FicWad

Frank, Mikey and I were sent to a summer camp on a picturesque little lake situated in the heart of the Arklay Mountains. The long and dangerous trip seemed to take seconds. We were all loaded into stasis units and put into a deep sleep. When we woke up, we’d arrived at the heavily guarded compound that looked from the outside to be a military installation, but from the inside it looked like a fancy resort.
The first week was idyllic. We spent our days relaxing. Mikey and Frank taught me how to swim. They’d both been shocked when I stepped out of my room in a bikini the first day we were there. I’d made a last minute trip alone into town to get summer clothes. The sales girl assured me that I looked amazing and that this was the perfect bathing suit for me. “What?” I asked suddenly self conscious.
“Nothing!” Mikey said, blushing, “Just not used to seeing you in so little clothing.”
I felt my whole body blush.
“You look amazing, Sammie” Frankie said grinning.
“You two.” I said, shaking my head. “Let’s just go to the lake.”
We had fun, those first few days, we stayed up late, slept in, told stories, hung out around a campfire at night. One night Frankie played his guitar for us.
The changes were subtle at first. After our unwinding period was over, we went to work in the labs. I was assigned to a lab decoding the genome for a virus called the T-Virus. It was boring work, but I made a new friend there.
She went by the implausible nickname of Anthrax. We hung out on lunch breaks and chatted in the lab. She offered to teach me how to put on makeup, something that the boys couldn’t teach me much about, and how to style my hair. She took me to the salon when I got my hair cut for the first time. Soon we were spending all of our time together. Frank was busy with a huge project and Mikey had met a girl that he became smitten with, it took them a while to notice that I’d slipped away from them.
Anthrax was one of the party kids that Ray had warned me about, and I did the opposite of what he’d told me to do, I had way too much fun. The party kids were uninhibited, partying every night, drinking, experimenting with drugs, and I went along with them. I had a hell of a time until Frankie and Mikey suddenly had more time on their hands. Frankie’s project wrapped up and Mikey was no longer smitten.

My phone rang, is heard it distantly through the haze of sleep and a hangover, or maybe I was still drunk from the night before, either was possible. I rolled over and onto Anthrax. She didn’t react. Just as I was drifting off to sleep again, my phone rang again. I slapped at the nightstand searching for my phone. I found it and pressed it to my ear.

“What?” I whispered groggily.
“Oh my god, Sam, we were so worried. We went by your room but you weren’t there.” It was Mikey. What he said barely made sense to me and words were hard to come by at the moment.

“Huh? Oh, I stayed with Anthrax last night. What, ummh, what did you want?”

He sounded aggravated, “ To see you, dummy. I haven’t seen you in forever. Come swimming with us.”

The last thing I wanted to do was to get out of bed, especially not to head down to the lake and be surrounded by large groups of yelling and splashing kids.

“I don’t think I feel up to it, Mikey.”

“Late night last night?” He asked jokingly.

“More like early morning.” I was starting to feel a bit better and a little guilty. My work had wrapped up a few days ago, and I’d spent the time since partying. The boys had been working all that time and it had been a few weeks, maybe, since I’d seen them. Time was hard to keep track of lately. “Give me an hour, and I’ll be there.”

An hour later my phone rang, waking me again. This time it was Frank.
“Sammie, you okay?” his voice was soft and I couldn’t tell if he was worried or hurt.
“Sorry, I fell back to sleep. I’ll be right there.”
There was no point in trying to wake Anthrax. She was still out cold. I grabbed a bottle off the nightstand before heading out the door. The best cure for a hangover, after all, is the hair of the dog that bit you.
I drank about a quarter of the bottle on my way to the lake. I felt great by the time I got there. Mikey and Frank were sitting on a blanket talking animatedly about something.

“Hey guys,” I said, plopping down between them. “Sorry I’m late.” I patted Mikey on the shoulder and leaned over to kiss Frank.
He kissed me but pulled away quickly, his nose wrinkled in disgust. “You’ve been drinking.”
It wasn’t a question.
I shrugged. “Yeah, it’s my day off. So, you know, why not?”
Mikey shrugged but Frank frowned. “We’re not supposed to be drinking.”
I laughed at this. “Yeah, it’s against the rules, but think about it. This is a locked down compound. How do you think the booze gets in? They really don’t care.”
I held out the bottle to Mikey. He shrugged and took it from me and took a long drink before offering to Frank. Frank hesitated but took it and drank.
Honestly, I don’t remember much else from that day. At some point Anthrax showed up with pills or something...It’s all a blur of bared skin, some music and then nothing.

I woke up in the morning to the sound of someone puking. My eyes were blurry and it took a moment to realize that I didn’t know where I was. I knew I hadn’t left the compound, obviously, that was impossible but I wasn’t in my room, nor was I in Anthrax’s. I turned my head to the side to check the clock and came face to face with Gerard. Not him in person, but a picture of him. I must be in Mikey’s room, I thought to myself. I reached out and knocked the picture to the floor. I don’t even know why I was reaching for it to begin with. Annoyed I closed my eyes and tried to will myself back to sleep. I was halfway there when a warm hand snaked across my bare torso.
Slowly I turned my head to the side, almost afraid to see who was next to me in bed. I opened my eyes slowly to discover that it was Frank.
His eyes fluttered open slowly. “Hey.”
“Hey yourself”
He yawned and snuggled against me, pulling me closer to him. When his hand brushed against my bare breast, he jumped back as though he’d been burned.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean.” He blushed furiously.
I shrugged. “ No big deal. I assume we did a lot more than that last night.”
When he’d pulled me close, I’d come to the realization that I was completely naked under Mikey’s blanket. Frank flopped back against the mattress. “I don’t remember.”
I shrugged again, “It’s not really a big deal.”
Frank sat up, he looked furious. “Not a big deal?! Our first time together, and it’s not a big deal that neither of us can remember?! What is wrong with you lately?”
“Jesus, Frank, nothing. I didn’t realize that you had such strong feelings about sex.”
Whatever he was going to say was interrupted by more puking and someone moaning, ‘Kill me, please.’ from the bathroom.
I yanked the sheet out from under the blanket and wrapped it around myself.

