Chapter 22

This chapter is a POV story, shifting between Rita, Randy, Stephanie, Chris, and Ashley. I thought it would be a good idea to get into each of their minds after what happened at the party.

Hope you enjoy.

RANDY

I couldn’t believe what just happened. The night was going so good, and in the blink of an eye it turned to shit. It turned out Ashley had played us from the beginning and set me up to take the biggest fall imaginable, and she succeeded. The look Rita gave me as she left made me wanna die, I felt horrible. She looked as if she wanted nothing else to do with me, and that was something I couldn’t have, I had to go after her, her and Stephanie, she was equally hurt too. I threw on my pants as fast as I could and ran down the stairs after them, still waking up from the effects of the alcohol trying to wear off. I got outside and saw our car gone, and another in its place, but Stephanie and Chris’ car was still there, so I thought at least Stephanie was still there, so I went back into the house to look for her. I looked for her everywhere but couldn’t find her, but it didn’t stop me from looking. All of a sudden out of nowhere I hit a dizzy spell and leaned against whatever was around me at the time, and when it wore off Chris was standing in front of me holding a beer, the same beer that started this whole mess.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING OUT OF BED MAN? YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE TAKING IT EASY!” Chris yelled over the still blasting music, none of which sounded too pleasant at the moment.

“HEY MAN HAVE YOU SEEN RITA OR STEPHANIE?”

“LAST TIME I SAW THEM THEY WERE GOING UPSTAIRS TO CHECK ON YOU.”

“FUCK! WE GOTTA GO, SOMETHING STUPIDLY FUCKED UP HAPPENED MAN.”

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN? WHAT HAPPENED?”

“I’LL TELL YOU IN THE CAR, BUT WE GOTTA GO NOW.”

We headed back to the front door and who would be standing there? The bitch herself. “HEY RANDY, LEAVING SO SOON?” Ashley grinned as she glared through me.

“FUCK YOU ASHLEY!” I screamed directly at her before I walked out the door.

“IF I REMEMBER CORRECTLY YOU JUST TRIED TO,” she yelled after me, laughing.

“What’s she talking about?” Chris asked as we got to the car.

“Come on, I’ll tell you everything, let’s just go.”

“I have a feeling I’m not gonna like the sound of this...”

“You’re not, not even a little bit.”

RITA

“WHAT THE FUCK WAS HE DOING? I CANT BELIEVE THIS!” I screamed as I drove down the street, maybe a little too fast, but with what I just saw, I really didn’t care.

“I’m just as pissed as you are, I mean of all people, her? Fucking why!” Stephanie yelled.

“I don’t even ... I just don’t ... I can’t ... WHAT THE FUCK!”

“I’m not trying to make excuses for him or anything, but maybe he had too much to drink?”

“No, I was watching him, he didn’t drink that much, he knew what he was doing!”

I sat there in silence for a minute, mostly out of anger of not knowing what to say next, but also because my throat was starting to tingle from yelling so much. It helped a little, but it also made me reflect on the actions that just took place not ten minutes ago, and it finally sunk in. Reality hit, Randy cheated on me, a phrase I never in a million years thought I would say, but he did, and the thought of it hit me so hard it brought me to tears.

“Oh my god, I can’t believe this!” I said, tears flowing so frequent it was distorting my vision. “He cheated on me, on us! What am I gonna do?”

“I don’t know, I never thought we would end up in this situation...”

Stephanie was interrupted by her phone ringing, which turned out to be Randy calling.

“He doesn’t even call me! Leave us alone you cheating bastard!” I yelled.

She ignored the call and each one after that until he took the hint and stopped calling altogether. He was the last person I wanted to talk to at that moment. I hated this. Just as soon as the tears slowly started to stop, they were back in full force.

“I’m so sorry Rita, if I didn’t see it with my own eyes I wouldn’t have believed it. is there anything I can do, anything at all?”

“No, I just wanna go home, I want this night to be over.”

RANDY

I filled Chris in on what happened, and he sat there as I gave him the whole rundown ... the wig, the matching clothes, everything, and it sounded like he believed me, luckily.

“Man this is so fucked up, I don’t know what to tell you...” Chris said.

“Imagine how I feel. I can’t believe I let her trick me like that, I must be the dumbest person on the planet! Who gets tricked by fake hair, really?”

