The Replacement: A Reverse Harem Bully Romance (The Thorns of Rosewood Book 1)

by Cassie James

  When we’re home, I shove past Izzy into the house, paying her no mind as she yells after me. “God, Bren, if you wanted to masturbate that badly, you could’ve just had me ask Clara’s mom to give me a ride home!” I’ve got to take those books away from her that she keeps bringing home from her abuela’s house. She’s turning into a little goddamn pervert.

  “You’re disgusting!” I yell back, not waiting to hear if she responds.

  I slam my bedroom door shut and lock it behind me. I crack my fingers as I sit down at my computer, pulling up the files I got before I had to back off my hack earlier. It takes me a few long minutes until I really understand what it is I’m looking at, mostly because I can’t believe it’s sitting right here in front of me.

  It’s… a personal log. All her actions, reaction, and feelings, right here at my fingertips. My head shakes from side to side as I skim them file. It’s basically a fucking diary, and now I’ve got access to every word.

  All the details of her first meetings with us—and how they made her feel. Details about how she thinks Jackie Hawthorne is starting to come unhinged, and that she’s pretty sure that Roman never wanted her. Macie taking her to the pier to help her figure out the dynamics of relationships. A weird, though brief, thought about my mom being hot.

  I skim until my eyes go blurry, unsure what exactly to make of the internal log sitting in front of me. It’s months worth of data, and I painstakingly pick through it to find one date in particular. Jude’s Halloween party. I read the details twice, even though it makes me sick to see the physical details blatantly on the screen like that. She felt something special with Tyler, describing her log that nothing would ever compare to the feeling of him fucking her. It’s the last goddamn straw.

  Mom has access to the school’s email directory since she’s a teacher. It’s not hard to bypass her password—Izzy’s birthday—to access it. Jealousy spurs me forward as I generate an e-mail to the entire student body.

  The subject line: An unrestricted view into a robot girl’s thoughts, MUST SEE. The body? Filled with the most revealing, most humiliating pieces of her that I can find. The things no teenage girl—human or otherwise—would ever want anyone to see. I hit send before I can second-guess what I’ve done. Let her suffer the consequences of fucking around on me. I’m always the one being most underestimated. But this? This might be the thing that makes sure nothing like that ever fucking happens again.

  After the e-mail goes out, I click back over to her files. Skimming to see if there’s anything else I missed. For some reason, I didn’t think to look at her log from the day we slept together. I guess I assumed being there was enough, but…

  I know it’s silly, but as I look at him, it’s like I’m looking at the center of the universe. The one thing capable of holding me together when it would be all too easy to fall apart. I know Jude and Tyler diss him for being so gentle and dependable, but it’s those very traits that make me think it’s all too easy to fall in love with him.

  That was what was on her mind when I asked her what she’d been thinking about. When she started to mention Jude, it had only been to reassure me that she felt something bigger with me. Something more genuine. But I’d cut her off before she ever got that far.

  If it hadn’t been for that, if I’d just let her finish—I would have had no reason to get mad in the first place. Maybe she wouldn’t have been so quick to give herself to Tyler.

  I stare at the screen in silent horror, the e-mail too late to take back. I keep rereading her words, it’s those very traits that make me think it’s all too easy to fall in love with him. The jealousy I’ve been warring with for days vanishes into thin air as all I can think is holy shit, what have I done?

  This is going to hurt Piper, humiliate her worse than anything we’ve done to her all year. I’d been upset with her for what I thought she’d done, and green with envy over the fact that she might actually have feelings for Tyler, but I hadn’t thought through what it would mean to hurt her like this.

  What have I done? What have I done? What have I done? becomes my frenzied mantra as I pace through my room, hands running through my hair as the dings of replies start coming through. The internet’s forever. There’s no taking this back. And if I can’t take this back, how can I ever convince her that I do actually care about her—more than I’m ready to admit even to myself.

  How the fuck do I even begin to fix this?