In the bathroom, Mikey was sprawled on the tile floor, his head resting on the toilet seat. He threw up again just as I got to him.
“Oh, Mikey, I’m sorry. Let me help you.” I got him a drink of water and rubbed his back as he threw up yet again. “I’ll help you, just hang in there.”
I hurried out of the bathroom, kicking the sheet out of my way as I scurried across the room to the phone. I called room service and placed my order. When I hung up, I noticed that Frank was sitting on the edge of the bed, fully dressed. He threw my clothes at me, “Get dressed.”
He’d never spoken to me like that before. I’d never heard him talk to anyone like that. His voice usually so soft and full of laughter was harsh.
Angered and determined to embarrass him, I dropped the sheet and stood definitely naked before him. He looked away. He looked sickly and ashamed and angry.
“You can look now, boyscout.” I snapped when I was dressed.
“You know what, Samara, fuck you.” He snarled at me. He bolted from the room and slammed the door on his way out. He’d never called me by my proper name before, it had always been Sam or Sammie. It stung a bit, but I refused to let it really bother me.
Room service knocking gave me something to do. I opened the door and took the tray from the surprised looking employee, and quickly shut the door. I set it on the nightstand and went back into the bathroom.
“Come on Mikey, let’s get you into bed. You need some medicine and some sleep.” He groaned, but tried to stand. I carried most of his weight across the room. When we reached the bed, I had no choice but to half drop, half shove him onto it. I grabbed the small wastepaper basket and put it on the floor next to his head just in case. I propped him up on his side and put a pillow behind him so he couldn’t roll onto his back while I made my hangover cure. I crushed up a few anti nausea pills into a small class and then dissolved them with a sports drink.
“Hey, Mikey, you need to drink this for me.” I pressed the glass to his lips. He took a sip and grimace. “Drink up, you need to drink it all. You’ll feel better when you wake up, I promise.”
He finished the drink and flopped back onto the bed, groaning. That’s when I saw the picture on the floor. I picked it up and set it back on the nightstand where it had been before. I stood there staring at Gerard’s face for several long seconds before I turned my back on him and went to leave.
“NO, don’t go! Don’t leave me!” Mikey shouted out. He tried to get up, I rushed to the side of them bed and pressed him back down.
“I won’t go anywhere. I promise, I’ll stay right here.”
I laid down on the bed next to him, idly rubbing his back until he fell asleep. Gerard’s smiling face mocked me from inside its picture frame.
I must have fallen asleep because when my phone rang, I jumped awake, dazed and disoriented.
I answered without checking who was calling.
“Hello?”
“I’m very disappointed in you Sam. Very disappointed.” It was Gerard and he was very angry. The kind of angry where you can’t even yell. His voice was cold and hard as ice.
“That doesn’t sound like a me problem. That sounds like a you problem.” I hissed.
“How’s Mikey? Is he okay?” There was still no warmth in his voice.
“He’s fine, he’s sleeping right now. He’s hungover but he’ll be fine in a few hours. I’m not stupid, I know what I’m doing.” I snapped.
“Apparently, you’ve been very stupid, Sam, or should I call you Exstacy?”
I gasped. How had he known about that nickname. The nickname only Anthrax and her friends called me. Mikey didn’t know it, and while I was certain Frank had called Gerard as soon as he’d left the room, there was no way he knew it either.
“Call me what you want, but don’t you dare call me stupid.”
“What am I supposed to call your behavior? You’ve spent the past few weeks getting wasted every chance you get and now you’ve dragged Mikey down along with you. I was willing to let it go. I’ve been getting reports since the beginning about your wild behavior. I let it slide, I figured you were just rebelling, but you’ve gone too far. I’m sending someone to watch Mikey until he wakes up, once they get there I want you to stay the hell away from my brother.”
“Anything else, any other orders, sir?” I ground out from behind clenched teeth.
“Just one last thing. You really hurt Frank, you know that. Don’t you?”
He’d gone too far. “My relationship with Frank is none of your business!” I yelled into the phone.
“He’s my friend too.” He said sounding sad.
“Bullshit. If you had the chance it would have been you in bed with me this morning instead of him. You can’t call someone a friend while lusting after their girlfriend.” I wanted to throw something, to hit someone, to run away and fall to pieces. “Is that what this is about, Gerard?” His name sounded like the foulest of curses as it slid out of mouth. “Are you pissed that we were partying or that I fucked Frankie?”
He didn’t bother to answer me. He hung up on me and I was left standing at the blank screen on my phone as tears of rage coursed down my cheeks. In a fit of rage, I threw my phone across the room, and felt a sense of victory as I heard it shatter against the wall.
My whole body was shaking with anger when I heard the door open, and a guy I only vaguely knew stepped into the room. He was a tall, pudgy blond haired guy named Bob who hung out with Gerard sometimes. He stood next to the door, beefy arms crossed. He motioned with is head that I should leave. Suddenly, the fight was gone from me and defeated, I left.