Cayle pulls right on up to the curb before bringing us to a controlled halt, then shifts into park.
Crutches…
I lean over, unbuckle my seatbelt then more fully lean over and grab both of my crutches before Cayle open the door to my right.
"Beat ya." The smirk is audible in his voice.
"Thanks." I monotone out, getting a laugh out of him before I clamber out, crutches first.
"Easy…"
"Trying." I say, committing to it and fully escaping the vehicle to stand on the grass.
Cayle peeks behind us, to JJ's house. "Up there?"
"Up there." I confirm, before Cayle allows me room to follow him towards the driveway.
Sabine's hulking SUV is parked right in the driveway, and we march right past it. "Illinois." Is his only comment.
"Yup."
"Must get like a mile to the gallon. Thing's a tank!"
"Yup." I repeat myself again, trying to indicate my desire to change topics.
The front door to the house suddenly opens, and I glance up in time to see JJ and Matt already inching their way out onto the porch.
"There he is!" Matt calls out jokingly. Cayle laughs beside me as I hobble my way up there, reaching the steps.
Stupid steps.
"I got those." JJ volunteers to Cayle as I hand them off to Cayle. Cayle passes my crutches right over and I heave my way up the first step.
"Easy…"
"I'm fine, I'm fine…" I chastise him again before taking the middle step.
There.
"Awesome." Matt compliments me. When I look up, he's beaming and looking thrilled to see me.
"You Cayle?" JJ asks redundantly.
Cayle gives both JJ and Matt his winning smile. "I am. Nice to finally meet you guys."
"Same. You're not nearly as mean as Sabine's told us you are." JJ remarks.
Dammit!
Cayle smiles once again. "Well she's one to talk. You got him from here?"
"We got him from here." Matt confirms before Cayle shakes both of their hands.
"I'd love to stay, but I've got to work." He lies through his teeth. "Have fun!"
"Bye!" I call after him, then turn back and heave my crutches underneath my armpits and start inside.
Both Matt and JJ allow me to take the lead before JJ remarks "First time out of the house?"
"Yup. I'm free again." I joke, getting dueling laughs.
"He's not." Matt remarks. "He and Jaicey have been fighting."
"Yeah, well when it's my machismo it's me being a chauvinist. When it's hers it's her being a good teammate." JJ protests.
"The party?" I assume.
"Yeah." Cayle confirms with a nod, finally taking the lead. "Turns out there's some new Russian striker that transferred in. Their game post practice was to see who could handle their vodka the best."
"It wasn't fucking vodka! Can you keep your damn mouth shut for once in your life?!"
Ahh, there's Jaicey.
"Vodka, everclear, what's the difference. I've got the bottle here somewhere…" JJ muses as we wind our way into the kitchen, where Jaicey is waiting, hands on her hips.
"I'm going to break that bottle over your head."
"Yeah." JJ fires right back. "Maybe I'll start speaking in Greek so you'll hang off my arm."
Oooh boy.
Helplessly, I turn back to Matt. "It'll stop." He smiles. "The party was basically a shitshow."
"You're damn right it was a fucking shitshow!" JJ continues leading me thru the house. "By the way, do you even know what happened?"
I shrug as much as I can since my shoulders are kind of occupied. "A little bit. I talked to Trey."
"He said he talked to you." Matt says before I probe out as we creep closer to the theater/game room.
She's here.
"Said something about you, and some blonde who whisked you away before seeing him?" JJ finishes, then points with his thumb towards the front door.
Cayle.
"Yeah, he wasn't here long though. Reminded me not to drink is all." I remove Cayle from the conversation. "So what'd I miss?"
"So like I said, their post practice exercise was vodka shots—" JJ begins again as we pass through the curtain in the doorway, revealing the normal setup with the 'L' shaped couch in the back with the smaller, ottoman like seat up from for those playing games.
Usually.
"—shots shots shots shots shots—"
"IT WASN'T THAT MANY!" Jaicey protests again, loudly from the kitchen.
"—oh here's the bottle." Matt jumps in, reaching down and raising a glass bottle, with a little bit remaining in the bottom.
The label's completely in Russian.
"Damn." I smirk before turning and spotting their little setup for me. "Oh, thank you."
"We looked it up, saw you'd need your leg elevated." JJ smiles as I start lowering myself to sit next to the pillows. "You think that'll work? We figured you'd have one of the controllers on lock."
Yeah, I'm right in front of the TV.
"I'll do my best." I joke.
"Anyway." JJ continues again. "At some point, I don't know who it was, but somebody texted a member of Phi Kappa Psi and got an invite to their house."
"Getting their day going." Matt says while firing up JJ's PS4.
Ignore her eyes.
"Exactly." JJ nods. "The timeframe gets a little weird, but all I know is that Jaicey, Sabine, basically all the girls that went over there all got to the planned party late, at about 10:30."
I got there around 11.
"Still drunk I take it."
"Off. Their. Ass." JJ confirms before he's slapped upside the head.
Jaicey scowls down at him, a plastic cup in her hand. "Just normal drunk, thank you very much."
