South got up quickly and ran around to her friend. Wrapping her arms around Morgan and kissing the top of her head, she whispered, “Well yeah. Of course you did.”
Morgan turned her face up, “What do you mean?” She wiped her eyes with her sleeve.
“I mean, it has only been a matter of time with you two. The dork has been in love with you for years.”
She shook her head vigorously, “No he hasn’t. He isn’t in love with me.”
“Who are you trying to kid?” South knelt down next to her friend, “North, honey! Why do you think I never liked him?”
“You said he was competition.”
“Yeah exactly. I don’t like him because he’s the one person there is no way for me to out do for your attention. He’s the one person I will never be able to top, because since we were ten years old, he’s been the only guy you have ever, or will ever love.”
Morgan rolled her eyes, “Drama much? I haven’t loved him since I was ten. He hasn’t loved me that long. I keep telling you, he isn’t in love with me. I had to come here, because I had to get it out of my system.”
South threw her head back and laughed hysterically, “Do you think love is something you can change your mind about? It’s not something you can turn off.”
“I have no choice. I have almost a year to get over it.”
“Morgan! You can’t just forget about this. Not without actually talking to him.”
“Oh hell no! I’m not about to have that conversation with him.”
“When I talked to you the night he left for the tour, you told me he said something about it being a big deal, and he said it wasn’t a mistake.”
“We both said a lot of things. He just freaked out and was worried that our friendship is in trouble. He would have said anything to keep me from moving here.”
“And why wouldn’t he want you to move here?”
“Because then I can’t be at his house every time he wants me to be. Because I won’t be around to scare off the teen aged girls climbing all over him every time he goes to the mall.”
South stood up suddenly, throwing her hands in the air, “I swear to God Morgan, you are out of your mind! I may not like Justin, but I know he’s didn’t use you for cheap thrills and I know he doesn’t use you to scare anyone and the reason he likes you to come over is because he likes you to come over!”
Morgan sighed, “This conversation is pointless. It’s never gonna happen.”
“Only because you won’t let it.”
“We really need to drop this.”
“I swear to God, I’m going to bash his head in if he doesn’t stop ranting.”
“He’s just moody this week. Ignore him.”
“I can’t ignore him. He’s constantly in my face.”
“Then climb in your bunk and take a nap.”
“Sweetpea, he’s pissing me off. When we stop, I’m getting on Chris and Lance’s bus with you. I’m seriously going out of my mind. I don’t know why I didn’t go with you in the first place.”
“Because you didn’t want to have to listen to us plan the wedding and you should hang out with Justin because he needs a friend right now.”
“Well I vote that you have to be his friend, because I’m not having fun.”
“How are we having this conversation? Isn’t he right there?”
“I’m in the bathroom.”
“Nice.”
“I locked myself in here to get away from him. He is pissy as hell and I’m sick of him.”
“Put yourself in his shoes. How would you feel if six months ago, if I would have packed up and moved to New Hampshire?”
“Like shit.”
“And how would you have acted?”
“I probably would have pissed everyone off.”
“Bingo. Give him time. He’ll settle down.”
“Will you come back over here? “
“The next time the bus stops, I’ll come back over.”
“I love you.”
“I love you too.”
JC hit end, took a deep breath, left the bathroom and went back to the lounge. He sat on the couch and leaned over to smack Justin’s knee, “Hey J. Wanna play some Madden?”
“No.”
“Chess?”
“No.”
“Wanna help me with a song I’ve been working on?”
“C, I’m not gonna be any help right now. Sorry.”
“You can’t just sit here staring out the window. Let’s do something.”
Justin rolled his eyes, “What do you wanna do? Hold hands and sing?”
JC rested his elbows on his knees, “Listen. You are my best friend, you know that right? But lately you’ve been a major pain in the ass. What do you need to do to get out of this funk? Because seriously Justin, one of us is going to kill you by the time this week is over if you don’t get your whiny ass in gear.”
Justin turned to face JC, “Fuck you.”
“Nice.” JC leaned further forward, “Don’t make me smack some sense into you.”
“Would you give up the tough act? I don’t need tough love, I need all of you asses to stay out of my damn face.”
