"Brent, calm down. What we need to do is figure out how we can help out with anything dealing with Kim," Gemini advised, folding her arms and looking up in thought. "What can we do to help her family?"
"Her family, Gemini? Why in the world weren't her family here to be by her side when she was in the hospital for months? Answer me that. The truth is that Kim's family doesn't give a penny's worth about her," Brent spurted bitterly.
"Don't go making assumptions before you have all of the facts!" an angry voice boomed behind the group of four.
The group turned around and all eight eyes narrowed upon the face behind the voice. Gemini said it for them all when she said, "Get out of here, Barrett. No one wants you here."
"Oh, but I think you do. In fact, I think you were practically screaming for me to come up to you when you go making ludicrous assumptions about my family," Barrett Anderson responded frigidly, his gray eyes as cold and hard as his voice. "You have no idea what was going on with us at the time."
"I can't believe you had the nerve to come down here. You have no right to be here," Chloe spat, taking a swift departure from her normally peaceful attitude.
"I have no right? Let me tell you something: Kim is my sister. I have every right in the world to be here! Besides," he added with a cluck of his tounge, "I'm thinking of becoming a permanent student of Midway Prep."
"You sick b*st*rd," Gemini growled deeply in her throat.
"Gemini, please. All of you, let's not fight," Eve attempted to play peacemaker in the situation, but realized to attempt it would mean to fail utterly. When she noticed no one had listened to her, she slumped back into silence.
"My father is up in Boston running a Fortune 500 business. How is he supposed to get away from that, hmm? With a business comes responsibility, you know."
"Screw responsibility to his business," Brent broke in. "Your father has a responsibility to his daughter, but he didn't seem to care about her at all!"
"My father cares deeply about Kim! We all do! It's not for some silly school friends like you to say otherwise, either."
"Let me tell you something," Gemini pushed past Brent and got right up into Barrett's face, "We are more family to her than you or your jacked up father will ever be. We've been there for her through thick and thin, no matter what. We've all had personal problems going on in our life, but we still found time to offer support to one another, and that's a h*ll of a lot more than I can say for you!"
"You don't know what I've been doing," Barrett shot back harshly. Pushing his thin wire-rimmed glasses up on his nose, he continued, "Father has been keeping a close watch on Kim. He phoned the hospital daily to see what was going on--"
"That's bull crap," Brent muttered under his breath.
"--and made sure that only the best doctors were assigned to Kim. Now, if you'll please excuse me, I need to go to the funeral home so that Father and I can begin making funeral arrangements."
After watching Barrett walk off, Chloe turned angrily back to the group and slammed a fist into her other hand. "That guy makes me see red. How dare he come up in here and cop an attitude like that after everything we've done for his sister. The ungrateful little-"
"Look, guys," Eve broke in before Chloe could continue on, "We have to think about what we can do for Kim. Forget her brother; he's not who's important. We have to think about Kim."
"You're right, Eve," Brent hung his head in shame. "I'm sorry."
"No apologies needed. Now, what I was thinking was that we set up a little spot where people can drop off flowers and such in Kim's memory. I know there are going to be a lot of people who would like to offer their condolensces to the family, no matter how messed up they may be, so we need to have a time and place where they can do that."
"That's a good idea. No matter what, we've gotta keep focused on doing everything we can to help Kim...and Trace. Brent, you're closest to him. Do you think you could find him and talk to him?" Gemini inquired.
"Just say the word and I'm gone," Brent replied promptly, beginning to look around for signs of Trace.
Eve nodded as she bit her fingernail, a classic sign of stress for her. "We'll all get through this. We've just got to stick together, group. We've gotta stick together."
