It reminded me of a scary movie. The girl would run. The killer would walk. And he would always catch up.
Soon I was breathing heavy and felt myself choking up.
Thinking of my mother. Of all the times I found her…
Or just the way we had lived. Which honestly never bothered me too much because it was normal. Until I came to BFH. To see the other side of life. That made me realize just how bad it had been. And just how shitty of a person my mother was.
My mother.
I wasn’t even calling her Mom in my head.
I stopped walking and put my head back.
The ocean air was delicious. The sounds were perfect.
And it all wasn’t mine.
Just like a stupid vacation.
Go and pretend to be someone else before heading back to the old routine.
Pres caught up to me in a few seconds.
I smelled him.
He didn’t talk.
“You wouldn’t save your parents?” I asked. “I mean, if you knew something? You wouldn’t even try?”
“What if there was nothing you could do, sugar?” Pres asked.
I looked back. “That’s the problem with you fucking rich pricks. You give up. There’s always something you could do. Always.”
“That’s the problem with you fucking poor dirty people. You never know when to walk away. And all that does is let opportunities pass you the fuck by.”
Pres started to walk, nudging me out of the water.
He was the one speeding ahead and I looked back.
The beach house and the party was way off in the distance. I hadn’t realized how far I had gone.
So now it was either start the lonely walk back to the party or follow Pres.
Like I even needed a second to decide.
And I was so pissed at myself for the decision.
As I went after Pres, I tried to come up with a new plan. Something to get to him.
Or better yet…
“What do you three want with me?” I asked.
Pres laughed.
Laughed.
Like a really long laugh.
Like I just finally came up with the best reason why the fucking chicken crossed the fucking road.
But there was no chicken. There was no road.
Just this sexy, rich prick and the ocean.
Driving my mind, my heart, and my body crazy.
“Answer me,” I said. “Or else I’ll get the screwdriver.”
He laughed again.
“I fucking hate you,” I screamed. “I hate all three of you. And you know what? I’m out of here soon. You asked me to stay and I did. But maybe you’re right, Pres. Maybe I don’t need my mother’s shit. She’s the only reason I’m here. So I’ll just leave. Go back to my shitty apartment. With the cockroaches and the bad smells. And you can go back to Barr and Kip and tell them you convinced me to leave.”
That at least got Pres to stop.
He touched my chin again.
“That’s what you want, sugar? To go play with some cockroaches?”
“What’s the difference between the cockroaches in my apartments and the ones in BFH? I mean, sure, they’re taller, hotter, and smell nicer… but they’re all the same.”
I reached up and ripped Pres’s hand off my face.
I left him in the dust - the sand - again, feeling really good about it.
Like… really good.
Even if he still hadn’t answered my question.
My phone buzzed and I looked.
Texts from Iris, Gi, and Beth.
“Shit,” I whispered. “Beth…”
She had gone to get me water and I disappeared.
I stopped and started to text Beth back when a hand covered my phone and took it away from me.
“Mine,” Pres said.
I turned and faced him.
“Take it,” I said. “I’ll get a new one.”
“That’s not what I meant,” he said.
“What?”
Pres stuffed my phone into his pocket and grabbed my face. Hands to my cheeks. Pulling me close to him.
“I meant you, sugar,” he whispered. “Mine.”
* * *
His lips brushed by mine like a quick hey, how are you doing, goodbye kind of thing. I kissed the salty air and realized how much noise I made with the kiss, thinking I was getting my shot at Pres’s lips.
When he came back again, our lips touched for real and stayed there.
Of course I froze in place like I was a statue.
Pres slid his hands from my face but left his right hand to linger, holding my chin like he always seemed to do.
He closed his lips, pulled back, and stared at me.
Another kiss came my way, this time with more passion.
I groaned in my throat, ready to collapse right there in the sand.
I had officially kissed all three of the Rulz. The guys I wasn’t supposed to kiss. Or go near. Or do anything with.
Pres slipped the tip of his tongue along my lips and my mouth popped open, stuck between shock and the need for more of him.
The kiss grew intense.
That evil tongue of his in my mouth, showing me that maybe it wasn’t evil at all.
No. It is. It’s evil. He’s evil. But he’s so good at this…
I kissed back at him, moving to my toes.
He still held my jaw, always in complete control of the situation.
I hated him for that.
There was no breaking him. Ever.
And now he was breaking me.
I stupidly confessed about his father’s cheating. I stupidly talked about my mother. I almost cried in front of him. I chased after him.
And now I was kissed by him.
Craving him with a desire that could only ever be matched by…
Barr.
Kip.
“Fuck,” I whispered, not realizing I was saying that out loud.
“Soon, sugar,” Pres said, his lips dancing against mine.
We kissed some more, the ocean the soundtrack to this crazy fucking moment.
I had no idea if this was a good moment or a bad moment.
