Just Revenge

Chapter Thirty-Four: Effort

"He just wants to know it was real enough for you to make the effort"

Cort's words haunted me all through auditions that day, and that night as I waited in the lobby for my parents to pick me up too.

Was it real enough for me to make the effort?

Was it real at all?

I don't know why it was so complicated for me. I knew that it was real with Ror. And with Diana and Luke. And, although they may hate me now, with Alex and Izzy too. And whatever weird feud thing Harper and I had going was definitely real. But Max was different. He'd quite literally been the plan. The whole idea was to fake things with him. And I couldn't quite figure out if when things had ended if it'd still been fake or not.

I know I'd called it off because it'd felt real, but had it felt real with Max or with everyone else?

It kinda terrified me that I wasn't sure, and I probably should figure it out before I make the effort to talk to the kid again.

A couple hours later, as I sorted through my closet, getting ready for bed, my answer found me. Max's sweatshirt still sat hung up on the shelf from that day at the lake.

I picked it up, the memory of how I got it making me smile despite myself.

Fuck, the way he'd looked at me as I swam out of the water that day, like he'd never seen anything quite like me. The image of Cort stumbling out of the water with hair gel dripping down his nose appeared in my mind, and I burst out laughing alone in my room.

I should probably return the sweatshirt. If nothing else, he deserved his stuff back, I guess.

The dread of what I had to do kept me up for most of that night, and by the time I got onto the bus for school the next morning, I had overthought the conversation so much that I was sure I was prepared; I had to be.

I'd decided to give him the sweatshirt back at callbacks that night. Technically, the callbacks list hadn't been posted yet, but it was Max. He'd be there.

The school day passed by way too quickly and, before I had properly processed it, it was time to move towards the auditorium for callbacks. I hung out with some of the other techies that had just come to hang out in the director's room for a little bit, gathering my nerves, when Aurora randomly approached us.

I couldn't quite hide my shock as she walked directly up to the group of techies, bypassing the couple groups of random actors and people who, ya know, hadn't violently betrayed her and sabotaged her friend group recently.

She paused when she reached us, waiting as the conversation died down and we all stopped to look at her.

We all watched as she bit her lip and toyed with the hem of her sweater for a very long few seconds of silence.

"Ror, what's..." I started, but she held up her hand, the closest I'd seen to this girl ever demand someone shut up. In what I can only describe as a state of shock, I obliged.

"I..." She stopped, taking a deep breath, "Well, I just wanted to apologize to you guys."

I'm sorry, what? Why is she apologizing to me right now.

"I never... I... I never meant to be rude to anyone and I didn't... I didn't know that you guys felt so left out and... and hurt. I don't... I hate to think that I made anyone ever feel left out, in any way and I'm just... I'm so sorry if I ever made you feel that way. I never meant to and I never realized and I should've noticed and I'm... I'm gonna do better and I'm gonna make more of an effort and I... I brought brownies? They're outside because I didn't know if this was a brownies situation or if that would just be weird but I felt bad and I want to start making it up to you all and I know that brownies aren't going to fix anything, but I thought that maybe they'd be a start and that...." She paused, her rambling trailing off.

"I don't know what I was thinking... I'm just sorry."

She looked like she was about to cry as her eyes flicked around the circle, clearly trying to make eye contact with each and every person.

This girl. What the actual fuck. I hurt her. I ruined a large portion of her life, and yet she was apologizing to ME? The world really did not deserve this girl. She was straight out of a fucking Disney movie.

I stood up, "Ror, no. I'm so fucking sorry. I was a bitch. I am a bitch and you didn't deserve that, I didn't..."

"No, it's fine." She cut me off, "I just... never realized how much I was... I can't believe we hurt you so much that..." Her eyes started tearing up and she choked off her words at the end.

I stepped towards her, pulling her into a hug. "This isn't on you, Ror. You didn't do anything wrong."

She wrapped her arms around me, crying into my shoulder so hard that I started crying too.

What the hell had this all come to?

She pulled back, still partially crying, and wiped the tears from her eyes, "I'm gonna go grab the brownies."

I stood there, frozen, as she brought the brownies in from the hall and all the techies flocked to them. Everyone in the room started grabbing the food and mingling around, thanking Ror and chatting with each other as they ate.

I sighed, digging in my backpack for the stupid sweatshirt, if Ror had the courage to stand in front of a whole crowd of people and apologize to us, then I could do this. I owed it, to more than one person, to do this.

I draped the sweatshirt over my arm and snuck out of the room. Boy, was this about to suck.