Thanks for all the feedback, I love it. Sorry this post took so long.
The Fraud
"Alright knees bent,not quite that much," Sandy had been trying to teach me how to golf for an hour and all I had achieved was to break two windows, "back straight eyes right over the ball, feet a little closer together,just off your left foot there you go, not quite that close together butthat's okay alright just let it hang like a pendulum, nice an easy nice an easy keep breathing, nice an easy-"
I picked my head up, no longer watching the swing of my gold club; "You're teaching me to golf not give birth." I reminded him.
"I'll just stand over here." He took a step back and allowed me to try and get the bastard ball in the cup by myself.
I tried to remember to follow all the instructions Sandy had given me as I gently swung the putter trying get the ball in the 'hole' and yet as the putter connected with the ball all I saw was the ball hitting the water. Seth dived down to get it as he had all my efforts before.
"I got it!" Seth smiled proudly, putting the ball on the side.
"Alright one more." Sandy rolled a fresh ball over to me.
"Are you insane or simply bored of your existing windows?" I asked him, flopping down on one of the garden chairs.
"Oh come on you were so good at the driving range." Sandy tried to encourage.
"I play basketball, surf and I used to be able to street skate. If God had wanted me to be a golfer I would have been born in plaid."
"You know there's plenty more to do in Palm Springs other then play golf. You can spa." I simply looked up at him. "Yeah you don't spa." Sandy nodded. "I'm sensing that you're going to be going to Palm Springs more for the Alpha Dog experience than the gated community experience."
"What are you doing making pop culture references after 1975?" Seth asked him, hopping onto the side of the pool and climbing out. "I though we had an understanding my DVD collection is off limits to you and Mom."
"Pay-per-view." Sandy explained. "Kirsten and I thought it was going to be a wildlife documentary."
"Not so much." I smiled at him. "And don't worry if Oliver and I kidnap a kid to hold ransom over a drug debt, we won't kill him."
"I still don't know how I feel about you guys going to stay in Palm Springs with a friend of yours I first met bailing out of jail." Sandy told me. "Making jokes like that, not funny."
"Oliver's cool, he was just falling back on old habits when he was feeling lowest." I explained, "Who hasn't done that?"
"Like Alex punches people when she's low, Oliver turns to drugs." Seth chimed in.
"Not helping." I warned him.
"Oliver's parents going to be there?"
"Yeah." I nodded at Sandy as I passed him back his putter.
"You met them?" he asked me.
"No, they've always been out of town whenever I've been in the pent house."
"Oliver has a pent house and a mansion in Palm Springs?"
"Oliver has many pent houses." Seth corrected his father.
"Its good to be Oliver." Sandy mused.
"Its good to be Oliver's friend." I simply looked at Seth. "Or its good to be Oliver's friend's friend." He corrected.
Marissa and Summer walked into my room as I finished packing for Palm Springs. Oliver had invited all of my friends along with us as a thank you to me for getting him out of jail, I just wanted to keep him company to keep his mind off Natalie and figured surrounding him with people would be the best way to do it. Consequently the group grew from three to six and then to seven when Marissa told me I should invite Luke along too 'in the spirit of new friends' she phrased it.
"Hey." I smiled at Marissa before going over towards her and kissing her 'hello' properly.
"Hey." She smiled back at me.
"Hey." Summer nodded, looking between us. "You two aren't going to be doing that all weekend are you?"
"I have learnt to golf especially for this trip," I smiled gently at her, "I will spend some time honing my new skills."
"Good cause if you two are doing that either Cohen or Anna will want to be doing that too and-"
"Have you still not told them?" Marissa looked at her in disbelief. "You're going to have to choose at some point."
"Like Cohen did?"
"Your love triangle is too much for the mind to understand." I laughed at her as I zipped up my rucksack. "Why not just have a threesome and be done with it."
"Ew, no." She said simply. "Plus I don't think Anna would be down with that."
"You've thought about it haven't you?" Marissa pointed at her. "You are Cohen's dream girl, you know that right?"
