A/N- So this is a bit of a faster update, but still not as quick as I would have liked. I'm so sorry about that. But a big ol' thanks to Cloudcity'sBookworm, Audrey, Mrs Haynes, Guest 1, Guest 2, Candyluver2121, Skylar97 and crystaltonics for reviewing!
Chapter Four- Break The Walls Down
So it turns out, if you spend an abundant amount of time screaming at the top of your lungs, you'll start to lose your voice. It was easily midday before my screams subsided, leaving my throat red-raw and dry. I rolled round to face the ceiling and wiped the tears from my face, trying to calm down. How was it that my day had actually started out okay, and now it had flat-lined completely?
I inched myself up the pillows, looking around at the posters I had plastered to the walls. They all stared back at me; The Avengers, Batman, the Bella Twins, Harley Quinn, Superman, AJ Lee, The Shield. I had all these pairs of eyes staring, unblinking, right at me. I covered my own eyes with my hands, cutting off the suffocating feeling that had fallen over me.
There was a knock at the door. "Korb? Korbie?"
"Go away, Mac. Please, I'm really not in the mood right now."
"Korb, come on, let me in. We've really gotta talk about this."
"I don't want to talk about it, so I'll repeat my earlier sentiments: go away."
"So what, are you just gonna fucking stay in there for the rest of the weekend and not talk to anybody?"
"Is that an option?"
"No, Korbyn, it's not. I was being ironic."
"That wasn't irony, moron, it was rhetorical. Jesus, how you ever got into college is beyond me. So go away."
"Well now you're starting to sound more like you. Can't we just have a conversation about what happened?"
I blew out a sigh, running my hand through my hair. "Fine. If you're gonna insist on playing the concerned big brother, fucking come in then."
I pulled my duvet up around me like a protective barrier. Despite the warmth of the day, I was shivering. I had been for hours. Mac opened my door slowly, almost hesitantly. His face fell when he saw the state I was in. "Hey, Korbie. Come on, sis, don't cry."
And just because he said that, in the warmest, most concerned voice I'd ever heard him use, I burst into tears all over again. The sobs were loud, ugly and wracked my body with convulsions. Mac stopped hesitating in the doorway and practically tripped over his own feet hurrying over. He sat down on the bed next to me and put his arms around my shoulders, pulling me close to him, protecting me.
I pressed my face against his shoulder and howled. Mac gently rocked me back and forth, the way he used to when I was little, like the time I fell off my bike and cut my knee open, or the time I accidentally broke Mrs Chesterson-Next-Door's mailbox with a badly aimed baseball, or the time I held our pet goldfish Wilbur out of his bowl for too long and he died. Mac had always been there to pick me up and hold me close, and now wasn't an exception.
We sat like that for about twenty minutes. Mac was good at just letting me cry out all the pent-up emotion I had. I didn't cry very often, and when I did, the fallout was nuclear. But eventually, I managed to calm myself down enough to start forming comprehensible sentences.
"I h-hate him," I sobbed into Mac's shoulder. "I hate h-him so f-fucking much."
"I know, Korbs. I know," Mac said soothingly, stroking my hair. "But you won't even need to see each other if you just-"
"Why would h-he talk to me like th-that? He's made me feel like n-nothing!"
"Korb, don't think that. He's just a dickhead, you shouldn't let him get to you."
"H-he was my b-best friend! H-how can I-I not l-let it get t-to me?! I j-just don't unders-stand how we c-can be like th-this to each o-other!"
"People change. You both changed, and you grew apart. It happen-"
"And you ju-just stood there! You stood there and l-let him tr-treat me like that!" I shouted, but my voice was muffled from my face being all pressed up.
"I'm sorry, Korb, I really am. I just didn't want to piss them off."
"I'm your f-fucking s-sister! You're supposed to p-piss off anyone who tr-treats me like that! Y-you made me look like even m-more of an idiot!" I was starting to move into that form of crying where the tears were slowing down and my voice jerked from the force of the sobs trying to get out.
