Family, Duty, Honor

“Well you were right,” Ashley said, looking at Heather with vague, trance-like eyes, her breathing soft and ragged and her mouth remaining slightly parted. She felt numb, detached and dislocated from the world around her, like some great deity had plucked her from the world she knew and set her down in another universe where something was just slightly off. Now everything just felt wrong and it was slowly sucking the air from her lungs. With a whisper, she clarified, “she did it.”

“I knew it!” Heather shouted triumphantly, slapping the table, her jovial celebration in stark contrast to Ashley’s near catatonia. She quickly reined herself in, remembering how she would have felt had someone celebrated her father’s role in such a scheme.

“Seriously?” Chloe asked and bit her thumb. She had been so certain that Hannah would have had nothing to do with this mess but now she had to consider whether that was just the post-hook up high talking. No matter what the reason or who she was doing it for, Chloe suddenly felt herself unable to trust the blonde. Had anything she’d said been true?

Ashley only answered with a curt nod, looking again to Heather, as the dark-haired cheer captain pressed her for more information.

“What did she say?” Heather asked. “Did she say who put her up to it?”

“She did it,” Ashley repeated dryly, as if echoing the words from somewhere else still. “She did it all.”

“What do you mean?” Heather arched her eyebrows, imagining that Hannah might be complicit in more than just the planting of the ****. Had she been privy to the whole scheme? But she was still thinking as if Hannah were a puppet, completely unprepared for Ashley’s true revelation.

“It was a joke,” Ashley explained as best she could with fragmented pieces of information bombarding her brain. “It was all because of a stupid prank, because of me.” Tears streamed from her eyes, the trance giving way to grief as she buried her face in her hands and sobbed into her palms. “Everything…everything is fucked because of me.”

Heather rushed out of her seat, kneeling beside her best friend and fellow cheerleader, and embracing her in a tight, soothing hug. Ashley’s head fell onto her shoulder, her tears soaking Heather’s blouse. The dark-haired girl didn’t say a thing, she simply held her friend, comfortingly stroking her hair while she let her cry it out. Chloe sat at the table, feeling awkwardly attached and helpless. She looked to Heather who simply shook her head with equal confusion.

It was several minutes before Ashley was able to remove herself from Heather’s warm, succouring grasp. She sat up, using napkins to wipe her face dry while Heather retook her seat. Her friends waited patiently until she was ready, though she would never truly feel ready to speak this truth aloud. But getting it out would be better for her, and for everyone, in the long run.

Sensing her trepidation, Heather reached across the table and placed a hand on Ashley’s, and caught her eye with a soft, encouraging gaze. “Take your time and start at the beginning,” she advised.

Ashley nodded, swallowing the mass of saliva and mucus that seemed to have built up a long with her tears. As she began to inform the girls of Hannah’s confession, she prefaced it by saying, “I’m sorry for breaking down like that. I want to tell you both what happened but…once I start, you’re going to have a lot of questions. I understand. I had a lot of questions and I still do, things I still don’t understand I think, or maybe just can’t accept. But let me get it out, or else I might not be able to.”

“Of course,” Heather replied quickly.

“Yeah,” Chloe added with equal cheer.

Closing her eyes, Ashley took a deep breath before she began, opening her eyes again as he said, “Hannah admitted to planting the **** on Lisa, but that’s not all. She insisted that she wasn’t working for or with anyone else and she said that she never met any of the board of directors for Ravers Enterprises. She didn’t even know who Daniel Ravers was. It was all Hannah, except she didn’t even mean for half of it to happen. We’ve been sitting around imagining people that might have some kind of grudge targeting Robert or Carlos, but the truth is that it was just a prank that went too far.”

Chloe audibly gasped and Heather bit her tongue to keep from interrupting Ashley’s explanation, but neither girl actually spoke, even as they were smacked by this new information. Chloe couldn’t even believe it, understanding now why Ashley seemed so out of it when they’d first arrived. Heather, on the other hand, could believe it was possible but she never would have imagined that Hannah would have been so stupid.

“After I tried to get Zack to sleep with Lisa, and Lisa attempted to use the situation to get Zack back, Hannah wanted to get **** on Lisa. Even though the whole mess was of my own making, Hannah felt that Lisa needed to be put in her place. So, she decided to play a practical joke on her,” Ashley paused for air and to collect her thoughts, putting together the story from what Hannah had told her. “She just wanted to embarrass Lisa and her father, just a small modicum of satisfaction after what Lisa had done to me and how stressed your father was after Carlos refused to sell. So, she stole the pills and planted them on Lisa and called the police.”

With a shake of her red hair, Chloe slid back, pushing her chair away from the table, as if physical distance could make what she was hearing any less disturbing. But then, Chloe could understand how someone might make rash, decisions out of anger. She’d lost her virginity out of pure spite against Zack, and it was only by chance that Kurt wasn’t some manipulative, misogynist who wanted to control her through sex. And she’d allowed Ashley to fret and worry, when Zack had already texted his whereabouts, even allowing Ashley to search all night for him, even when anything could have happened with the tired girl behind the wheel out in the dark. But nothing Chloe had done even came close to what Hannah had done.

Heather, however, felt none of Chloe’s moral ambiguity over the issue, nearly drawing blood as she bit down hard on her tongue to keep from cussing Hannah from here to kingdom come.

“I don’t believe she meant for anything truly bad to happen to Lisa, just for her to get a slap on the wrist. From what she said, I believe she even expected Carlos’ police connections to somehow help Lisa out, but that it would be enough for me to reconnect with Zack,” Ashley revealed, thinking that the plan, aside from being short-sighted, had also been in vain, since, even with Lisa out of the picture, she and Zack hadn’t really gotten closer at all. “But, she also thinks that she can’t be blamed for what happened with Carlos. To her, she messed up by framing Lisa, but Carlos made his own choice to threaten the judge and make everything worse.”