"I've been talking to Anna and it turns out she only hooked up with Seth to stop him hooking up with you. I should have seen that one coming." I shook my head as I smiled at Marissa showing her that I didn't actually care. "This weekend is going to be so interesting."
"Wow, sympathy." Sighed Summer as she flunked herself down in one of my chairs.
"You made your bed-"
"You got to lie in it." I finished for Marissa.
"I feel there is a pun intended in that." Summer frowned at me. "What am I going to do?"
"You mean apart from choosing?" Marissa asked her.
"Right I'm going to find somebody that isn't you two." Summer slapped her legs as she rose. "You reckon Oliver is here yet, I want to thank him for taking us all to Palm Springs."
"Oliver, huh?" I smiled at Marissa.
"This is turning into quite the Telenovela." She smiled back.
"I hate you both." Summer told us as she walked out of my open door.
"What you think is going to happen?" Marissa asked leaning on my doorframe, watching Summer walk through the house.
"Thanksgiving, but worse given that she's sleeping with them both." I told her shouldering my bag. "Ready?"
"You know I don't golf, right?" She told me as I moved her out of my doorframe so I could lock my door.
"How many golf courses do you think we had in Chino?"
"Good point." She smiled at me as she walked with me round the house to the edge of the driveway. "Jesus Christ." Marissa gaped at the amount of beer he had in the back of his truck.
"Did you rob a liquor store or something?" we heard Seth ask him as he tried to carry both bags and his humidifier out of the house to come stand by Marissa and I on the driveway.
"Cohen you cant play golf without a buzz on." Luke simply smiled at him as he leant over the side of his truck to take the humidifier from him. "A blender nice thinking, Cohen."
"Yeah," Seth nodded, "no its actually a humidifier: I get nose bleeds."
I watched as Summer and Anna exchanged looks and pointed it out to Marissa.
"You think she knows?" she whispered in my ear.
"She can't. I mean unless she is that comfortable in their relationship that she's fine with her girlfriend having sex with someone else." I whispered back.
"Good point." She conceded.
"You should talk to her. If she's only with Seth to try and bang the gay out of her…"
"That was so well put. And you talk to her I'm only out because I met you." She smiled sweetly at me. "If it weren't for you I would have still been with Luke and having stupid affairs."
"I think that's sweet." I frowned at her. "Come on, the others are going to think we're talking about them."
"We are." She smiled at me.
"We don't want them to know that though." I told her as Oliver pulled up in a BMW M6 silver convertible. "Oh my god." I ran over and stroked the hood of it as he pulled to a stop. "This is a thing of beauty."
"4999cc… 10 cylinders." Luke smiled at me, having jumped out the back of his truck and joining me in drooling over Oliver's car.
"I just drive the thing." Oliver smiled stepping out. "Hi, by the way." He said looking between us.
"Ignore them." Anna told him, walking over. "Cars are what they use to stop from hating each other."
"Where's Natalie?" Marissa asked him.
"She called me earlier, said there was some other guy." He shrugged despondently. "That's why I'm here, I'm not sure how much fun I'm going to; be maybe we should go some other time."
"Are you crazy, you'll just end up sitting alone in your pent house wallowing. That's the worst you can do." I told him.
"This coming from the girl that shuts herself in her pool house and mopes whenever she and her girlfriend fight." Seth smiled at me.
"You mope?" Marissa frowned at me. "I thought you just got angry and sarcastic."
"That's Mondays." I nodded at her. "Tuesdays I get frustrated and pissy."
"Wednesdays you mope though?" She smiled at me.
"Which is why our fights only ever last four days if left uninterrupted, less if Anna or Seth give me advice."
"Uh, guys?" Summer stepped in between the two of us, "I think this is time to focus on Oliver rather than your dysfunctional relationship."
"Come on," I patted him on the shoulder, "you know you want to kick my arse at golf."
"I don't know…"
"It'll be fun." Marissa sighed, I turned to face her in time to catch her roll her eyes. "You can ride with Alex and I'll ride with Luke."
"You sure?" I asked her.