It was just… so good.
Pres broke the kiss again. He licked his lips and grinned. He came forward for a gentle kiss and then kissed the tip of my nose.
He moved his hand from my face and stepped around me.
Every muscle in my body tightened as I felt him behind me.
“Take a look around, sugar,” he whispered. “Realize where we are?”
I shook my head. “No. I mean… it’s the ocean…”
“Look around.”
I did.
Left… to right… to…
I gasped.
I realized where we were.
I could see Claire’s house to my right. At a little bit of a distance.
Even still… this spot.
“Shit,” I whispered.
Pres laughed again.
He slowly wrapped his arms around me and hugged me.
Then he whispered the words to me he said when we stood together in this exact spot once before.
“I don’t know who you are, sugar, but you better catch a case of amnesia… and catch a case of being homesick. You don’t belong here. And I won’t give another warning.”
I felt Pres move his left hand, only to give me back my cell phone.
And then he let me go.
I reached back for him but he was already too far away.
I spun around and Pres was being swallowed up by the night.
Everything started to shake.
I was in the spot where he had almost drowned that person. The first thing I saw when I came to BFH. The moment that started everything and changed everything all in one shot.
I put my hand to my mouth and touched my lips.
I felt tainted.
I licked my lips, wanting to get rid of Pres.
My eyes moved down to the ocean wate
r gently moving along my feet.
I could have splashed water on my lips.
But that wouldn’t have worked.
Instead, I slowly dropped to my knees, right in the wet sand.
My phone buzzed again.
It was Gi again.
Where the fuck are you? Are you okay?
My hands shook as I replied.
Went for a walk. Sorry. Im fine.
I put my phone into my pocket and put my hands down into the wet sand.
A few seconds later, my hands disappeared, the sand and water pulling me down.
I sucked in a shaky breath.
I didn’t need the ocean to feel like I was drowning.
nineteen
I noticed the same empty wineglass left on the same table outside the next morning.
Which wasn’t like Claire at all.
If she didn’t clean up after herself, there was always someone there who was paid to do so.
Of all things, that was the thing that caught my attention.
Forget about the night before, right?
Forget about the beach house party. Or seeing Denny. Or getting tipsy. Or bailing on Beth by accident. Or doing everything I could to break Pres. Only to have him break me. The sight of those people around the fire hurrying to scatter away as though Pres was the police coming to bust them for drinking. Or how we somehow walked far enough away from Roman’s beach house to end up at the exact spot where I had watched Pres almost drown someone.
Forget about the kiss too.
Or the way Pres touched and held my chin, acting like he owned me. Or the way that I let him do that because I had been wanting him to kiss me for a long time.
And the entire moment and night swirled around my mind wondering what would have happened if I hadn’t seen Pres that day on the beach. Would they have left me alone? Would the Rulz have just gone their own way?
Or was all of this something more?
I heard a shuffling noise behind me as I stood at the island in the kitchen and saw Claire walking with a coffee mug in her hand. She looked… rough.
She looked like Iris did last night.
Gi had sent me a couple pics of her and damn.
And… damn for Claire too.
“Long night?” I asked.
“Business never sleeps,” Claire said.
“Can I get you anything?”
“I pay someone to ask that question. Not your job, Tinsley.”
“Right. Sorry.”
Claire put the coffee mug down and turned and shuffled away. She was wearing a black, silk robe, and she took out her phone and started to type away on it.
It took all of thirty seconds before two other people appeared in the kitchen.
One went for the coffee mug. To refill it.
I backed away from the island with my coffee, not sure whether to laugh or scoff.
Claire literally walked her own coffee mug down to the kitchen only to text someone to fill it back up.
The second person went to work on making breakfast.
I finished getting ready and couldn’t believe I sort of would have rather been at BFH.
When I got there and opened my locker, a sense of excitement went through me. Like I was eager to see if one of them left me something.
And there it was…
A jar of sand.
I grinned.
I bit my bottom lip.
My mind played each moment I kissed each of them.
That’s not who I was.
No way.
I was always a one boy kind of girl.
I mean, my ex was Devin. He and I had been together for a while. We had been really close. I didn’t go around kissing other boys. Or wanting to kiss other boys. The idea never really came to me at all.
But the Rulz… well, they sort of changed my rules.
And they were okay with it.
They all knew the others had kissed me.
I didn’t know what that meant.
Or what to do with it.
Maybe just enjoy it…
I shut my locker and a hand grabbed my shoulder and slammed me against my locker.
“What the fuck?” Beth yelled at me.
I quickly pushed back at her. “What the fuck?”
“I thought you were fucking dead.”
“Beth…”
“You know what? It’s your life, Ti. I was just trying to be nice. I was just trying to help. I have no clue what’s going through your head right now.”
