So imagine my surprise to see him, his parents and sisters, along with Liz’s parents and Hailey, all sitting in our living room when we get home.
“Mom?” Liz questions, her confusion apparent.
She releases my hand and goes over to where her mom and Hailey are sitting on the couch. Hailey and Liz start talking in hushed voices to each other. Julien joins me and we just stand at the entrance of the room not knowing what to do. Our parents, however, know exactly what they’re doing.
“In light of everything that happened and everything we learned about last night,” my mom begins, “we thought it best for all of us to sit down and talk.”
“Talk about what?” I ask.
“Drinking, drugs, and sex to be more specific,” my dad says. “Boys, please have a seat.” We do as he asks, knowing now is not the time to argue.
Ryder’s and Liz’s parents stand up to join my parents, so they are all facing us, serious expressions plastered across their worried faces. I take a seat next to Liz on the sofa, while Ryder and Julien sit on the floor in front of the couch, and Brea and Jamie occupy the armchairs on either side of us. I reach over to take Liz’s hand, and at first, she pulls away but then stops. Her unsure reaction to my touch breaks my heart all over again.
The room grows tense as we wait. Everyone looks to my mom.
“I think it’s safe to say that we are all very disappointed in you.”
Jamie is the first one of us kids to speak up. “Hey! Wait a minute! I didn’t do anything. I was at work.”
“For brevity’s sake,” Faith responds to her oldest daughter, “we will be using the ‘royal we.’ So regardless if you were at the party last night or not, we feel that what we discuss today is important for all of you to hear.” Faith motions for my mom to continue.
“Like I said, we are all disappointed. To find out our children are attending parties where there’s underage drinking and drugs, concerns us greatly. It also scares the hell out us. Look what happened,” she aims her silver gaze directly at me. “We are so thankful that you are alright, but things could have turned out much, much differently.”
Liz’s mom’s breath hitches. It could have been Liz that got slipped the date-rape drug.
Liz notices her mom tear up and immediately gets up to go to her. Hailey follows and they form a tight circle, arms around each other. Liz’s dad is out of town again, and my guilt skyrockets a thousand-fold knowing Ann is having to deal with this all on her own without her husband here to lend support.
Brea starts crying watching them, so Faith goes over to her youngest daughter to comfort her. Once everyone has settled back down, our parents talk to us. Over the next two hours, we have a serious discussion about what our parents expect from us, including the always dreaded sex talk. They ask us questions about Fallon’s party, and talk to us about the dangers of underage drinking and drug use. Ann and Faith have a conversation with their daughters about date rape.
Needless to say, these were two of the most excruciating hours of my life, not because of what our parents said, but because, for the first time in my life, I broke my parents’ trust in me. I seem to be breaking people's trust a lot lately. Not only do I need to rebuild trust with my parents, I need to rebuild it with Liz. I’m still working on it with Ryder.
It took a few months for our parents to ease up on their worry whenever we left the house to go out. Once again, I was grounded, this time for an entire month. I didn’t mind. Liz and I took that time to focus on mending our relationship. The months following the party fiasco flew by and before we knew it, another school year had ended. Ryder was right. Fallon’s threats worked and no charges were brought up against us for the fight. No other videos were posted either, and the one that did pop up was taken down and disappeared within a day after it had been posted.
Our families did take the trip to Hawaii for summer vacation and it was fucking awesome, my favorite time being when Liz and I stayed out all night and I fucked her to a screaming orgasm on the black sand beach under a full moon. Best night ever. It was her fault for wearing that damn bikini again. Things between all of us were good, better than good actually. Our unit was tight, our friendships were solid. We went into our senior year looking ahead to the future, planning to spend it together. I would later regret those words.
Chapter 16
Senior year
Elizabeth
It’s our first day of our senior year and I’m sitting on Julien’s bed waiting for Jayson to get out of the shower. I still can’t believe that I let them convince me to wake up an hour earlier so we could grab breakfast before school. Julien is video chatting with Elijah, and I am propped back against his headboard reading on my tablet. I swear, Jayson’s worse than a girl when it comes to getting ready. He takes for-freaking-ever, whereas I am ready in about fifteen minutes. The irony is not lost on me. Julien taps my shoulder to get my attention.
“Yeah, we’re getting ready to leave in a few,” he tells Elijah and turns his phone toward me. “Say hi and bye to E, Liz.”
Elijah’s grinning face greets me on the screen. “Good morning, Liz! I still can’t believe they were able to get you up this early,” he chuckles.
I groan and put down my tablet so I can hold Julien’s phone. “Hey handsome. Yep, it’s a miracle upon miracles. They want to make this a regular thing for our senior year.” I roll my eyes. “Looks like my mornings will be hijacked the entire year now. But I can guarantee that I will make them pay up by buying me a coffee and a cinnamon scone. I can’t turn down free breakfast. Hey, are you coming with?”
“Nope. It would take too long to drive there and back. Would be easier if we all went to the same school.”
Julien and I hear the shower turn off in the adjacent bathroom and Julien plops down beside me so that both of us can be seen on the video screen. “Babe, I got to go,” he tells Elijah. “Love you.”
“Love you too, J. And you too, Liz,” he adds when I pout. Julien hits the button to shut his phone down.
“God, you two are so cute,” I tease.
He kisses me on the nose and pops up off the bed as Jayson enters, a towel around his waist and steam billowing up behind him from the bathroom. I take a moment to ogle the hell out of his gorgeous body while a flushed heat spreads up my limbs and I bite my lower lip.