"I saw the way you were eyeing up that car," she smiled half heartily, "go, make him feel better." She kissed me on the cheek. "I'll see you in Palm Springs and I'llkick yourarse at golf."
I spun round and smiled broadly at Oliver holding up my hand to catch the keys before jumping over the door of his M6, I waited for him to slide into the seat before seeing if the 0-62mph in 4.8 second rumour was true.
The two and a half hour drive to Palm Springs was spent with Oliver telling me about Natalie's affair, me telling him about Summer's affairs and how Marissa and I were doing. He told me that Natalie was doing nothing for his trust issues, I told him that Summer was just using Seth to avoid being gay and that Marissa was like no one I'd ever known before.
Oliver was weird, he talked to much and was the horrible stereotype of rich people – the type that believed a hundred dollars in the right palm could get you anything or anywhere. But he left room for me to talk to him and gave even more room for him to actually hear what I was saying. He cared about my thoughts, my opinions and not just because I was new, not just because I was his first friend, not just because I was dating one of his friends but because he wanted to be my friend without any ulterior motive.
When we got to Palm Springs, or more specifically his house, I simply sat behind the steering wheel of his 170 hundred dollar car and stared up at the holiday mansion that was twice the size of the Cohens' home. He simply patted me on the shoulder and grabbed his bag from the trunk before walking into his house that looked like it may have once appeared on Cribs.
He'd just finished the grand tour of his million dollar home when he ran down stairs to answer the door bell, I followed him down the stairs, slower so that I could continue marvelling at giant gap between the rich and, well, the lifestyle I'd grown up in.
"Hey, you made it." I smiled at Marissa, kissing her on the cheek once I'd reached the foot of the stairs.
"We tried following you, but it was hard to keep up." Luke sighed putting down one of his coolers filled with beer down in the hallway.
"You're just jealous cause Oliver let me drive his car and not you."
"Hey this-this place is awesome." Luke told Oliver looking round in awe, clearly ignoring my comment.
"Its like something off of Cribs." Marissa nodded.
"That's what I said." I smiled at her. "I think when the other's get here we should all have a giant came of hide and seek and see who gets lost first."
"Where's the fridge I don't want these," Luke pointed at his cooler of beers, "to get skunked."
"Yeah, I'll show you to the kitchen," Oliver smiled at him grabbing one of the handles, "Think you brought enough beer?"
"Everybody keeps saying that." Luke sighed grabbing the other side to be led through the house to a fridge.
"How is he doing?" Marissa asked me, coming closer so she could wrap her arms around me.
"Not too well, Natalie played right into his trust issues." I shrugged, holding her back. "So I did my best to distract him from thinking about her by telling him about the drama that is Seth, Summer and Anna. Hopefully this weekend will help him."
"Hope you guys weren't talking about me when I was gone," Oliver smiled at us almost nervously as he came and found us back in the hallway. "Sorry for taking your girlfriend away from you." He told Marissa after she'd let go of me.
"You better be, Luke made me listen to rap music all the way here." She tried to smile at him as she opened the door the other three all arguing loud enough for us to hear them the second they each stepped out of Summer's car.
"You have to help me." Summer told Marissa and I, grabbing the pair of us and pulling us aside as soon as she'd walked through the open door. "They are the same person."
"Who?" Marissa frowned at her.
"Seth and Anna." I told her. "Anna's not narcissistic and knows more about girls though. Seth's funnier and oddly cute." I told Summer.
"You think Seth is cute?" Marissa frowned at me.
"Not like that, please could you imagine me with Seth?" I smiled at her, she simply nodded as if conceding my point, before turning back to Summer, "You've only just realised they're the same?"
"I've never been with them so much when they're together." Summer shrugged. "This is not helping with the choosing."
"Well you better choose quickly Oliver is about to show us to our rooms." Marissa pointed over her shoulder to Oliver rubbing his hands together and moving suitcases.
"Who would you choose?" Summer asked her.
