What Brandon Missed

Retracing their steps, Heather led the party of four back along the trail to the cabin where her car was parked. Behind her followed Madison, then Ashley, and finally Brandon bringing up the rear. No one was talking; Madison because she was too angry, Ashley because she was depressed, and Brandon just seemed serenely lost in thought. But that suited Heather just fine. She preferred the silence to the arguments.

“Hey, Ash,” Brandon began softly.

Heather slumped her shoulders and hung her head. It had been nice while it lasted.

“Yeah?” The blonde cheerleader glanced over her shoulder at her hulking ex-boyfriend.

“I was just wondering what Hannah was doing at the cabin in the first place,” Brandon replied, scratching the back of his neck. “I remember you saying that Hannah wasn’t coming home for Spring Break because she had a job.”

Ashley smiled to herself, remembering what a good boyfriend Brandon had been. He was a good listener, when he wanted to be, though sometimes not good enough, as Ashley corrected him. “I said she wasn’t staying at home. She's working in Azure Rocks. At Ravers Enterprises, in fact.”

“Ravers?” Brandon repeated, looking ahead at Heather, but she didn’t look around. She could sense where this conversation was going. “Is that something to do with her degree?”

“Yeah, it’s an internship, so I guess she’s learning business from the best,” Ashley joked, tentatively, as they passed the split in the trail and the devil’s stone. “Though actually, Robert is another reason why she framed Lisa. Robert was working on a project and needed to buy the Rivera cabin for the land. But Carlos was holding out, so Hannah thought a practical joke on his daughter would stick it to him. As she told me, it worked a little too well.”

“Yeah and then some,” Brandon agreed, but frowning and rubbing his chin. “Say Heather, if she’s working for your dad, why not ask him to do something about it? Like, maybe he could threaten to fire her if she doesn’t turn herself in?”

“No,” Heather answered simply.

“Uh, okay,” Brandon’s voice trailed off, realising that he’d touched on something of a sore spot for the dark-haired cheer captain.

Madison, on the other hand, had none of her twin’s tact. She demanded, “Why the fuck not?”

“Ugh,” Heather groaned, bending her neck back and looking up at the sky peeking through the canopy above. “Because the last time I talked to my dad, he told me not to get involved any further. He said it was an adult problem and needed an adult solution. But that was when he was talking about the board of directors at his company. This isn’t an adult problem. Hannah is one of our own, so we’re going to take care of this ourselves.”

“So basically, this is some kind of teenage rebellion,” Madison jeered and laughed. “You’re not even going to try Brandon’s idea because you want to prove to daddy that you’re a big girl.”

“First of all, fuck you,” Heather spat, about a hairs breadth away from turning around and smacking the tiny brunette. “Secondly, this is not just about what my dad said. I also don’t think it would work. If Hannah turns herself in, it’ll ruin her whole life. One internship might look bad, but she can always try again somewhere else. One firing isn’t going to kill her reputation. My dad might be able to make it so that she can never work in Azure Rocks, but he has no such power in other cities or towns. I think she’d take the firing and then we’d still be in the same place we are now. Relying on hearsay and lacking any real evidence of wrongdoing, except now Hannah would be miles away.”

Madison pouted. “You could have just said that.”

“Yeah, and you could not be a bitch, so…” Heather made an exaggerated shrug and grimaced as she looked over her shoulder.

“I get it, though,” Brandon admitted, interjecting before Madison could, leaving his twin sister seething, her anger burning so intensely that he could even feel it bubbling beneath his skin. “If we get your dad involved, this gets taken out of our hands.”

“It’s not like Hannah has the resources to wage a war like Daniel Ravers or some other business rival of your father’s. Hannah is one of us, and she’s probably just getting by on whatever she has,” Ashley agreed, much to Madison’s chagrin. “We should be able to handle this ourselves. And then we can deal with the Victoria situation.”

“I keep telling you, Ash, if you keep picking at it, it’s only going to push Vicky further away,” Heather warned, feeling like it was sixth hundredth time she’d said it. “Let her get it out of her system and then she’ll come to us.”

“I’m sorry, again for the guy who hasn’t left the forest in a few days,” Brandon interrupted, looking between Ashley and Heather in confusion. “What’s the Victoria situation?”

“Right, yeah, you wouldn’t know, ok.” Ashley mulled over how exactly to explain it all. “Well, Victoria went on a date with Dustin yesterday.”

“Oh, wow, Dustin is in town too,” Brandon awed, almost laughing. “Why does it seem like everyone came out of the woodwork after I left?”

