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Maeve had never been lonelier than the night her parents convinced her to leave the house. It was her last year of high school at Bayview high. Her parents had told her it would be good for her to get out of the house, to live a little. They even convinced her to go to that stupid party. She knew it was a dumb decision, knew nothing good would come out of teenage stupidity, cheap beer, and a bonfire.
But she went. To the stupid beach party. By herself.
Like an idiot.
“You’ll have fun,” her dad had told her, perched lightly on her dark duvet. “You just seem so…” He patted the space next to him, an invitation for her to sit. She didn’t.
So miserable? So entirely consumed by her own stupidity five months ago? So lost and broken and entirely fucked up?
Maeve hadn’t much back to him, just put on a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “I’m just tired, and I have homework to work on,” She had said. Not a complete lie, but not the truth either.
The truth was, she was barely keeping it together. Her grades, that hadn’t been the best to begin with, had started to slip, and her social life was at an all time low. Maeve wasn’t known for her popularity by any means, but ever since that night—
Her stomach squeezed at the thought.
“Please, Maeve, just go. Do stupid teenage things, kiss a boy,” he wiggled his eyebrows like she was five again, and was getting married to the neighbor boy in the backyard. It was all just fever dream to her to her now.
They had been riding scooters together all summer, and Reilly, that was his name, or at least, that’s what she thought his name was, asked her to marry him. She had giggled and said yes, and their parents threw a make believe wedding and Bronwyn was her maid of honor and she helped her put her headband on with scotch tape so it wouldn’t fall off her head. That was before. Before things got crazy and her sister was part of a club that was wanted for murder, or not for murder, Maeve didn’t know anymore.
Maeve didn’t know anything anymore.
“Please, just do something stupid-“ her dad told her, breaking her out of her thoughts of pretend weddings and murders.
Yeah, like that was going to happened.
“-But not too stupid, please don’t drink and drive,” her mom interjected.
“Ok, I’ll go, but please, just…leave me alone for a while now,” Maeve tried to play it off as a joke, but she could see her parents concern. It was the same look she got when something happened with her health. The same ‘please god, let her be ok.’
Maeve didn’t need their pity, she needed an escape.
The fire crackled as Maeve nursed her one and only beer she had allowed herself. The beach was alive with chatter, the golden sparks of the bonfire lighting up the dark California sky. The waves lolled onto the beach lazily, and Maeve could feel her eyes starting to droop. She pulled out her phone, checking the time. 10:47.
She sighed, hating that she had told herself she would at least stay until at least eleven.
So she stayed.
She scrolled aimlessly through social media, reread old texts she should have deleted months ago, and checked the time every few minutes, hoping more had passed than actually had.
Before she knew it, the crowd had thinned considerably.
She people watched for a while, looking out on the couples sucking face where they thought nobody could see, and the beach volleyball game that had since died out.
“Why am I here?” She asked herself.
But she knew why. Because, she knew, her parents knew, everyone in Bayview knew.
Maeve Rojas was a loner. Maeve Rojas had no friends. Maeve Rojas got dumped. She had seen the posts, heard the rumors, she wasn’t stupid. As much as it hurt to come back to Bayview in the fall, knowing she had virtually nobody, at least she was better off than some other unlucky souls. Yeah, it stung having no friends, but falling under the radar was something Maeve had done for years, one more wouldn’t kill her.
At least, until the rumors started.
They started pretty tame, just normal high school gossip. ‘Yeah, did you hear, Janae and Maeve broke up.’ ‘I heard that Maeve got dumped, actually.’ That sort of stuff.
Those stung, yeah, but considering the fact they were true, she couldn’t really do anything about it. Maeve didn’t even like thinking about it, about….her.
But by the second week back, they had started to spiral out of control.
‘I heard Maeve Rojas tried to kill Addy Prentiss.’
‘Well, didn’t she also stab her sister in the shoulder?’
‘I bet she was the one who killed Jake and Simon too, and covered it up.’
‘Poor thing, I bet that’s why she didn’t go to graduation. Her sister probably hates her now.’
