Jenalyn: From the Inside (#3) [Complete]

Chapter 75: Hayden

Friday, 3:46 P.M. EST

The baby doesn’t agree with whatever slop this place is feeding me. I’ve been sick all afternoon, and only half of it is because of the predicament I find myself in with Ren, Evan, and Ryan now.

What did I do? 

I feel so tangled in all of this mess; I can’t even begin to think of a way out.

Ren will have my head with this…

It’s one thing for her to know that I’ve been sneaking out with Ryan, okay? But now she wants to include me in some whack job threesome to pay for alcohol that she intends to have smuggled into the children’s ward of a rehab center?!

And she’s not fucking Evan?

I thought that I had the upper hand here… but I had everything bass akwards!

“Where were you earlier?” I ask Ryan as soon as we get to the roof, silencing my thoughts on Ren long enough to do at least that. 

Ryan nods as if he’d expected me to ask. “I was going to tell you about that,” he says, taking a break from sipping his water bottle to turn to me. He wears a serious look on his face. “Ren is asking about our nightly outings all of a sudden… what’s up with that?” 

I let out a sigh, rolling my eyes. I was really hoping it didn’t have anything to do with Ren. 

“They changed her meds,” I tell him with half a mind. I use the other half to swing through all the thoughts in my head again. “I think she was awake last night at some point… what’d she say to you?”

He looks panicked but keeps his cool enough to where he can respond in a calm tone. 

“She wants me to ‘take her out too,’ or something like that,” he says, question in his voice. “Did you tell her I slept with you? She was pretty adamant on telling me she’d be better, but-“

I interrupt, rolling my eyes and nodding my head to let him know I can figure the rest out on my own.

That’s what I tried to approach Evan with, after all.

“I didn’t tell her,” I assure him after a moment. “But she’s not dumb. I mean, come on… wouldn’t you assume the same thing?”

He still looks worried. Something inside of me yells over all of my other voices, telling me that there’s nothing to worry about.

“I really can’t lose this job, Hayden,” Ryan says after a few moments, pulling me from the focus I put on listening to my voices. “If she exposes us, and the operation your friend has got going on? You don’t understand! We’ll go to-“

I shake my head with force and clasp my hands together. “That’s not happening,” I tell him, finally allowing the voice to break through all the others. It’s so strong now that I hear nothing else. “One hundred percent, I’ve got this under control.”