“Well guess what? We’d all rather stay out of your face, but it’s not possible. We live with each other right now. If you need to scream, do it. If you need to cry, get it over with. If you need to stomp your feet and roll around on the floor, I’ll move the chair. But being a jerk to everyone isn’t going to help. Morgan is in New Hampshire, and she didn’t tell you when she should have. That sucks. I wish I knew why, but none of us do, so you’re going to have to suck it up and deal with it, for your own sanity’s sake.”
“I know why she went.”
JC thought for a moment before asking, “Why?”
“Because she wants to get the hell away from me.” Justin turned his cold eyes on his friend.
“I think that’s a pretty big leap there, Justin. You don’t move to get away from your best friend.”
“You do when your best friend took advantage of you and tried to force you to have feelings for him that you don’t have. Then you’d move as far as possible.”
JC’s brows drew together, “Wait. Back up. What do you mean ‘took advantage of’?”
Justin’s head fell back against the couch back, “When we were in Rhode Island, she was drunk and I was starting to...feel things...”
“Jesus Justin, please tell me you didn’t...”
“No! God JC, I wouldn’t ever do that. But we made out and I thought...I thought that we were...”
“You thought that you were getting closer.”
“Yeah. All I did was push her to run away. I guess she’s wanted to get away from ‘the Justin Timberlake’ for a while. I guess because she’s friends with me, she hasn’t figured out who she is. She wants to get away to decide what she wants to do.”
“The Justin Timberlake? What’s up with that?”
“I don’t know. She just kept saying that she and just Justin are always going to be friends, but that the Justin Timberlake has been taking up more of my time lately.”
“What the hell? Justin, I don’t know what you guys did, or what you said to each other, but you can’t blame yourself for her leaving. I mean, think about it. You can’t say that this is your fault.”
“Why not? She did.”
“Think about this logically! Justin, what did you say to her when she dumped all of this junk on you?”
“She said that I would have hooked up with anyone that night.”
JC squinted at his friend, “And what the hell did you say to that?”
“I said that it wasn’t true. I told her that it happened because it was her.”
JC laced his fingers together, “Justin, what’s going on with you and Mor? I mean, you just said you were starting to feel things, what did you mean?”
“I mean, I’m not looking at her like my best friend anymore. I kissed her because I wanted to, and I swear to God, I really thought she wanted me to. I really didn’t think she was that drunk.”
JC ran both of his hands over his face, “OK, so this isn’t good.”
“Yeah. Not so much.” Justin rolled his eyes.
“But on the other hand, it’s not necessarily horrible either.”
“It’s not?”
“No. Lance and I had both kissed Stasia and Lyn before we started dating.”
“Why did you kiss Stasia?”
“Huh? I never kissed Stasia.”
“You just said you and Lance had both kissed Stasia and Lyn.”
“No! Not like that. I mean I had kissed Lyn, and Lance had kissed Stasia, long before we were actually dating them.”
“You did?”
“If we’re going to be technical, she kissed me. When she was drunk in Mississippi.”
“They shouldn’t be allowed to drink.”
“I wish she would have been drunk sooner. Because as it turns out. She really did want to kiss me, she just hadn’t realized it yet. Stasia and Lance were the same way. They were goofing around, they kissed, both of them acted like it was no big deal, but it was. You have to admit, it sounds like the same thing with you and Morgan.”
“Except that Stasia and Lyn didn’t move to New Hampshire!”
“No. But Stasia gave Lance that whole big long speech about working for him and being old and crap. She tried to run away.” JC laughed, “Lyn dated Ryan for a while, now he’s marrying her sister.”
“So what does this all mean for me?”
“It means that just because she initially freaked out, doesn’t mean that her initial response is her true response. Then again, are you sure that was her initial response? How much time went by between making out and talking?”
“Well. We fell asleep together, and when I got up she wasn’t in the bed. Then we talked.”
JC smirked, “So you slept late and have no idea what time she got up? She had time to get up wonder if it meant anything to you, work herself into a great girl freak out and then tell you what she thought you’d want to hear.”
“Why would I want to hear she thought it was a mistake?”