"Jesus, Korbyn, I said I'm sorry!"
"I know! But that r-really doesn't make the s-situation any better! I'm j-just- I'm so a-angry!" I sniffed furiously, wiping my nose on the back of my hand. I pulled away from Mac, dragging my hands down my face to remove the tears. I'd been wearing a full set of eye makeup – eyeliner, eye shadow, mascara – so I probably now resembled a bitchy coal miner. I let out a miserable hiccup as my crying finally came to a juddering halt. "Can w-we move house?"
"What?" Mac removed his arm from around me and frowned. "Korbie, be fucking reasonable. Me and Kelly put every last bit of our money into this house."
"It was a j-joke, you a-asshole," I muttered, clearing my throat in a bid to start talking normally again. "I don't know how I can face even walking out the front door again. All those shit-heads are gonna be out there every day, and I know it won't take much for me to snap and go full-out fucking Attitude Era on their asses."
"I don't even know what that means," replied Mac, looking more than a little concerned for my mental well-being.
I rolled my eyes. "It means I wouldn't hesitate to beat them with ladders and steel chairs, among other things that could cause serious cerebral damage. But that's not the point I'm trying to make here."
"And what point would that be?"
"That I don't care what Pete Carter throws at me now. He's won Round One, I'll give him that. But now I'm ready for him. And I'm gonna hurt him like he's hurt me."
"Ohhh-kay." Mac nervously slid off my bed and started to back away from me. "You're starting to sound like Liam Neeson in Taken. Seriously, I'm waiting for you to say that you'll find him and kill him."
"Is that you giving permission?" I asked, grinning sadistically.
"What- no! Fucking hell, Korbie, you're scaring me now. You've got this crazy look in your eye."
"I have eyeliner on my eyeball- it's stinging. I look no crazier than usual," I assured him. I smiled at him, or attempted to get as close to a smile as I could. "Thanks for this, Maccy. I think I really needed it. Sorry for, like, freaking on you."
He paused his backing out of the room and leaned on the door frame, grinning back at me. "Hey, what are big brothers for? I got your back, Korbs. Fuck Delta Psi."
"I'd rather not," I quipped. "God knows what kind of STIs I'd contract. I'd probably get chlamydia just from sitting on their couch."
I still didn't leave my bedroom, though. I may have calmed down, but I was still in the kind of mood where it wouldn't take much to get me to crack completely. I didn't want Stella seeing that. So I stayed upstairs, changing into a comfortable outfit of leggings and a cropped top, doing what I was rapidly going to start referring to as my Architecture project and eating a box of Twinkies I'd found under my bed.
By the time it started to get dark, Delta Psi had finally finished moving in, the moving truck had gone, the squealing fangirls had fucked off and the frat boys had hidden themselves away in their new dwellings. Everything was just...quiet, which was exactly how I liked it around here.
By the time I did venture downstairs, it was about 11pm, and I was getting myself a glass of water before I got ready for bed. The house was near enough silent. Mac and Kelly had gone to bed about an hour ago, and Stella had been asleep for hours. I grabbed a glass from a cupboard and filled it to the brim with ice-cold water, leaning back against the counter and taking a sip before checking my phone for any messages. The silence was giving me time to reflect.
It wasn't often that I would admit this, but maybe I had actually overreacted earlier. All the screaming and the crying and the swearing; had it really been worth it? I mean, what had really happened? My ex-best friend moved in the house next door. Was that honestly such a bad thing? Mac was right, we wouldn't even have to see each other. I'd just...leave the house an hour early every day to avoid crossing our paths.
Yeah, so I had a major problem with Teddy too, but there was literally no reason for me to ever even consider seeing him. He was never in class, and he rarely actually left the comfort of the frat house. There was no reason for me to not carry on living my life the exact same way I had been for the last-
"DELTA PSI! DELTA PSI!"
