” Eric asked, and I flinched. “Not so tough now without him, are you?”

I kept walking, thinking it was best not to engage him. I’d be near the VIP room in a few steps anyway.

“You know, I think what I miss most about you, Christy, is how willing you were to do anything I wanted, as long as it made me happy, right? I’ll never forget your face though, at that party, when you found out it was fake. We had a pretty good laugh, too bad you didn’t stick around.”

I reached the guard standing by the VIP room with tears in my eyes. Before I could go any further, Eric grabbed my arm and I reacted. “Don’t touch me!” I jerked my arm out of his forcefully and looked up at the guard, who recognized me from earlier.

“Is this man bothering you?” the guard asked.

I nodded, unable to talk.

“Go on up, miss. I’ll handle this.”

I didn’t wait to see what was going on, instead I ran up the stairs as I heard Eric tell the guard to let go of him.

I found my jacket and collapsed on the couch. “Can I get you something to drink?” the same waiter who served us before asked. “Larissa said to bill her, so you are not to worry about paying.”

I looked up at him and wiped the tears away. “In that case, bring me the strongest thing you have and make it a double. I need to do some forgetting tonight.”

He brought me a drink almost immediately, and I chugged it down. He raised an eyebrow and brought me another, so I emptied that one too.

“Hey, there you are. I was wondering what was taking so long,” Devin said as he walked over to the couch.

He frowned at me. “Have you been drinking?”

“Isn’t that pretty obvious?” I was probably slurring a little. I had managed to kick back several glasses before Devin showed up.

“What are you doing?” He pulled the glass out of my hand.

That’s when I broke down. I wasn’t as strong as I looked, though now I doubt I looked strong at all.

“What’s wrong, Chris? Are you still bothered by that encounter with Eric earlier?”

I shook my head. “It forced me to relive what happened. I can’t handle remembering, Devin. It’s like looking down and realizing the knife that was plunged into me all those years ago hasn’t been removed, only hidden. Now it’s been twisted to expose the gaping wound, making me feel the pain of it all over again.”

Devin sat down and pulled me into his arms as I cried. “Well, now we know there’s a wound still hurting. Shouldn’t we take the knife out and sew you back up?”

I nodded my head as I sniffed and wiped away tears.

“Why don’t you start by telling me what happened. Describe the knife that hurt you. I want to fix this for you.”

That sounded like something Dr. Stone would say.

I let my thoughts drift back to high school, back to when Eric Gunderson first came into my life. He was the star quarterback and every girl wanted him. During my senior year, I couldn’t believe it when he dumped his girlfriend and asked me out. I found it so odd, in fact, that at first I said no. But the girls on my volleyball team encouraged me to just see where it would lead. It wasn’t like it was anything but dinner, they said.

One dinner led to another and then the movies and pretty soon we were the next ‘it’ couple, or at least that’s what I thought.

I took a deep breath. “Well, you already know I dated Eric in high school, right?” I asked Devin, stalling.

He nodded patiently, tucking a few strands of my hair behind my ear and gazing deeply into my eyes.

“I loved him, or at least I thought I did. And I thought he loved me too. I didn’t realize it was all a game to him.”

Devin’s hazel eyes darkened. “What do you mean?”

I felt heat creeping up my cheeks, but I realized that maybe Devin and Dr. Stone were right. I’d held this all inside for so long. Maybe it would be good to get it out. And after how Devin how found me in the aftermath of all of this, he couldn’t possible think any less of me.

“After prom, he booked a room at a hotel,” I began haltingly. “I was a virgin, but he told me that if I loved him…”

A muscle leapt in Devin’s jaw, as though he were clenching his teeth. “I understand.”

I didn’t think he really did, but I didn’t really want to go into this part of it. My only knowledge of sex was what I had seen in the movies or read in books. But I quickly found out that life wasn’t like the movies. It never would be.

“Needless to say, I couldn’t get him to rise to the occasion. I blame it on my nerves and also on the simple fact that he was trying to control everything that happened—when I didn’t do something right, he would comment on it—making me do things I wasn’t sure I was ready to do.

“Anyway,” I hurried on. “The next weekend he invited me to a party. When we got there, I saw my volleyball team and the cheerleaders all grouped together, laughing, obviously planning something. I went over and tried to join them, but they told me that it was a surprise for me and Eric.”