“What did she say, exactly?”
“She said, ‘Let me save both of us some time here...’ Then I tried to interrupt and she told me to shut up and listen. Then she said a bunch of crap about not being some seventeen year old girl who expects me to marry her and have ten kids together just because we kissed. We are both adults, we made out, it was no big deal. She said she was drunk, we had been talking about love, we were both lonely. She said we should forget about it and it was a stupid mistake.”
JC cocked an eyebrow, “That was it?”
“No. Then she said, ‘I know you don’t feel like that about me, and I certainly don’t feel that way about you, so it’s all good. Seriously, let’s just forget it.’”
“I sort of repeated that last part...like asking her if she really want to just forget about it and she said, ‘Please! And I am seriously begging you, don’t tell the guys, or Lyn or Stasia or anyone. I don’t want to deal with their crap....over a simple mistake.’”
“I said I wouldn’t...which I guess was a lie, because I’m telling you all of this.”
JC shrugged, “Well, it’s not like you’re doing it all gossipy...you’re doing it because you’re confused and you need help.”
“Yeah, I guess so. After all of that crap, she smiled, said thanks, asked if we were ok, and then went to take a shower.”
“Was she talking really fast? Like she couldn’t get it out fast enough?”
Justin nodded, “Yeah, like she forgot to breathe.”
“Like how Jonathon was babbling at lightning speed that day we caught him floating your shoes in the bathtub?”
Justin smirked, “Pretty much.”
“J, it sounded like that because she wanted to get it out in a hurry and get out of the room before you called her on it.”
“You think she was lying about it being a mistake?”
“Yes I do. I think that she was trying to cover her bases. She was afraid you were going to tell her that it was fun, but that you were sorry it had happened. She had too much time to think before your lazy butt got out of bed. She thought and thought and thought until she convinced herself that she was going to do what’s right.”
“When do I get to have an opinion?”
“Why didn’t you follow her? Why didn’t you go into the other room? Why didn’t you tell her she was wrong?”
“Because I thought, she thought it was mistake!”
“Well, you were wrong.”
“How was I supposed to know that?” Justin looked desperate.
JC sighed, “You’re supposed to know Mor.”
“Oh that’s nice!”
“I’m serious. You should know her well enough to know when she’s lying to you, especially about something so important.”
Justin’s head slammed back against his chair, “So what do I do now?”
JC looked up, “I have no clue.”
“What the hell! You figure all of this shit out and you can’t tell me how to fix it?”
“It wasn’t that hard to figure out. We need to ask Lyn what you should do. She’ll know how to fix it.”
“Great. Why don’t we just call a meeting and tell everyone at the same time. That will save me a ton of time in the long run.” He slouched down in his chair. “Lyn already knows some of this. She knows that it’s my fault Mor left, but she doesn’t know exactly why it’s my fault. She thinks I’m holding her back, she doesn’t know I molested her.”
“Take it easy on yourself. You didn’t molest her. You’re just both confused. We don’t have to tell anyone what happened in Rhode Island. They don’t need to know, not even Lyn....you and I can figure this out on our own.”
“OK....well, you and me...and Chris.”
“You told Chris?”
“Yeah.”
JC rolled his eyes, “We’re not going to go into why you told Chris before me...”
“We were locked in a box and he knew something was wrong and...”
“It doesn’t matter. We’ll figure it out.”
Justin looked up slowly, “And maybe we should tell Lance. He’s pretty good at girl crap...just...don’t tell the girls. They are gonna side with Mor and think I’m a jerk.”
“I don’t think that’s true, but I won’t tell anyone.”
“OK. Why are you doing this?”
“I’m just trying to help.”
“Go back in time.”
“Can’t help you there.”
“This sucks.”
“I know, but the problem already exists, so now we have to repair the damage.”
“This sucks.”
“J, wallowing in self pity isn’t going to get you anywhere.”
“I know.”
“So stop. Let’s figure out what to do.”
“JC?”
“What?”
“Thanks.”
Yawning as she filled her travel mug with coffee, Morgan rested her forehead against the cabinets. She rolled her head to smile at South as she walked into the kitchen, “The first day of classes is always a bitch.”