"Are you seriously asking me who you should pick?" Marissa laughed at her, taking her hand and leading her back towards the others. I heard Summer mutter something about 'help' and 'sympathy' but simply ignored her as I picked up Marissa's suitcase and shoulder my bag with my other arm.
"If you want to follow me guys." Oliver smiled at us all lifting his suitcase and leading us up the stairs. "This first room is Luke's. Summer I didn't know who'd you feel more comfortable sharing with Seth or Anna, but you guys can pick between these two rooms," he pointed between them, nodding forward for Marissa and I to follow him, leaving Seth and Anna simply staring at Anna. "This room's yours." He told us pushing open the door. "Oh, I forgot this is the room with the two twins… Uh, do you wanna switch rooms or we could push em together." He shrugged.
"No its cool. You go get settled I'll sort out the beds." I told him, walking past him and dropping my bag on one of them. "Marissa want to give me a hand?" I asked her, still standing in the doorway.
"Don't you think its odd that we were the only people to get a room with two beds?" She asked me quietly as she came over to help me push them together.
"Don't be daft, he just forgot. With so many rooms wouldn't you?"
"I suppose." She shrugged. "But-"
"Honey, you're over analysing."
"Don't just brush me off." She told me, her hands firmly on her hips. "When you spend so much time with a guy, tell him everything about you and even me. I'm allowed to analyse the fact that we were the only people given single beds."
"You know there are much shorter sentences for accusing me of cheating." I snapped back at her.
"I'm not saying that." She sighed.
"Well what are you saying? Cause from where I'm standing-" I was cut off by another argument stemming from the hallway. I walked out and found Seth and Anna both shouting at each other pausing intermittently to shout at Summer. "Surprised this didn't happen earlier." I told Marissa who had come to stand by my side.
I put my thumb and index finger in my mouth and blew causing a short sharp whistle to get everyone's attention, upon receiving it however I had no idea what to say to them.
"Summer, I think this would be your cue to say something." Marissa told her.
"I, I, I'm going to go." She said, grabbing her purse from one of the rooms and running down the stairs pursued by both Seth and Anna.
"Dude what was all that about?" Luke asked me having watched everything from the other end of the corridor.
"Summer is with both Seth and Anna it would appear." Oliver told him going over to the banister and trying to watch the three of them downstairs.
"Did my lips move as I said that?" I asked Marissa, she simply shook her head before walking back into our room.
"So now what?" I asked the boys.
"Golf anyone?" Oliver shrugged.
"How's this?" I asked Oliver as I swung my club slowly backwards and forwards besides my ball.
"Pretty good." He walked over and stood behind me. "You just, uh, gotta get your hips into it a little more, y'know? You gotta go," he put a hand on each hip and gently swayed me back and forth.
"Careful," I told him, loud enough so that Luke and Marissa could here us waiting on the sidelines, "some might consider this flirting."
"Love you too, Sweetie." Marissa called back to me as I finally went to hit the ball.
"For a beautiful girl that is one ugly swing." Oliver sighed as we watched my ball land just metres away in the artificial lake. I looked back at Marissa and she simply rolled her eyes again before walking over to us.
"Golfs really not your thing." She told me as she pushed her tee into the ground and placing the ball onto of it. I watched as she swung and hit the ball onto the lawn across the water.
"I hope to god you weren't using creative visualisation." I whispered in her ear.
"What you should be worrying about is whether I pictured his head or yours." She whispered back before walking over to the golf cart and dropping her driver back amongst the other clubs she'd borrowed from her dad.
Other I lost the game we drove back to the club, grabbed a bite to eat all the while Marissa and I trading snide comments at each other whilst Oliver and Luke played ignorant to us bickering around them. As soon as we got back I went to find out how Seth and Anna were doing.
"Hey." I smiled at them, leaning on the back of the sofa they were sitting on. "What you up to?"
"Watching The Valley. One of the characters has amnesia." Seth told me, not taking his eyes from the TV.
"She's been taken back into hospital when she unknowingly slept with her brother." Anna elaborated as I took the remote from her hand and pause the program. "Hey!" she complained as she turned round to try and grab the remote back.
