How To Get Your Heart Broken (22 page)

The Bright Side of
Rock Bottom

“We’ve received a report on suspicion of
consumption of alcohol by minors. Is there a party going on here?”

I shook my head slowly and I imagined
myself continuously banging it into the door.

“How many people are in this home ma’am?”

“Just three,” I mumbled, and then Ashton
whisper shouted, “Shh Eli! I’m not here.” I turned to stare pitifully at the
hiding position she’d chosen behind the couch.

I’d already dismissed our best case
scenario‒ that the police officers were strippers that had gotten the
wrong address‒ due to their middle aged faces, and because one was a
heavy built woman with subtle hints of a stubborn mustache above her upper
lip.
 
Still, we weren’t
that
screwed until Ashton opened her
mouth.

“Whose home is this, ma’am?” The woman
asked in her raspy smoker’s voice.

“Crap!” Ash exclaimed loudly from behind
the couch again. Slowly her hand rose from behind it, her head following
reluctantly when the bearded lady called for her.

“Technically, it’s mine,” she mumbled as she
performed a telling stumble to the front door, “My grandfather left it to me in
his will, but my parents like to think of it as theirs. I’m more than happy to
go with that, if it will…get me out of trouble…” She stopped upon noticing the
officers’ uninterested expressions.

“Are there any adults here?” The old man
asked in an impatient voice.

“Technically, we’re adults,” Ash answered
helpfully.

“Not that it’s even necessary, but we’re
gonna need to perform some tests on all of you. Could you call your other
friend please?” He gestured toward Rachel, whom was still lying on the couch,
open mouthed and staring at the ceiling.
 

“What kind of test? I’m not prepared…”
Ashton had begun to mumble anxiously.

I barely heard the bearded lady snort,
“Clearly,” because as I stepped outside I was distracted by what I imagined to
be a glare on Jessie’s face from his stance on his front porch. It was all the
confirmation I needed to know how this had occurred. Yet even as I heard the
clinks of metal from the handcuffs and Ashton’s loud sobs as her and Rachel
were being escorted away, I could only think of how glad I was to see him, and
how I wouldn’t have minded getting arrested, if it meant he would finally
forgive me.

---

I smiled pitifully as I watched them walk
towards collection, Ashton’s walk significantly more subdued than it had been
last night.

I’d gotten here as early as I could, but I
was sure nothing would undo the permanent scars that came with doing hard time.
Well
, at least not from Ash’s mind.

“What are you doing?” Ash exclaimed as
Rachel grabbed my sweater and placed it on her head, tying it below her chin.

“It’s a graduation hat. You spent the night
in jail, you are officially a badass!”

“Oh my god!” Ash exclaimed, making me
wonder if the realization news had just hit now that she was sober, but she was
staring at her phone.

“Don’t tell me…nude pics!” I exclaimed,
wondering if it was possible for anything else to have gone wrong.

“Ten missed calls! From my parents! They’re
coming today.”

“Dun dun dun,” Rachel said dramatically,
surely trying to make the situation worst.

“It’ll be okay,” I said, trying to do
damage control,

“We’ll get you cleaned up before they get
here, they won’t know anything.”

“Lying too?” Rachel snorted, “So much for
that Catholic school education.”

“God, just shut your mouth for one second,”
I said in exhaustion, watching Rachel throw up her arms in mock surrender.

“We’ll be right there with you the whole
time, we’ll help you,” I tried to say encouragingly to Ashton.

“If there’s anything we’re good at, it’s
deception,” Rachel said, throwing an arm around me and turning to face Ashton.

I eyed Ash wearily as she began to sniffle.

“Are you really crying?” Rachel asked,
sounding more confused than condescending.

“Yes,” Ashton sniffled, “But not because
I’m screwed. My head is about to explode!” Her sniffles grew into loud,
theatrical sobs as she finished, and despite the fact that we were standing in
a police station, I had to press my lips together to hold in the laughter.

“Tell me about it,” Rachel agreed, “It’s
almost enough to make me cry too.” She moved towards Ashton again, wrapping an
arm around her and walking towards the parking lot. “Now stop blubbering,
you’ve already got raccoon eyes and we’re starting to look like the regulars,”
I heard her say as they walked away.

I stood there for a moment, embracing the
absurdity of all of this and the fact that Ashton and Rachel were finally
getting along. Who knew all it would take was a night in jail? Perhaps, we’d all
hit rock bottom, and the only way to go now, was up.

---

“Um, bad news, I think they’re already
here.”

“Yep, thanks Rachel,” I replied
sarcastically as I stared at Mrs. Willis’s cherry red sports car and Mr.
Willis’s silver Acura in our driveway.
 

Ashton looked as if she was going to cry
again. “Deep breaths,” I said as I ran up to the door with her.

“Since I’m the only one that isn’t
hungover, let me take the lead,” I said, handing them both breath mints once
Rachel caught up.

“Ashton!” Her mom yelled when we’d opened
the door.

“Hi Liz, Mr. Willis,” Rachel and I began an
awkward chorus of greetings meant to divert the attention from Ashton. Her
mother had always insisted we call her by her first name, and I couldn’t help
thinking of how much more appropriate that was now that she would no longer be
Mrs. Willis. Mr. Willis seemed to realize this too, but they were both too busy
fretting over Ashton to react.

“Where have you all been?” Liz asked,
digging both her hands into Ash’s hair as she tried to smooth out the wild bush
that had replaced her normally perfect coif.
 

“Sleepover,” I said quickly, subtly
elbowing Rachel when she began giggling.
 

“Yeah, Mindy DeCristo and her sister are
actually here for the week, not that far away and they invited us over for a
girl’s night,” I smiled, hoping Ash had never mentioned to her mother the fact
that I never really liked Mindy or that she’d gone off to vacation in Morocco
for the summer.

