Chapter 125 – Unbreakable Bond – Holly Hayfield

Our weekend plans were altered when Jay announced that she wouldn’t be able to join us at the movie theater. Likewise, Sam’s parents didn’t want her leaving her house unsupervised. We agreed that our movie day would take place at Sam’s house, courteous of her invitation. Whether it was at the theater or someone’s house, it didn’t matter to me as long as we were hanging out together.

We still had to finish up Ms. Sampson’s delivery task before we could do that. We split into two groups. Val and Lilith took half of the remaining houses. Alyssa and I took the other half. It only took an hour of riding around to finish it up. By the end of it Lilith looked ready to collapse on Sam’s front yard.

“I’m never riding on a motorcycle again!” She said as she fell into my arms.

We were just now arriving at Sam’s place and meeting up in the driveway. Considering that the very first thing Lilith did was stumble over to me, the ride must’ve been hard on her. As I held onto her I could feel her wobbly legs ready to give out. I hid my amusement by hugging her tightly to keep her steady. This was similar to how I felt after riding with Val for the first time.

“Did the two of you run into any trouble?” Val asked.

“Not really,” Alyssa said. “Most of the houses didn’t bother opening the door for us.”

“Same here,” Lilith said, pulling away from me. “I was glad about that because I didn’t want to talk to any of them.”

I pinched Lilith’s cheeks and Val laughed.

“Would it kill you to interact with them a little?” I asked.

“It might!” Lilith said, “Look at what happened to Leigha!”

I pinched her cheeks harder for casually joking about something so grim.

“It’s not all bad.” Alyssa said. “They saved us time.”

“True,” Val said. “We should have enough time to watch a couple of movies before I have to leave for work.”

I let go of Lilith and looked over at Val.

“Oh…? Your brother is calling you in today too?”

“Yep, he just received a ton of boxes filled with things that he wants me to help him stock. I promised I’d spare some time for it tonight.”

“Then let’s go in.” Lilith said, rubbing her cheeks. “I brought a few scary movies and…”

“Why?” I interjected, “Didn’t we already agree on a superhero movie?”

“…It’ll be funny to see how you all react.” Lilith said, ignoring my comment. “The movie I brought is one of my favorites.”

“Which movie…?” Alyssa asked.

Lilith happily pulled the movie out of her bag and presented it to Alyssa. Alyssa’s mouth opened and her eyes widened as she inspected the cover.

“Oh! I’ve heard about this one. Forget the superhero movie. Let’s watch this.”

“Oh great,” I said sourly.

Val put an arm around us and pushed us towards the door.

“Come on, let’s get started. We’ll watch the superhero movie afterwards.”

We rang the doorbell but no one answered. Lilith, in her usual impatience, tried the door. The door was already unlocked so we assumed that meant Sam was waiting for us. That’s when we heard the sound of fighting coming from the living room.

“Let me go!” Sam shouted like she was in trouble.

Val and I rushed into the scene, only to be greeted with a sight that we didn’t expect. The living room table was moved aside and there was a blanket spread out across the ground. Sam was wrestling her sister atop the blanket and didn’t even notice us come in. Sam’s older sister had Sam pinned to the floor in an arm lock.

“Oh?” Sam’s sister asked when she noticed us, “It looks like your friends are here.”

“That’s why I said let me go! Didn’t you hear the doorbell?”

“I did, but I didn’t hear you say you surrender!”

“I surrender, damn it! Let go of me!” Sam shouted.

Sam’s sister let go of her and stood up triumphantly. She put a foot on her little sister’s back and grinned.

“Yet another victory for me… Is it just me or have you become weaker since you entered this new high school? What’s the big deal?”

Sam was too busy seething in anger on the ground to answer her. Sam’s sister looked over at us just as Lilith and Alyssa cautiously walked in behind me and Val. It was Lilith that primarily drew her attention. She skipped over to the four of us and took Lilith by the shoulders. Lilith gave her an annoyed look.

“Let go.” She said monotonously.

Sam’s sister looked over at Sam.

“Wow! This one’s a cutie! Can I hold her?”

“I’m not Lilith’s keeper.” Sam said, getting up off the ground. “Besides, I told you about her before… She bites.”

Sam’s sister hugged Lilith anyways, but not for long. Lilith squirmed out of her grasp and hid behind me. That turned me into the center of attention instead. Sam’s sister put a quizzical finger on her chin as she stared at me contemplatively. Then after a moment she clapped her hands and pointed at me.