  25

  Piper

  I take the stairs two at a time, only slowing long enough to shoot a frenzied goodbye to my parents before I’m out the door. Macie’s waiting patiently in the driveway, and it’s yet another thing I have to feel guilty about with her, because I’m not sure who else would wait fifteen minutes for me just because I couldn’t seem to get my shit together this morning.

  “I’m so, so sorry, Mace!” I breathe out as I slide into the car next to her, frantically buttoning the top two buttons of my top before I buckle in.

  Her nose is buried in her phone, and she doesn’t initially acknowledge me. Macie does this sometimes, so I let her have it, not mentioning the fact that she’s ignoring me and wrapped up in her phone even though we’re definitely going to be late for school now. Instead, I pull the visor down and check my appearance in the mirror, checking to make sure that my hastily applied eye makeup isn’t running down my face.

  “Have you checked your school email this morning?”

  Something in her tone sets off warning bells in my head. I’ve heard her sound skeptical, furious, giggly even, but never once have I heard her voice sound as small as it does right now.

  “No?” I reach for my bag immediately, though. My phone’s been going crazy all morning, but with the amount of alerts I have set for news and events that will help me understand how the world works, I didn’t think much of it.

  But I shouldn’t have ignored it—not this morning. There are dozens of messages, many of which are from numbers I don’t even have programmed in my phone. My fingers shake as I swipe through some of them, my stomach twisting and clenching as they get uglier and uglier.

  You really thought we’d love you just because we loved Piper? Get a fucking clue.

  Tori Pruitt is way better leading The Roses than you could ever be, you plastic freak.

  Does your Mom know that she annoys the shit out of you? Brb texting her

  Awww—Daddy doesn’t love you? Boohoo. Grow the fuck up, Silicunt.

  I let the phone fall from my hands, and I turn wide eyes on Macie. My mind is racing a thousand miles a minute. “I don’t understand. What’s happening?”

  Macie runs her hands over her face and hair, and when she turns to look at me? There’s real concern for me shining in her eyes. “Brennan...” she says, but she can’t seem to continue. Her whole body shrugs helplessly.

  “What about him?”

  My hands scramble for my phone again, remembering that she’d asked me if I’d read my school email. My eyes widen and my stomach fucking plummets when I see the subject line attached to the top email. Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:... An unrestricted view into a robot girl’s thoughts, MUST SEE. The original sender is noted as paodiaz@rosewoodac.edu, and my mind fails me for half a second.

  But when it hits me? I double over, struggling to breathe through the crippling pain in my chest. What the hell has he done? It’s morbid curiosity that makes me click into the message, scrolling immediately to the original message.

  What the hell has he done? The question repeats in my head over and over again as I skim through a lengthy group of excerpts from my personal activities, emotions, and reactions log. I don’t realize I’ve quit breathing entirely until Macie’s hands are on my shoulders shaking me frantically. She’s shouting at me to inhale, and I gasp around the sob that follows. The funny thing about having your entire world crumble to pieces at your feet is the fact that you never actually see it coming.

  “What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck,” I gasp a sob between each word, an
d Macie’s on her knees in her seat half climbing over the center console to wrap her arms around me as I fucking fall apart.

  “Why—how—I don’t under—Macie, why would he do this?” I can barely form a coherent thought, let alone string together a sentence as I sit in my best friend’s car, wailing as my heart fucking shatters.

  When I got to Rosewood Academy and none of my friends wanted anything to do with me, it hurt my feelings. I was foolish to think that was the worst that would happen to me. After all, it didn’t take long before Jude coined the term Silicunt. Tori and Chelsey ripping my clothes in the quad, forcing me to call my dad for rescue. Tori taunting me that the real Piper would never sleep with her boyfriend’s best friend. And being snubbed by all three of The Thorns after sex with each of them—I thought for sure it couldn’t get worse than that.

  But god. I was naive. And wrong. So, so hilariously wrong. This right here—having all of my inner, most humiliating thoughts exposed to the entire student body? This is so much worse.

