Facts of Life

Zack looked back and forth between the girl on either side of him, one his sort of still girlfriend and the other his sort of might be sister, both waiting for an answer. The Hannah situation had everyone on edge, feeling threatened and unsure who to trust and everyone was trying to keep something from someone just to keep the problem in-house. And they expected Zack to ride in on a white horse with a solution to make everything right. Well, Zack didn’t have that kind of solution. All he had were the facts.

The fact was that Lisa was innocent and Hannah had framed her, not out of malice but by mistake. The fact was that Hannah was just trying to save her own ass with a video of Heather and Robert, father and daughter, sexually involved, a fact in of itself, and the outcome, the arrest of the man who might be his father and the upheaval of Ravers Enterprises, was similarly also a fact. The fact was that the only one who might have a plan was Ashley’s contact. The fact was that all they were doing was covering up facts, putting on different masks. It was time for the truth.

“I think Hannah did us a favour,” Zack said slowly.

“What?” Heather barked, her hope turning to disbelief. “You can’t be serious. I know you think your dad needs to know about your mother’s infidelity but not like this. You can understand what it will do to your family to have this secret revealed so suddenly and publicly?”

“Which is why we aren’t going to do it suddenly or publicly,” Zack stated, holding his ground but lowering his arms, sure now that if Heather were to attack anyone it would be him. “But that’s not what I meant when I said Hannah did us a favour.”

“You’re not making any sense,” Ashley remarked with a frown, still bitter about Heather’s accusations and unable to comprehend where Zack was leading.

“Listen, Hannah played her hand and showed us her cards, and maybe it’s a good one, but it puts us in the driving seat. We know what will happen if she plays that hand, so we can act now to undermine the effects and neuter the video completely,” Zack explained, looking to Heather since she was the one to convince. “Tomorrow I’m going to go talk to my mom again and get her to tell my dad everything. So, even if the plan does fail, the video won’t be able to do anything. It’ll be old news.”

“That’s great for you, but it’s not like my father and I can come out and make our relationship public. That would have the same effect as Hannah’s video, except rather than **** it’d be a suicide,” Heather noted, irritable but less angry. She could understand Zack’s point of view and at least he was trying to convince her rather than going behind her back. “And what about your parentage? Let’s suppose that you aren’t my father’s son, the speculation in the press at least will torment your family. Is your mother going to tell him about that as well?”

“Everything,” Zack re-affirmed, and then, thoughtfully, added, “I know with you and your dad you can’t just tell the truth but…maybe there’s some way to shield the company. A sort of legal separation, though I don’t know what exactly, but something so that, if Robert does have to go to jail, it’ll mitigate the effect on the business side. Maybe it still takes a hit, but less so than if the whole thing caught him unprepared.”

Heather frowned, folding her arms and shifting her weight from one leg to the other as she considered Zack’s proposal. Heather’s intention had always been to eliminate the problem all together, and if that couldn’t be done then denial was the best policy. It was keep the information hidden or let the truth come out, but Zack had presented a third option. Maybe there was a way to make it work. It wasn’t ideal, and she might still lose her father, but she also knew that Robert, if given the choice, would gladly take the hit for his daughter and his company.

“Are we agreed then?” Ashley asked eagerly. “Are we gonna find a way to free Lisa?”

“Hold on. I might be considering it but I’m not on board yet. There are still a lot of ways this could go wrong,” Heather replied, glaring at Ashley. “You think that this is Hannah showing her hand, but we thought we knew what she had too. And yet when we confronted her she pulled another ace out of her sleeve and turned her three of a kind into a four of a kind. We don’t know that she doesn’t have something else as a back up plan.”

“I think it’s unlikely,” Zack bounced his head from side to side, thinking about Heather’s point. “The video is a big play, and it seems designed to put a complete end to all hostilities. I imagine that if she did have some other plan she could have used, she would have led with that. You don’t drop the nuke until it’s a last resort.”

“Yes, and let’s not ignore that she has that nuke,” Heather shot back and sighed. “The problem with disarming bombs is that it can blow up in your face if you make one wrong move. Even if we try to cancel out the effects of Hannah’s video, if she catches wind of what we’re up to, she could release it sooner. Trying to use the truth to solve a problem is a double-edged sword.”

“Hm, yeah. I was thinking about that. It seems like you’ll have to find a way to get to your dad without Hannah noticing, but beyond that we’re going to need to co-ordinate the whole thing with Ashley’s plan, or her contact’s plan,” Zack admitted, scratching his head. “I think I should be able to talk with my mother because I don’t see how Hannah will have tabs on her, but I’m not sure how you’ll get to your dad.”

“Leave that to me,” Heather said slyly, smirking. “Well, I guess I should start thinking of ways to save the company. It shouldn’t be too hard. It’s already a separate financial and legal entity. It’s just thinking of a way to disconnect that from my father…”

“Yes!” Ashley punched the air. “The only problem is that they’re out of town, so we’ll have to wait until tomorrow before we can even think of making a move.”

“Fine, that gives me more time,” Heather said, moving to the door and opening it. “I want to get started on this right away. Can I trust you two to tell the others?”

“Sure,” Zack agreed. “No problem.”

Heather smiled gratefully as she swept from the room, as Zack turned to look at Ashley. This was the first time all day that they’d been alone. A rush of thoughts blew through his mind like a hurricane, about how much better they’d been last night and then the mutual masturbation in the night with Gavin, Victoria’s suspicious that she later revealed to have been lies, Gavin’s confession that Ashley had wanted to suck his cock and sit on his face, the overwhelming sense that things weren’t going well, and he just didn’t want to admit it.

In the beginning it had been fun. Not that now it wasn’t, and Zack just didn’t want to deal with the difficulty of being in a relationship. In the beginning it had been fun, and hard. Both were in relationships and both had to burn some bridges to even be together, but in their togetherness it was enjoyable and they both wanted to see where it took them. But mistakes and misunderstandings and Zack’s own struggles with his own parental issues had made every day more difficult than the last. His girlfriend’s constant unfaithfulness, whether intended or not, had led him to be so paranoid he readily believed a lie about both her and his best friend. Worse, the lie had uncovered some facts of its own.

He’d thought a lot about his relationship with Ashley all day, and in the end, he had to conclude that Victoria was right. They’d been through so much and to end it here did feel like they had wasted all that time and effort, those sacrificed relationships had been in vain. He was just holding on to a dead thing that he didn’t want to admit was dead. It was easier to deny the fact than deal with the fallout, but he could see that line of thinking wasn’t helping anyone anymore. Just like with Hannah, it was time for the truth.

“So, about the person I called…” Ashley began, excited.

“Ashley,” Zack cut in, her words trailing off as she stopped to listen, hearing the seriousness in his voice. “I think we should break up.”