Deafeningly loud music suddenly started blaring from next door, making me start so much that I dropped my glass of water, shattering it all over the tiles.
"CARTER!" I screamed, then clamped my hands down over my mouth as I remembered my family were sleeping. "Shit!" I hissed, straining to see if I could hear any movement upstairs.
I could. Fuck, I had managed to wake someone up. But before I could run up and apologize, I had to forage under the sink for the dustpan and brush so I could clean up the damn glass I'd dropped.
But apparently I wasn't even going to get as far as apologizing, because I could hear two sets of footsteps coming down the stairs. Sure enough, Mac and Kelly appeared in the doorway of the kitchen, both of them fully dressed, bleary-eyed and yawning.
"Guys, I am so sorry," I quickly said, dumping the glass into the bin. "I didn't mean to shout like that, and I definitely didn't mean to wake you up."
"What?" Mac frowned, rubbing his eyes. "No, you didn't wake us up, Korbie. It was the music. It's way too fucking loud."
"We're going over there and asking them to turn it down," explained Kelly, stepping into her sneakers.
"And you really think they're gonna listen?" I said dubiously.
"They should be grateful that we aren't calling the cops," she replied. "So they'll listen."
"Well, you sound confident, so I guess that's something," I said with a shrug. "Fuck it, I'm in. I'll come over too, provide some much-needed muscle."
"Are you sure that's the best idea, Korb?" Mac asked anxiously. "I mean, after this morning..."
"I'll be fine," I said dismissively. "If anything, this can be my way of showing that there's no hard feelings. It's like, 'yo, you caused me to have an emotional breakdown today, but we can be chill because I didn't have your ass arrested.' That's gotta count for something, right?"
"Um, I guess?" Mac voiced it more as a question than a statement.
"So it's settled then," I said, moving past him. I grabbed a pair of buckled Chuck Taylors I had lying by the door and pulled them on, along with a denim jacket, stuffing my phone in my pocket. "Let's rock and roll."
As soon as we stepped outside the front door, it was like stepping into a rave. Delta Psi was lit up like a fucking Christmas tree, with frat brothers and other random dickheads milling around on the front lawn. Naturally there were a ton of desperate bitches hanging around too, all of whom stared at me with discontent as I walked up the front pathway ahead of Mac and Kelly. I just winked at them and waggled my fingers in a patronizing wave, climbing the porch steps and banging my fist on the front door.
"Little forceful there, Korbyn," Kelly muttered.
"No, it was efficient," I retorted, just as the door opened, revealing Teddy Sanders himself.
"Hey! Mac, Kelly, Korbie-Korbyn. What's up?" he said good-naturedly.
"Korbie-Korbyn?" I repeated disbelievingly. "Seriously?"
"Er, we hate to be these guys," Mac quickly cut over me. "But do you mind just, like, kind of..."
"Just keep it down?" Kelly finished for him, sounding awkward.
"Just a little bit?" Mac added on.
"Yeah, man, my niece is trying to sleep, which isn't something she does too great at the minute," I said. "We'd really appreciate it." Huh. I actually had the ability to be civil with people. Who knew.
"Oh, the music?" Teddy clarified.
"Yeah, just a tiny bit," replied Mac.
"First off, my bad," Teddy said, before calling over his shoulder, "Yo, guys! Music check! We have neighbors, for Christ's sake! Come on!"
"Thank you!" Kelly said graciously.
"That's a big bong," Mac muttered, pointing over Teddy's shoulder. "Is that a two-story bong?"
"I really appreciate you guys coming by," Teddy said, ignoring the questioning. "These guys are out of control."
Mac and Kelly seemed so surprised that they barely knew how to reply. "Awesome, man," Mac managed to stutter out. "Well, thank you so much. That's all we wanted."
"Cool," said Teddy.
"Great," said Kelly.