"Sorry." I told her, holding the remote out of her reach as I frowned at the screen. "I thought I'd dated the nurse." I clicked 'play' and dropped it back in her hand.
"Now you've dated actresses?" Marissa sighed as she came and stood by me.
"Well not that one," I pointed at the nurse on TV, "if that makes you feel better."
"I'm going to get a glass of water." She told me walking away.
"Can I have a cup of coffee?" I called after her.
"You'll be lucky to get anything tonight." She told me before she stepped out of the room.
"What was all that about?" Seth asked, still staring at The Valley projected onto the wall in front of him. "Trouble in paradise?"
"Nothing that won't blow over." I told him, walking round and sitting between him and Anna. "How you two doing?" They merely shrugged. "That well, huh? I told her to choose before we-"
"You knew?" Anna asked switching the DVD off.
"You didn't think to tell us?" Seth stood up and walked out of the room.
"Things were so much easier then I was screwing up my own relationships." I sighed, leaning my head on the back of the sofa as Anna followed Seth out of the room. A moment later I heard two doors slamming upstairs causing my eyes to snap back open. I reluctantly rose from the sofa and walked into the kitchen to find Marissa but found Oliver with her, hitting his head as if fitting.
"What's going on?" I asked her, rushing to Oliver's side trying to stop him from attacking himself.
"We were, we were talking…" She looked panicked as I held him, holding his arms tightly behind his back.
"Hey, hey." I tried to calm him but he simply faught to get out of my grip.
"I'm – I'm gonna go get some fresh air, I'm gonna go get some stuff for breakfast." He spoke quickly yet spaced his words oddly, as if not sure how to speak.
"Well I'll go with you." I offered, spinning round to follow him out of the room.
"No its – you stay with Marissa. I'll be back soon jus – just…"
"What the hell went on here?" I snapped at her watching Oliver run out into the hall and then out the door. "I've seen Oliver do many things but never this." I continued to shout at her even after he'd slammed the front door behind him.
"I don't know what happened we were talking and then he just started…" she trailed off, clearly no better at finding words to describe Oliver's actions than I was.
"What were you talking about that was so upsetting?"
"You." She said simply, lifting her head to look straight at me.
"For fucks sake." I had to walk out of the room and away from her before I said something to her I knew I would regret.
"You told him everything about me." She snapped back at me following me up the stairs to our room. "Everything. My suicide attempt, my past relationships, my drinking… If you have a problem with my actions you tell me not some spoilt brat you met in therapy."
I looked at her, amazed at what she was saying. I opened my mouth to reply but found there were no words to express not only her hypocrisy but my anger towards her. So I simply shut the door in her face and laid down on one of the beds.
I stared up on the ceiling and just thought about everything that had gone on. I thought that Marissa and I had got past our differences that Luke had highlighted and yet in one day out of Newport showed me that the gap between us was bigger than ever.
I told Oliver about Marissa's experience in Tijuana because he was actually able to explain to me what went one, given that he had been through it himself. I told Oliver about Luke because that was still a fresh issue when I met him in therapy that first day, it explained to him why I was there. But mainly I spoke to him because he listened, without any ulterior motive than to simply be my friend.
There was a tentative knock on the door, I glanced at the clock on the table besides me and realised well over an hour had passed. I rolled off the bed and walked slowly to the door and was met by Marissa holding out a beer.
"Hey." I smiled at her half heartily as I took the drink from her. "Oliver back yet?" she passed me my cell that I'd left downstairs and I found there were no missed calls. "Its nearly been two hours since he left, where's he getting these groceries?" I frowned at the phone before slipping it into my back pocket and going back to laying on the bed.
Marissa pushed the door open wider and followed me, she placed her beer besides mine on the bedside table and laid down besides me, finding her way into my nook.
"Why's he in therapy?"
"Depression, like me, and some substance abuse problems. And we're talking way more than us passing out at Christmas."
"That must be hard."
