Homewrecker

57 - 𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓵

When I walked into the concession stand after the intermission was over and the second films had started on all five of the screens, Taylor-Elise was hoisting herself up from one of the barstools onto the counter again with a lighter grasped in her hand for the thermostat.

There were a couple of customers still lingering in the restaurant, probably waiting for their orders to be taken out of the fryer, and there were a few preteen girls trying to all cram themselves into the photobooth in the one corner of the restaurant near the retro arcade games, their legs sticking out from underneath the black curtain.

I hesitated near the doors, propped open with uneven wedges of splintering wood, as Ethan reached for his wallet and Cass held up her hand before he could say anything, informing him that she already knew the order.

Andi was near the popcorn machine, grasping the collar of her shirt and pulling it away from her chest, her hair pulled into a messy bun as she stared at the shifting curtain of the photobooth before realizing I was in the stand.

She didn't even look at me for more than a second before she turned around and started to head into the kitchen, but before I realized what I was doing, I was calling out her name and approaching the counter. "Andi, will you just wait a second? Please?"

"Don't think so."

"Wait, what's going on?" Cass asked, still holding the bills from Ethan's wallet in her hand even though the cash register was open in front of her.

"They're fighting," Taylor-Elise filled in, waving the lighter in front of the thermostat.

"No, we're not fighting," Andi corrected. "She didn't just wear one of my shirts. She accused my parents of murdering her mom."

Cass blinked, her mouth falling somewhat agape. Taylor-Elise, on the other hand, didn't look as stunned while continuing to focus on trying to manipulate the air conditioning unit.

"Look, can we just talk for a minute?" I asked her. "It's not like this is easy—"

She shook her head, interrupting me. "No, no, okay, don't say that this isn't easy for you, because truthfully, it came a little too easily to you. You . . . have been so full of yourself ever since you got here, acting like just because you grew up poor and in a trailer that it gave you some sort of character, made you better than all these rich snobs who have only ever tried to give you anything you could've wanted!"

"Well, maybe I'm not materialistic like you," I retorted. "Maybe I don't care about cars and Apple whatever and name brands on everything. You can't just have a bag. It has to be a bag with a label on it!"

Ethan leaned over. "Is this how you're trying to get her to forgive you?"

"You're so . . . narrowminded! My parents didn't just buy you stuff, they gave you somewhere to live when all you had was a broken down, pathetic, rusted old trailer, and that was before the tornado hit it! My mom got a therapist for you when we go back home, she's in the middle of trying to you into a private school, and Dad has been making you a freaking vegetable garden because you said you wanted one! When your mom died, I gave you my bed, so you didn't have to sleep on the floor. When you blew off work to get drunk with Kingston, I covered for you with Sheila and Hank. Jason and Kimberly have been scrambling to find something for you at their wedding, so you don't feel left out, and all of this, literally everything we've done for you since you got here was such a waste because it didn't matter to you at all."

I was quiet for a moment, a tightness starting to weigh against my chest.

"And the fact that you think my parents would actually kill to have an ungrateful brat like you, that's honestly one of the most laughable things I've heard—"