Heartbreakers Ch. 05

Bethany saw the silver Audi pull into the lot. She checked the time on her phone. It was 10:08. Her enemies were fashionably late, but she would have done the same if their positions had been reversed.

The Audi pulled up close to the sidewalk. She saw that the driver wasn't Mindy, as she'd expected, but one of her lieutenants.

"What's up, bitch?" Shelly called out, once her window slid open.

"What's up, whore?" Bethany shot back. "Where's your mother? I'm surprised she let you come out by yourself."

"She's waiting for you somewhere else." Shelly replied. "What we've got is highly volatile and we're not taking any chances. I'll take you to her."

Bethany frowned distastefully before stepping to the car. She got into the passenger seat.

"Get ready to cry, bitch." Shelly said, as she put the car in drive and circled around toward where she'd come into the lot.

Bethany said nothing. She didn't need to. She was too high up in the food chain to deal with mere lieutenants from the enemy.

The Audi drove down the main drag, which was still largely deserted, partly because the churches hadn't let out yet, and partly because of the less than picturesque weather. They were headed toward the freeway, Bethany noted. Before they reached it, Shelly made a turn onto another street. This was where a lot of the overnight lodging in town was located.

When Shelly turned into a motel parking lot, Bethany made a note of the establishment's name and location. It might come in handy later, as Bethany was always looking for an edge against the Heartbreakers.

The Audi pulled up to the curb.

"Room 218." Shelly told her. "Get the fuck out my car, bitch."

Bethany made her exit. Before she'd even reached the stairs to the second floor, the Audi had already turned around was heading for the street. Her adversaries were being extra careful, Bethany observed, as they were taking great pains to keep their presence hidden.

The redhead's interest was piqued as to what Mindy had up her sleeve. She was finding it very hard to believe that the Heartbreakers had already matched the Challenge the Fillies had set out for them. Especially in only nine days, when it had taken her squad damned near a month to complete things on their end. A whole lot of fucking going on, she smirked.

More likely, Mindy had realized that they wouldn't be able to do the Challenge, and was now trying to talk her way out of it and save face. That's why they chose the weekend and not a school day, Bethany reasoned, and that's why they were being extra careful.

The redhead reached Room 218, but she didn't knock. She simply pushed the door open and stepped in. She was expected, as Queens like her and Mindy didn't go through trivialities such as announcing themselves to a reinforced piece of wood. The room was sparsely furnished with a bed, a dresser with a TV on top, and a joke that somebody called a table and two chairs.

Mindy was sitting on one of those chairs, apparently not doing anything but thinking. Her phone was sitting idle at her side. The blonde wore a white blouse that showed off a conservative amount of cleavage and her own pair of expensive jeans. Bethany noticed the ankle-high white boots; they were cute.

"Shut the door, bitch." Mindy said.

Bethany kicked it closed with her foot. "Do you have something for me or don't you?"

"Sit down and shut the fuck up."

This was interesting, Bethany thought. Usually, Mindy and her sparred with words, like two expert fencers feeling each other out. They would lash out at each other, sometimes striking, sometimes missing, sometimes overextending themselves and leaving themselves vulnerable. She didn't sense any of that from her nemesis this time.

Bethany walked over to the second chair and parked herself on it.

Mindy slid her phone across the table. "Find the picture album with the title Challenge on it."

Bethany scooped the phone up, but she didn't start fiddling with it right away. Instead, she looked at Mindy. Her adversary looked bitter, almost angry, and again this was so unlike the Mindy she was used to. Mindy wasn't even looking in her direction. If her rival had an ace up her sleeve, she should have been gloating over it.

Bethany started going through the phone. She found the right album and she tapped the phone to open it. The redhead saw the first picture there. She read its little caption, before she flipped over to the second picture, and then the third. The gravity of what she was looking at started to dawn on her. After seven or eight pictures, Bethany set the phone back on the table. Her mouth had gone dry.

"We just buried you." Mindy said. "I want you to say it."

"I'm not saying anything."

"I want to hear you say it." Mindy repeated.

There was a hard edge there, and something more, but Bethany couldn't tell exactly what it was. "What does it matter if I say it or not? You know where we stand right now."

"It matters to me." Mindy's voice was tinged with anger.

This was so contrary to their usual games, Bethany considered. They were always games of mental chess, of backstabbing and subterfuge. They were never games of emotion or violence, but here she was seeing a whole new side of Mindy.

"Why did you take the captain of the football team away from me?" Mindy asked.

"Because I felt like it."

"And why have you been butting heads with me ever since?"

"Because you think you can get everything you want. I'm going to show you that you can't."

