“And here I thought Taylor was joking. But it always gets the best of you.” She told Ari off.
“I’m not perfect, but this doesn’t change the fact that you’re my best friend and—” Ari wavered for a moment, so Amelia got up in her face.
“And what? You just broke up with Brian and now you’re hooking up with Will, congratulations! Do you want a cookie? Maybe from June? You disgust me.” Amelia curled her upper lip in disgust.
“Easy, okay?” ordered Will.Great, and now you’re defending them. I’d had enough. I turned around. I just wanted to remove myself from this scene. It had nothing to do with me anymore.
“Hey, June, why don’t we go somewhere to talk alone?” William grazed my shoulder. The contact was enough to make me twitch.
“There’s nothing to say.”
I avoided his gaze, but I soon realized that the most enraged person right now was Amelia, who kept fighting with Ari.
“June’s there, why don’t you apologize to her? Why the fuck are you explaining yourself to me?” she yelled at her friend, whose eyes were welling with tears.
Will and I turned to look at them while James kept his gaze lowered.
Ari was shaking, and it was obvious that that she was about to burst and let everything out. She couldn’t hold it in anymore. She was about to tell Amelia.
“Yes, I cheated on your brother, and I’m sorry.”
Amelia raised both her arms incredulously.
“I knew it! It was when you went to the beach last summer and met that moron skateboarding? Is that what you’re telling me?”
It was getting so loud that Poppy’s neighbors were participating in the discussion.
“James.” Ari pulled him into the conversation, and it didn’t take Amelia long to put the pieces together.
“Are you telling me that that time at Tiff’s wasn’t the only time?”
“I’m sorry, Amelia. Really,” continued Ari, now on the verge of tears.
“You promised me. I lied to my brother because of you. I thought it was a one-night thing. I wonder why I surround myself with shitty people!” yelled Amelia, looking at James.
“Explain what the fuck I did to you? I banged your best friend, so what? Do you want to have an issue with me because of that?” he asked.
“You fuck everyone! You know that’s not why I have an issue with you,” breathed Amelia, teary-eyed. But as soon as James stood up to get in front of her, a silence fell that made all the other fights seem like nothing.
“What the fuck do you want from me?” he demanded.
“For you to leave me alone. Me, Brian, my friends, my family.”
“Your family? Really?”
“Guys.”
Blaze’s soothing voice cut through the tense atmosphere. But nobody paid attention to him.
“Brian doesn’t deserve it,” affirmed Amelia. But James didn’t seem remotely affected by her words.
“No, of course not. Brian is the best brother in the world, and I’m the cause of your problems, right?”
“Grow up, James. The world doesn’t revolve around you!” she said.
“Of course not, it revolves around the princess and that dick who doesn’t have the balls to come and thank me.”
“All right, I’d say that’s enough for tonight.”