“Maybe that’s not a coincidence,” Heather joked, sticking out her tongue.

“What’d I do?” Brandon feinted indignance, and then, a little more seriously, “Though, I thought Victoria was dating Gavin?”

“Oh, holy hell, we have to go back that far?” Ashley rubbed her forehead and sighed. “The long and short of it is that Victoria broke up with Gavin yesterday morning. She met Dustin in town and they went on a date. Except it wasn’t as spontaneous as we presumed. Turns out Shawn and Kendra had kidnapped Kurt, presuming that he was 'Gavin' to keep him from intervening in the date.”

“Woah, what?” Brandon was taken aback, both by the amount of information thrown at him and at what it implied. “Shawn and Kendra and Kurt…was Dustin aware of this plan? I know he was infatuated with Vicky, but even for him this is a bit much.”

“Even if it wasn’t his plan, it sounds like he went along with it,” Madison remarked indifferently. “And that’s pretty much just as bad.”

“Yeah, that’s the current consensus on that,” Ashley awkwardly agreed with Madison. “But it gets worse. Dustin took Vicky back to his dad’s apartment. Victoria says it was because she spilled soda on her pants, but Kurt insists they went back to have sex because Shawn made them listen to the whole date. He must have some sort of app like yours, Brandon.”

“So, Victoria lied because she was embarrassed she went back to an apartment for sex with a boy. I’m not seeing how that’s worse,” Brandon said, confusion deepening upon his face. “You know Vicky, she’s very subconscious about doing anything sexual.”

Heather laughed, loud, wondering how many times that sentiment had been expressed, and replied, “Not so subconscious anymore.”

“Right, see, the Dustin sex thing is just the tip of the iceberg. Shawn also left to break it up. Kurt managed to convince Kendra to free him and went after them too, but by the time he got there whatever had happened had already happened, and Victoria was just standing on the side of the street wearing skin tight leather pants,” Ashley revealed.

“Ok, so, a new wardrobe,” Brandon shrugged, not seeing the problem “Again, a little odd for Victoria but it’s not like you caught her performing a human sacrifice or something.”

“Well, once she got back to the cabin, she fucked Kurt and didn’t even stop when Gavin saw them, even going so far as to rub it in his face. And then she let him cum on her face and took a picture of it,” Ashley said, thinking that human sacrifice would probably have been preferable to the things she knew Victoria had actually done. “When I tried to talk to her about it, she got really defensive and blew up at me.”

“Well, we can forgive her the last one,” Madison said with a smirk. “You just have one of those faces that’s easy to scream at.”

“Shit, that’s crazy. I never even knew Victoria had that in her.” Brandon shook his head slowly. “You probably think Shawn did something, right?”

“Yeah, but Victoria insists that nothing happened,” Ashley noted. “And that it’s all Dustin’s fault.”

“Bullshit,” Madison replied.

“Yeah, I’m inclined to agree with that.” Brandon nodded as they stepped from the trail onto the gravel of the yard beside the cabin, Zack and Heather’s cars in front of him.

“This is where we part ways,” Heather said to Madison as she stepped up beside her car.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be back soon,” Brandon told her as his twin turned to face him. “Try not to kill anyone while I’m gone.”

“Mmhm, no promises,” she murmured as she shuffled up close to her brother’s chest. Licking her lips, she turned her head and looked at Ashley. “You’ve been awfully quiet on our relationship. It doesn’t bother you?”

It was a strange question at a peculiar time, but to speed things along, Ashley shrugged and said, “No, it’s none of my-”

Without waiting for her to finish, Madison reached up and pulled her brother’s face to hers. Glancing sideways at Ashley, the short brunette pressed her lips onto Brandon’s. Ashley swallowed her disgust and looked away as their mouths parted, and their tongues danced together. Heather watched, amused, as their loud, wet goodbye kiss seemed to last forever. After only a couple of minutes though, Madison pulled away, strands of saliva still hanging to their lips.

Ashley stared at the ground, chocking back the urge to scream and cry and vomit. She reached out and grabbed the door handle, flinging the door open as she spoke, her voice ragged and pained, “L-let’s go.”

Watching and waving, Madison stood by as the other two filled into Heather’s car. The petite brunette waited until it had sped off down the lane towards the road, before turning and looking at the cabin. She could follow her brother’s instructions and stay at the cabin with her arch-nemesis, Zack Bishop, or she could ignore her brother and just go back to the camp site. She pouted and tapped her lips as she considered her options.