“Apparently you do, but you know they’re not gonna look at it that way.”

“I know, they’re not even answering their phones, they’re ignoring the calls immediately.”

“Always a bad sign.”

“I don’t wanna think about it, I don’t even wanna know what’s going through their heads...”

“Unfortunately you don’t have that luxury, you gotta fix this. Where are we going anyway?”

“Your house, Rita has to drop Stephanie off, if we get there in time we might catch them.”

We drive to their house, a little faster than we should have, but it was for a good cause. For all the good it did, we didn’t get there fast enough, Rita had dropped Stephanie off and was gone, and Stephanie was sitting on the porch with her arms crossed just as pissed as she could be.

“Well look who it is! If it isn’t the biggest cheating scumbag in the world! Chris why did you give him a ride? You should have let his cheating ass walk home!” Stephanie said.

“Stephanie...”

“Don’t try and defend him, you don’t wanna be in the same boat he’s in.”

“Stephanie please, you can’t honestly believe I’d do anything like that to either of you, not after everything we’ve been through,” I pleaded.

“I know what I saw Randy, my eyes don’t lie!”

“I was drunk, trust me, I swear I thought she was you.”

“You seem pretty fine to me...”

“Something like that happens it’s a major buzzkill.”

“I thought you said you were drunk?”

“Yeah I was.”

“But you JUST said that was a major buzzkill...”

“But it was a buzzkill, I’m not following...”

“Those are two different things Randy, if you were buzzed you knew what you were doing.”

“But I said I was drunk.”

“But us catching you was a buzzkill, which is clearly not bring drunk.”

All her word traps were really getting me upset even more than I already was. “Dammit Steph! Can’t you see I was set up!”

“You know what really bothers me? This whole time not once did you say you were sorry.”

I hung my head, knowing this conversation wasn’t gonna go anywhere near where I needed it to, she was mad, and all reason went out the door. Chris walked back to the car, figuring out the same thing I did and I sulked right behind him.

“I really can’t believe you would do something like this Randy,” Stephanie said after me. “If I’m this pissed, then imagine how Rita must feel.”

I was not looking forward to that at all.

ASHLEY

I sat on my bed sipping my drink as I relived in my head the disaster that just took place because of my brilliance. That worked absolutely perfect, I couldn’t have planned it any better. Stephanie’s immediate anger all but sealed their breakup, and Rita walking in was icing on the cake. I not only ruined his relationship with his girlfriend, but now his sister knows he’s a cheating bastard too! Sometimes I amaze myself with the things I can do.

“Here you are, I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” Becky said as she poked her head through the door. “Where’s the charity bunch? I don’t see them anywhere.”

“They already left, they’re probably having it out right now.”

“You did it? did it work?”

“To perfection. Stephanie walked in right as I was jacking him off.”

She went wide eyed as she came into the room. “Really? You’re such an evil bitch!”

“Thank you. I exposed him to Rita too, she came around the corner just after Stephanie did, now she sees him as a cheater too, and she saw it with her own eyes, so no he said she said.”

“Ashley are you sure about them? I mean...”

“Hey, have I ever been wrong?”

“You’re right, sorry.”

“Damn right you are, but since everything went flawlessly and you’re dressed slutty I’ll let it go,” I said as I pulled her into a kiss, dragging my tongue all around the inside of her mouth.

“Are you coming back to the party?”

“Yeah I’ll be back down in a few minutes,” I told her as she left the room.

I took another sip of my drink, one down, one to go. I can’t believe how easy that was, a few drinks and in no time I had my hand on his dick, which turned out to be bigger than I thought for him ... but whatever. Now that he and Stephanie are done, I can focus on Rita, who now that I mention caught my attention more than she should have. She looked hurt, too hurt, but then again they are twins so maybe I’m reading too much into it. For now, I’m gonna take the win, Randy’s out, and Ashley wins again. Damn it feels good to win.

RANDY

We pulled up in front of the house, and I just sat there, knowing I had to go in, but dreading actually having to do so. The car was there, so I knew Rita was home, but I didn’t wanna face that look of shame for a second time, but I had to clear my name, so I had to suck it up and do what I had to do. I took a deep breath and got out of the car, eyeing down the path to the front door, which absolutely horrified me at that moment.

