Somewhere in the Middle

Oh my God. My eyes locked with Ronnie’s, and even from this distance, I could tell he was smirking. I looked over at Hayley to see she had this scared look in her eyes.

“Riley…” she whispered.

“I know,” I whispered back. I quickly pulled out my phone and told mom to come over to where we were. I saw her look at her phone, and walk over.

“What’s wrong?” She asked, sitting down.

“Look over to our left, but don’t make it obvious,” I said, barely moving my lips. She looked down at her nails for a second and then glanced over. “Do you see those two guys with tattoos all over them?” She nodded.

“Meet Pauly Gore and Ronnie Payne,” Hayley whispered. Mom gasped.

“What?” She hissed. “Do you two want to leave?” She asked. Hayley and I nodded. Mom got up and walked over to the guys and whispered something to them. They all looked at each other, and nodded. Hayley and I got up, and glanced back over at Ronnie and Pauly. They were watching our every fucking move.

“Fucking creeps,” I muttered.

“What?” Brian asked.

“Nothing, Uncle Bri,” Hayley and I said quickly and rushed over to Hayley’s car, and everyone else piled into the car they came in. I was back on Aiden’s lap, not that I minded or anything like that, and the drive was pretty silent. After Hayley dropped Aiden, Ace, Barbie, and Giana off, we talked on the way home.

“I can’t believe there actually here. I was hoping that Kayla was just full of shit,” she said. I nodded.

“I know. You know what we have to do now, right?” I asked.

“What?”

“Tell everyone else,” I whispered.

“The guys will kill them,” Hayley said, and then smirked. “Good idea.” I rolled my eyes playfully.

“Maybe we should tell the girls first so that they can calm the guys down,” I suggested. Hayley nodded.

“Yeah, that might be smart.”

*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*

When we got home, Hayley and I pulled mom aside. “Can you tell the girls? We want the guys to know what happened too, but we want the girls to know first so they can calm them down when shit hits the fan,” I said. Mom smiled softly and nodded.

“Okay,” she said, and kissed both of our foreheads. She walked out of the room and we heard her talk to the girls and gather them around her and away from the guys. There was silence for a couple minutes until a shrill, “what?!” cut through the silence. More silence followed by rushing heels coming our way. Arms were wrapped around me tightly.

“I am so sorry that someone did that shit to you two,” Michelle said. I felt arms tighten around me, and I opened my eyes and saw bleach blond. Gena. I wrapped my arms around her and squeezed.

“Could you guys tell the guys and try to calm them down, because I doubt we can,” Hayley said.

“Yeah, we’ll tell them, don’t worry,” Val said, hugging us both. “Go upstairs and take a long shower. Come back downstairs in about an hour.” Hayley and I nodded, and ran up the steps. I walked into my room and shut the door quietly. I turned on the water for my shower and stripped, stepping in. I sighed when the warm water cascaded over me. I closed my eyes when a memory of me and Ronnie played in front of my eyes.

“Ronnie, please stop,” I begged. He just smirked, standing over me. He pulled his fist back and snapped it forward into my cheek. My head flew back and crashed into the wall. I pulled my hand back, and back handed him across his face. His head snapped the side and he just stared at the wall. I gasped. How could I do that? “Ronnie… I’m so sor-” I was cut off by hands clasping around my neck.

“That was the dumbest thing your stupid ass self has fucking done,” he growled, glaring at me. I stared at him in fear as his hold on my neck tightened. He picked me up and threw me on the ground. I cried out in pain when my back hit the floor. He took on of his hands off my neck, and I heard him fumble with his belt. I knew what was coming next, so I started crying.

“Please don’t!”

My eyes shot open, and tears were falling down my cheeks. I looked around, and noticed I was on the ground in the shower, and the water was cold. I sniffed and shut off the water, but stayed on the ground, bringing my knees up to my chest and placing my head into of them. I could hear yelling down stairs and glass shattering. The guys must really be pissed. I wiped my cheeks and got out of the shower, drying myself off. I wrapped a towel around myself and walked into my room to get changed. I ran a brush through my hair, cursing loudly when I’d hit a tangle and put my hair in two braids. I sat down in one of my cool chairs, and heard a knock on the door.

