“Jesus Christ, Kat, go find someone else to bother, will you?” Melissa turned away. “Bye guys, I’ll see you tomorrow or something. Have fun. If you want, call me when you get home, or you can wait till after you’ve slept some,” she told Renee.
“I’ll call when I get in. I think you need to unload on someone.”
“Oh yeah.”
“Melissa.”
“Yes, Josh?”
“Goodnight. Take care,” he leaned in and kissed her softly on the cheek, allowing his lips to linger on her skin for a moment longer than necessary. He watched her walk away.
“So you’re going up to the falls?” Kat appeared at his elbow, and just as suddenly, Melissa was back by his side.
“So help me God, Kat, you better stay away from him.”
“Oh, you must’ve thought I was talking to you. Well excuse me, I have no concern for your future whereabouts.”
“I swear I will bash that face of yours right in if you touch him,” Melissa said through clenched teeth.
“And if he touches me?”
An evil laugh JC had never heard before came from Melissa’s mouth. “Don’t kid yourself, Kat.”
“Who’s kidding?”
Melissa now seized Kat’s arm and pulled her a few feet away.
“Ew, get your hands off me,” Kat jerked free.
“Look,” Melissa began. “I already went through this shit before. Didn’t you do enough damage last time? My God, he was my best friend until you came along. All your little lies, and little stories. Fuck it, I’m begging you, please leave JC alone. Please. You had your fun killing one relationship. Just let this one be. It’s hard enough without you meddling in it. Just...please.”
“Fine. There’s plenty of others who want a piece of this.”
“Thank you,” Melissa returned to Lance, and they walked to the car together.
Not a second after Melissa was gone, Kat turned back to JC, “So, you never answered my question. Going to the falls?”
“Lance, thanks for setting this whole thing up. I mean, it did end up in a total disaster, but it started off great. It was so good to see everyone again.”
“Especially JC?”
“Well, yeah.”
“So you guys had another falling out?”
“You could say that.”
“What about?”
Melissa shook her head. “It’s just a big mess.”
“I see. And what was that with that chick?”
A groan. “An even bigger mess.”
“O-kay. So if I see this right, you don’t wanna talk about it.”
“Good thinking.”
“Okay. I’ll be shutting up now.”
The limo was filled with silence as the driver navigated the unfamiliar streets to Melissa’s apartment.
“Well, my friend, here we are,” Lance announced shortly. “You gonna be okay?”
Melissa’s eyes scanned the parking lot before answering. When she didn’t see Michael’s car, she replied, “Yeah, I’ll be fine.”
“Alrighty. You know where we’ll be if you change your mind. You have all our numbers,” Lance began the ascent with Melissa to her apartment.
“Lance, buddy, I’m tired, I’m upset, and I’ve been to enough after-parties to know it’s nothing but a big headache. And I’ve been to the falls about nine hundred thousand times in my life. I live here, remember?” she neglected to add that Niagara Falls was where she’d first met JC. She wondered if he remembered that.
“Okay then. Have a good night,” Lance closed the door behind him and went back to the limo.
Melissa slipped out of her dress and pulled on a pair of jeans and a heather gray muscle shirt, removed all her jewelry, and gave her head a good shake, loosening her curls.
Reaching for the TV remote as she cut through the living room, Melissa flicked on the TV while disappearing into the kitchen. She pulled a 2-liter of Sprite from the refrigerator and a small box of Tostino’s pizza rolls. Turning to oven on, she poured the fifteen tiny pizza rolls onto a cookie sheet and slid it in the oven. She turned the timer to ten minutes and retreated to the TV. Three Men & A Baby was on, and she settled in to watch it. By the end of the movie and two more boxes of Tostino’s later, Melissa had finished off the entire bottle of Sprite, and she couldn’t shake the feeling something was wrong.
I have to go back, she told herself. Josh is in trouble. I have to get to the falls. She turned off the TV, tossed her plate in the sink, grabbed her purse from its hook, and burst through the door, practically floating down the stairs and out to her car. She took off, speeding for Niagara Falls.
