A disintegrating relationship.

“-then maybe it’d be easier to keep your legs closed!” Chloe missed the lead-in to that particular insult, but ducked under a taller boy’s arm in time to see Brandon deliver it. He was positively fuming, which wasn’t too-too surprising. He could have a temper. That said, it being directed at Ashley, who Chloe suspected might not exactly be his girlfriend by the end of this “conversation,” was a curveball. Ashley was crying, but for her part, also pretty inflamed.

“It’s not BECAUSE I fucked him, Brandon!” she snapped back. “It just reminded me what being with someone who gives a shit is like! Or do I not get to have those feelings? Are they not what you want in an accessory?” Behind her, Madison was standing utterly bewildered, glancing from her friend to her brother, lost for whose side, if any, she should be jumping in on here. Heather was very intently trying to guide Ashley away, but Ash wasn’t having any of it. Brandon was … well, some of his friends were around, but no one really seemed to be acting on his behalf.

“Brandon! Friend-buddy!” Zack said loudly, swooping in between them. “We’re about ten seconds from you getting dragged off by a teacher, want to come over here and we can talk about what’s going on?” Brandon hesitated briefly, but let Zack lead him off.

“I feel like this is going to be a weird, sex thing,” Gavin told Chloe, then grimaced. “Like, male/female, not like I’m going to go have sex with Brandon. But I AM going to go do support stuff for Zack.”

“Probably a good idea,” Chloe sighed, watching one of her best friends lead the football player away as he said some very specific, angry things she couldn’t make out. “Plus, then I can stay here and work on not splintering our social circle into a million pieces.” Gavin agreed before departing. Zack and Brandon were the joining point between Chloe, Gavin, and most of the rest of their friends. While they had become close enough as of late that she didn’t feel that was going to collapse, risking it seemed like a bad idea all the same.

“GOD, he’s such a cunt!” Ashley hissed to Heather as Chloe joined them. “Oh, hi, Chloe. Sorry … for … the scene …”

“S’fine, I was just going to see how you were doing? Obviously, not great, but besides that,” Chloe explained, a little nervous. She and Ashley weren’t CLOSE friends, and it’s obvious she was leaning heavily on Heather at the moment.

“I’m okay, just mad. I broke up with Brandon.” She pauses. “You probably got that. I also confessed I had sex with someone else last weekend. Try to keep things clean. On top of my … grievances, that didn’t go over great.”

“You can’t blame him for being MAD, Ash,” Heather countered as they sat back at their small table. Noting no one at the fourth seat as Madison sat as well, still processing, Chloe sat down as well. “You did cheat on him.”

“I know, but we haven’t been good in a long time, I just didn’t think it’d be such a surprise. Yeah, that doesn’t make it okay, but … I’m just pissed he latched on to it to avoid our real problems.”

“That makes sense,” Chloe interjected. “People don’t like to be told they need to change. Give ‘em another excuse …”

“Yeah. Just wish it’d gone smoother. It’s not my problem anymore, but I hope for the next girl some of it soaks in,” she grumbled, then turned to Madison a little meekly. “Sorry, Mads.”

“Hey, I have to be Switzerland here.” Her statement made the other three girls look at her, kind of shocked. Calm neutrality wasn’t really Madison’s signature speed. “It’s too confusing for me to know how I feel about it, okay? I’m not a banshee all the time.”

“If I can ask …” Chloe slowly directed at Ashley, trying to take the conversation in a lighter direction, “what happened last weekend?”

“She fucked my cousin,” Heather answered before Ashley could even open her mouth. All the same, Ashley didn’t look appalled or embarrassed by it.

“Logan? That would explain why he cut, if he wanted to avoid Brandon going all Pompeii,” Chloe mused out loud.

“No, no, the older one, Kurt,” Ashley corrected her with a sigh and a small flip of her hair as she tried to collect herself. “We had a big cheer meeting and practice Saturday night, so we kind of found our way back to Heather’s, and some of her family was visiting. Logan wasn’t there, I don’t think. His parents were, but they said they weren’t seeing him again until tomorrow. Dunno’ why.”