South nodded and held out her own mug, “Coffee will fix me right?”
“Coffee fixes everything.” Mor filled her friend’s cup.
“So do you know where you’re going?”
“You walked me to each of my class locations...three times. I think I can find it.”
“I just want to make sure you’re comfortable.” She sipped her coffee and leaned back against the counter, “So, how are you holding up?”
Mor shrugged, “I’m fine.”
“So you keep saying.” South smirked, “You weren’t fine the other night. And I happen to know that Justin has called four times and you haven’t called him back yet.”
“I will call him back. I just haven’t had time.”
“Yeah, because you had to take two naps yesterday.”
“Shut up.”
“I’m just saying.”
“Don’t.”
“Fine. Changing the subject, are you still planning on going to that party with me tonight? I’ll know a lot of the people there and you can meet a bunch of my friends.”
“Yeah. I was planning on going.” Morgan looked into her cup, “South, can we not tell people about Justin and the guys and stuff?”
“You don’t want the world to know that you’re a big time NSYNC insider?” South winked, “I don’t blame you.”
“Funny.” She rolled her eyes, “I mean, if people recognize me, I’m not going to lie...but I’d rather not be introduced as Justin Timberlake’s friend.”
“Who in the hell is going to recognize you?” South laughed, “And why would I ever introduce you as Justin’s friend? I was planning to say, ‘Everybody, this is North. North, this is everybody.’”
Morgan blushed, “I guess I’m forgetting I’m not in Orlando. People do know who I am there. I take it not many of your friends are into NSYNC.”
“Yeah, not so much.” South sipped her coffee, “Now if you were best friend’s with one of the guys from Guster, you might have a problem.”
“My life is not normal.”
“Not even a little.” South smirked.
Morgan glanced at her watch, “Shit! We’ve got to go or we’re going to be late for class.”
She had been halfway home when it had started lightly raining, it was the perfect ending to the perfect day.
She had to sprint the last four blocks to her first class because she and South had been talking. She got to the lecture hall panting and just as the professor had started to hand out the syllabus.
Her entrance into her second class had been even worse. She had slipped and fallen in the aisle while trying to find a seat.
She’d spilled cranberry juice on her shirt at lunch and then when she finally made it to her third and final class her pen had broken and leaked ink all over her notes and hands. She was going to spend the rest of the week looking like she hand smurf hands.
Dropping her bag on the bag on the floor next to the door, Morgan shuffled back to her bedroom and flopped face down on the bed with a sigh. She rolled her head and a box sitting in the middle of her floor caught her attention. Sliding off of the bed and onto the floor she pulled the box toward herself, carefully inspecting the mailing label, she smiled for the first time since she’d left the apartment in the morning. The package was addressed to Morgan Northrup, the senders were listed as ‘Wringling Bros. Performing Chimp Troop’.
Pulling the tape off of the box she couldn’t help but feel excited. She knew that her friends put together the best care packages in the world. Stasia and Lyn were amazing at finding little things to make you feel special.
Lifting the flaps of the box she smiled at the bright yellow tissue paper covered with daisies. Pushing the light paper aside she found the first package, wrapped in kelly green tissue. She tore away the paper and laughed. Inside she found a pouch filled with all of the products she needed to give herself a ‘proper facial’, as Dani would say. She pulled a tube of body scrub out and decided to see if it would remove the ink stains from her hands later.
Setting the bag on the floor next to her, she pulled out a box, this one wrapped in yellow paper. Opening the box she felt warm and happy at the sight of a pair of ‘Stasia slippers’. Kicking off her shoes, she slipped into the huge Kermit The Frog slippers. As she leaned forward to dig something else out of the box, she leaned on the toe of the slipper and suddenly Kermit the Frog was singing Rainbow Connection. She laughed so hard tears began running down her cheeks.
The next item out of the box was Starbucks gift card, followed by Kraft Maccaroni and Cheese and then an Ikea gift card.
She continued to pull gifts from the box, she was slowly surrounded by CDs, food, cookies, notebooks, pens, pencils, binders, towels, sheets, pictures of her friends, candles and a small stuffed pug that she knew was from Chris. The box seemed to be bottomless and she smiled when she reached the small packet of letter she had know would be there.
