NOTE: Robbie's time! We know it's been a short time since the perspective switch, but it's going to be best to catch Robbie up before Kendall's next chapter.
Content warning: Blood and mentions of abuse.
Pern and I sat there on the cold ground in the alleyway as Sophie and Kendall acted like I wasn't even there.
Fuck this. I'm not going to just sit here and be ignored like that.
Slowly, I got up and my body felt as tired as my mind was.
The only thing that makes this sound worse is that everything we were worried about, happened because of us.
Everything we were worried about and more. What's even going to happen with Kendall and us now? Best case, she just minds her business.
And the worst case?
No clue, because after Kendall dumping all that on us and Sophie taking her side We really have no clue what to do from here.
…Forget it. I'm too tired right now and just want to get home and sleep.
We'll deal with this later then.
Pern and I walked to the end of the alleyway and looked back for a moment. Neither one of them even glanced my way and acted like I wasn't leaving out of the blue.
We can't let this get us down. Let's go home.
Too tired to argue, I walked down the sidewalk. Side by side with Pern as we made our way home when my phone went off.
From Holly:
8:21 PM: What the fuck!? You promised you'd only use the spray if she attacked you! And what's this about you beating her up!?
Sophie couldn't even wait until tomorrow to tell her?
It's not a surprise given how she's been acting this entire time.
Did she even tell Holly that she started to beat up my friends?
It doesn't matter if she did or not. We can make sure she understands at school. Right now we're too tired to deal with this crap, so let this go for now.
I already felt defeated after everything, so what's one more thing? I put my phone away and my pace slowed as I kept walking home.
I don't know what I'm hating more about tomorrow. Sophie and Holly being pissed at me, or being near Kendall after all that.
Don't forget Trish and Susie.
And Zach.
Are we really going to even think about keeping in contact with him after what Kendall told us? We hate her as much as the next person, but we know they knew each other. And it's safe to say everything she said about him was true. At least we can't imagine any of it being a lie. She's a good actor, but that was a whole other level.
We walked together as Pern tried to talk our mind through everything, but it didn't seem like it was doing any good. We were still just as stuck, so I picked up my pace to get home faster and maybe get the day done with. Maybe ten minutes of walking later, we made it to our house. I walked up the driveway, but Pern appeared in front of me.
If Mr. June knows what happened, then Dad probably knows too.
He was right, and crap just kept piling up.
Maybe he'd be proud I stood up to Kendall?
One of Pern's vines patted my front pocket with the spray bottle.
With pepper spray.
Maybe I can sneak by and get to my room and he'll forget about it in the morning.
Pern wrapped his vine around my shoulder.
It's good we still have a sense of humor, but that's not going to work. Even if we can get past Dad, Emily's like a bloodhound.
Pern nudged my cheek with his bulb and put a smile on my face a smile broke through for a few seconds.
If she's awake, then the moment we walk in, an alarm will go off in her head that we're home.
Yeah, you're right.
I was about to go inside, when a car pulled up into our driveway and stopped not far away from me. The light blinded me for a moment before it turned off.
We've never seen that car in our life.
Someone really tall with long, perfectly straight hair stepped out and looked at me. "Excuse me, but is this 2518 Neuport Lane?"
Maybe one of Mom's or Dad's friends?
Must be.
"Yeah. Who are you?"
"I'm Kendall's sister. I talked to your dad just a bit ago, and he asked us to come over to talk about what's been happening between you and her."
Oh come on!
It's fine. Kendall might not be with her.
With our luck today? I doubt it.
"She's with you?"
"Yeah. I heard she was bullying you and I want to find out what happened."
God damn it! At least give me the night to relax!
Even when things end up the way they did, Kendall's still finding ways to drain us. But we're missing something here. Kendall has a sister, and she looks even stronger than Kendall.
I don't care. I just want tonight to end.
Yeah, but this is the perfect chance to tell her sister everything she did to us.
And for her to tell Dad everything I did to Kendall.
Pern shifted down the pavement towards Kendall's sister and looked her over.
Maybe. Kendall's been going on for a while about how bad she feels. Her trying to tell our dad what she did is just going to make things worse between us, and she has to know that we can say whatever we want and Dad would probably believe us. That's not even counting if this Emma person is decent, then maybe she'd believe it as well.
Still don't care. I'm not doing this right now.
"I've had to deal with enough crap." I walked a bit closer to her. "Please leave."
She shut the door and walked up to me. It didn't matter how intimidating Kendall was, because right now, her sister beat her out between her size and posture. And thanks to her short sleeve shirt, her almost scary defined muscles put Kendall's to shame. Not that Kendall had super defined muscles in the first place. "I also want to know what you were planning to do to my sister in that alleyway."
The back door opened, but no one got out.
The way she was looking at me it looked like she could be Kendall 2.0. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that this girl could be just as fucked as Kendall.
Hold up. Just because she's related to her doesn't mean she's going to be just as much of a bitch. Even if it's terrible timing, she did come over here because she wanted to talk to us about Kendall bullying us. That's basically what we've been threatening her with this entire time. So if Kendall freaked out about it, then it's doubtful that this girl would be as bad as Kendall. Even if she is pretty scary right now.
I took a deep breath in as I stared back at her.
I know you're right, but I still can't get this feeling out of my head that she's just another bully.