“Come on man, you can’t stand there forever,” Chris said from the car.

“I know, I’m just scared of what’ll happen once I go in.”

“Yeah. Good luck man, I’ll try to talk to Steph, maybe get her off your back a little.”

“Thanks, see ya,” I said as he drove off.

I took another deep breath and walked up the path and to the front door. I pulled out my keys to open it and it swung open with mom and Aunt Lisa standing right there.

“What happened? Rita came home a few moments ago crying her eyes out, she wouldn’t even stop to tell us what happened,” Aunt Lisa said.

“It’s kind of a long story,” I said hoping to get past them and up to Rita.

“Make it a short one,” mom said sternly.

“Basically, she thinks she caught me cheating on her.”

“Now why in the world would she think that?” Aunt Lisa asked.

“Well because she walked in Ashley and me kissing, well Stephanie did.”

Mom huffed. “Well it’s hard to confuse that with cheating. What the hell were you thinking!”

“It was an accident, I thought she was Stephanie! I had a lot to drink.”

“You seem fine to me,” mom said.

I decided to avoid the earlier dispute I had with Stephanie. “The gravity of the situation woke me up, like a bunch of adrenaline or something.”

“Randy I can’t believe you, how could you get so careless?”

“We were all drinking, I was the only one who couldn’t hold mine, so Chris took me to a room to cool off, I’m telling you Ashley set me up!”

“She did? And how exactly did redheaded Ashley turn into Stephanie?” Aunt Lisa asked.

“She had on the exact same outfit as Stephanie and she had a wig on! She picked it up from the side of the bed when everyone left, plus I had a crap load to drink!”

“You didn’t notice any difference? That’s hard to believe,” mom said.

“You did the exact same thing to me mom and I didn’t notice then, and I was sober.”

She was quiet for a minute, knowing there was some truth to what I said. Aunt Lisa looked at her with that “you better tell me later” face before she looked back at me. “This isn’t about me, this is about you and her, and how you’re going to fix it.”

“I feel like utter crap. You can’t believe I would ever do anything like this to her intentionally? I love her way too much to see her like this, and that look she gave me, I wanted to die right there,” said feeling like shit all over again.

Mom rubbed the top of my back. “No baby we don’t think you meant to do this, but it happened, because of poor judgment from everyone. We told you that girl was no good, no one flips from that nasty to that nice without something life changing happening.

“I should’ve listened to you, now I gotta pay for it. is she still upstairs?”

“Yeah, your fathers been trying to calm her down, but hasn’t had much luck,” Aunt Lisa said.

Right on cue dad descended the stairs and immediately locked eyes with me; he gave me that look that made you scared to look away.

“I don’t know what you did, but you better get up there and fix it, right now.”

“Yes sir!”

That was all I could say, I was too scared to say anything else. Dad rarely got angry, so when he did we knew whatever was wrong better get fixed and soon. He really cared when one of us screwed up, and wouldn’t let it sit overnight and build, we had to fix it right that second, which was the only way to do it in this situation. I looked at mom and Aunt Lisa for confirmation...

“GET UP THERE!” dad yelled scaring the bejesus outta me, to which I quickly nodded.

I got to the door of our room and could see by the darkness under the door that the lights were off, and I could hear her crying. I put my hand on the door and hit my head against it, ashamed. I made the most important person in my life lock herself in our room and cry, over something that could have been easily avoided, if I wasn’t so stupid. What the hell did I do?

RITA

I lay in bed crying in my pillow. I still can’t believe what happened, but I know what my eyes saw. Ashley was kissing him, and even worse, he was kissing back, there’s no other way around it. Dad was sweet to try to help, and I wanted him to, but I couldn’t tell him anything, not without jeopardizing us, if we already weren’t. We’ve fought before, but it was never like this, not because of cheating. I don’t know how I’m gonna get past this, or even if I should.

“Rita please let me in,” Randy asked as he knocked on the door, tearing me from my thoughts.

“Go away Randy, I don’t wanna see you right now,” I said back through tears.

“We both know that’s not gonna happen.”

“Then you’d better get comfortable because that’s where you’re gonna be sleeping.”