“I was in prison!” Ashton exclaimed as if
she’d suddenly gotten turrets.

Everyone was silent for a moment and I
imagined myself putting a muzzle over her mouth, suddenly deciding that
innocence was just plain annoying.

I could hear Rachel muttering, “It was just
jail
, Ash.”

“They dropped the charges; it won’t be on
my record or anything…” Ash stammered on.

I was sure her father was about to have a
heart attack. By the time he’d said, “Eliza, Rachel, could you please excuse
us?” I was already halfway out of the room, my nails digging into Rachel’s
wrist as I dragged her behind me.

We went into the kitchen, closing the
sliding doors behind us so that we were out of sight, but if we sat very still,
we could still make out most of the conversation.
 
I crouched below the island, pulling my knees
up to my chest as if I was trying to hide from them. I smiled as Rachel joined
me, and we cringed as Ashton’s father began yelling something about
disappointment and throwing her future away and messing up everything he’d
worked for.

“Well if this isn’t déjà vu…” Rachel said.

I sighed, knowing exactly what she meant,
even without her having to finish the sentence.

“Not so bad,” I tried to sound positive, “I
learned all of the curse words I know from
my
parents.”

She shook her head, “See mine just threw
things. I learned to always wear shoes in the house.”

I snorted, “That’s why you guys only had
plastic cups!”
 

She laughed too, smacking my arm and
shushing me when we heard Liz’s muffled voice, “Those girls are trouble…you
know better…life of crime…”

“Oh come on!” Rachel exclaimed, “I thought
she was one of us!”

We simultaneously gasped when we heard what
Ash had yelled back, “You don’t have a right to judge anyone, you
adulterer!”
 

“I don’t even think
I’d
say that to my mother,” Rachel whispered excitedly.

“You’ve said worst,” I disagreed.

There was a mumble of something along the
lines of; “Don’t talk to your mother like that!” from Mr. Willis and I nodded
in approval,
“noble.”

“He’s the nerd that got the captain of the
cheerleading team. He knew it was too good to be true.”

I elbowed her again, even as she exclaimed
“Stop nudging me!”

Though blunt, there was no denying that
there was truth to what she’d said. Rachel and I had always liked Ashton’s
parents. Besides being the only functional adult couple we knew (past tense)
Ash’s mom was a total badass (“before being confined by the soul-sucking
institution otherwise known as marriage” (Rachel’s words not mine)).

 
She’d moved out of her parent’s house at 16,
flirted with a life of crime (so you
could
argue that I was a better role model than her), and even gone to rehab
before going back to her hometown and marrying the kid who used to do her
homework in high school (formally known as Ashton’s father). She was a
gorgeous, leggy blond with devastatingly blue eyes who had managed to keep her
figure thanks to hot yoga four times a week while he was tall and lanky. He’d
started balding pretty much as soon as he got out of college and he wore these
circular eyeglasses that were surely the first pair of spectacles ever
invented.

Liz was one of us and though I’d never
admit it, I wasn’t surprised when I learned marriage didn’t work out for her.

“Maybe she doesn’t want Ashton to be around
us because she knows what it’s like to be us,” I whispered to Rachel.

She raised an eyebrow at me, “Did I ever
drop out of school to play tambourine for some band called
Dogs With Whiskers
?”

“No,” I smiled, “But you wish you had!”

“Give me some credit,” she said rolling her
eyes. I laughed at the thought that she actually deserved any.
 
“She’s just a hypocrite,” she added.

“Aren’t we all?” I asked rhetorically.

“Hey!” I exclaimed when she elbowed me.

“Give me a break with the philosophical
shit!” She said, rolling her eyes at me again.

“I’m not going anywhere!” I heard Ashton
yell, and I shushed Rachel as I tried to catch up on what we’d missed.

“This is the part where she gets taken away
from the ‘
bad influences’
and gets
her life back on track. Keep up,” she said as if the whole thing had been
obvious.
 

“Ashton, you need to come home with us,”
her father said in his authoritative voice. Rachel gave me a smug smile.

“The last thing I want to do is go home
with you two! You should trust me enough to let me make my own decisions and if
you don’t too bad! I’m 18.”

“Oh, the I-am-legally-an-adult-now card,
cold,” Rachel said, but her voice couldn’t have sounded more pleased. “Maybe
Ashton’s got some of her mom’s genes after all,” she said, sounding all too
hopeful.

I stared at her, really wanting to know
what went on inside her head.
 

“You want to hear me say it?” She
whispered, “I do feel bad.
 
I mean I had
fun, and I think she did too, I think it was good for her. But I wouldn’t do it
again, if I had a time machine. You know, especially now that she’s a convict
and everything.”

“Not funny,” I said, trying not to smile.
“Don’t do it again,” I said, pointing a stern finger at her.

“Yes ma’am,” she said mockingly. “God, if
Liz only knew you’re even sterner than she is!”

“Well, I’ll take that as a compliment,” I
said, trying to sound dignified.

“I know you will. You’re losing your edge,”
she said matter-of-factly.

“Whatever,” I said, rolling my eyes at her.

“I got Ash drunk right on time. I’m going
to need a new partner in crime and she’s new. She’ll be good for a few years.”

“Well, thanks, I feel special,” I said
sarcastically. Then I smiled, “I know you’re trying to scare me, but I know
you’ll take care of her too cause I know something you don’t.”

She barely reacted, but I knew she was
waiting for me to elaborate.

“Well,” I said, correcting my statement, “I
know something you don’t know I know.”

I said nothing even as she stared at me in
suspicion. But I knew that if Rachel would threaten Julian, in the interest of
protecting Ashton’s heart then she would