Crazy Stalker

Chapter 23 -The Viewpoint Character

THE "PARTY" starts in the late afternoon, around 4 p.m. I'm just happy that Nick and I get there as the sun is beginning to set, so I don't have to borrow one of Ruth's bathing suits. The last thing I wanted was to have to wear a skimpy bikini with Ruth and her bone-skinny friends.

Nick and his friends sit around the television and catch up on their soccer. Although the boys are all deliciously hot grunting and slapping each other on the backs with every goal, I get bored pretty quickly. Within fifteen minutes of arriving, I pick up some diet cokes, and I go outside to join the girls around the pool.

I bump into Chucky in the kitchen, where he's mixing up a batch of cocktails for his guests. He tells me the drinks are in the basement, but when I'm clueless about which if the many doors in his luxurious kitchen lead to the basement (as opposed to the indoor pool). In pity, he comes over to help me.

"It's good that you're here to keep Nick company," Chucky tells me as he switches the basement light on. "After his last breakup, he was acting all mopey. Having Ruth around here sure doesn't help at all."

"Nick and Ruth were an item?" I ask in shock. My blood runs cold, momentarily. That would explain why Ruth was so nice to me earlier; maybe she was trying to get under my skin and guilt me into breaking up with Nick. I can't imagine why else someone as cool as Ruth would want to be friends with me.

"No, no, God no," Chucky says with a laugh. "Everyone knows that Ruth is completely asexual. I keep forgetting you're the New Girl. No, everyone knows that Nick dated Ruth's twin sister — Jessica. She was like the female version of Ruth. Jessica had a nervous breakdown or something last summer. She shoved Nick off of a dock. I heard he hit his head on her dad's sailboat, and he nearly broke his jaw. She had to be hospitalized for a little while for depression. No one talks about her anymore. I think she's homeschooled now."

"What the heck?" I ask. "Are you serious?"

I can't believe this. Am I living in Jane Eyre? This is more drama than I know how to handle. Back where I went to school, people don't end up in mental hospitals. If they acted up, they were expelled, or they dropped out to work in retail.

"Jessica was under a lot of stress. I think she's had issues with her health since she was a kid. I heard she was always in and out of the ER for one infection or another. I don't know exactly what's wrong with her. The Brooks deserve their privacy, so we don't ask. Whatever it was, after last summer, she left school and started shutting everyone out."

"Oh, that's sad."

"Yeah, but don't worry. It doesn't concern you. Ruth agrees with the rest of us that Nick needs to move on."

Chucky pats me on the shoulder and gestures to the box of Diet Coke at the foot of the stairs.

"I don't know how girls drink that stuff," Chucky says and wrinkles his nose. I see his pectoral muscles twitch under his too-tight t-shirt as he glances from me to the coke. "I need real sugar. If I had to go on a diet, it would drive me insane."

~*~

I like writing about werewolves. If anyone asked me why the answer is you know how the story ends before it even begins. The Alpha always picks the main character no matter how lowly, how homely, how clumsy she appears at first. She is destined to be the Luna simply by virtue of being the Viewpoint Character. The Alpha may reject her, may torture her, might mistreat her — but in the end, in his darkest of hearts, he loves her. The book is just a quest to unearth that love under all the malice, hatred, and cruelty.

Unfortunately, if you go through life thinking you're the viewpoint character, people call you a narcissist. That's the problem with this love triangle between me, Nick, and Jessica. In my deepest of hearts, I suspect she probably deserves Nick more than I do. And Nick knows it too; that's why he only seemed to loosen up today when he brought me that quasi-caramel macchiato. He was comparing me to Jessica — poor tragic, perfectly absent Jessica.