Mindy took a deep breath. "I want you to admit that we buried you, because I'm stepping aside. I'm letting one of my lieutenants take over the Heartbreakers. Maybe more than one."

To Bethany, this was the biggest shock of all. "You can't do that. We're two sides of the same coin. It's through our rivalry that we prop each other up. If you step aside it would ruin both of us. Your little club will fall apart without you."

"I know this."

"Then why would you do that, and especially right now when we only have a couple of months left in our senior year?"

Mindy's gaze went from the wall across the room, to a spot on the carpet only a few feet in front of her. For several long moments, she held her tongue. She sighed. "My lieutenant, Shelly, and I had a long talk yesterday. She pointed some things out to me. She's been my best friend forever. Shelly's been watching me, and she noticed a few things. I hadn't connected these things about myself, but she did."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Bethany asked.

Mindy laughed. "I'm talking about your tits! I'm talking about your hair and your looks and everything about you. The reason I go out of my way to piss you off is because I've been trying to get your attention any way I can. I'm in love with you! Since I can't have you and since you don't want me, I've been pretending to hate you all this time."

Bethany saw Mindy's face tighten, as if some inner pain was threatening to overwhelm her. Mindy was either telling her the truth, or she was one of the best actors Bethany had ever seen.

"Say it." Mindy reminded her.

Bethany was looking for the angles that were always there between them, the many layers upon layers of deception, of moves and anticipated countermoves. This time, she wasn't seeing any of them.

"Are you really going to step aside?" Bethany asked. "Even if it means you'll lose everything as a result?"

"Yes. I can no longer lead the Heartbreakers, now that I know how I feel about you."

"Okay, then I admit it. The Heartbreakers kicked my ass. You buried the Fillies and you buried me right along with them."

"Good. So what are you waiting for? Get the fuck out of here."

Bethany left her chair and went to the door. She stepped out, while behind her, the door closed itself shut. She started her walk to the stairwell, running her hand along the edge of the security rail and thinking about the massive changes that were going to rock their high school in less than twenty four hours. One of the two major Players in the Game was no longer going to be there. That meant that Bethany was going to be the undisputed Queen of the entire campus.

She was about to start down the stairs, when she paused in mid-stride. Her foot hovered in the air, heading down toward the first step, but now she brought it back on even ground. Back in Room 218, Mindy was probably crying over her. In her soul, she felt this.

For some reason, this started to bother Bethany, but she didn't understand why. Mindy was her enemy and had always been her enemy. There should be no compassion for enemies. She took that first step down the stairwell, but she found that she couldn't go any further.

"What the hell is wrong with me?" Bethany asked herself.

All she had to do was walk down the street a little bit and use her phone to call up a ride. She knew plenty of people that would have jumped at that chance. In minutes, she would leave that sleazy motel behind.

What was holding her back was that she had many opportunities to ignore Mindy and her pack of whores, when she could have left their feud behind, but she'd never done it. Why not? Why had she always gone back to stir the shit with Mindy? Why couldn't she let sleeping dogs lie?

Unwittingly, Mindy had told her the answer. The reason Bethany kept starting trouble with the Heartbreakers was because she wanted Mindy's attention. Sure, it gained Bethany notoriety with the entire school, and it made her a force to be reckoned with, but there was more to it, wasn't there? The rivalry was more between the two leaders than it was between the two clubs. Bethany hated Mindy, and Mindy hated Bethany, on the surface level. But on a deeper level, Mindy really loved Bethany. So, why did Bethany hate Mindy so much? She thought of Mindy, sitting alone in that room and crying, and about to walk away from everything she stood for, all because she supposedly loved Bethany.

"Well, shit." Bethany cursed, before she gave in to her impulse and started back to Room 218.

Queens didn't knock, but here was Bethany standing in front of a door that was closed to her, and she was knocking.

"What the fuck do you want?" A very small voice came through from the other side.

It was Bethany's turn to take a deep breath. "I want to hear you say it, and you know what I'm talking about."

It took a moment for the door to crack open. Inside, Bethany saw Mindy's normally beautiful face, marred with watery eyes and teary cheeks. Despite Mindy's distraught appearance, she still held her chin up and managed to look dignified, and very much like the Queen that she truly was.

With a cracked voice, Mindy said the right three words. They were the perfect words, the magic words. They reached a very profound place inside of the redhead at the door.

As a result, a multitude of things happened deep within Bethany's soul. Things tore apart and things broke into pieces in some places, while in other places, things were revealed and exposed. Things that had been wounded began to heal.

"I want to come in." Bethany said, softly.

A moment later, the door to that motel room closed shut.

The wind had died down, and the clouds started to lighten as if the sun was breaking its way through. Maybe it would turn out to be a good day, after all.