All the guys drank, but almost choked on their sip when Chloe and Jane also drank.
“What?”
“Hell yes!”
“We need details.”
They all spoke at once, but Chloe just mimed zipping her lips.
“Never have I ever fantasized about someone sitting here,” Josh took his turn.
When Jane didn’t lift her cup, Gwen joked, “Jane, make sure you drink.” She laughed, nodding her head pointedly toward Kevin and nudged my shoulder. I was falling head first into being drunk and couldn’t help myself from snorting. Jane glared at me as she drank from her cup. Apparently, she didn’t find it as funny.
The shift of her pinched lips to a mean smirk should have warned me that something bad was about to happen, yet I was still thrown when she spoke, staring straight at me.
“Never have I ever fantasized or taken part in being forced into sex and being spanked.” She paused letting the silence settle around us. “Sounds kind of like rape, doesn’t it?” No one drank. “Shouldn’t you be drinking Ana? I mean, that’s what you confessed at girls’ night. That you like it rough, right? You even said you wanted to be attacked.” She elaborated to make sure everyone got it.
It was like a bucket of cold water had been dumped on me, which sobered me up fast. My skin felt too tight, like it was squeezing me, waiting for me to burst. My heart pounded so hard, it was about the only thing I could hear. Especially, since no one else was talking. “I didn’t say that—”
“At girls’ night, you went on and on about how you like it rough. Wanted to be pinned down by a stranger and fucked like a whore.”
I hadn’t said that. I’d been drunk, but I never, ever would have said that.
“Jane, what happens at girls’ night, stays at girls’ night. It’s Girl Code,” Gwen said, warning her.
“You’re exaggerating.” I spoke over Gwen, defending myself, but embarrassed tears filled my eyes.
“Maybe she was talking about someone here,” Josh said, slurring.
“I did see her stumble out of the theater’s backstage with our boy Kevin once,” Isaac chimed in, obviously thinking it was all a big joke.
“What? No!” Kevin denied vehemently, chiming in for the first time.
“What?” My head jerked to his, shocked at his complete denial. We’d never told anyone we were together, but we’d never outright denied it either. I knew he didn’t want people to know about what he and I did, but to what extent? I never thought he would react so strongly to someone figuring it out. What the hell was going on? My breaths stuttered out of my chest, feeling the first pangs of abandonment. But he wouldn’t. Kevin was my best friend. He wouldn’t abandon me.
“Oh man,” Sean laughed. “You into forcing girls? I know it’s got to be hard for your ugly mug to get laid, but damn.”
They all thought it was a joke and began chiming in. The moment began to snowball and pick up speed until it crashed like an avalanche on top of me.
“No, I would never,” Kevin denied again, getting angry.
“Next thing you know, he’ll be caught having a threesome like Prince, and his dad will shit a brick and lose his job or something,” Isaac joked, nudging Sean.
“Hey, Jane could join in. She’d probably do anything to get a shot at Kevin,” Isaac said. “Chloe, you ever had a threesome?” He turned to her and waggled his eyebrows. She just flipped him the bird.
“Fuck off,” Jane growled. “I’m not some freak like Ana. No wonder Kevin didn’t want to sleep with me,” she said, sneering.
“Shut. Up.” Kevin’s anger drew everyone’s attention back to him. “I’m not into that. Ana and I are friends, and I would never be into anything like that. I’m not some freak.” His words hit me like a blow to the chest from a sledgehammer. But he wasn’t done. “That’s disgusting.”
Disgusting. Disgusting. Disgusting.
It played in my head like a hammer hitting a nail, rattling the cruel words through my body. Everything in me shut down. I felt numb and hollow, yet in so much pain at the same time. I watched his profile as he stared down into his cup like it could save him. My best friend had called me disgusting. The person who stood by me for almost three years through thick and thin, the person I was going to take off on a new adventure with refused to meet my eyes. Refused to stand up for me—stand up for us. I knew he was scared of something getting out because of how they would see him and what it could do to his father. But he was mean and cruel and cutting with his denial.
And I was done.
Done with it all. I couldn’t sit there anymore and even bother to defend myself. Who cared? I’d just lost the most important person because he’d denied me in front of everyone. He was wrong. We weren’t just friends. We were nothing.