Drop Dead Bitches

Chapter 16: The Mistakes
Derek ran up to the front door of the Santos home but before he ran the doorbell, the door swung open and two police officers walked out of the house. He rushed into the home and found Barbara sitting in the living room, her hands over her face as she sobbed into them.
“Barbara, have they found her?” he asked, his voice shaking.
She looked up at him, her eyes red and sore from crying and her face covered in tears. She shook her head and continued to cry.

“Have you heard what happened?” Ryan asked Colin as they jogged around the park.
“About what?”
“Theresa’s sister. I guess she’s gone missing,” he said shrugged his shoulders.
“Tamara?!” he exclaimed, stopping in his place.
Ryan looked at him in shock by Colin’s sudden outburst. “I don’t know.”
“I mean… oh,” he said, attempting to act as indifferent as Ryan as continued to jog.
Ryan caught up with Colin and said, “Dude, if you care about this girl-”
Colin chuckled. “Not at all. She was just as much of a brat as Theresa.”
Ryan slowed to a stop and stared at Colin in disbelief. “Wow. Coming from you, that was really rude. You know, there’s a fine line between not giving a damn and being a straight-up jerk and you just crossed it.” He turned around and headed towards home, wondering why Colin was acting like this.

“You don’t have to help look around, Mr. De Luca,” Barbara said. “Your concern is deeply appreciated but I would feel guilty if you skipped work and such to go out with the search party.”
“Don’t worry about it, Barbara. I called in and they said it was okay. My boss said she’ll even ask the customers if they’ve seen Tamara.”
“Thank you so much,” she said, grasping his hand with both of hers.
“Derek, what’s going on?”
He turned around to see Caitlyn at the front door. He wasn’t exactly sure if she’d show up at all but Tamara was her ex-best friend’s little sister who had no one to trust but Barbara and Theresa.
Derek quickly went over the story, telling her all that he knew which was that Tamara’s school had called Barbara, informing her that Tamara was no where to be found. She had arrived to school but never came back in during recess.
“Does her parents even know?” Caitlyn asked in a low voice.
He nodded his head. “They’re both on their way back.”
“Wow,” she said in shock. “Theresa?”
“We couldn’t get a hold of her.”
She sighed. “What a coincidence.”
“Tell me about it. Do you want to join the search party? I’m the only person covering the lower Bay.”
“Of course! I just can’t imagine anything horrible happening to Tamara. She’s such a sweet girl.”

“What’s up?”
Alexis looked up at smiled at Colin. “Hi.”
“Are you leaving?” he asked, watching her put concealer under her eyes to hide the new redness.
“Yeah,” she sighed. “The constant begging of my parents was irritating me.”
“Are you sure that’s why you’re coming back?” he asked, walking toward her.
“Yes, of course!”
“Alexis, I’m your best friend. You can tell me anything.”
“One problem, there’s nothing wrong,” she said and put her things into her purse. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be heading back to my lovely abode. I’ll see you tomorrow, Colin.”

“Tamara!” Caitlyn called out once again out of the window as they drove up and down the Bay.
“It’s getting pretty late, Caitlyn. Maybe we should call it a day.”
“No,” she snapped then took a deep breath to calm herself. “We can’t. We have to find her.”
“I’m sure she’s fine. She’s a tough girl-”
“Stop it,” Caitlyn scoffed. “Don’t use that ‘tough girl’ crap because that isn’t what Tamara is. She may seem like a confident, bold, and daring little girl but she’s far from that on the inside. On the inside she was insecure, scared, depressed, longing for someone to love her, to save her. She was fragile.”
“Kind of like Theresa?” he quickly added.
“Theresa is a two-faced bitch and you know that.”
“Says the girl who planned on handing out pictures of her best friend and I having sex then turns around and speaks to me like she’s an innocent angel.”
Caitlyn stared at him in shock. “What do you mean…?”
“I found these in my locker,” he said in a harsh tone as he opened the glove box and pulled out a stack of Christmas envelopes, the same ones Caitlyn had put together.
She glanced at them and looked away. “Those aren’t mine.”
“Don’t lie to me, Caitlyn.”
“I’m not! You can’t just accuse me for something like that when you have no proof that those are mine!”
“Someone saw you pull them out at the Christmas party last year. What do you have to explain for that?”
“Who said that?!”
“So it’s true,” he said in painful confirmation.
“No, Derek-”
“Save it, Caitlyn. I’ll take you home.”
“But we haven’t found Tamara yet.”
“She came back home an hour ago. She’s fine.”
“Why did you wait until now to tell me that?!”
“Why does it matter to you?”