“Wait a second…”
“And I get it,” Beth continued. “Who am I? Right? You don’t know me. I don’t know you. You’re just the new girl. The poor new girl. And you like that. You like bragging about where you came from, right? Hey, that’s fine.”
“Beth…”
“I looked for you,” she said. She looked ready to cry. “Denny got pissed at me too. Because I promised he and I would spend the night hanging out. But no… I got sucked into the messed up world of Tinsley.”
I closed my mouth and just stared, giving her the chance to rip into me.
I basically deserved every word she said.
Beth growled and shook her head.
She spun around and walked away.
I let her storm off.
Before I could shovel a little more guilt on my shoulders, I felt someone bump into my shoulder.
“Hey, crazy bitch,” Gi said.
“Hey.”
“What’s wrong?”
I looked down the hallway and couldn’t find Beth.
“Nothing,” I said. “Where’s Iris?”
“Dead.”
“What?”
Gi laughed. “Feeling dead. She’s playing sick.”
“Too much dancing?”
“Yeah… dancing…”
“Hey. Crazy idea.”
“Let’s hear it.”
“Iris is our friend, right?”
“Yeah,” Gi said.
“We should go check on her.”
“Tinsley Ditkiss… are you suggesting we skip class?”
“First off, if you ever use my last name again I’ll get a screwdriver with your name on it. And, second, yes… let’s leave this place behind.”
Gi leaned toward me. “Are you sure you’re allowed to?”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“Turn around, Ti.”
I turned really fast.
Through the heads bobbing and walking by, I saw Pres at the far end of the hall.
Staring right at me.
Then I saw Kip standing against a locker, arms folded.
My head slowly followed back to Pres and kept going.
And then there was Barr.
Leaning against the corner of the hallway, a hand in his pocket.
All three.
Eyes on me.
I bit my lip and looked at Gi again.
“Yeah, Gi, let’s get out of here…”
* * *
Iris was wrapped up tight in a dark purple blanket that was bigger than her entire bed. Her dark hair was sprawled behind her, knotty and messy from her long night. Her room was almost just as dark too. There was one small light coming from the bathroom. I walked into the bathroom and cringed at the sight.
It was trashed.
It was pretty clear that Iris came home and got sick.
From the sink to the floor to the toilet.
The most I offered to help clean was to flush the toilet.
I shut the bathroom door on my way and shook my head at Gi.
“That’s harsh,” I whispered.
“Yeah,” she said. “I was here when it happened.”
“You didn’t clean it?”
“In what world am I going to stick my hands into someone else’s puke? She’s got help here.”
Oh. Right. Because you’re all fucking rich and don’t have to do anything.
“I can barely see you,” I said.
“Watch this,” Gi said. “She’s going t
o get pissed.”
Gi walked to the nightstand and I thought she was going to turn on the lamp. Instead, she pressed a button or something because out of nowhere five sets of curtains or windows or whatever started to lift up.
I gasped.
I mean, it was kind of cool.
And as the mechanical curtains went up the sun flooded the room.
The room went from pitch black to bright and sunny in a few seconds.
Iris stirred and pulled the comforter over her head.
“Fuck this,” Gi said.
She grabbed the comforter and ripped it off Iris’s body.
She was in the same shirt from the beach house party but she wasn’t wearing any pants. Thankfully she was wearing panties or else we would have gotten quite the show.
Her eyes peeled open and she lifted her middle finger at us. “Get out of here, whores.”
“Come on,” I said. I shook the bed. “You’re going to be late for school. We have to get to school. Come on, Iris. Come on. Hurry. Wake up.”
Gi started to laugh and Iris swung her foot at me.
I caught her kick and started to pull at her.
She grabbed for the sheets and groaned. “I fucking hate you, Ti.”
“No you don’t. You hate yourself.”
I pulled her to the edge of the bed and she slowly tried to sit up.
Her hair looked like she stuck her finger into an outlet.
She rubbed her face.
She stretched her neck.
“Where the hell did you end up?” she asked.
“Kissing Pres on the beach,” Gi said.
“What?” I snapped.
“What?” Gi asked. “You think we wouldn’t find out?”
“Who told you that?”
“You’re fucking wild, Ti,” Iris said. “All things considered, you know?”
“Yeah. Wait. No. What do you mean all things considered?”
Iris shook her head and laughed. “They’re going to eat you alive if you stay close.”
“Or maybe you’ll have the greatest first time of your life,” Gi said. “Those three… one night…”
Iris rolled her eyes. “You can tell someone needs a little fun, huh?”
“That’s your fault,” Gi said as she grabbed a pillow and threw it at Iris.
“My fault?” Iris asked.
“Yeah. I was there for a reason. But you went and got stupid and I had to keep you out of trouble.”
“Oh, please,” Iris said.
“You wanted to fuck Denny,” Gi said.
UNtouched: a bay falls high novel Page 18