“Just one more,” Kat Neche urged JC.
“I’ve already done, like, three,” he fought.
“So what difference is one more gonna make?”
JC shrugged and tossed back what was actually his sixth shot of tequila that night.
“Don’t you feel better now?” Kat asked.
“Oh...oh yeah,” JC answered, just seconds before tumbling to the floor. People nearby stepped out of the way, but didn’t say or do anything else. Most of them were pretty drunk themselves.
The banquet room of the Sheraton Inn was crowded with people from the Lancaster High School prom. A bunch of guys had paid off some older patrons to buy them liquor from the bar. Kat had managed to get in on this, obtaining a bottle of tequila, which she had been pumping into JC, except for one shot she’d had herself.
Now she helped JC stand, and walked him a short ways down the hall to the room she’d gotten. She let him drop onto the bed, turning on the bedside lamp. JC stirred, groaning. Kat was instantly on the bed beside him, kissing his neck, letting her hand trail down his chest, unbuttoning his shirt along the way.
“What...what are you doing?” JC asked faintly. He was not immune to a woman’s touch, and he felt his lower region twitch to life.
“Only what you want,” Kat responded teasingly.
“No...Melissa...”
“Is not here,” Kat finished sharply, sitting up. Then she giggled nervously. “I mean, I’m here for you now.”
“But--”
“Shh. Don’t fight it.” Kat slid her body over his, still kissing the base of his throat, over his collarbone, down his chest, flicking her tongue against the skin of his stomach.
JC groaned, “No,” he reached to push her away.
She slapped at his hands. She started to unbutton and unzip his pants, making a point of brushing against him whenever possible. When she had him exposed, she gently massaged him with her hands. Then Kat took him in her mouth, smiling to herself when JC cried out in pleasure mixed with agony, gripping the pillow under his neck.
“Where is he?” Melissa grabbed the front of Chris’s shirt, her eyes frantic.
“Hey hey hey, careful. Where is who?”
“Who else?”
“JC? I don’t know, I haven’t seen him in awhile,” Chris pulled his shirt from Melissa’s grasp. He didn’t want to tell her he’d seen Kat all over JC, but he didn’t want to leave her in the dark either. “You probably wouldn’t want to see him anyway. He’s a little sloppy,” he mimicked someone drinking.
“Oh no,” Melissa moaned. Then her eyes flashed. “Is he with Kat? Please tell me he’s not with Kat. Oh God, Chris, he’s with her, isn’t he?”
“I, uh...don’t know who he’s with.”
“Shit, he is. I have to find him,” Melissa cried and looked for someone else who would know.
“Mmm, I bet she could never do you like that,” Kat cooed, licking her lips, taking a sip of tequila.
“For your information, we’ve--”
“It doesn’t matter. She doesn’t matter right now. You know she’s a phony.”
“She--”
“She’s only marrying that guy for his money. He’s already the fourth highest paid on the team, and he’s the future star.”
“You’re wrong.”
“Am I? Has she ever stopped anything with you? Why not? Because she’s using you for the sex. All she wants from him is his money, and nothing else.”
JC sat up. “How do you know we have sex?”
Kat snickered. “You just told me.”
Lying back down, JC sighed loudly. “Why do you hate Melissa so much?”
“Why? You want to know why?” Kat hurled the now empty bottle at the wall, where it shattered. “Because I wanted Brandon. Since seventh grade I wanted him. Then I get to high school and I find out he has this best friend. Who happens to be a girl. Who happened to be Melissa Mogavero. And Brandon isn’t interested in having a girlfriend during school, ‘cause he’s involved with sports, and the only girl he allowed close to him was her. What guy passes up a girlfriend, but has a best friend who is a girl? If you ask me, she was fucking him all along, but she had a boyfriend of course. That hockey player. Hell, she’s probably still fucking him now...besides you. But where did that leave me? Nowhere. But it’s alright now, ‘cause I fixed that problem with me and Brandon.” Now Kat smiled evilly. “Just like I’ll fix this.”