  My first thought is that I should just get out of the car, walk into the house, and tell my parents to pull me out of school because nothing, I mean nothing could make stepping foot into Rosewood Academy ever again worth the humiliation I would face. But I haven’t forgotten Jackie’s fury on Halloween, and I know the last thing she’s going to agree to right now is pulling me out of her precious daughter’s senior year. She’d sooner drag me to Rosewood kicking and screaming than let that happen.

  “Do you want to skip today?” Macie offers, and my answering sob has her backing the car out of the driveway.

  She flips her turn signal in the opposite direction of school, but I reach a shaking hand to her arm before she can actually turn. “N—no, let’s just go to school. If I don’t face it now, they’re just going to accuse me of being a coward. I’d rather face it head on than with my tail tucked between my legs.”

  “Are you sure? Because we can go back to that bistro for breakfast before heading toward Rodeo? Or we can go to the pier and force someone to make us early morning cotton candy to gouge on until we’re sick. We’ve got options here, Pi. We don’t have to go to school.”

  “D-don’t call me Pi,” I choke out, and she shoots me a confused glance.

  I can’t catch my breath to tell her that I would forever associate the nickname with Brennan—the boy who single-handedly crushed my heart and spirit all in one go. I wave my hand dismissively instead, and she offers me the worst meant-to-be-comforting smile I’ve ever seen in my life. I bite back a watery chuckle and turn my attention to trying to calm myself down before we actually get to school.

  It’s a small mercy that we’ve missed first bell. We’re literally so late to school that there are no other students straggling into the main building ahead of us. I duck into the first bathroom I come across, waving Macie on when she asks if I’ll be okay. I run a paper towel under cold water, and dab at my smeared makeup.

  I force steadying breaths through my trembling lips and smooth my hands over the front of my uniform one last time. It wouldn’t be easy, and god knows I’d probably cry myself to sleep for the foreseeable future, but I would carry myself with my shoulders straight and my head held high. Piper 1.0 didn’t give a shit about other people’s opinions, why should I?

  My fortitude falters for one long moment when every eye in my Calculus class narrows and follows my trek through the room and to my desk after I whisper an apology to Ms. Cooper for turning up late. Apparently, news has spread, because she offers me a sympathetic look and simply tells me to take a seat.

  Whispers erupt around the room immediately, but I steel my reserve and sit up a little straighter as Ms. Cooper wrangles the class back under control. Clearly, my peers didn’t have much faith in my willingness to return to the fire.

  Tyler never once turns in my direction, which shouldn’t be a surprise, but it still stings. God only knows what he did or didn’t read from my logs, but I’m sure he, like every other person who passes a sneer in my direction, thinks much less of me than he did the day before. I bite back a scoff at the thought. That’s saying something, too, because he clearly didn’t think very much of me the day before either.

  When class is over, I push past him, ignoring his grunt and the way whispers follow me toward the front of the class. I apologize to Ms. Cooper one last time, and she offers me another pitying smile and a shrug before turning her attention back to the pile of assignments that’s quickly multiplying on her desk. I heave a sigh, square my shoulders, and march from the class with the determination of a proud man walking to the gallows.

  Whispers follow me throughout the day, increasing in hostility with every period that passes. It’s a fucking miracle that the first half of my day passes without any real incident, and hope blossoms in my chest at the thought that just maybe my peers are content to whisper behind my back rather than call me out to my face. Of course, my luck doesn’t last.

  I think I’m being smart, taking a roundabout way into the quad, never once passing by the cafeteria doors. It’s chilly now, definitely too cold to be eating outside, but there’s a crowd gathering nonetheless, and I know this is it. The confrontation. I spot The Pricks before they spot me, and I know I can duck back into the school and avoid the confrontation all together.

  But as the crowd continues to pulse out of the door closest to the cafeteria, my irritation grows. I take one last steadying breath before closing the distance to my table with furious steps. Tori spots me first. Then Tyler. And Chelsey, followed quickly by Jude.