Devin made a visible effort to control his mounting anger, and I found myself touched that he seemed to care so much. He really was a good friend, I realized, somewhat surprised.

“Go on,” he urged softly.

“Well, a little while later, Eric called everyone into this big room in the basement. There must have been a hundred kids in there, all the popular ones, and Eric walks in front of all of them and stands before this big TV. He called me up there beside him and has them start this video…” I choked off, unable to go on for a moment. “I don’t know what I thought was going to happen, but when I realized it was of him and me on prom night…I just stood there as they laughed. I was frozen. I couldn’t move.”

“Oh god, CJ,” Devin whispered, pulling me into his arms. “I’m so sorry that happened to you.”

As he held me, I thought back to what Eric had said, the hateful words that had dripped over me like acid. “The cheerleaders, and some of the girls from my volleyball team, who I’d thought were my friends, had begun a slide show of photos of Eric and me. At first, I was stupid enough to believe he was trying to do something romantic for me, but then he started talking.

“Some of you may be wondering what the class president and quarterback of the winning football team is doing with the cheerleaders and the volleyball team—okay so maybe there are a few reasons I’d fraternize with them—” he said, and I knew what he was suggesting. “Well, they were here to support me and finish a project that they helped start. And believe me, I’ve already begun to pay them back, if you know what I mean.” Several of his teammates started hooting and hollering. I was shocked into stillness. I couldn’t move or speak to ask him for the truth or even tell him to stop what I knew was about to happen.

“And believe me, after the night I had at prom, this payback is welcomed.” Several people laughed. “Let me just say I couldn’t have asked for a more awesome ending to this thing. Okay, maybe not awesome because that night was, in a word, awful and uncomfortable. But for my social experiment and story of humiliation, it worked out perfectly.

“Ladies, for those who haven’t figured it out, after an exhausting few months, I’m back on the market! Not that Christy stopped me from getting it on with some of you, but now you can openly vie for my attention. Come and get me, girls!” he shouted and that’s when I realized that this had all been some kind of sick, twisted joke played on me by Eric, his buddies, the cheerleaders and even some of my own team. “But now for the real entertainment. I put together a short video, but to catch the full thing and several other clips, go to my website. Put it up, girls!”

“The movie flashed on the screen and people began to laugh at the images with commentary. Eric was narrating his own creation and outlining the basic facts of his ‘experiment’. His painful joke that ruined my life. Images flashed from volleyball practice where the girls had asked me about my time with Eric. The whole school was laughing at my expense and I was mortified and betrayed. My teammates, the ones I was supposed to trust, had pulled a ‘Brutus’ on me by stabbing me in the back. They had been in on the joke the whole time, they had probably slept with him—them and half the school.

“When the images finally stopped, Eric came back with the microphone. “Now, I can’t forget to tell Christy thanks for affording me the opportunity to try this out. You were obviously too oblivious to what was going on while we were together. You never even suspected I was sleeping around behind your back or filming some of the things we did or realize I was lying when I told you I loved you back. How could I love someone like you? You can’t even give a man what he needs in the bedroom. Even if we were the last people on Earth, I still wouldn’t want to have sex with you. The only thing I can enjoy is the fact that now you’re no longer a virgin and that was my doing.” Tears stung my eyes as he addressed the crowd. “If you want more details on the worst sex partner ever, just look up my website.”

“That’s when I got up and ran out of the house, hearing the jeers and laughter behind me. Needless to say, the following days of school were filled with laughter, pointing and name-calling as I walked through the halls. I couldn’t get over the fact that I had been the source of a school-wide practical joke.”

I could tell Devin was upset by what I’d told him. He wanted to find Eric and kill him, but instead he stayed there and made me drink the glass of water he had the waiter bring.

“Can we go home now?” I asked him.

“Yeah, sure, CJ. Let’s go home. It’s late anyway, and you’re probably not going to want to go to work tomorrow with the headache you’ll have.”

“You can call in sick for me,” I told him as he helped me off the couch. I leaned into him as we made our way through the club and out to the street. Once out of the club, Devin’s body stiffened, and I knew without turning around that he’d seen Eric.