Saying that reminded me of the time when I was out there trying to get in because of an argument we had, only it wasn’t as serious as now, funny how things change. I waited out there all night for him to let me in and he never did, now it seems all too ironic that he’s in the same position I was in. He can sit out there for a whole month, I don’t care, its technically still his room but I’m still not letting him in, not after what he did, he can go sleep on the couch.

“Rita, please, let me in, let’s talk this out.”

“Please just leave me alone.”

I hear him sit down against the door and hit his head against it, a feeling I know all too well. It may be an asshole thing to do but it had to be done, I’m too mad to talk, and people tend to make bad decisions when they’re mad.

“Rita ... Rita ... Rita please...”

“Randy just stop! I’ll talk when I’m ready, but for now, just ... leave me alone.”

He’d finally gave up, at least for now. I couldn’t bear to look at him tonight, not after she was on top of him, kissing him, touching him, like he was hers, and he let her! The one thing I thought was mine she took and sunk her skanky claws in him. She really had me going, thinking she changed for the better, but she was really just trying to get at Randy, and she succeeded, and he did nothing to stop her. I clutched my pillow and buried my head into the bed, she took the one thing that mattered the most to me, the bitch wins again.

ASHLEY

“Where you bitches going? Help me clean up,” I said as Becky, Carina, and Dana tried to leave.

They slumped back into the room, knowing they almost got away from having to clean up a mountain of beer cans and wine bottles and pizza boxes and a bunch of other crap that had been strewn over the house. I didn’t feel like cleaning either, but with the outcome the party had throughout the night, it was definitely worth it.

“So now that phase one is done what’s next?” Dana asked.

“We gotta do the same thing to Chris, cut him off from Stephanie and Rita,” I said.

“He won’t be as hard as Randy was, he and Stephanie aren’t twins, and now that Rita is all distraught over catching Randy cheating, she’ll have trust issues,” Carina said.

“That’s exactly what I was thinking. She’ll be on edge for every little thing now, so the smallest thing could send Chris out the door.”

“You know they’re all probably mad as hell at you right?” Becky asked.

“I’m prepared for that, I already have it planned out what I wanna do.”

“Do we have to screw over Chris? I mean he’s actually cute. Did you see him in those dolphin swim trunks? I wanted to tackle him right then!” Becky said.

“Like Carina was all over Randy when he hit the bell thing at the carnival game? I swear it doesn’t take much for you two, sluts,” Dana laughed.

“Shut up Dana, you know I like a guy with strong arms!” Carina defended herself.

“Please, you’d like a guy with no arms as long as he has a dick!” Dana retaliated.

“Do we have to have the “whose a slut?” talk again? You all win! And yes we have to get Chris too, we can’t have a fallback, and we get Stephanie and Rita too,” I said.

“Who do we go after first?” Carina asked.

“Stephanie, we gotta get her while she’s still angry, Rita will be reeling from her twin betraying her so she can wait, then when Chris cheats it’ll be a double whammy and she won’t even put up a fight. That reminds me, did anyone notice anything strange with them?”

“Strange? Like what?” Becky asked as she tied up trash bags full of empty beer cans.

“I don’t know, anything. Rita was really pissed when she saw us kissing...”

“Wouldn’t you be? They have that weird twin thing, they’re supposed to be aware of each other all the time and she had no idea what was going on, add on top of that catching him cheating on her best friend, and with you of all people, I’m surprised she didn’t try to hit him with something. She definitely doesn’t trust him at all now,” Dana said.

“Me either, but I still have a slight advantage over him I plan to exploit.”

“What’s that? You gonna play the innocent little girl?” Becky joked.”

“Don’t you worry your empty little head about that, I got this.”

“Hey someone left their phone in here!” Carina yelled from the kitchen.

“Leave it there for now. I’ll go through it later. We need to finish cleaning this place up before my dad decides to pop in.”

“How are we gonna get all these tables back to the garage?” Becky asked.

“Call Chris and see if he wants to help,” Dana laughed.

“Yeah call Randy while you’re at it, he won’t care we just fucked up his life,” Carina added.

I laughed at the randomness of their jokes, but then turned back to business. I had to plan everything and make sure I don’t jump the gun on something. If everything goes the way I want it, I’ll be sitting pretty in about a week. The hard parts done, on to phase two.