A loud short of laughter broke in through Ashley’s explanation, Heather unable to help herself and shaking her head along with her incredulous chuckle. Of course, she would draw a line between the two in order to make herself look better. Never mind that Carlos wouldn’t have even been in the situation to make the wrong choice if it wasn’t for Hannah’s prank backfire so spectacularly. She almost found herself wishing that her father or uncle really were behind it.

“Possibly the worst part is that she doesn’t even think that she should turn herself in, or anything that might free Lisa,” Ashley continued, ignoring Heather’s outburst as she explained why, even though they knew the truth, it didn’t matter. “She doesn’t want to throw away her life over this practical joke gone wrong, even though I tried to make her see sense, that it was wrong to let Lisa do the same when she’s completely innocent, but I couldn’t convince her.”

“And we can’t exactly just go to the police with this,” Heather finished thoughtfully, sensing the story coming to an end. “They’d need evidence, not just the word of three teens. Right now, it’s just our word against hers, and the cops aren’t gong to drop the case when it’s much easier to try Lisa based on the evidence at hand than Hannah with pure conjecture.”

“Are we sure she’s still not just covering for someone?” Chloe asked optimistically, looking for any way that Hannah might not be completely complicit in the whole scheme. “Even if it’s not Daniel, she might just be trying to take the fall to protect someone else.”

“I guess it’s possible but unlikely,” Ashley replied, considering the suggestion as she pursed her lips and pulled them tight to one side of her mouth. “I don’t know who she might be that loyal to, and if she were going to take the fall, wouldn’t she agree to turn herself in? This way, we’d got our eye on her and our investigation continues. Not to mention, the way she was talking about family and her reasons why…yeah, unfortunately, I completely believe her.”

“Face it, your new girlfriend set Lisa up and is trying to dodge any kind of blame or consequence,” Heather rounded on Chloe, her face like thunder. “The bitch might as well have shot Lisa’s parents right in front of her. It’d have been equally traumatic and far less time consuming.”

“W-wait a minute, it doesn’t sound like she set out to hurt Lisa seriously, either emotionally or physically,” Chloe stood up to Heather, feeling a little dirty using the confidence that Hannah had inspired in her. “She was just looking out for her sister. It’s not as if her motivations were that terrible, even if the end result was.”

“Which is all that really matters. Even if I don’t set out to kill someone, if I accidentally hit them with my car, I’m responsible for that person’s life. Even if I was driving on the curb to get an injured person to the hospital, if I hit and kill someone on the way, that’s still blood on my hands,” Heather argued, defiantly. “The fact that Hannah can’t see that makes her a sociopath.”

“Or just a loving sister. My sister, Holly, and I don’t have the greatest relationship but even still, if I found out someone had screwed her over, I’d probably want their head too. I couldn’t guarantee that I’d be able to think things over before I acted either. And I’m not even saying that I’d be right, just that motive matters,” Chloe fired back, folding her arms across her large chest. “You’re an only child, Heather, so you don’t understand.”

Heather paused, slightly taken aback, and thinking of Zack, her possible half-brother. But she imagined it must be different for siblings who grew up together verses those who met later in life, since she felt no predilection to protect Zack. But, she wondered how he felt. If she were hurt, or embarrassed would he come to her aid, like a good brother, even if it meant forsaking laws or morality? Ashley looked at Heather as well, also thinking of Zack’s possible family tie to the dark-haired cheer captain.

“I still know right from wrong,” Heather replied, though she felt a little hypocritical saying that given that just a couple hours earlier she was flaunting the law by teasing her father’s cock with her bare ass. “It’s up to a court of law to decide how much her motive matters.”

“I agree,” Ashley said, surprising the other two. “Which is why we need to figure out a way of getting some evidence on Hannah, so that we can turn her in.”

“What?” Chloe’s jaw dropped. “You’re actually planning on turning your own sister in to the police?”

“What else can I do?” Ashley replied wearily. “I can’t let Lisa dwell in prison while I know the truth, and what Hannah did WAS wrong. Even if she had the best intentions, it was still wrong, and she has to face up to that.”

“Sure, but turning in your own sister…that just seems cold. Like you’re betraying your family,” Chloe admitted, slumping her shoulders as she became despondent.

“If you have any other ideas on how to free Lisa, then please, let me know,” Ashley begged, completely genuine and sincere. “I’d love not to have to break up my family.”

Chloe fell silent, knowing that Ashley was right. Her feelings for Hannah were simply clouding her judgement, but family or not, the guilty party should be the one to pay the price, not Lisa who was completely innocent.

“Well, do you have any idea how to get said evidence?” Heather pressed the blonde cheerleader pointedly.

“I do, but I’m not sure how to pull it off. Remember when Brandon and I broke up and he punched Zack? He mentioned having been listening in to my date with spy software that paired to my phone,” Ashley reminded them, without much excitement. “Something like that would be great because we could send one of us to talk to Hannah, have the others listen in and record it on the first device.”

“That could work, since this state has one-party consent laws, so you could easily record Hannah without her knowing,” Chloe added.

“Right,” Ashley beamed, though only for a moment, before her face fell again. “Unfortunately, I don’t know what app Brandon used. Gavin might be able to figure it out but honestly, he doesn’t seem in any state to help anyone right now. The best person would be Brandon, since his phone is already paired with mine, but he’s gone and I’m the last person he’d want to help.”

“Well…actually…” Heather interjected with a nervous chuckle.