“You’re Holly!” She said.

“That’s me.” I said.

She pointed a finger at Val.

“Valentina!” She said.

“Yes.”

She pointed at Alyssa and raised an eyebrow.

“You don’t match the description of Jay…” She said.

“I’m a new member of the student council.” Alyssa said. “My name’s Alyssa Montenegro.”

“Jay couldn’t come.” Val said. “She had to look after her siblings today.”

“What a sexy accent,” Sam’s sister noted. “I’m guessing you’re from Russia?”

“Kyiv, Ukraine.” Val said.

“Close enough,” Sam’s sister said with a careless wave of her hand.

“You know our names.” I said. “Would you like to introduce yourself?”

Sam’s sister looked genuinely surprised by this.

“What…? Me…? Surely Sam has told you all about me. I’m sure she talks about me a lot...”

There was a moment of silence as we all looked over at Sam. Then her own sister turned to look at Sam too.

“I can’t believe what I’m hearing! I’m hurt!” She said in mock sorrow.

Sam walked over to push her sister away from the rest of the group.

“This is my annoying older sister, Ashley Quinn.”

“I just go by Ash.” She said. “I’ve been eager to meet you girls! Sam talks a lot about you, along with Naomi and her friends. Man, I wish I could’ve gone to your school when I was your age. It sounds like a hell of a lot of fun. Plus, it made the news recently!”

She said that as if it were a good thing.

“So what brings you girls around this weekend?” Ash asked.

“We were planning to watch a movie together.” I said. “Will you be staying to watch it with us?”

“Of course I will!” Ash said. “In fact, I’ll be staying here with Sam for quite some time. Things are different after that whole warehouse fight my little sister got totally thrashed in.”

“I didn’t get thrashed!” Sam said defensively. “I was just caught off-guard…”

“Hmm… One black eye, several bruises, a busted lip… I’d call that getting thrashed.”

“Whatever…” Sam said irritably, “I’ll get everyone some drinks. Ash, why don’t you invite them to sit down? Maybe you can tell them about how you conned our parents into letting you stay here.”

Ash laughed.

“That sounds like a good idea, actually.” Ash said.

Once Ash began lamenting her story I realized the truth in Sam’s words. Sam wasn’t kidding when she said that Ash conned their parents. This arrangement was largely to Sam’s benefit. Sam’s parents were outraged when a police officer dragged Sam to their doorstep. They were going to have Sam move back in with them and enroll her in an online class.

They changed their minds when Ash used this opportunity to reconnect with their family. She was estranged from them until recently. They decided that having her look after Sam would be easier than having Sam change schools. Ash benefited from this almost as much as Sam. Ash admitted to struggling with money without support from her parents.

“In short, Sam’s antics saved me a ton of trouble. Now I don’t have to pay rent, electricity, gas, or anything along those lines! Do you know how much cash I’ll have left over from my cashier job? It’ll be as if I had a massive raise!” Ash said, kicking her legs up onto the couch.

Sam pushed Ash’s legs aside so that she had room to sit down.

“Then you should act a little more grateful.” Sam said.

“So should you,” Ash said, “This arrangement is better than going back home to live with our folks!”

“I hate to admit it…”

“But you know I’m right.” Ash said smugly. “Just be glad your big sister is here and now everything’s alright.”

“Not everything.” I said. “The matter with Brittney Jakeman and her friends has yet to be settled.”

“If I were your age I’d just challenge this girl to a one-on-one fight. That would settle the matter permanently.” Ash said.

“That’s not at all in line with what we’re trying to accomplish.” Val said. “We’re trying to put the fights to an end. Besides, Brittney doesn’t do any of her fighting by herself. She’d never fight you one-on-one.”

“Even if she did and was squarely defeated she’d never admit it.” Sam said. “She’s too proud for something like that.”

“This sounds more exhausting than I thought.” Ash said.

“You have no clue.” I said.

Lilith finished putting in the horror movie and the conversation died down. Ash, Sam, and Val were sitting on the couch. Lilith, Alyssa, and I were sitting on the ground. Alyssa snuggled up close to me, which I totally expected by now. I happily welcomed it at this point.

What I didn’t suspect was for her to pull away from me shortly after. Her phone kept vibrating again and again. Eventually she went out to the hallway to answer it. Everyone was so enveloped in the movie that I was the only one that seemed to notice. When she came back into the room it was only to tell me that she’d be gone for a while to handle something.