"Now I'm not very picky, but when you come to a party I'm at, on the arm of another dude, I'm telling the damn truth. And since you know how I don't like that, that's how I know you were off your ass!" JJ returns fire.
JEEZ!
I turn to the TV and make a face before Jaicey ignored her boyfriend. "What do you want to drink Ezra?"
"Whatever's fine." I shrug before an impulsive idea pops into my head.
Oh!
"Something I can mix!" I call out after her.
Suddenly I see a lightbulb go off in Matt's head. "Oh! I like it! I'm in!"
"What?" JJ parrots blankly.
"Play along." I instruct him before Matt leaps up and dances out of the room.
He's got me.
JJ gives me a brief look before continuing. "You were there, then you were gone. I finally wrangled Jaicey for a minute and started piecing all this together—what's Russia Girl's name again?"
"Alena." Sabine speaks up quietly behind us.
Russia Girl.
The TV screen loads right up to Call of Duty before JJ reaches over and hands me the other controller.
"Alena." JJ points to the ceiling. "That's it! Oh!" He exclaims as I hear Matt reenter. "I like it!"
"We're finishing the bottle." Is all Matt says before I turn back and see him smiling, holding three cups and a carton of orange juice.
"That is such a waste of—" Sabine starts.
SHUT UP!
"I don't care." JJ proclaims as Matt also procures a shot glass and passes it to him. "You guys started this…we're finishing it."
"It's not even yours." Jaicey walks back into the room.
"The hell it isn't! I found it, I brought it back, I'm keeping the bottle once it's empty, it's mine!" JJ dictates while pouring three shots into the three glasses. "Sorry ladies, there juuust isn't enough for us to share."
"That's fine." Jaicey answers, sounding slightly nauseated.
Sabine adds from her position on the couch "I'm off alcohol for a while."
Good!
Matt pours some orange juice into one of them, then passes it to me.
I think I'll wait until they're all poured.
Once that's done, we toast, then all take a sip. "To kicking ass."
"And taking names." Matt smiles, getting me to laugh.
Both of them smirk before JJ starts the process of finding us a game. "Where was I? Oh! Alena." He catches himself.
"Yup."
"She vanished with one of those Phi Psi, as did basically every other soccer girl there. Along with Jaicey, leaving me to drive around until five in the damn morning looking for her!"
"I was looking for Sabine's phone!" Jaicey defends herself.
JJ's tone veers back towards derision. "Yeah! In the middle of some random neighborhood with two of them!"
"We went driving before—" Sabine starts to explain, before I thrown my hand up to stop her.
I don't want to hear it.
Suddenly the back of my hand starts stinging, and Jaicey's on the follow through. "Don't stick your hand up to her like that, she's—"
EXCUSE ME?!
Slowly, I turn back to face Jaicey to glare at her after she slapped my hand down.
YOU SLAPPED ME!
"Do not…slap me again. Or we're going to have problems." I glower straight through her.
She's scared.
Jaicey nods. "I'm sorry."
Good.
I inch back around to face the TV screen just as our match is beginning.
Gustav Cannon. I can do some work here.
"She lost her phone?" I resume talking to JJ. "That makes some sense."
"Somewhere in the night." He confirms. "Let me guess, she missed some stuff."
Uhh, yeah!
"Phone calls, over ten texts. I had no clue where she was, I just knew she wasn't at my place. The plan was for her to be there for all this…" I gesture to my knee. "I didn't know it, but some important people came in for it as a surprise. Missed that too."
"Your parents?" Matt asks as I start going through the loadout.
Gimme a sniper. I want some heads.
"No. Other important people." I shake my head.
Padmé. Master Skywalker.
She could have really done a lot of good for herself.
Instead…
I hope it was worth it.
"Your parents weren't there for your surgery?" Jaicey asks, concern in her voice.
"No." I shake my head. "My mom called. Dad texted. That's enough."
For them.
"Keep going." I encourage JJ while climbing the main cannon to get position—
Out of nowhere I got shot in the back, killing me and sending my body careening down.
So…that's how this is going to go.
"Well Sabine came here super early in the morning, three days later." He nods to me. "By then I'd already talked to you, that you were out of surgery.
"Three days later huh?" I ask facetiously.
(Day after Ezra's Surgery)
"I hate stairs." I tell Cayle as we make our way up the second flight of stairs up to my apartment.
Cayle gives me a supportive smile before answering "We're almost done with them now. Then you can sit down, or lie down for a minute before we give you your last round of meds for the night."
"Yay." I monotone out, then probe out of reflex.
She's here.
"She's here."
"No she's not." Cayle dismisses the idea. "I seriously doubt she'd be here. If she was, she would have sent more than just those few courtesy texts checking up on you. You said you told her about the plan."
I did.
I nod once and maintain my focus on the final two steps. Cayle meanwhile, twirls the car keys in his hand before finding my house key, which we took off my key ring and threw onto Hera's spare set for the SUV.
"Now let's—" he begins, sticking the key into the lock before the door swings open and causing Cayle to stumble inside. "Oh."
"What are—" Sabine begins to demand, sticking her head out of my door before turning and finding me.
Straightaway, she straightens up while the Force shakes violently with her distress.
