Bad Enough For You// Anthony Ladao Fanfiction

Chapter 31

A month, a month since I last saw Anthony.

Since the night I gave him my virginity.

I didn’t know whether I should have felt upset or furious or embarrassed. All I felt was abandoned… How could he just drop off the face of the earth without a phone call? It was absolutely devastating, and the feelings for him never left me even after 10 unanswered calls and 20 unread text messages. I even tried going over to his apartment the second week of his disappearance. No one was there, and the door was locked.

I should have asked Anthony to teach me something useful before he left, like how to pick a lock, or how to rob a bank or whatever. But I was left with nothing but vague memories of his lips on mine and the feeling of his hand on my cheek. Those memories wouldn’t last forever, but I would cling onto them for as long as I could.

I tried not to worry about his vanishing, I mean, he’s done it before right? So when I walked into school on the first day of senior year I had at least expected to see him in the halls. No such luck, no one knew where he was.

And now we were a week into school and the topic of the world was where the fuck Anthony Ladao was.

“Maybe he decided to host a pimp ring,” Marceline said as she picked up a salad from the lunch line. We had decided to put our differences aside once Skylar got back from vacation, but we didn’t really hang out without the others anymore. It all felt like one big act.

“No, I didn’t see him on the streets when I was selling the goods,” Skylar winked. I gave her a weak smile and she shook her head. “What’s wrong with you? You don’t actually care that he’s missing right?”

“It’s just, we shouldn’t be coming up with stupid rumors. People might actually start to believe them.” I pointed out, taking a large gulp of water.

“Chari is right,” Quinn interjected and then went back to doing her homework.

“Whatever, bottom line is Anthony is missing and it’s not really our place to worry about low lives like him.” Marceline said with the flip of her hair. I would’ve hit her if I wasn’t too depressed to.

“Right,” was all I said.

**

A couple of days had passed since then, and there was supposed to be a party that Thursday night. I wasn’t really up to going, but Skylar insisted it be our first outing as a group since before the summer. I reluctantly agreed because I was starting to get annoyed over how everyone was calling me out on how negative I was being.

So walking into the party, I was unimpressed to say the least. It was on the upper side of the town but the sounds of traffic near the escarpment was enough to give you a headache over the sound of the obnoxious rap music being played. You think for a school night people would have toned it down a bit, yeah well you thought wrong.

“Let’s just stick it out for an hour, and then we can ditch if you’d like,” I heard Quinn tell me in my ear the minute we arrived.

“Most likely take you up on that offer,” I replied solemnly. It was going to be the longest hour of my life… I just really didn’t want to be anywhere but the privacy of my own bedroom where I can relive the last of Anthony and I’s relationship over and over again until I lose all of the memories. I had a shit ton of homework to finish as well… I really had no idea why I even went.

I found my way to the kitchen and I got offered a couple of drinks, I respectfully declined all of them and prepared one for myself. I didn’t really feel like getting hammered on a school night, or getting roofied.

I hated being at this party, I hated being here without my boyfriend who dropped off the map. People didn’t seem to even care as they downed shots and sipped diet cokes. How could people not care that a part of the student body mysteriously disappeared? Sure people talked about it, but only to create stupid rumors about him, no one really cared where he was or what actually happened. People wanted to amuse themselves, even if it was at the cost of someone else.

My bitter thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a blood curdling scream.

“What’s going on?” Quinn asked me, I hadn’t even noticed she joined me in the kitchen. I shook my head and we left the kitchen and followed the crowd out the front door. Obviously whatever happened didn’t occur in the house.

“What happened?” I heard a girl ask what I presumed to be her boyfriend.

“I think someone jumped off the escarpment,” the boy replied while they hustled over to the edge of the road.

I felt Quinn grab my hand tightly as we approached the edge of the escarpment ourselves. I remember Anthony and I’s second date here, looking out at the cars and talking about everything and nothing at the same time. But this time, an unidentifiable body was face down on the road below. Cars ran over it as if it was nothing. A strange taste rose in the back of my throat and I tried to swallow it down. Everyone was talking in hushed whispers until I finally heard someone yell, “Call 911!”

“Do you know what’s happened?” I heard someone say behind me, I flipped around and was looking at the wrecked face of Marceline, she looked like she’d been crying.

“Someone jumped,” it took a moment to realize that I was the one speaking.

“What’s happened to you?” Quinn took Marceline’s hand in her free one.

“Devin… Devin broke up with me and I haven’t seen him since…” Marceline let out a strangled sob.

“You don’t think…?” Quinn said delicately.

“How long ago did he leave?” I asked, trying to convince them otherwise.

“About 15 minutes ago, how long have you been here?”

“10 minutes,” I said quietly.

“Oh God what if-?” Marceline was cut off by the sound of police sirens. They drove up to the edge of the escarpment and forced us to all fall back. Before I tore myself from the scene of the jump I overheard two cops talking.

“Who do they think it is?” The younger, more handsome one asked.

“The body is unidentifiable, but two young men tipped us off about a boy named Anthony Ladao.” The older cop explained. “They said he’d been missing for about a month, so Fitzgerald went to his apartment and found a suicide note… Explaining he would be jumping off the escarpment this very night.”

“That’s crazy, how will they know for sure if it’s him or not?”

“They need to do some DNA tests, but it’s pretty certain it’s him. But- Wait… Young lady, you need to be back at that house.” The older (fatter) police man looked at me and I violently nodded my head before walking back to the house where my friends were waiting.

“Are you okay?” Quinn asked, assessing my face.

“Devin jumped, oh my god…” I heard Marceline cry as she grabbed a hold of my shoulders.

“It’s not Devin,” I shook my head, tears stinging my eyes. I pushed her hands off of me delicately.

“How do you know?” Skylar asked, I guess she found Marci and Quinn when I was overhearing the worst news of my life.

“Charity? Do you know who jumped?” Quinn asked me carefully, I nodded slowly and I finally let the food in my stomach escape from inside of me. I realized that the bitter taste in the back of my throat was vomit as I retched up my insides. I felt hands on my back as my friends patiently waited for me to finish puking.

“It was Anthony… They think it was Anthony,” I said finally, breaking down into a strangled sob while my knees hit the pavement.