Hell & Back || TYLER SBG

Chapter 5: Rumors

The next night, it happened again—except this time it was worse. So much worse.

Sienna, Courtney, and Nora had all came over for moral support the night she came back from Savannah. Nora took her phone and kept it in her own pocket so that she couldn't worry herself by looking at it.

She may have been grateful that Tyler blocked Ryland on messages for her, but she didn't have the heart to block him on everything else. She didn't have the words to respond to him yet, but there was something so finite about going no contact, and that made her feel sick.

She was expecting the girls to talk about the band, but she was surprised to see that they had the whole night planned out for her. They bought face masks, her favorite candies, and lots and lots of tissues. Danica had streaming on her TV, but Sienna found probably the last standing Redbox in town and rented Mama Mia! from it. Something about it being more 'personal', in her words.

They spent the whole night talking about everything that they could. It was supposed to be fun, Danica knew that, but there wasn't a second that passed where she didn't have a sense of migraine inducing dread.

That feeling only got worse as the time neared midnight.

11:50

"I still can't believe that girl came up to you like that. You know, if she cares so much then maybe she should've been comforting his dumbass instead of harassing you,"

Danica let out a sort of laugh through her nose, not being able to look at Sienna as she spoke. Her hand nervously drifted to the silver chain around her neck, "...yeah,"

11:55

"and I obviously believe that you guys had food poisoning, but like, who cares if you got drunk anyway," said Nora with a shrug, "Honestly, you should just say that you did. It'd be kind of funny seeing Ryland throw a hissy fit just because you were with that Tyler kid."

Danica looked up at that and shifted a bit, "Yeah, I just don't really get why he cares about that in the first place."

Courtney looked over at her, "Well I mean, you kind of talk about the kid a lot."

"What? No I don't," she said defensively, "I mean...maybe, but that's because he gets on my nerves."

"Well we know that," said Sienna, putting her black hair up into a bun before reaching for one of the face masks, "but Ryland's an insecure loser. Remember when he got all weird when he found out Court and Nora like girls? Like, as if they were gonna steal you from him."

11:57

"Maybe we should've," Courtney let out a little laugh, "Could've avoided this whole thing."

Danica couldn't help but laugh a bit at that. She was still fidgeting with her necklace though. The closer the clock got to midnight the more anxious she got.

Maybe it would be fine. Maybe nothing would happen and it was all a one time thing. Some king of weird group hallucination that the seven of them could all laugh about later.

Yeah, she'd just keep telling herself that.

11:59

Courtney look over at her, concern washing over her face, "You okay Dani? You look kind of pale."

Danica just nodded, entirely zoned out at that point.

"Hey, we can stop talking about the Ryland stuff if it's bothering you," said Nora softly.

She shook her head before quietly saying, "No, no it's fine. I'm just tired."

The last thing she remembered was her three friends giving each other confused looks before everything went black again.