RE: Trailer Trash 60, 60 pt 1 (Patreon)

    “The fuck do you mean 'she wasn’t at the party'?!” Brittany raged, using her fingertips to shove Ashlee back again. “Uh, hello? That exact bitch I pointed out to you was at the party. She said so herself, now everyone thinks I’m an idiot.”

    Brittany wasn’t usually prone to lashing out in physical acts of violence like Erica always had—the sharp little shoves stung, and Ashlee covered the tender aches they left behind just above her boobs, but they didn’t hurt. Not like fists did, not like it used to when Erica kicked her. Ashlee recoiled back against the wall and shielded her face all the same, because if she’d learned one thing over the course of her childhood, was that you never wanted to let your abuser believe they weren’t hitting you hard enough.

    “I don’t know!” Ashlee wailed. “I—I don’t remember seeing her there. I don’t know!”

    She really didn’t remember seeing the smiling girl from that yearbook photo. No one believed her, though. This morning Clarissa had mentioned that oh, yeah you’re wrong about it, she was totally there, but Ashlee only trusted her own recollection. There had been two older guys and two older girls—probably sophomores or juniors. Tabitha and her boyfriend, and then Tabitha’s two cronies, they all seemed like they were probably freshman. Then five elementary kids, which were cousins or younger siblings of someone or other.

    “Okay, well, everyone’s saying she was there, so all I can do is repeat to everyone that yeah, my little sister’s fucking retarded,” Brittany scowled, shoving Ashlee again. “Yeah, great. What am I supposed to even tell everyone, now? ‘Yeah sorry, you know my stupid little sister! She has that bum eye, guess Olivia was just SITTING IN HER BLIND SPOT that whole fucking night.’ As if everyone doesn’t already think you’re a stupid fucking stain.”

    “She wasn’t there!” Ashlee sobbed out. “She’s lying!”

    The sob was mostly fake, although letting herself choke up with emotion enough to really cry was never too difficult. It was an excuse to escalate things in volume enough to annoy Aunt Kimberly, which sometimes brought these confrontations to a conclusion. This kind of ploy would never have worked if Erica was still here—Erica would have gut-punched the wind out of her, or pinned her to the floor, sat on top of her and covered her mouth. That suffocating helplessness still occasionally gave her pangs of terror, and Ashlee always forced those memories back down before the nausea and panic attached to them could spill out.

    “Could you both stop? Please?” Aunt Kimberly yelled over from the living room. “What are you two even fighting about? Can you just cut it out? I was at work all damned day, I don’t need to come home to this. Okay?”

    Their aunt wasn’t really equipped to taking care of teenage girls, and each week that went by saw her attempts at being stern and laying down the law start to wear down into indifference and irritation. She had been real sympathetic at first due to the whole ‘child abuse’ situation, but then Ashlee had made the mistake of getting caught stealing things from her purse, and then gotten in even more trouble for lying about it. Back when they were still living with their parents it had been easy to obfuscate blame for missing stuff, because Erica and Brittany weren’t always united and didn’t trust each other, and they each had different friends that would come over. Ashlee had even pretended that Tabitha was still coming over.

    All of that changed when they were shuffled off to live with their Aunt. Erica was gone off to the juvie center and so Erica’s friends were out of the picture. Brittany was ashamed of their new living situation and didn’t want her peers seeing how she lived, here. That meant when something went missing, the list of suspects was just Ashlee and Brittany, and with them growing wise to her game it meant Ashlee was always guilty, whether or not they could prove it.

    “Ashlee lied to me about something super important,” Brittany tattled. “Now everyone at school thinks I’m just making stuff up to try and mess with Tabitha.”

    “Because you are!” Ashlee cried. So what if I’m not even friends with the Tabby imposter—if she can get YOU in trouble, then I can act like we’re friends when I’m here at home.

    “Only because you lied to me!” Brittany shoved Ashlee again.

    This time the fingers pressed higher up, enough to unbalance Ashlee and have the motion of the push knock the back of Ashlee’s head against the wall. That hurt, and it was thankfully just enough to help Ashlee summon some tears to her eyes. Now she just had to find a way to squeeze past Brittany through the hall to show their aunt—then Brittany would be in way more trouble.

    “Would you both just stop it?” Their aunt called over. “Brittany, you’re supposed to be steering clear of that Tabitha girl. Ashlee—”

    “See?! SEE!” Ashlee gloated. “She—”

    “And Ashlee, stop trying to cause trouble,” Aunt Kimberly chastised her. “I know you’re always trying to stir up trouble. You don’t need to have anything to do with that Tabitha girl, either.”

    “But she’s my friend!” Ashlee protested, injecting disbelief and despair into her voice. “You can’t—”

    “Stop faking it, you’re barely even really crying,” Brittany scoffed.

