Falling Apart

Chapter 23

"Move back home?" I repeat Caroline's words.

"Well you definitely can't stay here." she almost laughs. I shift my knees and stand up next to David who is watching my aunt and I bicker.

"What do you mean? Why?"

"Katherine, you've been raped!" she yells and I flinch. I've never seen her this angry and my heart speed up again. "If you stay here, it might happen again!" she moves to face David. "And where were you during all of this? You couldn't have stopped this?"

"Caroline!" I stand between the two, watching anger swim in David's eyes as he tries not to blow his fuse. "None of this is his fault! You can't blame anyone on this. I've tried to do that; it doesn't help."

"Well you're coming home until Ian is found by the police." she spits. "And where is Jenna? Shouldn't your best friend be here along with your boyfriend who couldn't save you in time?"

I nearly stand up for David again but I'm thrown by her mention of Jenna. I haven't seen her since the hospital and still haven't received a single text from her. "We don't know."

Caroline's face twists into a question mark and I feel my phone buzz from my pocket. I retrieve it and almost choke when I read the name that sent the message. "Oh my god! It's Jenna!"

I read the text aloud. "Hey Kath, sorry I haven't kept in touch for a while. I went on a little vacation back home after everything that happened. I hope you're doing better and we should hangout soon."

All three of us stare in awe at the device in my hand. David clears his throat and walks across the room as I watch his long legs stride across the floor. "You should be with her tonight." my aunt finally says.

"I could meet up with her right now." I suggest, "But you just came all the way here."

"Well there's actually something else I wanted to tell you besides yelling at you for not answering me."

"What is it?" my mind automatically thinks the worst.

"I got a job offer. There's an opening in a new school that's being built. They're offering me a history teaching position."

"Awesome! You've always wanted to be a real teacher! See? All those years of substituting paid off." I smile. "I thought it was going to be something bad, and I really can't deal with anymore bad news."

"Well, that's the thing." she looks down. "It's in California."

I swallow a lump in my throat and blink rapidly. "That's umm, that's really far."

"It's across the country." she looks back to me.

David enters the room again with his phone in his hand, anger returning to his face.

"What's going on?" I ask him, observing his features.

"Nothing, but I have to go. I'll see you later." he dismisses and nods towards the both of us. He quickly passes through the door and the silence that fills the air is suffocating. "I wonder what that was about."

"What are you thinking?" Caroline pushes her fingers between my shoulder blades the way she always would do when I was frustrated as a child.

"I'm thinking...you should take the job. We've survived the last month without each other, and this has been your dream forever. You have to do it." I smile.

"But Katherine, you need to move back home."

"I'll be fine here. I still have school to worry about and David is always here, literally."

"He wasn't there when---"

"Stop. You just can't..."

"I know. I'm sorry. But you're my baby, kind of... I just want you to be okay." she brings my hair to my back.

"I will." I promise her. "You need to tell me everything about California though." I laugh.

"Definitely. And you're sure that you're safe here?"

"Yes. Now go!" I almost push her out of the door. "Go home and pack and move to L.A!"

"Okay, okay!" she hugs me and I walk her to her car. We promise each other that our goodbyes won't be for long and that she'll call me everyday. When she drives away, I call Jenna and for once in the past two weeks, she answers.

"Kath! We need to hangout!"

"Okay, first of all can I tell you how great it is to hear your voice? And can you meet up somewhere now?"

"Yeah! Bowling alley?"

"Sure." I smile, knowing she's aware of how much I hate bowling. I run back to my room and throw on bowling shoes, calling an uber driver to pick me up as I walk back outside. My stomach churns a little at the anxiety of seeing old friend, but sadness creeps in as I realize she's even considered an old friend.

I've known Jenna since high school and we've been pretty close ever since. But now, something has changed and I don't feel good about it. I know her and Ian were considered a thing, so maybe she's taking it hard that he did such a thing to me. As nervous as I am, I'm excited to finally see that blue-eyed smile.

My uber driver arrives right as the sun begins to come down and I tell him to drive to the closest bowling alley. I text Jenna the address he tells me and I spend the rest of the ride thinking of where I could get a car. Ten minutes later I walk into the alley and see a smiling Jenna slipping into a pair of uncomfortable bowling shoes.

"Kath!" she runs in the half-tied shoes, almost tripping as she comes to hug me. "I've missed you so much. How are you?"

"I'll be fine when I can breathe." I choke as her arms wrap around my neck. She laughs and we walk to where she was sitting before. "So what have you been up to?" I ask while rolling up the bottom of my jeans.

"I sort of went back home for a while. I've been hanging out with my mom a lot after everything that happened." she looks down and types our names into the console. "I just want everything to be okay."

"So do I." I nod and reach for a ball. "It will be." I say before knocking down a strike.

After an hour and a half of catching up on each other and ordering lots of chicken wings, Jenna ends up beating me. We stumble outside, waving the setting sun out of our eyes and I follow her to her car. "So how was it being able to go back home as a college girl? Is it totally different?"

"It's...different." she shrugs and opens the door to her side. "I really need to get going now. There's lots of homework and stuff to catch up on. But today was really fun and I've missed you, Kath."

"Yeah, me too." I smile and wave her off as she drives away. I call for another uber and sit outside of a small café to wait. I send David a text, informing him that I'm fine and had a nice time with Jenna. I see my driver pull into the same parking space where he dropped me off earlier but a familiar voice sends me looking in the other direction.

"Hey!" I yell at the back of a familiar brown leather jacket. He turns around and I'm met with the same green eyes that I saw in the forest just last night.

Jenna's POV

I rush into the large house and quickly drop the grocery bags onto the countertop. My fingers shake as I place the new food into the pantry and I almost drop the milk carton when I hear breathing from behind me.

"You're late." I feel Ian's hot breath against my neck, letting me know how close he is.

"But I came back." I croak.

As he walks around the table in the middle of the room, I think of how I just lied to Katherine. I told her I went back home, that I was fine and just needed to recover from what I saw weeks ago. I told her everything Ian told me to tell her, but I was granted with a few hours of freedom that I haven't had in three weeks. He circles around the kitchen, putting the last of the groceries into the freezer. "Well?"

My heart beats in my ears while shutting the pantry door. "She bought it."