Yeah, yeah, yeah…
"I—oh god. I'm—" She starts, hands clasping over her face in dismay before I crutch past her.
"Excuse me."
I don't look back as I enter my apartment, which is filled with a new, fresh scent as well as the sounds of Sabine's speaker.
I don't want to do this right now.
Padmé made a joke last night at dinner about how my painkillers got straight answers out of me. And that can't happen with her.
Cayle says something to Sabine, the only part I catch is "—step inside." Before Sabine leads Cayle inside.
"I—how can I help? What can I do here that'll—" Sabine blathers on as Cayle shuts the door.
Yeah, no. I'm not doing this.
I take one strong step forward, getting within an arm's reach of Sabine, then wave my hand in front of her.
Mine.
"You need to get out of here." I dictate to Sabine as she's gone stock still in front of me, eyes glassy and posture rigid. "Go back to—"
I search Sabine's brain for an instant before finding the name I want.
Ryan.
"—go back to Ryan's and work him out for a few more days. I'll see you… when I see you."
"I'll see when I see you." Sabine repeats my command, then turns around and walks right out of my apartment.
Leaving Cayle behind, mouth agape.
"I don't want to hear it."
"I—" He starts, then throws his hands up defensively. "Whatever. Your call. But you can't say that you've never used the Force on her anymore."
Yeah, whatever.
"Fine. Can you grab one of those painkillers for me? I'm starting to feel it."
"Good shot." Matt compliments me as the animated body droops over the railing and falls down.
"Thanks." I reply flatly, looking for my next victim. "Is now a bad time to mention that I think I recognized the, what was the frat's name again?"
"You what?" JJ asks as he rounds a corner.
The Force rattles with anxiety behind me before I block it out. "I think he was in my Freshman Comp class."
"When'd you see him?"
"Before I got to talking." I answer. "Rockhead. I think his name's Ryan."
Yup.
I gun down another helpless player, attempting to cross the field leading to the tank. "Ryan?"
"Is that right?" Matt turns back as the Force confirms once again for me.
"I don't really remember a Ryan." Jaicey admits.
JJ's signature beside me spikes. "You don't remember much of anything."
Mine.
I catch another poor soul trying to cross this field, then reload my sniper rifle. "—remember enough to know that all three of you are being massive dicks about it."
"Something they didn't have." I pop off.
All style, no substance.
And I'm sure that's what Sabine was there for.
The substance.
Sabine's hurt rings out to me once again before Jaicey comments "That's really, really mean. Not necessary. We all make drunken mistakes."
Sabine's made at least six.
"You didn't." JJ finally relents to Jaicey. "Changing topics briefly. Ezra, what's her name?"
"What's what name?" I ask before a shot whizzes past me.
Oh. You've finally spotted me.
"The name of the blonde Trey mentioned. He said she was super hot."
I cycle through my menus, looking for a Claymore mine before I reply. "Her name's Aubrey. And she's alright looking."
"Alright." Matt repeats my wording.
"I went to high school with her." I reveal. "Sabine met her."
The Force instantaneously rings with all of their shock before I see Matt and feel Jaicey turn back to Sabine.
"Yeah, I did. For like a second before you two ran off together."
"Ran off together?" Jaicey parrots.
I roll my eyes while setting my charge. "It was lunch. Nothing nefarious."
"Why's she here?" JJ asks.
"She's doing some modeling jobs."
Matt immediately cracks "So she's working at Starbucks."
"No." I laugh, repositioning myself to another barn rooftop. "She's modeling. I don't know what she does with the rest of her time."
Jaicey's phone clicks, revealing that she's unlocked it. "In my experience, most of the girls that say they're here modeling actually can't get shoots booked and end up taking normal jobs. Like Starbucks." Matt smiles.
Meanwhile, where I was positioned suddenly goes up in a ball of flame, before my screen fills back up with kills.
+3 kills. I have an airstrike now.
"So she's here for you?" JJ assumes.
"No." I answer, steering to my earned airstrike. "I don't know why she's here."
"Oh no way." Jaicey calls out my bluff. "She could have gone to New York for modeling. I imagine there's spots in Florida or Atlanta that are a lot closer to home. But she's here. Fess up, what's the story?"
I drop my airstrike before I begin to answer. "No story. We dated for six, eight months in high school. Broke up after Prom because I was going across the country. Didn't want to give her any illusions. She's better than that."
"That sounds like a story to me." Matt comments.
JJ adds "There's always a story."
"Because men are the more dramatic of the two sexes." Jaicey drops a pearl of wisdom on us.
(A/N: Perhaps it's because it is because I have the story scoped out, but this isn't a big behavior change from Sabine. So I wasn't expecting such an adverse reaction to Sabine's actions last chapter. If it's not clear (apologies if it's not), Sabine's got a lot to learn. Like the Jedi stated, she's immature, privileged and hasn't faced consequences much in her life. Nobody's perfect, and speaking for myself I made a lot of stupid mistakes and did some dumb shit in college. Sabine's meant her words in earlier chapters, but progress isn't linear. And Ezra's not without blame either. This chap's title is an example of that.
Thank you for reading! I truly do appreciate all the feedback! More coming Friday!)