“And Madison had an idea to put some music on …” Heather glanced over at her, raising an eyebrow.

“Okay, I’m lonely and make no apologies for that.” Madison pointed at Heather as she spoke, but the comment got her to smile a little. Chloe gave an internal sigh of relief that the tension was abating. “Besides, I got a handjob in your shoe closet. And gave one. And Ashley said they were going to break up anyway!”

“It super-wasn’t your fault, babe,” Ashley offered Madison as her ex’s twin sister got increasingly flustered. “Kurt was just … nice. I knew he was trying to get in my pants, but when I realize I didn’t mind it, I told him I’d make that decision later. And he backed off, we ran into each other a few times, then one thing led to another …”

“It led to me not noticing my sheets were wet until I laid down in them,” Heather teased, her grin far more open than Chloe’s would have been talking about accidentally laying in her friend and cousin’s jizz. “Though I guess that at least means you had a good time.”

“I was going to break up with Brandon anyway, the other stuff and then sex with Kurt just … pushed me. He hadn’t been treating me like his girlfriend, more like his car: pretty, convenient, get inside it when you want, then leave it where it belongs.” Madison notably grimaced at that, and Chloe couldn’t help but join her. “Having someone paying attention to me in bed just reminded me how far we’d fallen and how nothing was getting better, no matter how hard I tried to talk about it.”

“Hence confusion,” Madison said.

“You can be mad at me for cheating on him, I deserve that part.”

“I can just also be mad at him for WHY it happened, though.”

“Is dating always this complicated?” Chloe asked, not having done so since freshman year, and fairly early then, too. “I feel like I’m making the right choice, being a spinster.”

“You and me both,” Madison complained. Chloe raised her eyebrows in surprise. “Come on, you know how Brandon is.”

“Handjobs.”

“Yeah, but no one I’d have done it with if I could just fuckin’ date someone,” Madison said with considerable frustration. “Brandon scares anyone I’d actually like away, then all I have are people for the times he’s indisposed or assholes who I don’t wanna’ date anyway. I don’t want to actually sleep with anyone I’m not into, and I totally would if I started doing more than hook-ups. Just, by, like, social pressure.”

“Yeah, your pussy’s playing no part in that decision,” Heather taunted her. Madison shrugged. “No judgement, I didn’t break the ‘ol girl in until I was with someone I thought I loved.”

“Sorry I can’t run interference as effectively now …” Ashley actually seemed more guilty apologizing to Madison than talking about cheating on Brandon, though her relationship with her fellow cheerleader was considerably less fraught.

“Oh, fuck!” Everyone’s heads snapped up, looking at Heather. She already had her bag and was making her way to the other side of the table towards the office before she turned back. “Sorry, I just got a text, family emergency. I … I have to go!”

“Stay safe!” Madison yelled out after her as she bolted towards the front desk to get a pass. “God, I hope it’s nothing serious …”

“It probably isn’t,” Ashley said, watching Heather exit in a hurry. “It’s probably just … something.” Chloe considered Ashley’s lack of confidence in her answer and regretted not asking Heather what was happening, but it seemed gauche at best when she was clearly doing her best not to freak. “… hey, wasn’t she your ride today?”

“Ah, shit,” Madison exclaimed, kicking the leg of the table. “I do not want to be in a car with Brandon today. Like, at all. And you swinging by would be an even worse idea.”

“If you want, Zack and I were going to check on Logan’s house after school?” Chloe told her, tilting her head to one side. “I can’t say it’ll be thrilling, but Bishop will deffo drop you off after. And he and Brandon are still friends, obviously.”

“That’d actually be great!” Madison breathed out, relaxing. “God, what if it’s something with Logan?”

“Then maybe we can do something to help,” Chloe said. The rest of lunch went smoothly, not much time left after Heather’s rapid departure. Still, Madison’s guess weighed on Chloe. Some part of her insisted the pretty brunette was right, and that she was walking into something she wasn’t ready for.