Loving Cousin

"This is Jules! Leave me a message."

Nausea made my mouth feel slick as I dropped the call before it could beep again. After the party I'd assumed the sense of foreboding I felt would go away, but if anything it had gotten worse.

John looked up from reading at his end of the couch. "She still won't pick up?"

"No."

"You've been a nervous wreck since the party. Why don't you talk to me about it? I won't try to give you advice this time, I'll just listen."

"I would if I thought it'd help," I said. We'd had our first, really ugly fight the day after the party. Mom had gone to work and he kept trying to come up with ideas to fix everything. That's when it became really obvious how little we knew each other.

My friendship with Steph went back years, but I'd allowed the crazy lust I'd felt for my cousin destroy it in a single evening. Holly lost her best friend, all because I'd been too scared everyone else would find out what a freak I was. Someone had to have told Jules, because she'd stop