RANDY

Sleep definitely wasn’t coming easy tonight. It took a while before Rita finally stopped crying enough to go to sleep. I never moved, still perched against the door, replaying everything in my head. Where did I go wrong? How much did I have to drink that my actions were no longer mine? The worst feeling of all is that they don’t believe me, how can they not see I was set up? If the shoe was on the other foot I would never believe for a second Rita cheated on me, not even a little bit. Mom, dad, and Aunt Lisa all walked past me to go to their rooms, with the women giving me that “hang in there” look, and dad giving me that “you little bastard if you don’t fix this I’ll break you in half” look, safe to say I was stuck between a rock and a hard place. I accepted the fact that I wasn’t setting foot in the room tonight so I made myself comfortable against the door, and eventually after what felt like hours, I finally fell asleep.

I found myself having that dream with the doors again; this one had the door with the letter A on it, Ashley. I hated her so much right now, she set me up and ruined the trust Rita and I shared all our lives, possibly forever. I wanted nothing more than to get her back in the worst way possible, I didn’t care the outcome. I could feel the anger building up in myself even though it was a dream; I burned a look of hatred through the A on the door. I was so focused on the letter I almost didn’t feel the gust of wind sneak up on me and circle around me.
“Be careful,” someone whispered, and then just like that the wind was gone.

Just as soon as the wind disappeared a flash of light made its way from the other side of the room towards me. I looked around, there was nowhere to run. I was trapped in my own dream with a beam of light heading right towards me. I tried to protect myself, but in a dream how much can you really do? I braced myself as the light drew closer and closer, until it was right on me. I covered my face with my arms and held my ground as the light hit me, making my arms spread out and my head buzz, and in a start I woke up.

I popped out of my sleep disoriented and sweaty. I looked at my phone, only 4:17 in the morning and no chance of going back to sleep. I went to play with my phone to pass the time, but with the battery almost dead that option passed, so I sat there, staring into the darkness until my eyes adjusted enough to make out everything in my vision. I’d sat there so long the sun started to come out, then my body decides to finally try to go to sleep, figures. I couldn’t have been asleep for more than ten minutes before I felt someone shake me and opened my eyes to see mom looking back at me.

“No luck huh?”

“Nope. She won’t even look at me.”

“Give it a little time, she’s not gonna talk immediately. I’ll fix some breakfast, maybe it’ll help.”

Mom walked back to her room and I leaned back up against the door until I heard it open, and Rita stepped out. She didn’t even turn to look at me, but I could see her eyes were red from crying. She went into the bathroom and shut the door, and I watched the door the entire time she was in there. She came out around five minutes later and went back into the room, completely ignoring me again. This was not gonna be easy, not by a long shot.

I scraped through my morning routine (mostly) and went down to breakfast, where everyone but Rita and I were already at. I sat down and stared at my food. I didn’t realize how hungry I was until it was right in front of me, but my hunger got put on hold when Rita came down wearing a giant bathrobe I didn’t even know she owned. She saw me and turned around and went back upstairs, and my heart dropped, I wanted to break down right there, but I had to stay strong if I wanted to get her back. The tension in that room was so high anything said could have turned into an argument.

“Ok, I wanna know what happened and I wanna know right now!” dad spoke up.

“It’s nothing we can’t fix dad, just a lot of confusion and misunderstanding and stuff,” I said.

“That’s not telling me what happened.”

“It’s really embarrassing dad, for both of us...”

“Well you better clear it up; I don’t like this awkward silence angry vibe thing going around in this house. Let her calm down, then fix it.”

Rita came back down, but not to come in the kitchen, just to grab the house phone.

“Hey honey, you gonna eat?” dad asked.

“No, I’m not hungry,” Rita replied.

“Why are you grabbing the house phone? Is your cell phone dead?” Aunt Lisa asked.

“I can’t find it, I’m calling Stephanie to see if I left it in her car.”

She took off upstairs before anyone could ask her anything else, mainly me. She still avoided any eye contact with me, but at least now I know why she didn’t answer her phone.

RITA

I grabbed the house phone and went back to the room as soon as I could, doing my best to deflect any questions I was asked on the way. I wasn’t angry like I was yesterday, but I was still mad. I still didn’t wanna look at him, and I still wasn’t ready to talk, so he’ll just have to get used to playing spy vs spy until I do. I called Steph so I could let off some steam.

