Must Read: An Incest Birthday (18+)

Episode 7 years ago

Must Read: An Incest Birthday (18+)

“I asked myself that for the last few months. I hate who I was.”
“Was? You mean still are? I don’t see someone like you changing who they are.”
“But I did, I swear I did! I don’t even really know you and I wanna prove to you that I’m not that same person anymore, none of us are! Whatever you think I can do I’ll do it!”
Denise stood there contemplating for a second. “You’ll do anything I ask? Anything?”
“We all will, well we as in the four of us, just to show I’m telling the truth.”
“Ok. When my brother comes back we’re gonna think of something for all of you, and it’s gonna be really humiliating, I mean really, really humiliating. You still sure you’re sorry?”
“If we gotta get humiliated, fine. I just want you to see that I really am sorry.”
“She really is a changed person Denise, all of them. Trust me, we know first-hand,” I said, finding myself defending Ashley. “Believe me, if they still acted like they used to, we wouldn’t be hanging out with them, not a chance in hell.”
“How do you know she’s not putting on an act? Someone who’s that heartless is probably a good actress too. You should’ve seen my brother’s face after what she did to him…”
“She’s not. We gave her every test we could think of, even a lie detector, she really is changed. I don’t blame you though, it took us a while before we believed her too,” Rita said.
“Like I said, we’ll do whatever, all of us, and we won’t complain,” Ashley said.


Denise stood there with her arms crossed contemplating. “Ok, you can stay, lucky for you I believe in second chances, but I’m watching you, all of you, you can sit down over here.”
The happy upbeat mood was replaced by an awkward, silent, tension-filled one as Denise scooped up some menus and walked us over to our usual table. We were suddenly reminded that Ashley’s past not only affected us, but other people as well, and I could only wonder how many more times she would go through a scenario like this. We slid another table up to the one we were at so we could all sit together and sat down in an us versus them kinda style.
“I’ll be back with some bread. There’s an unlimited soup and salad bar over there, you should check it out. Can I have everyone’s drinks,” Denise said as plain as possible.


“We’ll all be simple and get a Sierra Mist, huh guys?” Stephanie asked.
“We’ll take the same too if it’s not too much trouble,” Ashley said cautiously.
“Eight Sierra Mist’s, pretty simple. I’ll give you some time to order.”
Denise walked away and everybody kinda took a breath of relief that some of the awkwardness was gone. Everybody looked at Ashley who was avoiding looking up from her menu.
“Well I guess I’ll talk first, I did not see that coming,” Chris said.
“That’s the understatement of the year. What are the chances of us running into someone who Ashley treated like complete crap?” Dana asked.
“Pretty high since she used to treat everybody like that,” Becky said, making Ashley cringe.
“That’s nice Becky, pour more salt on the wound, hell the whole bottle,” Carina said.
“No it’s ok, it’s not like I didn’t have it coming,” Ashley said. “I should’ve gotten worse than that, did you see the look on her face when she was talking about what I did?”
“I think everybody in here did, she wasn’t being quiet about it. I’m surprised her father did come up to see what was happening,” Stephanie said.
“Just when I thought I was making progress, this happens. It’s nice to be reminded how much of a B***h you used to be to people you didn’t even know,” Ashley said.
“The good thing about it is you feel bad about it and you made an effort to try to fix it, that shows her you changed a little bit, even if she’s too mad right now to believe it,” Rita said.
“We were having such a good time too, then I just had to go and kill the mood.”
“We can probably get the mood back upbeat after a while. It makes you think though, exactly how many people have you been nasty to? How many apologies to you have to give?” I asked.
“I can’t even begin to count, I was nasty to almost everybody I came across.”
“Then you have to fix it with all of them.



You can’t just change around us, you have to be an all-around new Ashley, which means apologizing to everybody you wronged.”
“Yeah. You all have to too,” Ashley said referring to Becky, Dana and Carina. “I may have been the one leading the charge but you all were laughing right there with me.”
“We’re not arguing with you, we’ll go too, we know what we did,” Dana said.