"Shit's getting awkward now..." I mumbled.
Teddy cleared his throat. "See you guys around." The only way he could have been more obvious about wanting us to leave would have been for him to literally say, 'fuck off.'
The three of us turned around to go, and Mac said, "Okay, thanks man. Dope. Cool."
"See you in class, Ted," I said, heading down the steps. "Well. Maybe." I really wouldn't.
"You guys are so fucking lame," I hissed as the three of us began traipsing back up the path.
"What? What?!" Mac was comically affronted.
"You were hanging around like you wanted them to invite you in! It's just sad!" I told him. "Honestly, going to a frat party at your ages..."
"You're starting to sound like Mom," Mac grumbled, but he gave me a playful shove.
"Well someone needs to be the responsible adult in this household," I shot back. "And it sure as shit ain't-"
"Hey, slow down!" I was interrupted by the door opening behind us and Teddy shouting. Oh Jesus, what now?
"Hey, there they are! Where you going?" Oh good, now Pete had joined us. I felt my mellow, tolerant mood rapidly fading away. Kelly, Mac and I all turned around, and I didn't miss the pitiful looks of hope on their faces, either.
"Do you guys want to come in?" Teddy asked, gesturing into the house with his thumb.
"You don't want us to come back in," Mac said, but he and Kelly were moving back up the path so fast you'd think they were being pulled along a conveyor belt, Mac dragging me by the arm behind him. "I mean, no, we can't. We couldn't possibly. Are you serious?"
"I think you should," Teddy said with a grin.
"Come on!" said Pete, holding his arm up as a welcome gesture.
"No, we've got the baby, so..." Kelly weakly attempted to protest.
"Yeah, we've got the baby. We can't." Mac couldn't have sounded like he cared less about the fact we'd left Stella at home if he tried.
"Come on, just real quick," tempted Pete.
"You have the baby monitor right there," Teddy pointed out, gesturing at the little video feed Kelly had clipped to her belt.
"We do. It's working," Mac said as Kelly lifted it to her ear and listened to it.
"It works perfectly," she said.
"You're like ten feet away," said Pete. "Come on."
"Look, are we going in or not?" I exclaimed exasperatedly. "Because if we are, let's do it, if we're not, I want to go to bed!"
"Super quick tour, then," said Mac, grinning. "Just the tour, maybe."
"Just the tour," Pete confirmed.
It so was not just the tour. Almost as soon as we stepped through the door, Brooke and her gaggle of sorority girls grabbed hold of Kelly and dragged her off to dance with them, and Mac vanished into the crowd of frat boys to do magic mushrooms and smoke about thirty pounds of weed.
So I fetched myself a plastic cup of what I hoped was vodka and Coke and settled myself down on a an empty chair. I sat like that for maybe an hour, just watching the party go on around me and occasionally getting up to get another drink, when I decided to get my phone out to text AJ.
Hey girl, please tell me you're awake. Major shit's gone down, seriously need to talk to you. Text ASAP. x
I got a reply almost instantly.
Jesus Korb, where the fuck have you been all day! You haven't texted at all! I've been freaking the fuck out! What's up? x
What's not up, more like. You know the place next to mine was for sale? Well guess who's moved in. x
Don't play the noun game with me, bitch. Just tell me. x
Delta. Fucking. Psi. x
...that's a joke right? A really fucking sick joke? x
Does it read like I'm joking? I'm literally here right now. They're throwing this huge housewarming rave or something. It's insane. x
You're THERE?! What the fuck, Korbyn?! You're in enemy territory right now and you're completely defenseless! You're probably ingesting herpes just by breathing their air! x
You can't ingest herpes, you idiot. Look, it's not like I'm wasted or anything, I am on fucking red alert right now. It's like I'm...scoping them out. Besides, anyone tries any shit with me and I'll have them in an octopus hold quicker than they can say fraternity. x
"Hey Radner, don't sit all alone in the corner like a weird little hermit. Join the party!" I looked up from my phone to see Pete smirking down at me. I looked around the room. I'd been so engrossed in talking to AJ that I hadn't even noticed the room empty. It was just me, Pete and the deafening music.