  Brennan is the last to turn his head in my direction, and the look in his eyes almost quells the fury burning a path through my entire body. I’m in front of them within seconds, and he opens his mouth—I can practically see the apology forming on his lips. The rage boils over, and I fucking snap.

  “Don’t you dare!” I say as I push past Tori to get my hands on Brennan’s chest. I shove him with as much force as I can muster, and the fact that he barely budges only serves to intensify my anger. “How could you? How could you!”

  I know I sound crazed as I reach up to shove him again. He catches my wrists in his hands, but I wrench away from him before he can get a good grip. That motherfucker is never touching me again.

  “What’s the matter, 2.0? Can’t handle the fact that the entire school knows your deepest, darkest secrets?” Tori taunts, and I swing around in her direction. Her eyes go wide at whatever she sees on my face, but she doesn’t back down. “Who knew a fake girl could have such real emotions?”

  The likelihood of spending a lifetime in jail—or being decommissioned—is the only thing that keeps me from straight-up murdering the blue-eyed monster. I sneer and barely give my retort a thought before I’m hurling it at her. “You know what? At least I managed to get my arms and legs wrapped around them without hanging off of them all day like some kind of slutty extra layer of skin.”

  If I think my words are going to hurt her, I’m hysterically mistaken. The words seem to bounce right off of her as she shrugs. “Whatever, Silicunt. I’m not the one with a ruined reputation. How long do you think it’s going to be before your precious Mommy and Daddy find out that their replacement daughter isn’t as perfect as they think she is?”

  It’s a low blow, but it doesn’t hit the way she expects it to. We’re in a complete battle of wills, and I’m fucking determined to win this round. I let the words roll off my shoulders as I shrug. “Whatever. Pretty sure Jackie already thinks I’m a pretty shitty replacement for Piper. What’s one more thing to add to that perception? She’ll survive.”

  “Yeah, and how’s she going to survive the knowledge that you’ve whored yourself out to all three of The Thorns? You might think it’s so cute and edgy, taking after Macie and calling them The Pricks, but you didn’t have a problem fucking them, did you?”

  The words feel like they’re bouncing right off of me, my whole being so numb that nothing can cut through my thick skin now.

  “Do you let them
pass you around like some used up doll, Silicunt?” she hisses, and I stare at her stony faced. I can see Macie approaching from the far side of the quad. She’s going to have a hell of a time pushing through the crowd, but relief rushes through me at the thought of finally having somebody by my side who actually cares about me.

  “I’m better than a doll,” I say flippantly, and her face goes red for a moment. “Ask Jude. Or actually, maybe you don’t need to. How many times has he talked about me? Called me better than a fleshlight?”

  It stings to say the words, and it’s a gamble I’m taking by throwing them out there, but I can tell the blow lands when Tori falters, going silent as Chelsey steps forward to try to take up the torch.

  “You’re the ghost of the girl we loved. You could never actually replace her, and I think that really fucking bothered you. That’s your purpose isn’t it? To comfort Piper’s friend and family?” she asks, and I jerk back at the sting from her words. “I guess using sex to comfort the guys makes sense—they’re teenage boys, after all, they’ll always think with their dicks instead of their brains. But god, it burned you up when you couldn’t get close to Tyler, didn’t it?”

  My mouth falls open, and I struggle to find the words to respond. What she’s insinuating, that’s not how it was at all.

  “So you show up to Jude’s Halloween party, dressed in Piper’s outfit from last year, and you corner him. Did you really think you were comforting him, telling him her accident wasn’t his fault? And you know what, who gives a shit whose fault it was anyway? I just can’t believe you convinced yourself that he wasn’t thinking about her the entire time he was fucking you. Macie’s lessons at the pier must not have done you much fucking good if you still can’t figure out that all you were to any of The Thorns was a plaything. A second-rate replacement for the girl they all really wanted to be fucking.”