“We can even make it an event thing, make a whole day out if it, or week. We can make some apology baskets and take them to each person,” Becky said.
“Ok don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m not paying for that. I’m sorry and all, but I don’t have that kind of money to be paying for that many baskets,” Carina said.
“You don’t need it, I’m sure Ashley being the only child of a filthy rich father who gives her anything she wants she can cover whatever the expenses are,” Rita said.
“He is filthy rich, but I’m not an only child, I have an older brother,” Ashley said.
“Since when? How come you never said anything?” I asked.
“He lives with my mother in Italy, I haven’t seen him in over five years, I don’t even know what he looks like now. We used to be close before my parents divorced, but then she took him and I stayed with dad and we haven’t seen each other since.”
“You never visited each other or anything? You stayed apart for five years?”
“It was a nasty divorce. Mom made sure she got a cut of everything he made, and my brother willingly went with her since my dad always spoiled me, so he figured he’d have a better life with her, and that made dad even more mad because he had to pay her even more money.



I was more mad that he chose to leave, knowing I couldn’t go with him.”
“Why didn’t you just go with them? You could’ve went too right?” Stephanie asked.
“My dad was never gonna let my mom get me, and once Sean, my brother, said he’d go with my mother she wouldn’t let dad get him back, so they settled, then they moved away.”
“And you haven’t seen your brother since. You miss him?” I asked.
“I hate him. He left. He hasn’t written or called me or anything. I haven’t heard a thing from him since about three months after they left. To think I once idolized him, now I can’t stand him.”
“Maybe your mother won’t let him talk to you or something,” Rita said.
“That’s bullshit, there’s plenty of ways to talk to somebody without her knowing. He could’ve wrote me letters like I wrote him, there’s Facebook, Skype, he just doesn’t care, period.”




I saw a connection from Ashley’s past that seemed like it greatly affected her future. I thought she was just another Veruca Sult, spoiled little rich girl who grew up having everything she wanted at the expense of others, but it turns out there was a reason for her behavior, well at least I think there was. The subject seemed to make things worse rather than help improve them, so I thought it best not to push any more questions about it, for now.
“Did everyone figure out what they wanted to eat?” Denise said as she popped back up out of nowhere and gave everyone their drinks.
“Crap, we were talking we didn’t even look at the menu! Well I know what I’m getting anyway, I want the sirloin steak well done with mashed potatoes and broccoli,” Chris said.
“Yeah me the same, except green beans instead of broccoli,” I followed.
“You can probably already figure out what I’m getting. Chicken parmesan with mashed potatoes, and as usual an extra chicken parmesan for the table,” Rita said.
“I kinda wanna try that, but since there’s one for the table I’ll take a piece off of that and get something else, I’ll get the Greek pork chops and asparagus,” Stephanie said.
“Since Rita’s been going on and on about chicken parmesan I might as well try it,” Dana said. “Mine with some macaroni and cheese though.”
“Yeah me too, but a double serving of macaroni and cheese,” Carina said.
“I’ll just get the parmesan thing, I’ll get a salad with mine,” Becky said.
“And you?” Denise asked Ashley, without even looking up from her notepad.
“I’ll get the chicken too, but just that, I’ll get the soup to go with mine.”
“So a steak well done with mash and broccoli, a steak well done with mash and green beans,



Greek pork chops and asparagus, chicken par with mashies, chicken par with mac and cheese, chicken par with double mac and cheese, and two lone chicken pars, is that right?”
“Yep, right as usual,” I said trying to lighten back up the mood.
“Ok, I’ll put this in and I’ll be right back. I have a few questions for her.”
Denise walked away and right away Becky went to giggling at Ashley. “Ashley’s about to get beat up by a twelve year old! You know she’s gonna spit in your food right?”
“I’ll just switch my plate with yours then, and I’m not gonna get beat up, she just wants to talk.”
“Come on, really? You’re a girl, you should know what that means!” Chris said.
“It’s not the same when a girl says it to another girl. Watch, you’ll see.”
“Yeah whatever, all of a sudden now it has a new meaning. You better be ready for anything anyways, she could come back over here and say tell me all your dirty little secrets, and you’ll have to tell her if you want her to believe you’re serious about being sorry.”
“If it’s something I have to do then it’s just something I’ll have to sU-Ck up and do then.”
“Really? Just like that? You’re gonna go all confessional on someone you don’t know just for the hell of it? What if she tells everybody what you say?” Carina asked.