After dropping Caitlyn off at her house, Derek drove up to the Santos household. The police officers were getting into their cars, relieved that Tamara was back home safe and sound.
“Sir, there’s nothing else to see here,” an officer called out of his window as Derek made his way to the front door.
“I’m a friend.”
The officer nodded his head and went on his way.
Right before he was about to ring the doorbell he stopped and listened to the argument coming from inside the house. He peeked through a crack in the curtains and saw the Tamara, Barbara, and the Santos parents all in the living room. Barbara had her arms wrapped around Tamara as she sobbed into the maids chest while her parents scolded her.
“Tamara, what you did was not okay,” Mr. Santos said between clenched teeth. “Will you look at me?! Your mother and I had to drop a very important business meeting and fly out to California from Florida for you only to find out that you ditched school to go to an ice cream parlor for twelve hours!”
“I wasn’t just at the ice cream parlor!” she argued.
He turned away from his crying daughter. “Tanya, this is ridiculous,” he grumbled. “What’re we going to do with these girls? First Theresa and now Tamara.”
She shook her head and shrugged her shoulders. “You’ve got to take better care of her, Barbara. I understand that you aren’t a nanny and just a maid but we’re paying you to sleep in our home and watch over our daughters.”
“Yes, Mrs. Santos,” Barbara said, too afraid to look her in the eye.
“Mommy, it isn’t her fault!”
“Enough from you, young lady!” Mr. Santos boomed. “I’m sick and tired of always getting phone calls from you while I’m working, having Barbara or the school call to tell me that you’re acting out, and most of all have you turning into your sister! Do you know how embarrassing all this is for me?!”
“Then just leave!” Tamara screamed.
“That’s enough, honey,” Barbara said, soothing the little girl.
“Mr. Santos, we’ve all had a long day and I’m sure we’re all tired. Let’s go to bed and we can discuss the matters in the morning, shall we?”
He shook his head. “Tanya and I have to get going.”
“Of course you do,” Tamara said under her breath.

Caitlyn fell into the couch and sighed. “Hey,” she mumbled.
“Hey,” Colin mumbled back.
“What’s wrong with you?” she asked.
“I’m turning into a douche bag,” he said and frowned. “You?”
“I’m turning into a two-faced bitch. What did you do?”
“Made a rude comment about Theresa. How about you?”
“Nearly ruined Theresa’s life. Gosh, what’s wrong with us?” she asked in disgust.
“I feel horrible. I mean, yeah she cheated on me but she didn’t deserve to have the whole city go against her. Remember that one time you kissed a girl in seventh grade and everyone found it out?”
She laughed. “People thought I was a lesbian for the longest time and made fun of me.”
“But Theresa was always by your side and stuck up for you, didn’t she?”
“Hey! Don’t you dare take me down guilt road! I wasn’t the only one who turned her life upside down! The reason why she ran away was because of the mistakes she chose to make. In my defense I was slightly intoxicated when I did what I did.”
“Believe what you want, Caitlyn. Bottom line; we all make mistakes.”

Derek trudged up to his front door after a long day. The sky was already lighting up and morning dew filled the air yet he hadn’t gotten one minute of rest.
He opened the door and jumped in shock. He blinked his eyes a couple times, making sure he was seeing what he thought he was seeing but nothing changed.
“Hello, Derek.”
“Theresa,” he breathed.
She smiled.

Roses are read, violets are blue, can't you see what I'm about to do? By: The Bitch.