"I'm perfectly fine here, thanks," I replied coolly, stashing my phone away and taking a gulp of my drink.
"Come on, Korbyn, if your brother can lighten the fuck up then so can you," he said, seeing fit to sit down on the arm of the chair. "Seriously, he's so high. Keep him away from the shrooms."
"Thanks for the advice. Don't worry about me, though. I'm about as lightened as I'm gonna get, babe," I said, rolling my eyes.
"Babe?" Pete's smirk widened. "You haven't called me that since we were in high school."
"Like I said. I've lightened up a bit. Don't get used to it though." And with that, I gave him a sharp shove, knocking him off the side of the chair. "I still hate you."
"Yeah, you made that pretty fucking clear today," he said, standing up with a groan and making a show of cracking his back. "You wanna talk about that?"
I snorted. "What, with you? Thanks but no thanks, Carter. You've made me feel shit enough today without hearing the reason you stood there calling me a psycho bitch and laughing in my face."
"That was out of line," he said quickly. "Like, seriously. I'll admit, that was a really shit thing for me to do."
"Gee, ya think?" I retorted, folding my arms. "Do you even realise how bad you made me feel today? I went home and I cried for fucking three hours. Three hours, Pete!" I could feel tears pricking at the back of my throat even now.
"You just went crazy!" Pete defended himself. "You have to admit that, Korbyn. I hadn't even said anything and you totally lost it."
"You called me a freak and basically questioned my sanity!" I cleared my throat, but a couple of tears broke free, dripping down my cheeks. "What happened to us, Pete? You used to be everything to me." Shit. Why. WHY had I just said that? I looked down at the near-empty cup in my hand. Fuck. Apparently I'd drank a lot more than I originally thought.
"Woah, Korbyn. That's one hell of a confession," Pete said, chuckling awkwardly.
Fuck it. The cat was out of the bag now. "Well it's true. You did mean everything. I loved you like a brother. The day you decided you were done with me almost tore me apart. We were eighteen, Pete! Eighteen and about to make one of the biggest decisions of our lives! And I know you were going through a lot of shit with your parents, but I tried to be there for you and you completely shut me out! I needed you almost as much as you needed me, but you weren't there! You were never there! S-so I gave up! There w-was no point in e-even trying after th-that!" Cue more crying. Again. For the third time today, I was in floods of tears. I pressed my hands over my face, but my shoulders shook violently.
"Oh my God. Okay. Radner, don't cry. Jesus, please don't cry!" Pete practically begged. "Radner? Korbie, stop crying. Please. I'm sorry."
"It's been almost four years, Pete!" I sobbed. "You've never said sorry to me before, why should you now? Just to get me to shut up?"
"No, because you never gave me a chance!" he replied angrily. "The minute we started here, you basically avoided me!"
"Because you had made it very clear that you wanted nothing to do with me!" I shouted. "You just wanted to turn into another frat clone! I was nothing to do with your college plans once you decided you wanted to join Delta Psi!"
"Oh, you mean like I was nothing to do with yours when you joined Zeta Tau Phi?"
"I only did that to show you that I still wanted to be close to you! I thought if you saw I had similar plans, you'd stop freezing me out and open up to me again!" I wiped my face on the back of my hand and let out a laugh- a single, derisive 'ha.' "How fucking wrong was I!"
"I didn't fucking want to do that do you!" Pete shouted back. "My fucking parents divorced, I didn't know how to deal with it! I didn't want people feeling sorry for me, and being a dick was the only way they wouldn't!"
"But why me?! I didn't feel sorry for you, I wanted to help you! You were my best friend, I'd have done anything for you! But you wrecked everything between us!"
