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◤ chapter six ▸ mutually beneficial ◢
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"SURPRISE?"
AND, OH, IT was such a surprise. An incredible, terrible surprise. An awkward one especially. Betty cackled to herself and Rylie looked between her two friends shocked. Tessa continued to smile even though she felt incredibly awkward for how she acted that night and Flash was shocked to see her, although he was masking it a lot better than Rylie was.
There was Flash; this guy who saved her at a party like she was a damsel in distress (she was, but she wouldn't admit it – Tessa Cormac was not a princess) and he was her prince, her knight in shining armor (he was, although he would never say that – Flash Thompson was not some prince, not some noble man).
There was Tessa; the girl that flirted with him drunkenly later and asked him to fuck her and then got upset when he refused to take the drunk girl up on the offer that she would regret the next morning if he had said yes. The whole thing was fucked, and Tessa would admit that. If she didn't, she would be denying the truth of her whole life.
Because she was fucked up, she was. She was the product of a man who cared more about work than anything else and a woman who never cared to have a family, enough so that she left it. And that was sad, she grieved her mother for the longest time after she disappeared. Although, disappeared isn't the right word; she didn't go missing, she just left. She didn't want to stay, so she didn't.
She abandoned her child and boyfriend – because, oh yeah, her parents never actually got married. Child born out of wedlock, what a surprise! And then her dad stopped caring, not that he cared much before when her mother was still there. Now he just stopped pretending, and young Tessa with stars still twinkling in her eyes and pigtails in her hair was alone. Her only comfort came from the old woman who used to live across the street.
She died.
So Tessa's whole life was fucked. She was fucked. Everything about the situation before her was fucked, and that was probably all her fault. If she hadn't come running to Rylie almost crying because she just saw her best friend – her best friend who she hadn't seen in a month and had abandoned – then she would have never seen Flash and they could have all avoided this mess.
It was always all her fault, that's what Caden used to say.
She couldn't even find a reason to disprove his theory in that moment, it made perfect sense.