“No!” She wanted to scream, “I was helping them! I was helping! They would be dead if not for me!”
But what nobody else knew, was just how lonely she had become. She barely talked to anybody other than her teachers at school anymore. She wasn’t herself anymore. Bronwyn barely talked to her, and if she did, it was on the rare occasion she wasn’t hanging out with Nate, or hanging out with everyone at Jane—
Maeve didn’t even want to think about her. Even saying her name was like a surefire way to start a breakdown.
Maeve was whipped out of her mind by a sharp pain on the back of her skull. She looked around, realizing that nearly everyone at the bonfire was gone. The fire had been reduced down to a pile of embers and smoke, and Maeve found it extremely fitting to her current condition. Out of the few people left, it was a couple of couples still hanging out down by the water, and a group of senior boys standing next to a truck, most likely highly inebriated.
She stood up, dusting the sand off her clothes before another dull ache appeared, this time blooming out on her shoulder blade. She glanced around before pulling out her phone. The time read, 11:52. Nearly midnight.
Much to her surprise, her phone was knocked out of her hand by a flying object. She sighed, and to her annoyance, it was a rock about the size of a quarter lying by her feet.
A few heads turned at the sound, but nobody seemed interested enough to do anything about it. Most of the people left were either distracted, drunk, or too wrapped up in their own conversations to care.
What the hell?
“Hey Maeve, are you going to try to kill one of us next!” One of the boys from the truck yelled as she walked closer. She tried to speed up, her steps quickening as they yelled.
‘Just make it to the car, just make it to the car, just make it to the car,’ she told herself.
“Aww, now she doesn’t want to talk does she?” It was the same boy from before, Tomas Fuller. He was her same age, but Maeve had never been fond of him. He was too loud for her tastes, too full of himself. Simon used to say ‘he has a heart like a tree, it never grows unless its ego is fed.’ It didn’t really make much sense to her back then, but it did now.
“Maeve, hello? I’m talking to you.” He jumped off the back of his truck, his buddies hooting and howling in the background. “Hello? You’re supposed to speak when spoken too? Did the chemo get to your brain too?” He laughed, his chuckle grating in her ears.
‘Don’t interact, just get in the car, and drive away.’ Maeve could hear Bronwyn yelling in the back of her mind, a memory resurfacing of them watching true crime shows while Maeve was in the hospital. Bronwyn’s favorite thing was to point out all the things they were doing that would get the victims killed.
She crashed into Tomas, not even watching where she was going anymore. His freinds pointed and yelled from the truck bed. Tomas made a show of wiping himself off, not wanting to be touched by something as disgusting as her.
“Oh, now she wants to play? Well Rojas, we can do that,” Tomas nodded to the group behind him, and they jumped out of the car. Maeve could smell the beer that poured off his person.
Shitshitshitshitshit.
“Please, just…leave me alone,” Maeve tried to say, but Tomas shook his head.
“I just want to know if the rumors are true first,” he said, “did you really try to kill your sister?” He took a step forward, grabbing her arm. Maeve tried to pull back, but he was too strong.
She was stunned. Who the fuck asks that? “No! What the hell?” She just wanted to go home. She could see her car from here, it really wouldn’t be that hard to break out his grip and run past him, would it?
“Oh, well, for some reason, I don’t believe you,” he drawled. “People like you, we don’t really need around here.”
Now Maeve was confused. “I already told you, I never tried to kill my sister. I never tried to kill anybody, so can I please just go home Tomas? Let me go, please!” She tried to wriggle out of his grip, but it was to no avail.
He yanked her forward, pulling her arm roughly. “You know, I always wanted to know what it was like to fuck a murder. And, plus, girls who bang girls are really hot.” He whispered the last part in her ear, his breath hot and sticky.
Maeve wanted to vomit. “Get off of me!” She yelled.
Why was nobody coming to help her?
She looked around wildly, seeing the others down the beach whispering and pointing. A few phones were out, recording by the light of the lampposts around the parking lot. Most of them looked uncertain, like they couldn't decide whether this was a joke, a fight, or something worse.