    She tried to shove Ashlee again, but this time Ashlee was able to catch the pressing hands on the back of her arms and ward them off. That was something Ashlee would have never, ever attempted to do with Erica—fighting back had been a mistake she made twice, and it had invited the most brutal retaliation Ashlee had ever experienced in her life. Things were different here, now that Erica was out of the picture. Ashlee wasn’t going to make it as easy for Brittany to push her around, anymore.

    “Both of you stop, go on to your own separate rooms,” Aunt Kimberly ordered. “I don’t know what this is about this time, I don’t care, I’ve told you both a hundred times to just stop, so just stop. Go to your separate rooms—if you can behave, you can come out for dinner.”

    Seeing that their aunt wasn’t going to come break them up in person or appreciate her tears, Ashlee wiped them away across her face and gave her sister a triumphant sneer. It wasn’t really any kind of victory, but the important thing was to pretend like it was. Brittany of course wasn’t too impressed, and the older sister made a pssh face and rolled her eyes before turning and storming off to the other bedroom.

    “Whatever. Not like it matters?” Brittany muttered. “Your precious little tubby Tabby went and messed with the cheerleaders. She’s basically signed her own death warrant. She’s through.”

    The door to Brittany’s room slammed, and that was when Ashlee felt like she had a small win. Because, for whatever bizarre reason even Brittany thought the Tabitha at school was Ashlee’s old fat friend Tabitha. When in reality, they weren’t even the same person—everyone except Ashlee had bought into the imposter’s whole act somehow. They all thought the skinny preppy girl with lots of friends was Tabby, which meant they never knew Tabby at all.

    So, she thinks those little jabs will get to me, when really they mean nothing to me at all, Ashlee felt a surge of glee. Because me and the fake Tabitha AREN’T friends. We could never be friends. I don’t even know who she is.

    With a rare rush of elation, Ashlee stepped down the hall and into her own tiny room. Unlike Brittany’s actual room, Ashlee was given the back porch of her Aunt’s place, but renovations back in the eighties meant it was a covered and enclosed porch, almost as good as a real room. Just, the carpets were thin outdoor carpet mats instead of plush ones like inside, and instead of floor vents for heat, she had to make due with a little space heater.

    Still no idea what happened to the REAL Tabby, Ashlee felt bewildered. My best guess is that the imposter, she’s Tabby’s cousin or something, that she must have got into trouble somewhere. So, her family moved her here and told everyone she was Tabby. Probably to keep her from having A RECORD, to keep her out of places like the juvenile detention center in Breathitt where Erica is locked up.

    “So… where are you?” Ashlee wondered out loud, hopping on her bed. “If this ‘Tabitha’ is here, then where are you, who are you pretending to be? Being MADE to pretend to be…”

    If they installed the fake Tabitha into Tabby’s life here, then didn’t that mean the real Tabby had been forced to assume the fake Tabitha’s life, wherever she was from? Which meant, whatever trouble that necessitated the switch had been inherited by Tabby. It was believable, because wouldn’t that just be Tabby’s luck? The poor oaf was probably sitting in a juvie center for someone else’s crimes, and no one would believe her.

    Because no one ever believes us, Ashlee seethed. Ever.

    The switch where two girls assumed each other's different identities was implausible, but not impossible. Although Ashlee hadn’t seen the new advertised Lindsay Lohan The Parent Trap that came out last year, they had the old one with Hayley Mills on tape, and she’d seen it dozens of times. Somehow or other, Tabby had been forced to switch places with this fake ‘Tabitha,’ and no one cared enough to look too closely or even really notice. Now this new ‘Tabitha’ was obviously up to no good, because she was pretty and popular and thrilled to stir up all kinds of drama in school.

    Which is NOTHING like Tabby, Ashlee knew. That bitch is nothing like my Tabby at all. But—WHERE IS the real Tabby?! How can I find her. Does she need to be RESCUED? Is she sitting in like, a juvie center like Erica is? Or WORSE? Maybe they treat her like she’s crazy, because she keeps trying to tell people she’s not who they’re trying to say she is. Maybe they put her on medication, like on lithium treatments like they did Erica, so she’s too loopy or drugged out to even complain, anymore.

    “Somehow or other, I’m gonna find you,” Ashlee told herself. “Going to save you. What I need to do—all I need to do, to make that happen, is expose ‘Tabitha’ the fake. Once everyone realizes she’s not the real Tabby, then everyone will start to ask where’s the real Tabby.”

    Ashlee only hoped Tabby was okay. Hoped that she was only suffering in silence in some other different town, or maybe medicated into compliance and serving out someone else’s sentence in juvie, just waiting for the proper authorities to figure out what happened. Because, if the real Tabby was gone for good, if she was dead—then that meant Ashlee had lost her only friend in the entire world.

( 59, The terrible tantrum. | RE: Trailer Trash | Next, 60 pt 2 )

/// Short and sweet section to get ch 60 started off, I will be focusing most of this month on wrapping up After AnimeCon so that I can get it shipped off to my publisher for edits. Then, most of next month will be me focusing on RE: Trailer Trash, so that I can get RE:TT book two likewise sent off to that publisher. Thank you for your patience!