“I don’t know, I didn’t think that far ahead, but if I lie and she catches me then it won’t do anybody any good, then I messed up whatever chance I had to fix it.”
“She’s twelve years old, I don’t think she’s matured that much yet to be a human lie detector, plus you have more than enough experience with lying,” Becky said.
“Once again, thanks Becky, still not helping!”
“Well whatever plan you have you better use it because here she comes,” Dana said.
Denise came up to us and pulled a chair up. She sat directly in front of Ashley with her arms crossed not saying anything, just sizing her up. Ashley looked about as nervous as you could look with a thirteen year old staring at you like she’s plotting against you, but she held her ground and didn’t panic or anything, for the moment.


“I gotta say, it’s pretty weird just turning up out of nowhere and being completely sorry for humiliating someone, so weird that it’s almost unbelievable,” Denise said.
“I really am telling the truth though, you can ask any of them,” Ashley responded pointing to us.


“That’s what I was getting to next. I only known them for a few days, but I could already tell they were nice people, which is why I was confused when they came in with you, who my last experience with made me wanna punch somebody in the face for the first time ever.”
“I know that feeling, I felt that way plenty of times,” Rita said drawing a pleading look from Ashley to stop helping. “Sorry, had a flashback.



You were saying Denise…”
“Well it got me wondering, if you treated my brother so bad, then you must’ve treated a lot of other people bad too, including Rita and Randy and everybody by the way they were talking earlier, but you’re all sitting together, and you looked like you were having a good time before I realized who you were, so I started wondering again, what did she do to get on their good side?


I’m not stupid, I’m actually pretty smart for my age I’m told, so I know something big must’ve happened for you to be sitting with them, what I wanna know is what was it that happened.”


Ashley looked at Rita and me, then down at the table, then back at Denise. “I can’t tell you.”

Denise looked a little pissed. “You said you would do whatever I wanted you to do, this is the opposite of doing that. I wanna know what happened!”
“I can’t tell you because it doesn’t just have to do with me, it has to do with Rita and Randy too, I can’t just tell their business if they don’t want anybody to know.”


I looked at Rita to make sure it was ok with her and she nodded her approval. “You can tell her Ashley it’s cool. If she tells you Denise is it gonna help her in any way?”
“Possibly, depending on what happened.”


Ashley sighed, not wanting to bring back up that night, but knew it was a necessary step to fully being a new Ashley. “Ok. Basically, I almost got Randy killed, twice. I was being a B***h to him one night then a guy I humiliated showed up and I was being a B***h to him and hit him, then he pulled out a knife. He was about to stab me when Randy jumped in and got the knife, then he pulled out a gun and Randy pushed me and Rita outta the way and got shot twice.”


She definitely didn’t expect to hear anything like that. Her mouth and eyes were wide open in shock as she looked in my direction. “That really happened?”
“Yep, I still have the bullet wounds to prove it,” I said trying to lighten the mood.”


“When I saw him get shot all I could think about was how he didn’t hesitate to push me outta the way after the way I always treated him, he got shot and it was completely my fault, and when I saw Rita panicking I felt like the biggest piece of Sh*t on Earth. When I saw him get carried away in the ambulance I fell down and cried, I actually cried, if he died because of my ‘F**K everybody, F**K everything’ attitude I don’t know what I would’ve done. Somebody who hated me, whose life I made my mission to ruin saved my life twice in the same night with no regard towards his own, from them on I knew I had to change.”


The mood at the table now was somber.


Everyone was quiet as we relived the story as Ashley told it. We were all in deep thought with our emotions on the forefront as we recalled that night that changed all of our lives forever.


“You never told us you cried when the ambulance left,” Rita said to Ashley.


“It wouldn’t have made a difference. I didn’t know how without making it sound like a pity party. There was a lot going on and I was the last thing on your mind that day.”


“So, you got him shot, and he almost died because of you, why did that have to happen before you realized something was really wrong with you?” Denise asked.

Ashley was quiet for a minute. “I don’t know, I don’t have an answer. All I know is, as bad as it sounds, I’m glad it happened.”


“What the hell do you mean you’re glad it happened!” Denise went off.

“No let me finish, I don’t mean it how it sounds. I’m not glad he got shot, but it made me finally own up to all the Sh*t I did. I wish it would’ve happened some other way though.”

“What did you do differently since then? How did you change?”


“I changed my entire attitude, I promised never to go back to the old me again, and I always keep my promises. I deleted any incriminating stuff I had against anybody too.”