Nobody moved.
Tomas’s friends had run off, that, or Maeve just couldn’t see them.
And that’s what really got her. They were all just faces. People she saw daily, that girl she sat next to in freshman chemistry class. The boy who she was best friends with in second grade.
Nobody cared. The rumors really were true, she was an object of their imaginations, a toy to be played with, and prodded when it felt convenient.
Tomas stroked her cheek, his fingers warm and clammy and all the things Maeve didn’t want.
“Oh no sweetheart, I just want to see,” he hissed, and suddenly, his lips were on hers, and Maeve wanted to die. She tried to pull away, kicking him in the leg, and she tried to scream, but he had her arms pinned.
She broke away for a second, and screamed. Her vision swam, and her knees buckled.
“Help! Help! Help! Someone, please, help me!”
And, as suddenly as Tomas had kissed her, someone was punching him straight in the face, and he dropped her arm. Maeve scrabbled back, and so much was happening all at once. Tomas groaned, and somebody was screaming at him.
“Get the fuck off of her!”
Maeve panted, trying to get the taste of old beer out of her mouth. She felt someone’s arms around her, and she tried to shove them off. Then it dawned on her.
The smell of old coffee and lavender hit her like a train. She only knew one person who smelled like that and they hadn’t talked in months—
“-Janae?” She whispered, hating how soft her voice went. She was here and why was she here and how was she here and why the hell was she here?
Janae pulled back, quickly taking her eyes off Maeve. “Oh my god are you ok? Who is that guy?” She asked quickly. Her hands lingered on the crumpled part of Maeve’s jacket that Tomas had gripped.
“Umh, I…I,” Maeve pulled her hands into her pockets. It was all too much all at once. So many things were going on in her head. Her ex-girlfriend was here, Tomas as knocked out behind her, and someone else had just appeared behind Janae.
Cooper’s dark eyes flashed, and his face softened. He brushed past Janae, who looked at a loss of what to do. He pulled Maeve into a hug, resting his chin on her shoulder. Maeve felt herself melt into his embrace a little. “Are you ok? Did he hurt you?” He asked softly.
Maeve had always liked Cooper. Maybe it was the fact that they were alike in the sense that they were both outcasts, or maybe it was just something about him. And she tried, in this moment, to forget all that had happened between them, and just live in the comfort of his embrace for a moment.
Maeve felt her eyes well up. “I’m ok,” she blurted, feeling a tear drop onto Cooper’s sweater. “I’m ok.” She repeated. “Why, h-how are you here?”
Cooper pulled back. "We were going out to pick up something to eat. We were parked across the road when Janae heard somebody screaming." He nodded toward the convenience store lights in the distance. "Then we found you..." He looked behind himself, where Tomas was laying on the pavement, knocked out cold. “Was he…”
Maeve felt a lump rising up in her throat. “I-I,”
“You don’t have to answer that, it’s ok,” Janae spoke up from where she had been standing silently. She looked the same as she always did, her brown roots were growing out, chasing the blond down to her collarbone. Her hair was wavy, just like when Maeve had started to convince her to wear it natural.
She looked good.
More than good. She was wearing her stupid black and lime green windbreaker, the one she was wearing when she kissed her in the bathroom. Maeve tried to block out the memory.
“No, I-i know him…from school. He wanted…” Maeve could feel her voice start to crack. “He wanted to know if I tried to…” she couldn’t get the words out, they stuck to her tongue like glue.
Cooper sighed, running his hand across his face. “It’s ok, we can take you home.” He started towards his brightly colored jeep.
“Oh, I-i have my car, I’ll just drive myself. Thank you…for…everything.”
Janae smiled a little, her nose scrunching up a little bit. “Of course, we’ll…see you around.” She started to the car, but turned back around halfway there. “Maeve, please, be safe. If he really hurt you….please, tell somebody.”
Maeve knew they were all lies, but she couldn’t help but hope there was at least a little truth in her words.
‘We’ll see you around.’ It bounced around in her head like a ping pong ball.
Because she was still utterly and completely in love.