My Heart Skips a Beat (completed)

Chapter 17: Life Moving On

A/N: so sorry! i just realized that I just posted chapter 16 as chapter 17 as well, so i posted the same part twice! sorry for the confusion! anyways, this is the REAL chapter 17 now, the final chapter 18 will be posted today as well!

The forty-eight hours after my breakup with Skip were the longest forty-eight hours of my life.

Ashley and I got into a screaming match about her revealing Jonathan’s plans to go meet Ellen and “fix things with her.” Like fixing things meant jumping out of your pants in a cheap motel.

“Ashley! Why the hell did you tell Skip that my brother was going to the Firestar! I told you and Grace during lunch that Jonathan and I didn’t want Skip to know! What the hell? Why’d you do that?” I demanded once I let her and Grace inside the morning after my breakup with Skip.

“Hey! Don’t blame this on me!” shot back Ashley. “Grace and I have absolutely no idea in hell of how Skip knew the girl and why he threw a hissy when he saw her, and I’m frankly pissed off that I had to fall asleep in a Catholic boarding high school dorm hallway!”

I forgot that Skip and I left Ross, Roger, and my two roommates at the motel. They must have gotten a bus or something, and to top it all off, I locked them out of our room because I was crying so hard I couldn’t think straight.

“Look, I don’t want to talk about Jonathan’s affair with Ellen right now. I’m sorry that you two had to sleep outside in the hall last night, believe me, I am, but I just don’t understand why you had to say ‘I thought you said Jonathan was going to the Firestar Motel’! That’s literally the worst possible sentence you could have said in that position!”

Ashley sighed. “You know how sometimes, Claire, people say things in their heads but then accidentally say them out loud? Yeah, that was one of those moments for me. And then right after I said it, I realized that I screwed up! I’m sorry, Claire! But why did Skip break up with you? And I thought you said Jonathan’s woman’s name was Alice.”

“It’s Ellen. Jonathan wouldn’t tell Skip and me her real name, so Alice was the alias he used. It was so frustrating trying to get the answers outta that kid. I don’t want to tell you the entire breakup story, because I don’t think I could get more than three words into it without crying.” A few tears escaped out of my eyes and slid down my cheeks, but I wiped them away before either Grace or Ash could see them. “Ellen is someone Skip is closely associated with, and Jonathan didn’t want Skip to know about their affair, so he tried to keep it a secret from Skip. Ellen and Jonathan didn’t know that they were both connected to Skip, but as soon as they found out, they just became so awkward, adding onto the fact they broke up one month before they found out who the other was,” I explained, trying not to give too much information to the two.

“She looked just like him. They twins or something?” suggested Ashley.

That girl could be so smart but so clueless at the same time. “Yeah. Ellen is Skip’s twin.”

“So, they broke up literally right before Jonathan’s birthday, right?” asked Grace. “So that must mean they saw each other and found out their identities around Christmastime.”