“I’ve been calling you all morning!” Steph responded as soon as she answered.

“I can’t find my phone. I think I dropped it in your car.”

“I’ll check it later. How you feeling, are you still mad?”

“Aren’t you?”

“Do you even have to ask? I mean the nerve! Did he think we wouldn’t find out?”

“The fact that it’s Ashley makes me even madder.”

“What are you gonna do?”

“I don’t know, I thought I would’ve slept off the anger but I’m still mad.”

“He said he was drunk, did he look drunk to you?”

“I’ve never seen him drunk so I wouldn’t even know what that looked like.”

“First he said he was buzzed, then he said he was drunk, and then he was buzzed again...”

“Either way it’s not an excuse, especially at a party! Ashley’s party at that! How many movies do they have with that same situation and the same outcome? I mean who does that!”

“Believe me I was thinking the same thing, he got an earful yesterday.”

“You talked to him yesterday?”

“He came by not long after you dropped me off, Chris brought him.”

“Was Chris helping him?”

“I didn’t give him a chance to say anything. I lashed out at Randy the whole time until he left.”

“I didn’t say anything to him when we left, I didn’t even let him in the room, he slept against the door after begging me to let him in for half an hour.”

“I would’ve done the same thing. If you give in they think they can walk all over you.”

“This wasn’t all Randy; Ashley knew exactly what she was doing. He may or may not have come on to her but she knew damn well he was taken. I know for a fact she wasn’t drunk. This is still mostly on Randy though, HE cheated. There’s no way he mistook you for her.”

“No way in hell. And we all bought her “I changed/nice girl” act.”

“This is depressing me all over again. I don’t wanna talk about this anymore right now. Just thinking about it makes me wanna do something. Maybe I’ll walk

Tibbles or something.”

“Tibbles? What’s a Tibbles?”

“It’s the dog he got me, a cute little puppy. He slept in here with me last night.”

“He got you a puppy after what happened? How convenient. He’s trying to use a dog to get out of the doghouse, unbelievable. Don’t let it work.”

“Actually we got him before we even knew about the party. I was so happy. It’s amazing how a day can go so wonderful then turn into absolute shit.”

“Ok well I’ll let you go, call me if you’re not doing anything ok?”

“Ok, thanks Steph, bye.”

“Bye, and remember call me, anything happens, call me.”

I hung up and tapped my legs and Tibbles took the hint and jumped into my lap. I pet him as I contemplated what I was going to do. I couldn’t ignore him forever, but I also couldn’t just forgive what happened. What was I gonna do about Ashley? I can’t just go over to her house and smack her around like I wanna do so bad, but our father still needs her father, and I know she’s using that against us still, so I can’t even touch her. Maybe if Stephanie did the beating for me ... nope, she would still loop it to come back on us. I was wracking my brain with all these questions and scenarios and I still didn’t have an answer of any one of them. You know what? Fuck it. I’m not gonna deal with this today, I shouldn’t have to. I’m gonna keep to myself and not think about anyone or anything but Tibbles, because he’s the only one I wanna see right now. I got up and checked the hallway to make sure it was clear and walked the phone back downstairs and put it on the charger. When I turned around Randy was standing right there, looking me right in the eyes. He wanted me to say something, and when I didn’t he took that as his cue to talk, but when he did, I stopped him, shook my head and walked away. Not today Randy, I don’t wanna hear anything or deal with anything else related to last night, not today.

RANDY

It’s been three long days since the incident at the party. I haven’t gotten a phone call from Stephanie, and so much as a look from Rita. The only bright spot in all of this was that mom, Aunt Lisa, and Chris stuck up for me, while they didn’t excuse what happened, they know it was a drunken mistake, its just too bad Rita and Stephanie can’t see it that way. This has been the longest three days of my life, and the worst part of it besides the not talking to me, is the not knowing what they’re thinking, how they’re handling it, it’s killing me. Dad has been on my ass to fix this, but I can’t even strike up a conversation, let alone dissolve the issue. I had a long road ahead of me, and it was looking to be as unpleasant as possible. I was sitting on the couch (my bed for the last three days) when Rita came downstairs getting ready to walk Tibbles.

“Hi,” I tried starting a conversation.