by Blair Young
“If I had known that she was really using you for her own selfish gains, I would have put an end to it right then and there,” he assured me.
“But you ended up dating her,” I reminded him. “And that’s what she wanted. She told me she was so mean to me in school because she wanted to be with you.”
The words came flying out of my mouth before I could stop them, and Damon looked at me in surprise. I still wasn’t going to tell him about the note or the fact that she was the one who sent the suicide message from his phone, but I didn’t mind telling him that she wasn’t my friend even back then.
“When that happened, I thought you and I weren’t ever going to see each other again. For all I knew, you were in a different school with a boyfriend of your own. I never thought it would be that hard for you to get a boyfriend,” he said.
“Really?” I asked in surprise. “I was always so plain. I hated how I looked in middle school. It took forever for me to lose that baby weight, and same for Molly, which is why I thought she and I were good friends.”
“It makes sense that you would feel that way,” Damon said. “Though I wish you could have seen more of what you really were. I thought you were the prettiest girl in school. Why do you think you were the one I wanted to give my first kiss?”
“I’m sure that’s part of the reason Molly hated me. And part of the reason why she was such a bully to me, even if I didn’t know it,” I said rather bitterly. I didn’t know how much Damon knew about that. Though he and I had been rather close lately, I was careful with how much I shared with him.
I told Abby more than anything when it came to the bullying that I went through in school, and I knew when it came to the secrets I shared with her, they were safe. The only reason I told her about what Peter had done to her family was because I thought Damon might be able to do something about it.
I wasn’t sure if he would take it to the same extreme as he had with Chad, but I wanted my friend to know she wasn’t alone in any of this, even if it felt like she was. I had felt that way for most of my life, and though the therapist really made it hard for me when she told me that I was adopted, she really did hit the nail on the head when she described how I felt about the bullying in my life.
I hated feeling alone, and I hated that my best friend was the one who was doing it to me. Now, I felt stupid for not being able to see it. There were so many things that I had told that girl over the years, and some of them just seemed to magically come out.
But, I also got the impression Damon didn’t know much about any of this, and I wasn’t sure how much I wanted to share with him. After all, he did date Molly for a while, and I wasn’t even sure I wanted to know how long.
“You mean she was part of all the bullying? Like all of it?” he asked.
“I can’t say for sure who did what,” I told him, though it was only a partial truth. “But I do know that she was part of it then, just like she was part of it now. I mean, she told some of her friends in the dressing room that she was part of the bullying, and, since she’s treated me the way she has now, I’m sure it’s true.”
“Is there anything you can do about it?” he asked.
I shook my head. “I confronted her about it the other day, but it was like it always goes with her. She deflected, she made it my problem, and she basically did what she always does. Molly never is held accountable for anything, not even for posting those pictures of me around school.”
“I knew she had to be the one behind that,” Damon shook his head. “But there’s got to be some proof. I mean, we’ve got to be able to go to the principal about it or something.”
“With the money she has, there’s no way he’s going to do anything about it,” I said. “You know she has all the teachers wrapped around her finger, and she’s going to keep doing what she’s doing.”
“I’m glad you stood up to her that one day,” Damon said as he gave me a light squeeze. “That was something that had to happen.”
“I’m glad you stood up to Chad,” I said with a smile of my own. “That’s one thing I never thought was going to happen, and he avoids me like the plague now.”
“Me too,” Damon said with a laugh. “But it felt good, and I think he deserved it every bit as much as Molly.”
“Me too,” I agreed. There was silence between us for a moment, and I tried to think of something to say. I didn’t want to keep talking about the bullies at school, but then, I didn’t know what I wanted to talk about with him. There was so much I wanted him to know, but, at the same time, it was hard for me to open up to him feeling like I did.
Part of me wanted to tell him the truth, another part of me knew that it would be a better idea just to let it go and see what happened in our lives. Though, I had a feeling we weren’t ever going to truly end up together.
“Tell me about your parents,” Damon said suddenly. “I want to hear about how it was after you left the school and what they were like.”
At first, I was taken by surprise, but then, I thought it might be a good idea. He never got to know them really, and I did want to talk about them in a happy way. With a smile, I leaned into him.
“All right,” I said with a grin. “You would have loved them, really.”
He pulled me as close as he could, his arm still around me. “I’m sure I would have.”
Chapter 22
Sutton
I felt better the next day after seeing my parents’ grave. It was hard for me to sit there for as long as I did, but I felt better once I started telling Damon about all the memories I had with them and how much they would have liked him if they really had the chance to know him.
I wanted to think that it would have worked out if things had happened differently in school. Maybe if they didn’t know about the bullying or if it hadn’t reached the point of me nearly committing suicide, maybe he and I would have ended up together in some way.