Each of her friends had taken time to write a note. JC wrote about how he’d miss her when they got back to Orlando and that if she ever needed anything, he’d be there in a matter of minutes.
Lance wanted her to hurry up and finish school so she could come back on tour with the group. He wanted her to know that everyone loved her and missed her more than she would ever know.
Joey wanted a sweatshirt from UNH and advice on how to make Justin stop moping around.
Chris wanted her to call and let him know she was ok, because she hadn’t said good-bye to him in person and there was no way he was about to trust Justin’s judgment. He wanted her to know that no matter what happened in life, she was always going to have him as a friend.
Stasia was cheerful and instructed her to use the Ikea gift card to furnish the living room because, “No one should live with lawn furniture. It’s just not right.”
She had to laugh because Lyn offered study tip and a plane ticket to wherever Mor wanted to meet up with the group.
In typical Dani style, she instructed Mor to take care of herself. To get plenty of rest, drink lots of water and exfoliate.
Angela was sweet and sincere. She said she was going to miss being left behind with Mor while everyone else was on the road. She wanted a promise that Mor would come for one of their secret pizza nights as soon as she had a break.
Justin’s note was at the bottom of the pile. It was on the pale blue stationary that had been his signature since Stasia had insisted that they each get good at personal notes. Morgan had stood in the stationary store with Justin for two hours while he picked out the exact right shade of blue and the proper typeface for his monogram.
She was stunned to see just a few quickly scribbled lines on the page.
Mor-
She squinted at the page and even turned it over hoping that there was more, but the back of the page was blank. She slowly looked into the box and found one last gift wrapped package. Tearing the paper, she lifted the lid and immediately found it impossible to swallow. She gently lifted the well worn sweatshirt from the box and carefully ran her fingertips along the raw edge where the ribbed neck had been cut away, years before. Her hand slowly rubbed over the faded orange ‘Tennessee’ written across the chest of the shirt.
“God! Why is it so damn cold?” She moved slightly closer to him.
“I told you to bring a jacket.” He smirked down at her.
“You didn’t say I was going to freeze to death watching these stupid football players run around all damn afternoon.” She rolled her eyes.
“Morgan. The Vols are not stupid. If you look down there on the field, they are all wearing long sleeves. It appears that they all listened when their friends told them it would be cold in late November.”
“I love it that you’re so fricking funny!” She punched his arm.
Pulling his sweatshirt over his head he handed it to her, “Do not even THINK of spilling anything on that shirt. I will kill you. That is my lucky shirt.”
“It looks like you let the dogs chew on it.”
“My Daddy gave me that shirt when I was ten. It fit me like a tent back then, but I loved it. I still love it. Don’t you dare hurt it.”
“I’m not planning on jumping into a vast of mustard today, so we should be fine.” Pulling the shirt over her head she looked over, “Thanks J.”
Smirking she walked over to pick up a picture of she and Justin from her desk. He was wearing the sweatshirt in the photo. She carried the picture with her as she walked over to sit on the edge of the bed.
“Put it back Morgan.”
“It’s not like you’re gonna wear it on tour.”
“I wear it like every day, you know that.”
“Can’t I just keep it while you’re gone?”
“Hell no! You know better. I’ve made Momma same day express this thing to me in Germany, I’m not about to leave without it.”
Morgan threw the old sweatshirt at his head, “You’re gonna be gone forever, and you won’t even leave a stupid sweatshirt for me to wear.”
“You can have anything else. Hell, you can drive all of my cars while I’m gone. You can live in my house and wear all of my clothes, you are my best friend on the planet. But you can’t have this sweatshirt.” He carefully folded it and laid it in his suitcase.
“You have an unhealthy attachment to that thing.”
“I have an unhealthy attachment to you too, but you don’t complain about that.”
“I hate you.”
“No you don’t.”
“No I don’t.”
“No I don’t...not even a little...” She hugged the shirt and the picture frame to her chest as she ran out into the living room to dig her phone out of her bag. Quickly hitting speed dial, she waited impatiently.