In the middle of our talk, the front door opened and I heard Dad. "You guys can come in." He looked further out to look at me. "Robbie, are you out there?" I didn't bother saying anything as I just decided to walk past dad to get inside. "Stay out here. I want to talk to you," he said as I walked by.
Barely got my foot into the door and he already started.
Pern and I walked a bit further into the living room, turned around and leaned up against the wall. It wasn't long before Kendall and Emma walked in, but something was off. Kendall was holding her shoulder as our eyes met. A second later, and Dad's walking her upstairs, which left me with Emma. So I didn't waste any time. I turned to her, "I want you and Kendall out of here. I'm tired and I've had to deal with enough crap today."
"I know it's been a busy night, so we won't stay long. But your dad and I need to talk to you two about what's been going on. And I want you to know that whatever my sister's been doing to you is not okay."
At the very least tell her to talk to us later about it.
"If you want to talk about it, then do it later."
"Sorry, but I want this to be over with as fast as possible as well. And I still haven't heard what you were planning to do to Kendall in that alleyway with 4 other people."
"Nothing was going to happen. I just wanted to talk to her, but she freaked out."
Emma crossed her arms, "What do you mean freaked out?"
"I'm not going to go over everything again. I'm done with all this bullshit and I want you and Kendall gone."
"Not until I heard about what you did tonight," Dad said as he walked down the stairs. "I know what Kendall's been doing to you, but I got a call from Emma about you using pepper spray on her. We'll talk when Kendall gets down here." He walked past me and sat at the kitchen table, and Emma joined him.
"Where's Mom and Emily?" I asked, giving up on any hope that I could get them to leave tonight before I had to tell them everything again.
"Emily's in bed and Mom's at the store. She just left a bit before you got here, so she'll probably still be gone when we get done."
"Alright." I sat down next to Dad to wait for Kendall to finish using the bathroom. They talked about nothing for a bit and I was too tired to pay attention. Eventually, Emma got up and walked upstairs.
"She seems nice at least," Dad said.
Not like we were paying attention.
"Sure. I just want them gone though."
"I know, but It's time I found out what's going on between you two."
"Can't we do this tomorrow or something?" I asked as I leaned down on the table.
"I think it's best we get this done with now."
Barely even a minute and Emma came back down. "Sorry about that. I think she'll be ready soon."
"Is this something that happened during the fight?" Dad asked.
"No. It's nothing. She just got cut at some point. But it was after the fight."
Huh? Did something happen?
Not sure. Ask them.
"Is something going on?"
"Kendall's up there washing up," Dad said, "She cut herself on something."
Cut herself? She was grabbing her arm, but I know she wasn't bleeding. At least she was only bleeding a little from the lip during the fight, but that's it.
Pern settled down next to Emma.
Whatever happened we can find out later, but this would be a good chance to ask about Kendall.
…
"Emma," I said, getting both of their attention. "What's Kendall like at home?"
She rubbed her forehead with her thumb. "She's really private so I don't want to say too much. But she spends a lot of time working on her wood projects. Making furniture and all that, and when she's not doing that, then I guess she's spending time with me. We mess around and banter a lot of the time like normal siblings I guess. But I know she used to get into a lot of fights at school. That's why I want to find out what's been going on between you two, because as much as I want to believe her that nothing's going on, I just can't."
Kendall joking around with someone all friendly like? We guess even Kendall needs someone like that.
Yeah, but what about all that stuff with her dad?
"What about your parents?"
"They're fine," Emma said with a smile, "Not much to say about them."
"What about your dad?" I asked, and that smile disappeared on the spot.
"Working far away. It's not really a big deal though."
So he's out of the picture at least.
Pern paused and hovered his bulb next to Emma.
Out of the picture, but she said it was no big deal.
Kendall broke down crying when she told us. Her sister wouldn't just let us know something like that.
Or it really is no big deal and Kendall's more manipulative than we thought? Ask her how good of a liar Kendall is. We know she's good, but we only see her when she's at school.
"...How good of a liar is Kendall?"
She leaned forward, "What makes you ask?"
"Because she told me some stuff and I want to be sure it's true."
Her face didn't change much from that deadpan look, but it felt like the mood shifted entirely to something way more serious. "What stuff?"
"About what happened to her at home."
She stared at me for a weirdly long time before she said anything. "As I said. Kendall's really private. If you want to know about her, then you're going to need to ask her yourself, because I'm not going to share more than what I know she's comfortable with me sharing."
See? She doesn't want to talk about her dad and the tone completely changed as well. It fits.
Hmm. Guess it's going to take some time before we stop being suspicious of her. Not surprising, but alright. We'll believe her.
A silence followed by the upstairs door opening, and Kendall coming down. She walked up to me and said 'hi' like nothing happened, and that's when I saw her sleeve when she sat next to Emma. It was covered in blood, and I know for sure I didn't do that.
She might have gotten into a fight with Sophie.
Are you kidding me? They were all buddy buddy at the end.
Well we know Sophie's dad didn't do it, so that leaves Emma.
…
Her dad was already fucked, so why can't her sister be?
So Kendall being so afraid of her family finding out she's bullying...
Emma being abusive would explain that.
Fucking hell…But why does she care so much about what we were going to do to her?
We can't pretend to understand what's going on in her family's head to do this kinda stuff, so questioning it is a waste of time. For now, we should assume that Emma's the one that made her bleed like that.
God, Kendall's life is messed up…
It seems so.
With a deep breath, we got ready for everything to turn to shit as all four of us sat at the table.