"I don't think we can ever know what he's going through unless we go through it ourselves." I sighed at her, pulling her closer. "I'm sorry if you think I'm neglecting you. Its just now-"
"I get it." I looked down and found her looking up at me. "I just felt like I could have been naked earlier with the winning lottery numbers written across my breasts and you still wouldn't have noticed me."
"Naked or not, there's no way I couldn't see you." I kissed her forehead as I arranged myself so I could pull my ringing phone out of my pocked. "Its him." I told her as I tried to flip it open one handed. "Hey."
"Alex, something happened." Oliver told me, his voice groggy and slurred, causing me to sit bolt upright.
"What's wrong? What is it?"
"I messed up real bad."
"Where are you? What'd you do?" I asked him as I stood up and grabbed my jacket from the back of the door.
"Oh I just drove back to Newport and took a whole buncha pills, whole bunch." I covered the mouth piece and moved the phone away from my mouth before telling Marissa to call an ambulance, causing Marissa to join me on my feet.
"We're coming over." I told him. "Just, just try and get them out of your system. See you soon." I told him as I flipped my phone shut and slipped it back into my back pocket.
"What happened?"
"He's taken an overdose. You call an ambulance, I'll get Luke's keys and tell the other's that we've got to go." I went out of the room and ran downstairs to find the other three all sat on the sofa watching The Valley.
"You and Marissa make up?" Seth asked me not taking his eyes from the screen.
"Yeah." I answered hurridly. "Luke I need to borrow your truck."
"Sure," he reached into his pockets, pulled out a mass of keys and threw them at me, "you getting some dinner cause I am starved."
"No Marissa and I are headed back to Newport, we have to get Oliver to hospital he took and overdose." I told him running back to the foot of the stairs. "Marissa!" I called out to her as she ran down the stairs.
"I'll drive." Seth told me, taking the keys from my hand and opening the door.
"You sure?" I asked him.
"Luke and Anna are going to hold down fort." He nodded walking down to Luke's truck.
"Ambulance is already there. Safest bets just to head to the hospital." Marissa told pushing me out of the door.
"I'm sorry." I told her.
"That doesn't matter now." She said simply, opening the door for me to hop in besides Seth.
The drive was quiet and seemed to take an eternity. Marissa spent the entire time squeezing my knee as Seth broke all the speed limits to get us back in half the time it should have.
He drove straight into the ambulance bay of the same hospital we'd gone to when Marissa was airlifted out of Tijuana.
"Go." He said simply. "I'll meet you in there."
"Thanks for this." I tried to smile at him, but he simply waved me off as Marissa pulled me out of the truck and into the hospital.
I went straight to the elevator and pressed the button for the Psyche ward.
"Not ER?" Marissa frowned at me.
"No, they took you straight here." I told her, stepping into the elevator. She squeezed my hand tighter as she followed me in and tighter still as the elevator began to rise. "You alright?"
"I just didn't think I'd ever be back here." She told me, breathing deeply.
"Its cool if you want-"
"No." she cut me off as the doors opened. "You need me here." She led me out and over to the nurse's station. "We're looking for Oliver Trask?"
"You related?" The nurse asked. Marissa simply looked at me before nodding. "A doctor will be with you momentarily."
She led me over to the chairs and continued squeezing my hands for the eternity we were made to wait for the doctor.
"One of you Miss Trask?" I looked up to find a tired doctor, in scrubs and a white coat looking down at us.
"I am." Marissa said quickly as we both rose from our seats. "My brother going to be okay?" She lied easily.
"We had to sedate him to get him into the ambulance. The paramedics found four empty pill bottles, all of them strong pain killers. However, when we tested for toxins his blood came back clean."
"What does that mean?" I asked the doctor.
"He didn't take anything." He said before turning back to Marissa. "We want to hold you're brother for a night-"
How he finished that sentence though I don't know, I had run to the stairwell and was out of the hall way. I ran down the flights of stairs and kept running until the I had put as much distance between me and Oliver as I could.
The one person in my life I thought I could trust had told me the worst kind of lie.
NEXT: The Aftermath - fluffyness, lots. Promise.
Read and review people - it makes me happy. Thank you, Circus.