Those were thoughts I couldn’t pay much attention to right now. It was hard enough knowing that I had feelings for him and I couldn’t do anything about it. Not without causing problems with Susan in some way, anyway. It still made me mad to think of how she controlled us that way, but I wasn’t going to get in that fight with her.
When I graduated, and when I was eighteen, I would see what happened then. Maybe it would be college, maybe it would be Damon going to college and me just going where the wind took me. It was hard for me to make any sort of judgment call on that right now, and I wasn’t going to stress about it.
Knowing I was adopted was taking most of my mental energy, and I wanted to find out who my birth parents were. I had to find out in one way or another, and with the encouragement of both my friends, I knew that I could do it if I tried hard enough.
It was just going to be a matter of persistence.
I went to my locker to get my books and put my lunch inside when suddenly something new caught my eye.
“Not again,” I muttered. It was another note. But this time, reading what was scrawled across the paper made my blood run cold.
I know where you went yesterday, and if you want to be with your parents that bad, I’ll make sure the next time you go see them, you’ll be a permanent resident.
I looked around and crumbled the paper in my hand before shoving it in my backpack. That was a threat, there was no denying that, and it made me wonder just how far Molly would go to control me. I had a feeling she was planning something big, but to think that she would stoop to this level was just too much.
I wasn’t going to let this one get to me, though. I was going to call her out on it right when I saw her. And I did.
I knew Molly liked to linger in science class after the bell. She had a crush on the teacher, and, though I didn’t think she or he would ever act on the crush it was so clear that she had, I knew it would be a good time to catch her off guard. The bell had rung for the next class, and she would have to hurry if she didn’t want to be late.
But, I didn’t care if I made her
late. I didn’t care if I was late, either, for that matter.
As soon as she walked around the corner, she nearly ran right into me.
“What the heck, Sutton?” she snapped, clearly debating shoving me out of the way so she could keep going.
“What is it with you and your notes?” I snapped.
“What are you talking about?” she asked.
“I saw the note you put in my locker today, and if you’re going to start making threats like that, I’m going to go to the police!” I snapped.
“I didn’t put a note in your locker. Paranoid much?” she asked as she crossed her arms. “We’re going to be late for class if you don’t get the heck out of the way.”
“I don’t care if we’re late. How dare you say that about going to see my parents?” I asked.
“I didn’t even know you went to see your parents, and I don’t care if you did,” she said with a shrug. “You know, I’m starting to think that you’re planting things on purpose because you’re made I didn’t get in trouble for any of the photos.”
She gave me a smirk that made me want to slap her, but then she shoved past me. “You aren’t going to make me late for class, and I think you really need to get yourself under control. I’m not going to take the fall for you just because you’re mad about what happened in middle school.”
She called out the words over her shoulder and vanished around the corner, leaving me feeling confused. She was one of the only people in the world who knew where my parents were buried, and though I did feel she was sadistic enough to write another note, the fact that this one was so dark did make me doubt she would be the one to do it.
She had already told me to kill myself once, but to threaten to be the one to do it was a whole new ballgame, and one that could get her in a lot of trouble. Though Molly did like to rule the roost with graduation coming up so soon, I had a feeling she was going to be careful to not get herself in too much trouble in between now and then. If she was going to do something like this, it was going to have to be a lot more subtle than the other things she had done to me.
Molly wanted to get into a good college, and she had the potential to make that happen. With her grades and the fact that her parents had a lot of money, it wasn’t going to be hard for her to get into practically any school in the country. Or even out of the country for that matter. I sighed, thinking about the note in my backpack and wondering who would have been so mean as to put it in my locker.
Clearly, it had to be someone who knew the combination, and someone who knew that I had gone to see my parent’s grave yesterday. But, this note didn’t mention Damon, which would have been another indicator that Molly was the one to put the note in the box in the first place.
But, there wasn’t anything I could do about it right now. I had to get to class. I could talk to Abby or Damon about it later. Or, I could even go to Susan. This was more than the petty garbage I was dealing with with Molly. This was something a lot bigger, and she might know better what to do with the situation.
I tried to forget about the note the rest of the afternoon, but I had to admit, it was on my mind the entire walk home. Damon had left early to make it to the shop on time, and I didn’t know where Susan was.
There were some days she was there to pick me up when I got out of class, then others she was either working or doing her own thing. I didn’t mind the walk. It gave me time to clear my head after the day and focus on the things that were really bothering me in my life.
And God knew right now I had a lot that was bothering me.
There was a strange bike in the driveway when I got home, and I wondered who was over. Damon was the only one I knew with a motorcycle, and none of the other kids I saw at school rode any. He took pride in being that bad boy, so it confused me to think that he might have made another friend who rode.
Then again, working where he did he met a lot of people, and Damon liked to talk. Maybe with Peter and Chad on the outs he was looking for new friends.