“Hello?”
“I can’t believe you sent it.”
She was met with a long silence and just as she was about to ask if he was still there when he spoke quietly, “I thought you might need something to keep you warm. Stasia says it gets cold in New Hampshire.”
“Yeah, I froze my ass off today.”
“You should have worn a jacket.”
“I guess I forgot.”
“You always forget.”
“I guess it’s just another one of my bad habits.”
“You don’t have many.”
She grabbed a bottle of water out of the fridge and walked back to her room, “So where are you?”
“In my room.”
“No, I meant what state.”
“I don’t know. I’ll go ask JC...” She heard a rustling sound as he got up.
“No! I was just curious. It’s not a big deal. How’s the tour going?”
“OK I guess. Same as always. The fans are really cool, they seem to like the show.”
“Well they should. You guys have worked really hard on it.”
“So how were your classes today? It was the first day right?”
“Yeah it was. I’ve had better first days. It was just one of those days where everything that could go wrong did. Nothing earth shaking....just a bunch of minor crap. I had a really long day for some reason...actually for no real reason.” She decided to stop whining, “I have one prof who looks like a serial killer and writes on an overhead, and he didn’t seem to realize he was getting that black marker crap all over himself.”
“You ok?”
She answered a little too quickly, “I’m fine.”
“You said that like a robot.”
“I guess I kind of feel like a robot.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. I just feel like I’m going through the motions. I’m not really feeling anything anymore.”
“Me neither. I stopped feeling anything.”
Laying down on her bed she pulled his sweatshirt up under her chin like a security blanket she inhaled deeply. It still smelled like him, “When did you stop?’
“The last thing I felt, like really felt was your cheek against my chest as I fell asleep.”
She squeezed her eyes shut, “Justin, don’t...”
“Don’t tell you that I want to kiss you? Don’t tell you that I want to feel your skin hot against my hands? Don’t tell you that I want to see you laying on your back on my bed, with your hair all spread out and your hands reaching up, pulling at my shoulders? Don’t tell you that I want to hear you moan my name while I slowly kiss your neck and chest? Don’t say that I want to kiss your stomach and run my hand up you thighs? What don’t you want me to say, Morgan?” He wanted to get a reaction out of her, he wanted her to feel how much he cared about her and about what had happened between them.
She looked over at the picture on her desk and could suddenly feel his hands on her again. She ran a hand over her face, “That isn’t fair.”
“What isn’t fair?”
“Making me remember.”
“I want you to remember. I want you to feel it again, the way I feel it, over and over and over. I can’t feel anything else, because I can’t get past that night.”
“How can you get past it?”
She was completely unprepared for his answer, “We can finish what we started.” She didn’t want to believe that he would turn the whole thing into a sexual encounter. He wanted to finish the act, and she wanted to live happily ever after.
Squeezing her eyes shut even tighter, “We can’t do that.”
“Why not? Why can’t we finish what we started?”
“Because I can’t handle it. I can’t deal with the situation. I can’t let myself cave.”
“So instead of doing what we’ve always done, instead of sitting down and hashing it out, instead of telling me how you really felt...you ran away.”
“This is so different Justin.” Her voice was barely a whisper, “We aren’t fighting about which club to hang out at. We aren’t fighting about where I eat Thanksgiving dinner. This isn’t the same. I can’t sit down and talk about it, because I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to say to you.”
“Mor? Are we going to get past this?”
“I don’t know.” She sighed heavily, “I want to be. Christ Justin, I love you. You are my best friend and I don’t want to lose that, it’s too important.”
“So what do we need to do?”
“We need to drop it for a while. I swear to you, I will sit down and talk this through with you when I can. But right now, I need to try to sort it out in my own head.”
“Waiting forever isn’t going to solve anything. I really think that we need to....”
“No Justin! I mean it. Please just give me some time.”
“I can do that. But I’m not dropping this forever.”
“I know.” They were both quiet. Neither one willing to let the other go while there was still tension between them, they had done that too many times lately.
“Are you settled in? Do you need anything else?”
The phone in the living room rang until the machine picked up.
