Consequences Be Damned

13 ⇻ a damned meeting

woops forgot it was tuesday because, like the good college student i am, i skipped all my classes today :-))

The rest of the night was uncomfortable.

By the time she got out of the shower, I tucked myself into bed, turned off the light, and pretended I was asleep. I was pretty sure she didn't fall for it, but she didn't really care whether or not I was awake.

    That whole experience, like being pulled into her memories, was viscerally disturbing. First of all, what the heck happened? That had never happened before and I wondered if it was something she did to me, but... it didn't feel like she knew that I could see what she saw.

    She couldn't even see me presently as she told the story, much less the fact that I felt like I was there.

    Was it me?

    It disturbed me so much that, the next day, after avoiding everyone in the apartment and distractedly going through my classes, I had turned down the ride home from Luke after our next class and, instead, took a Lyft to the mansion.

    Strangers weren't allowed into the lot. The large gate that kept people out loomed above me, the tall metal bars designed so that it would be as unwelcomingly as possible, with sharp metallic thorns smattered all over the bars so that people couldn't even try to lean in.

    This was one of the first times I came back alone. Usually, I'd be driven in by one of the brothers, so it didn't matter whether I remembered the code because I didn't need to.

    But now, I couldn't for the life of me remember what it was.

    The security of the mansion was simple enough. Looked simple at least. There was a code box that stood right outside. It was embedded in the "brick" columns beside the mailbox.

    What was the code?

    HOES was this week's current message thread name.

    I scrolled past several arguments between John and Mark about borrowing the car, rides, and wingmanning each other at parties until John added Matthew to the mix. Matthew then left several texts later, which, time-wise, was barely an hour.

    There were several messages this morning talking about what they were gonna say to get out of family dinner. Actually, it was mostly Mark trying to get out of the dinner. John didn't seem to care whether or not there was dinner and Matthew, from the track record so far, was basically out of it; if he was at home during dinner, he would go because "who could say no to free food?"

    He wasn't wrong.

    It was just the effort of coming all the way out here that put me off.

    JOHN: inviting a girl over desont count as an excuse dude

    MARK: it's supposed to be a family dinner, man! can't make it family if there's a hoe there

    JOHN: well according to the chat name we're all hoes

    JOHN: so

    MARK: we're family hoes, man

    JOHN: ...

    I didn't respond to any of the topics, instead, tapping out, hey guys, what's the passcode to get passed the gate?

    JOHN: are u outside

    MARK: are you coming to dinner, summer?????

    SUMMER: yeah i'm outside

    SUMMER: and maybe

    In the next moment, the gate parted open and I slid my phone into my back pocket, hiked my backup up my shoulder, and then entered the gate. It shut behind me as soon as I passed it and started down the driveway.