Black Iris

The Homewrecker.

Rose

The rest of the week was a lot to cope with.

After I'd seen Charlene outside the head office, she stopped talking to me. Stopped acknowledging me. When we saw each other in passing, she scowled and avoided me. In class, she sat on her own. At least, when she actually turned up to class. Sometimes, her seat was empty.

She didn't sit with Adam or the group at lunch, either. Neither did I. It felt weird sitting with them after everything that had happened.

So, I ended up sitting with one of the other girls in my cabin, and her friends. They were nice, and didn't mind, seeing as I mostly kept to myself.

But Charlie, she didn't make other friends. It was as though her entire demeanour had shifted overnight. Gone was the bubbly sweet confidence she'd held, and in its place was a hotheaded bitter mess.

I wanted nothing more than to reach out to her. The words were eating away at me, begging to be said. To apologise for that night, to apologise that I hadn't been there for her when she needed me. But when I tried, she avoided me. Or snapped my head off.

After a while, I stopped trying.

The rumour mill at camp got more and more elaborate in the days after Independence Day, as well as more and more conflicting. It was hard to tell what was really true. Some people were even going as far to say that Charlene had been arrested for taking a jackhammer to Adam's car after he broke up with her.

Which, if you didn't know Charlene, wasn't that hard to believe. Or at least, the latter part wasn't. Where Charlene was in shambles, Adam had built himself a calm and cool image. He was one of the popular kids, after all, and all this gossip was beneath him.

And of course, by dinner on Tuesday night, he and Marley couldn't seem to get enough of each other, wrapped arm in arm.

And while all that was happening, I was glued to my phone. Texting, at every chance I got.

Texting Gwen.

It started small. Infrequent. On Monday, she asked how it was to be back at camp. I was honest, and told her it was crap. When she asked why, I told her the truth. About Charlene and I. And what had happened.

She was surprisingly chill about it. I was expecting her to be weird, or jealous, but she seemed fine. Actually, she was quite empathetic. And, it was nice to have someone to talk to.

To properly talk to.

And, the more we texted, the more I started to open up about the last few months. What I'd been going through. And she opened up, too. Told me what it was like to live with Blake for so many years. The things he did. What he made her feel like.

It reminded me of so many of the long nights in his basement, talking about what we went through. Connecting to one another. Nights that I never told anyone about, because I was protecting her.

But it felt really good to talk about it.

So, on Friday night, when I was sitting in the cafeteria for dinner, she asked if she could see me again on the weekend. And I said yes.

And it was then that I heard Adam snapping at the other end of the dining hall.

"It's none of your fucking business, Lena."

Virtually the entire dining hall went quiet and turned to look. Charlie was standing in front of Adam and Marley, holding her dinner tray and scowling at them, while Marley was tangled in Adam's arms. I watched as she broke free and glanced up at Charlene, then around at the crowd watching. Her eyes met mine for a moment then she gulped and looked back at Charlene.