She laughed, “No, I think you guys pretty much covered everything. I cannot believe Stasia is so freaked out about a couch.”
“It’s Stasia. She’ll do anything to make a house a home. Plus, she knows if she comes to visit and you don’t have a couch she won’t have anywhere to sleep.”
Morgan laughed, “I suppose she has a point there.”
“The girl always has a point...and an agenda. I swear to God, you never know what she has up her sleeve. Right now she’s focused on helping Dev and Ryan plan their wedding at Lance’s. I know everyone thinks we’re always busy, but seriously...bar exams, weddings, Free Lance, Lance, traveling, Lyn’s law suit...I don’t know when she sleeps.” They phone in the living room rang again, “Do you need to get that?”
“No...The machine will get it.” She leaned over and pushed her door shut, then returned to their conversation, “I don’t think she sleeps...that must be how she does it all.”
“You could be right about that.”
Morgan flopped onto her back, “So my mom and dad want to come up here for Parents Weekend, can you believe that? How in the hell are they going to pull off that little stunt? I suppose they could mortgage their house...again.”
“You know your mom. She’s just trying to put on the perfect, happy little family front again. She hasn’t called me about it.”
Mor snorted, “As if that would happen.”
“Yeah. They just loves me!” They both laughed.
“It’s not your fault. Their little egos got bruised, they’ll get over it...”
“Or not.”
Morgan smirked, “And we would care...why?”
“Because they are your parents. In retrospect, what I did was pretty bold. I mean...we had just turned 17.”
“Yeah well. I was leaving either way.”
“How is the good doctor these days?”
“She’s fine. She was written up in the New England Journal of Medicine. I guess it’s a big deal and great for her career.”
“That’s cool. And your dad?”
“He’s my dad. He’s bitter. Who knows, I never really talk to him.”
“I thought your doctor said....”
“Yeah, I’m supposed to forgive his actions. Whatever, it’s easy for a shrink to say I should forgive him. I’m supposed to forgive her too.” Morgan shrugged, “I guess in all actuality, I have forgiven them. Ultimately, I got out, which is what I wanted. I’m just never going to forget.”
Justin laughed, “Morgan? Which one of us has more emotional baggage?”
“Please! It’s no contest! I win hands down. You have one little divorce, which wound up getting you four parents who think the world revolves around you.”
“Doesn’t it?”
“You’re an ass.”
“No I’m not.”
“Yes. Yes you are.”
She didn’t hear his next comment because her door flew open and slammed against the wall. South was standing in the open door, her hair wet and laying flat on her head. She was panting and glaring at Morgan, “North! What the hell happened to you?”
“Hey South. What happened? Nothing. What the hell happened to you?”
“I just ran nine blocks home from my friend’s house because I have been calling you for two hours to find out why you hadn’t shown up at the party and you haven’t answered the phone.”
“Shit. I forgot about the party.”
Justin coughed, “Mor? Maybe I should let you go.”
“Sorry. Yeah. I’d better get going. I’ll call you later.”
“Bye.”
“Bye.” She flipped her phone shut.
South still looked enraged, “Why didn’t you pick up the phone?”
“I was on my cell. I forgot about the party. I would have called you back.”
“I thought you’d been kidnapped or had killed yourself or something.”
“OK. Maybe you need to lose the gloom and doom attitude. No one on earth is crazy enough to try to kidnap me. And I’m not about to try to kill myself, I like me too much.”
“You’re a fucking riot! I swear to god I could kill you right now. I was worried.”
“I’m sorry. Seriously. I never meant to worry you and I’m really sorry you left your friend’s to come check on me.” She stood up. “That was really sweet of you.”
“Just call me sugar, I’m so sweet.” South looked at all of the stuff spread out on Morgan’s floor, “What’s all this?”
“Stuff from everybody. Hey. Do you want me to walk back to that party with you?”
“Nah. It’s raining so no one really showed up. Show me all of your new stuff.” She dropped down on the floor, “Let’s start with the cookies.”
Everyone helped. I hope you like all of the stuff. The one in the very bottom is from me. It’s just a loan.
-J
~Chapter 6~
~Main~
