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***Ella***
Itook an Uber back to the house when the storm finally passed. It was already dark out and I was anxious to get home and find Vaughn. My head was full of thoughts about young Vaughn beating up neighborhood kids for me and present day Vaughn beating up Billy for me. I was desperate to tell him that I was sorry and that I didn’t think he was a mistake.
When the driver slowed down before he got to the house, I looked up and saw that the street was packed with cars. People, too. “I don’t think I’m going to be able to get closer than this. It looks like someone is having a party.”
I frowned. “Um, this is fine. Thank you.”
As soon as I opened the car door, the sound of a party filtered in. I was confused as I made my way down the sidewalk and had to step around drunk people coming from our house. A sinking feeling settled in my stomach when I saw the state of the front yard and driveway. The house was wide open and music pumped out from inside. Red solo cups were all over the ground and on top of our vehicles. There was a couple making out against the side of the house and another rolling around in the ground. I’d never seen a party like it outside of frat row. There had never been a party at our house while I lived there so I had a bad feeling about why there was a party happening that night.
Getting into the house was miserable. I had to push past people and the smell was disgusting. Sweat, beer, and something eerily similar to vomit reeked but I was the only one who seemed to notice. I couldn’t spot another sober person anywhere. Searching for the guys room by room led me out the back door and onto the patio at the rear of the house. No one ever used it but the party had made use of the space. An impromptu dance floor had been born out of the large square of concrete and in the middle, towering over everyone, I spotted the guys.
Beers in hand, arms waving overhead as they danced to the music, it was clear from the glassy eyes to the goofy smiles that they were all hammered. I’d never seen any of them so drunk and it freaked me out. It freaked me out enough that I pushed my way through the crush of bodies to get to them. I didn’t notice the women dancing on them at first. When I did, I ignored the pang of hurt I felt because I was convinced that something was wrong.
“Hey! Fisher! Booth!” I finally got close enough that I could just reach past a blockade of women to grab Fisher’s shirt. When he swung his head in my direction, I watched the goofy smile turn down and his nose crinkle as he pulled away from me. I still didn’t get it, though. “What’s going on? Can we go somewhere and talk?”
“He doesn’t want to talk to you!”
I shot a glare at the brunette yelling at me and turned back to Fisher. I expected him to see that it was me and smile at me like he always did. Instead, he scowled at me.
“Go away, Ella!” He looked over at Booth and rolled his eyes. “Tell her, Booth. Tell her to go away.”
Booth locked eyes with me as he slung his arm around the woman dancing on him. “Go away.”
I was forced to fight my way closer, taking more than one elbow to the boob because of it. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“We don’t want you here. In case you didn’t get the message, I’m breaking up with you, Ella! You’ve got a wandering eye and I heard all about it.” Fisher slurred his words and jabbed his finger in my direction. “Wandering eye!”
I stared at him in shock, so confused about what was happening. I felt like I’d stumbled into an alternate universe, one where nothing made sense. I expected Vaughn to be angry at me but Fisher and Booth had never been anything but kind to me.
A woman dancing with her arm around Fisher’s neck laughed cruelly, the sound so clear over the music. “Yeah, a wandering eye for her stepbrother!”
The music might as well have screeched to a halt. My head spun as people laughed and turned to me, staring and jeering at me like a bad teen movie. I shook my head, so horrified by everything happening that I was sure I was having a nightmare.
“What kind of girl cheats on her boyfriend with her stepbrother? God, what a disgusting slut.”
More taunts went up as I looked around, so ready to wake up from my bad dream. My eyes found Vaughn in the crowd and I saw him laughing as a woman rubbed herself all over him. I wanted to scream at him to make it all stop but it just got worse.
“Vaughn, was she at least good?”
Vaughn smirked and shrugged, the look on his face all but confirming that he’d fucked me. More laughter went up around me and I was jolted forward by someone behind me. I stumbled into a guy I didn’t recognize and was met with his arm banding around my back when I tried to move away.
“I’m not your brother, baby, but I can pretend!”
I shoved him away and looked at the guys one more time, hoping they’d snap out of it and stop the hell that was erupting around me. Instead, they were all laughing with their friends and dancing like they hadn’t just crushed me. Turning around, I fought my way back to the house to a chorus of name-calling and a barrage of pushing and more than one hand grabbing my ass.
I didn’t cry until I was in another Uber on my way back to Paul’s hotel. I doubled over and tried hard to hide the sounds of my pathetic whimpering. Feeling like a fool and like my world was ending made it nearly impossible, though. I pinched my leg over and over again, praying I’d wake up and that I hadn’t just been called a stepbrother fucker in a public setting.
The driver handed me a mini pack of tissues when he parked in front of the hotel and wished me good luck as I stumbled out of his car. I took the stairs up to Paul’s floor and when he opened the door to my desperate knocking, I rushed into his arms and sobbed into his chest.
“What’s wrong? What happened, Ella?” Paul’s voice was desperate and full of fear as he walked me over to his couch. “Talk to me, sweetheart. Are you okay?”
I looked up into his kind eyes and it all came blubbering out.
48
***Ella***
Morning came after another terrible night of sleep. I’d tossed and turned on Paul’s couch until finally I gave up and just sat outside on his balcony in the dark. I’d cried all the tears I could cry the night before on Paul’s shoulder and I felt like an old sponge that’d been left out in the sun. I was dried out. Even if I wasn’t, I’d reached a point of hurt and anger that didn’t call for tears. I’d been sobbing in my bathroom over Billy just a few months earlier but what I felt that night was so far beyond heartbreak. There was plenty of that, too, but it was more. It was worse.