In the end Alyssa ended up missing both movies and the dinner we ate together. She didn’t respond to my texts and I was honestly beginning to worry about her. Was she in trouble? Why was she acting this way so suddenly?

Val left first to get ready for her shift at her brother’s shop. Lilith’s aunt arrived next to pick her up. They offered me a ride home and I nearly accepted. I saw Alyssa driving up in the distance and changed my mind. Alyssa quickly jumped off her scooter and ran over to me, saying that we needed to talk. This had to be something serious judging by her expression and behavior.

I assumed it would be something urgent by the way she pulled me away. I assumed that we’d go directly to my place to talk privately in the quiet of my room. I assumed that she would at the very least explain things to me somewhere on the way. She didn’t say a word at any traffic light or stop sign.

Instead, Alyssa was in a completely cut-off state. We must’ve been on the road for half an hour before she chose a place to stop at. I didn’t complain. I could sense that she was calming down as we rode aimlessly together. I knew that Alyssa was ready to talk when she directed us towards a neighborhood park that we had briefly visited before.

The park was empty by now. It was nighttime out and increasingly cold in the middle of December. I felt like Alyssa needed time to unravel her emotions so I didn’t push her. We sat next to each other on the swing set and swayed in place as Alyssa took her time to organize her thoughts.

“I met up with Sofi.” She finally said after a while. “We had a massive argument.”

“Oh,” was all I could say.

I figured it would be something along these lines since Sofi was expected to return to school on Monday. Alyssa, as far as I could tell, had a relatively stable home life with her grandmother. She had difficulty with her actual parents, but recently she told me that her home environment was stable.

“She wanted to get back together with me. She said that we’ve been best friends for a long time and should let bygones be bygones. But… I couldn’t… And she wouldn’t understand that.”

“What did you say?” I asked softly.

“I don’t know. I said a lot of things… A lot of my argument wasn’t even coherent. I was just so mad… I…”

I reached out to grab Alyssa’s hand and she calmed down a bit. She took a deep breath and then released it.

“We have history together.” Alyssa said solemnly. “She really was my best friend… No, it’s more than that. She was my only friend for quite some time and yet she betrayed me. She was so quick to let the Matriarch come between us that I felt betrayed by it. Now that Sofi has lost all her supporters she expects things to go back to the way they were.”

“It’s unreasonable for her to expect that after how she treated you.” I said. “You don’t have to feel guilty about defending yourself in light of that. She was the one that turned her back on your friendship, not the other way around.”

“I know. I even said as much to her and she didn’t take it well. Our conversation descended into a shouting match from there. Things got worse when I explained that I’ve become good friends with you and that I joined the student council. She argued that I betrayed her for doing that. In the end I stormed away from her and just drove off.”

“Walking away from her was the right decision.”

“I think so too… But somehow I can’t shake this pain deep inside my chest. It hurts and I don’t know why. I was already determined to tell her off, but I feel like something has been wrenched out of me after actually doing it. I don’t know what to do with myself and I feel sick.”

For a moment we just sat in silence, holding hands. I let go of her hand to stand up from the swing I was sitting in. I walked up close behind her and leaned forward. I put my arms around her and wrapped her into a tight hug, resting my head gently against hers.

“I know that feeling more than you might suspect…” I said. “I probably understand this more than anyone else you could talk to. I’m not saying this as a counselor. This is me speaking as another troubled student of Meredith’s School for Troubled Girls.” I said.

Alyssa turned to look back at me curiously.

“You ended a friendship like this, didn’t you?” She asked.

“Worse…” I said in a strained whisper, “It was so much worse than this...”

She stared at me as I pulled away. I lightly pushed her back and forth on the swing as I gathered up my thoughts. She looked forward and tried to relax as I pushed her. The loud creaking of the swing set broke me out of my internal debate. I stopped the swing the moment I was ready to tell her my greatest secret.

“I want to tell you something. I’ve never told anyone this because I’ve been concerned with how people see me.” I said. “But I want to tell you. You chose to stay with me even after Sofi confronted you. I know you’ll stay with me even if your opinion of me changes.”

She gave me another curious look.

“What is it?” She asked.

“I’m going to tell you about why I was expelled from my former school.” I said. “I’m going to tell you about the rift between me and my former friends, Ellie and Opal.”