Denise turned to me. “You guys food should be getting done, but I gotta ask, she basically admitted to torturing you for a long time, making your life hell, and in the end got you shot, I gotta know, how can you just disregard all that and forgive her?”
She wasn’t pulling any punches. For being thirteen she sure was asking the hard questions, and she wasn’t sugarcoating anything either, and I knew if she was gonna tempt giving Ashley a second chance I couldn’t sugarcoat anything either. All eyes were on me at that moment.
“In a way, I kinda had to. I was stuck in this dream like thing, but I was fully aware, I just couldn’t wake up for some reason. Yeah, I was mad at her, Sh*t mad wasn’t the word, I hated her, I mean look what she caused, I got shot twice and I was la!d up in a bed about to die because of her being her, but me hating her wasn’t helping me, it was actually making it worse for me. Then something happened, like an epiphany thing or something, I realized me being mad wasn’t helping my situation, and I got some weird feeling she was actually sorry, it probably sound funny all this happening while I was in a coma but you should’ve seen it from my end, but anyway, I got the feeling she was actually sorry, like really truly sorry, and if she could finally own up and be sorry, the least I could do is forgive her. It was hard to at first, but in the end I did, and I’m glad I did. I found out the hard way life is too short for all that crap.”


I’d said a mouthful, and everyone was still processing what I just said. Rita sq££zed my hand under hers while everyone sat in silence waiting for someone to say something.
“I don’t even know what to say to that. I mean you got shot, twice, put in a coma, you almost died, and you still forgave her, it makes what I’m mad about seem like nothing,” Denise said.
“Yeah, my situation was a little more extreme, but that doesn’t mean what you’re mad about doesn’t matter. You can still be mad for what she did,” I said.
She sat there looking at Ashley for a second. “Well if you can give her a second chance after all that, I guess I can too, but you still have to apologize to my brother.”
“I can do that, we all can do that,” Ashley said referring to the other girls.
“I do have one condition though, anybody you know, and any strangers you can find that you were a complete B***h to you have to go and apologize to them too,” Denise said.


“That could take a while,” Carina said trying to lighten the mood.
“However long it takes, if you’re really a new person you’ll do it, deal?”
“Deal. You’re pretty smart for only being twelve years old,” Ashley said.
“I just turned thirteen. I’m gonna be a psychology major in college, gotta be prepared. Your food should be practically done, I’ll be right back with everyone’s stuff.”
She got up and went to the back and Ashley and Becky went over to the salad bar. The rest of us stayed at the table going over the emotional conversation that just took place.



“She never told any of us she cried,” Dana said. “She almost never cries.”
“Well when you almost get someone killed it wakes you up,” Carina said.
“I get what she said when she said she was glad it happened, she meant of it didn’t she’d still the same old B***h butt0ckz Ashley who didn’t care what anybody thought,” Chris said.
“And what about you guys? Would you still be following her around?” Stephanie asked.
“Actually, we were about to stop hanging out with her. She really started going off the deep end, she started going too far, and then she started messing with us too,” Dana said.
“What do you mean going too far, what was she doing different?” Rita asked.
“Before we would just mess with somebody like those girl cliques in the TV shows do, but she started escalating it from just teasing to torturing, then all of a sudden she was making up a file on how to really screw somebody over, she was taking it way too far,” Carina said.



“Did you tell her she was going too far? What did she say?” I asked.
“Yeah we told her, that’s when she started messing with us. That night at the ice cream shop she went over there to set you up in the worst way she could think of, but then when you got shot it was like somebody finally slapped the B***h out of her. When she finally came back to the house she kicked us all out, well more like just pushed us all out, we knew something happened because she had a completely different body language and her attitude wasn’t the same like when she left, that’s probably when she cried.”
“Looks like the powers that be stepped in just in time then,” Chris said.


“Does she know you were all about to ditch her?” Rita asked.
“She knew, but I don’t think she thought we were serious,” Dana said.
“Well just leave it at this, it all worked out for the best, so that past stuff don’t matter,” I said.
Denise made her way to the table with half of everyone’s food and went back to get the rest. Ashley and Becky came back from the salad bar with what looked like a homemade ceasar salad and a bowl of potato soup. Denise came back with the rest of the food and sat it down in front of everyone. You could see everyone salivating over the plates in front of them, everything looked professionally done as usual and it smelled delicious.