But, when I walked inside, I heard a man’s voice in the kitchen with Susan. It sounded like they were having an intimate conversation, so I slipped in as quietly as I could, heading right for my steps. They didn’t hear me, but I recognized Dean when I saw him.
I had only spoken to him a couple of times, but it suddenly struck me that it was the same bike he had been riding when he came and spoke to me that day down at the bay.
Was he the one Susan was dating? She still hadn’t given any of us a name, and Damon hadn’t mentioned it to me, either. I had a feeling if there was something going on I would have heard from someone, but I wasn’t going to be the one to interrupt what was going on in the kitchen.
Heading up to my room, I closed the door and threw myself on the bed, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. I wanted to find out more about the note, and who could possibly be warning me to stay away from my parents.
It seemed with each passing day my life was getting all the more complicated, and I wasn’t sure how to even begin unraveling the mess that it had become. Not only did I wonder who had murdered my parents, but I was wondering now why they didn’t want me to be anywhere near them.
Then again, there was no telling whether the person who wrote the note and left it in my school locker was the same person who was connected with their death. But, whoever this person was, they clearly knew who I was and what I had been doing with myself the day before.
That in itself was creepy enough, and it did put me on edge.
Everything about my life was putting me on edge these days, and I wanted to figure out a way to have a solution to what was going on, but it was hard. It was hard to think of anything clearly.
Suddenly, I had an idea. It was something that had crossed my mind a couple times before, but now, I really felt the urge to go through with it. rising from the bed, I slipped over to my desk, treading lightly on the floor so Dean and Susan still didn’t know I was home.
The house was well built, but there were still times I felt the walls and the floor were thin. I grabbed the knob to my desk and pulled it open, reaching to the way back where I didn’t want anyone to find the envelope I had hidden there.
A small address was written on the front, but it was what was inside that I was really interested. I opened the slit along the top and dumped out the contents, looking at the small key in my hand with a sly smile.
Chapter 23
Damon
Leaning against the counter, I stared through the open door at the people passing by. Being the tourist shop that we were, we had already served most of the people who were in town. The dedicated surfers would come in every now and then to get their boards waxed or updated, but, for the most part, we served those who were new in town or just visiting.
That was fine with me. It gave me plenty of time to think about Sutton and what I wanted to do with her. I wanted to win her back first and foremost, but that was far easier said than done.
She was still clearly worried about what Susan thought, and I knew I was going to have to convince her to break out of that line of thinking if we were going to have a real shot together. But, she didn’t want to do anything that was going to cause more tension in the house, and though I told her over and over she had nothing to do with the tension between me and my mother, she didn’t believe me.
Sutton was stubborn, I had to give her that. But, there was a soft side to her that I was seeing more and more often. The more comfortable she got with me, the more she seemed willing to show that side of herself, and I wanted to show her that she could without it coming back to hurt her.
She trusted me with a lot. I knew that. I wasn’t going to do anything to blow that trust, either. I couldn’t. I cared too much for her for anything like that. But, it was going to be a slow process to convince her that was how I really felt, and she really could trust me with anything.
She didn’t trust anyone when she first came to Secret Bay, that was for sure. And I was perhaps the one she hate
d most of all. But, learning what she had about Molly and the past, I felt that we were breaking down walls that she had so carefully put in place for so long.
As hard as it was for me to admit, I enjoyed seeing her with her parents the day before. It was hard to see her walk up to the grave, and even harder to see her fall to her knees as she talked to them, but to be able to sit there and listen to her stories about them and what they were really like, it made me feel almost as though I knew them.
And a large part of me wished that I had.
For as long as I could remember, it had been me and Susan. I knew Susan meant well, and it was because of her I had made it so far in life. I couldn’t imagine if I had to live with my deadbeat parents more than I already had.
Though I only remembered bits and pieces of my early childhood, I did remember being afraid and miserable most of the time. It was only when Susan came into my life that I truly started to be happy. Then, when I met Sutton, well, when I found her again in high school, I knew that I had to make things right with her.
It had been wrong to be the one to start the bullying like I had, and I wasn’t going to let that define our relationship. And thankfully, through the hard work I was putting into us, it seemed to be working.
“Well, you were right,” Dean’s voice broke into my thoughts. I had been the one to open the shop the past week, and I expected him to come in around lunchtime. But today, he was earlier than normal.
“Right about what?” I asked as I looked at him in surprise. I was the one who was always going to him for advice, so to hear that something I had said to him might have actually worked came as a real surprise.
“I took your advice about Susan, and I have to say, you were right,” Dean said with another smile.
I looked at him in surprise once more. “You went out with my mom again.”
“I’ve been out with your mom several times again,” he said with a grin. “And you were right about her coming around. Well, it’s been slow, but I think we’re making real progress here.”