JC jumped when he felt Kat’s hands close around him again. He closed his eyes in agony, beating himself up in his mind. He was frustrated, mentally and physically, and Kat, an attractive girl, was doing a good job of relieving the latter part. At the same time, he knew from the confrontation earlier that this was a girl who had hurt Melissa, and he was betraying her in every way possible. But now all thoughts flew from his brain when he felt the warmth and moistness of Kat’s mouth and he moaned softly.
Melissa tore blindly down the hall. A boy had told her he’d seen Kat go into one of these rooms. The boy was wasted, but he was pretty sure Kat had someone else with her. Stopping for a second to take a breath, Melissa heard the unmistakable cry of JC’s. She’d heard that cry before. In fact, she'd heard it earlier that night, echoing off the walls of the bathroom.
It came from the room with the open door, Melissa ran to it, the worst possibilities invading her thoughts. She stopped short when she saw JC lying on the bed, gripping the pillow and sheets in clenched fists, eyes squeezed shut, and Kat at the foot of the bed, doing what she was made famous at Lancaster High School for.
Melissa didn’t even know she had moved until she found herself yanking Kat away by her hair.
“I’ll kill you! I’ll bust your mouth open so wide you’ll be able to service everyone at a time!” she screamed hysterically.
“Get the fuck away from me, you psycho!”
“You get the fuck away from him! I will not let you mess up another one of my relationships! Just stay away!”
“It doesn’t look like I’m the one who messed up! You did that yourself!” Kat replied.
“You little bitch! I hate you!” Melissa threw a right hook at Kat’s face, not caring where or whether it landed. “I can not believe you had the nerve to just go ahead and make your move. Shit, I even begged your ass not to, and what do you do? Oh my God, I hate you!”
JC watched the two girls fight in front of him and had a drunken thought. “Hey!” he called out. Both girls stopped and looked at him. “You know what would be sweet? If you two got it on right now.”
Melissa’s chin hit the floor. “WHAT?! You’re already on my shit list. And then for you to screw around with her of all people. And let me tell you something you might find sweet. She’s only seventeen!” she watched as JC’s twenty-one year old jaw dropped and took a step toward the door. “My God, JC, I loved you. I loved you even when I was supposed to love someone else. And now you go and do this,” she fled from the room in tears, leaving JC with the painful realization that she had never called him JC to his face. He’d always been one of the few close friends who still called him Josh, maintaining that intimate personal level of friendship.
Melissa ran right smack into Chris’s chest and would have fallen backwards if he hadn’t reached out quickly to grab her by the shoulders.
“Melissa? What’s wrong?”
“JC...he’s...oh God...”
“What? Melissa what? What is it? Talk to me.”
“He was....he was with her.”
“Huh?” Chris was perplexed.
Just then, JC stumbled his way out into the hall. His shirt remained open and untucked. His hair was flat, and the top button of his pants was still undone. “Oh my God, Melissa, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know what I was --”
Chris jumped in before another fight could ensue. “JC, you’re tanked. Don’t even try to make intelligent conversation now. What’s done is done. You can sort this out in the morning,” Chris hugged Melissa against himself when she posed a threat to struggle away. “I’m serious. Both of you. You’re pissed,” he said to Melissa, and to JC, “you’re wasted, and I’m tired. If I play referee for this I’ll let her draw blood. Just let it go. Wait till tomorrow.” He focused again on Melissa. “How did you get here?”
She sniffled. “I drove.”
“Well, let’s get you home. I’ll drive, and Carl can follow us,” he led Melissa away.
JC watched in awe as Melissa walked away without a second glance at him. Suddenly he felt a hand slither up his back and an arm snake around his waist.
“Alone again at last,” a voice hissed in his ear. The arm dropped down and the hand began to massage him through his pants.
With a grunt of disgust, JC shook Kat off and walked away.