"You think I don't know that?! I never wanted it to get so out of hand, but then the first day of Freshman Week, you turned around and said that you hated me! What the fuck was I supposed to do with that?! Get down on my knees and beg you to forgive me?!" he yelled.
"Yes!" I screamed. "That's exactly what you were supposed to do! I never meant it, you stupid asshole! I'd have forgiven you in a heartbeat if you'd just. Said. Sorry!" I punctuated those three words with three separate kicks to Pete's shins from my sitting position. "But it's too late now! Too much has happened between us! I don't want to say that what we had is completely irreparable, but I j-just don't s-see h-ow..." I dissolved into wordless sobbing, and completely unexpectedly, Pete grabbed my hands and pulled me into a standing position, putting his arms around my shoulders and hugging me close.
"I miss you!" I cried into his shirt. "I miss you so much!"
"Korbie Cat," he murmured into my hair, the nickname he'd given me when we were seven years old and I'd gone to his Halloween party as an infant Catwoman.
"Yo, Pete! Teddy wants you in the living room! We're- am I interrupting something?" Garf's voice filtered in over the music, and when Pete and I looked over at the doorway, there he was, staring at us and looking highly confused.
I pushed Pete away from me and wiped my eyes, clearing my throat. "No, Garfield," I muttered, walking away in the direction of the back yard for some fresh air. "You're not interrupting anything at all."
Teddy had gathered the main frat douches (IE, himself, Pete, Scoonie, Garf and a couple of other higher-up pledges) and Mac and positioned them in the living room to pose for a portrait. Yes, really. After I'd returned from my brief interval outside, I found the seven of them posed like they were in a seventeenth century painting of a war ship, humming like yogis.
"Looking good, guys," I commented, looking over the pledge drawing the scene's shoulder to see how it was going. All that was on the paper was three stick figures, a flower and a sun with a face on it. "You nailed them, buddy," I said, slapping the pledge on the shoulder encouragingly.
"Hey," Pete suddenly said, sounding totally stoned all of a sudden. "Do you guys want to see something amazing?"
"Yes, I want to see something amazing!" replied Mac, and everyone in the 'picture' relaxed their positioning. "What is it?" All Pete did was let out that hacking/coughing laugh of his and proceed to call the entire party into the living room.
"I know you're all wondering why I brought you here," he announced, standing in front of us all. He rubbed his hands together. "Behold." He adopted a look for sheer concentration, focussing his thoughts on God knows what. The next thing I knew, he...oh God. He had an erection. An erection he'd seemingly brought on at will. The entire frat - and Mac and Kelly - burst into cheers, but all I could do was stare at him with an eyebrow raised.
"Good job, man!" Mac praised from the chair he and Kelly were cuddled up in. "Yeah, take a bow!"
Pete smiled bashfully and waved his hand like it was no big deal.
"Wow," I said with a grin as everyone settled back into party mode. "Twelve years of friendship and not once did you tell me you were hiding this special, er...talent."
He grinned back and lightly punched me on the shoulder. "Well Radner, I think there's a lot you don't know about me." He jerked his head over his shoulder at the doors to the backyard. "So you want to get another drink."
I looked over his shoulder, considered his suggestion, then locked eyes with him and nodded. "I thought you'd never ask."
A/N- I'd like to say that everything is all cute and cleared up between Korbie and Pete now. But I would be lying to you. She's not a complete pushover, even when she's drunk. They are far from fixed. But I ain't gon' give anything away, so I'll leave that where it is! I really hope you liked the chapter! Lemme know! Leave a review, follow, favourite, and thanks for reading! Xx Gee xX
PS- So, usual reminder that if you head on over to my profile, you'll find a link to a The Girl Next Door Polyvore collection with Korbie's party wear plus all the posters she has in her bedroom, and there's also a couple of links to videos I made for the fic that are on YouTube! XD Check 'em out!