“Come in,” I called out. Hayley walked in and sat down in the other chair and we sat in silence, staring out into the ocean. That was one of the benefits of living in a house on the beach. The awesome view.

“Could you hear them yelling?” She asked. I nodded.

“How could you not?” I asked. We were both quiet for a little while longer until we didn’t hear anything down stairs. “Come on, I’m hungry, and want some skittles and a monster,” I said, getting up off my chair and walking to the door, Hayley right behind me. We walked down the steps and past the living room where all of the guys were seated, glaring at the walls in front of them and the girls were seated next to them, rubbing their arms. We quietly snuck past them, only mom noticing. She looked at us with a small smile, and went back to rubbing dad’s back who was staring…glaring at the floor. As I was watching him, I didn’t notice that Hayley somehow got in front of me with her magical Houdini powers, and crashed into her. We both let out startled yelps and toppled to the floor.

“Ow, God damn it, Riley!” She shouted.

“Me?! You’re the one whose elbow collided with my spleen!” I shouted back.

“Like you even know where your spleen is!”

“I bet it’s where you just hit me!”

“Where? Here?” *SMACK*

“Ow! Fucking bitch,” I mumbled, now holding my hurting stomach. We both got up, groaning and got our monsters and skittles. We walked out into the living room, finally deciding that it was now or later. I popped open the tab in top of the monster and took a long drink, plopping myself down next to Uncle Brian and Aunt Michelle.

Everyone just stared at us. I popped a skittle in my mouth and looked over at Hayley, who shrugged. I sighed, and leaned back.

“Alright, I’m pretty sure there are millions of questions floating through all of your heads. So, ask away,” I said. Everyone was quiet until Uncle Zacky was the first one to ask something.

“Why the fuck did you two stay with these assholes if they did all this shit to you?” He asked, and I could hear the anger in his voice that he was trying to hide. I chuckled slightly.

“We were 13 and thought we were in love,” Hayley answered.

“Were they always like that?” Aunt Val asked. I shook my head.

“No, they actually started out really kind, sweet, buying us all these gifts. They were perfect at first…” I started but started trailing off as the memories came flooding back. I saw Hayley’s eyes slightly glazed over at figured the same memories were going through her head too. I shook my head when I noticed everyone staring at us. “They got into some pretty heavy shit. Cocaine, meth, heroin, weed. You name it; they’ve probably gotten into it.”

“Did they ever make you two try… any of that?” Mom asked.

“They tried; it didn’t really get them anywhere, though. They pushed some of the stuff towards us, we threw it back. That’s how it always went,” Hayley started.

“And that’s the reason the first beating happened,” I finished.

“Did you… did you really see them at the beach today?” Dad asked. I looked over at him, and he looked…scary.

“Yes,” Hayley and I said together. I saw a little light bulb go off on top of Uncle Brian’s head.

“Oh, so that’s why you said fucking creeps,” he said, remembering what I said when we were leaving the beach. I nodded.

“Yupp.” I popped another skittle in my mouth.

“Why didn’t you want to tell us before?” Uncle Matt asked.

“It’s not that we didn’t want to tell you, it’s just a sore subject. We had to make sure we were ready before we told you guys,” Hayley said. “Now, can we go to bed? I’m tired!” I laughed, and threw a skittle at her head. It bounced off the tip of her nose and she glared at me. I just smiled sweetly. Mom walked up to us and kissed both of our foreheads.

“Yeah, go to bed. You two have had a rough day,” she said, and smiled. We smiled back.

“Night,” we chimed together, going around hugging everyone. When we both got to dad, we hugged him at the same time and his long arms wrapped around both of us and he squeezed lightly.

“I love you both,” he whispered, kissing both of our heads.

“I love you, too,” Hayley and I said. He gave us one final squeeze, and let us go.

Hayley and I walked up the steps and stopped at our doors. “That went a lot better than I thought it would,” I commented. Hayley nodded.

“I totally agree,” she laughed. We went our separate ways and I quickly finished off my Monster and then brushed my teeth.

I hopped into my bed and closed my eyes. I feel into a dreamless sleep.