Least Relaxing Vacation EVER!

Rebecca and Greg returned home from the hospital late at night, long after Emily and I had put their little hellions to bed. (It sounds harsh, but Rebecca is the kind of person who makes up for her shortcomings as a mother by spoiling her children rotten. They were not used to hearing the word no, and had actually hit her on occasion when she denied them something.) She looked terrible and was clutching multiple bags of supplies from the hospital. They were going to let her try to pass the stone naturally, which sounded painful. She had been sent home with pain meds and little things that looked like conical coffee filters. She was to filter her pee to catch pieces of the stone if she did pass it. In a voice heavy with exhaustion and pain, she informed us that she had a surgery scheduled for the following week if it didn't pass naturally.

My heart hurt for my older sister's pain and the fact that I hadn't talked to Brandon on the phone in about a week. My vacation was half over and I'd be home soon, but it didn't help me miss him any less. Tiffany and Felicia were leaving comments on my Xanga posts, begging me to come back to Berwick. It was nice to know, amongst all the drama, that someone missed me. I actually started to miss Berwick too. I began to count down the days until I returned. As I fell asleep that night, I smiled.

Only 7 days left!

Of course, my vacation wasn't allowed to be relaxing. Between caring for Rebecca (who was still throwing up constantly) and watching her evil children, there was no time for relaxing. I did manage to get online while everyone else was otherwise occupied, and what I found there only made it worse.

I signed on to my Xanga, which we were all using to keep in touch. After browsing everyone's latest blog posts and learning much of nothing (Felicia was fighting with her mom, Tiffany was down with the stomach flu, and Brandon was working a double to make money for his visit), I went to write another of my own. That was when I noticed that there were comments on yesterday's post about the conversation Russ and I had had. I clicked the comment link and started reading.

Felicia's comment was telling me that she missed me and couldn't wait for me to come home.
Tiffany's comment was that she felt like crap and the cats were driving her insane.
Brandon's comment was that he loved me and there were only 18 days left until he came to visit.

I saw the fourth comment, from a screen name I didn't recognize, and I immediately got sick to my stomach.

"oh please, J, your pathetic if you think that i was the only one Russ was with. i wasn't, and it started long before you knew about it and we did a lot more than you think we did."

It was from Rachel. The fact that she had even logged on to my blog, much less had the nerve to comment on something I posted, made me see red. It got worse when I checked my e-mail. There was one there from Brandon, with a subject line "Conversation between me and Rachel". I didn't think the world would ever revert back to normal color at this point. I opened it and read the conversation.

rih2005: hi
kfreak1305: Hey
rih2005: what's up?
kfreak1305: Not much? You?
rih2005: nothing really, i have to leave to take a shower soon so i can go to work
rih2005: yay work
kfreak1305: Have fun
rih2005: yea...so how are you doing?
kfreak1305: Great
rih2005: good
kfreak1305: Indeed
rih2005: so are you into all of the anime stuff and all that?
kfreak1305: Yep
rih2005: thats cool
kfreak1305: Yes indeed
rih2005: though I enjoy anime, I really enjoy wizards, and sorcery, and princesses with heroic lovers, lol, its childish but its great
kfreak1305: That is cool
rih2005: yea
rih2005: well anyway, i am just trying to show you i mean true intentions and treat you like a person and show ya i am human...lol...anyway maybe we can talk later but i have to go
kfreak1305: Well, thx, and bye
rih2005: bye

Even though nothing had really been said and I knew Brandon would never do anything to hurt me, I was still absolutely livid. How dare she talk to him?

This was absolutely beyond anything I could handle.

So much for my "vacation".