It was hard to believe that this shitshow chapter of my life was about to be over.
Around here, high school graduation was the pinnacle of a person’s life. Half the student body either failed out or dropped out, so for those of us who stuck it out…
Throughout the entire ceremony, all I thought about was how, in less than three months, I’d be losing Drew. Had anyone told me at the beginning of the year, that I would absolutely be pussy whipped by the most rebellious girl in Barrington, I wouldn’t have believed them. But I wouldn’t change it for the world, even if I did end up losing her and having my stupid heart broken.
Brown called out David Hope then Megan Hurst, and Zeppelin Hunt should have been in the middle of them, but he wasn’t. And that was a hard pill to swallow.
When Brown called Drew’s name, I stood, and so did Mom and Arlo and Pops. And, to the far side of the stadium, stood Mr. Morgan, in his suit. Hands clasped in front of him as Drew shook the principal’s hand.
After the ceremony, chaos ensued. Parents and siblings flooded the field, while some kids took off toward the parking lot. I was halfway across the stadium when my phone vibrated in my pocket. I figured it was Drew asking where the hell I was, but instead of Baby Girl, the contact read: Piece of Shit Morgan: I’d appreciate it if you’d meet me in the parking lot. I’d like to speak with you. I’m in parking spot 112. -William Morgan
I glanced across the field to where my mom and Arlo were talking with Drew, and Nora’s family.
Then I ducked between the bleachers, into the dimly lit parking lot.
Every single person I passed had a stupid-ass grin on their face. And as I made my way toward that shiny Maserati, I realized for most people here tonight, all they had to look forward to after this would be a bunch of dead-end jobs, piles of delinquent notices, and a string of divorces. Because this was Dayton, and it was nothing short of quicksand few people escaped.
Mr. Morgan pushed away from his bumper, straightening his tie before I stopped a few feet in front of him.
“You wanted to talk?” I said, keeping my distance.
“I have no doubt you love her, and I have no doubt she thinks she loves you.” He dropped his chin to his chest on a hard breath. “And you may not see it--She may not see it, but I do love her very much. It’s the only reason I tried so hard to be successful. And it’s the only reason I don’t want to see her throw her entire future away.”
Throw her future away. That comment dug inside me with barbed wire hooks as people passed behind us, laughing and talking.
He pulled an envelope from his pocket, then stepped forward to hand it to me.
A letter from Alabama State College addressed to Miss Drucella A. Morgan.
“Since she was ten, she’s wanted to attend Cornell,” Mr. Morgan said. “She’s been accepted there, and to two other Ivy League schools. So tell me, young man, why she’s applied to a university here?”
I stared down at the envelope, knots kinking my stomach.
“I may have been wrong with my first judgment of you, but I stand by the fact that, if she stays with you, she will ruin her entire future. And I don’t mean that as a slight. It’s unfortunately the way the world works.” He smoothed a hand down his shirt. “Because what on earth could you possibly give her?”
Another jab. Another dig. The paper crumpled in my hand. I couldn’t give her money or cars or Armani-fucking-jeans. But if she stayed with me, I’d give her everything I had, and more than anything, I’d love her. I tossed the acceptance letter to the ground and glared at him.
What could I give her? “I’d give her everything you didn’t,” I said.
He held my gaze for all of five seconds before the headlights of his car flashed, and he rounded the front. “Unfortunately, the real world doesn’t work like a fairytale, young man. It runs on money and greed.” And then he sank behind the wheel, slammed the door, and cranked the engine to his ridiculously expensive car that screamed for attention, while I stood in the parking lot.
His taillights faded into the distance before I picked up the crumpled acceptance letter and shoved it in my pocket.
It didn’t have to be one or the other. It didn’t…It didn’t have to be Cornell or me.
And that’s what kept telling myself as I walked back to the football field to get my girl.
49
Drew
A week later
The Alabama heat clung to me the second I got out of my air-conditioned car. This heat was getting unbearable. My tank top stuck to my back anytime I was out in it, but not even the gross humidity could dim my mood, because I’d just gotten a job.
Like an actual, adult job. At the mall in a cute little boutique.
Not that I didn’t like just hanging out with Bellamy and the guys--even Hendrix--or Nora and Diane. But the girls had summer jobs, and the guys were always stealing and dealing.
I had enough money to get me through the summer, but I actually wanted to work. I didn’t want to be some Barrington brat. It felt good to get something without my dad’s help.
I tossed my car keys on the side table by the door, the manic laughter of SpongeBob spilled from the TV.
“Hey, Peehead,” I said when I passed Arlo on the couch, his attention glued to the screen.
“Hey, Miss Drew. Bubba’s outside.”
I followed the hum of the lawnmower to the backyard, and I stood on the porch for a second, admiring how good Bellamy looked with his sweat-slicked chest, pushing the mower through the tall grass.
He caught my staring, then cut the engine on a smirk. “Why are you standing out here, staring at me like a creeper?”
“I’m perving. Not creeping. It’s different.”
“Fine. That’s acceptable.” He reached for the pull.
“I got a job,” I said before he cranked it.
I expected him to smile, or say congratulations or, at the very least, offer some smartass remark, but instead, all he did was stare.
“What?” I said. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Why did you get a job?”
“Uh, to earn money. What else am I going to do all summer?”
He swiped a hand over his chin, then gave a violent yank to the pull and cranked the mower again.
He turned his back to me and cut through the yard. One simple movement that set fire to my very short fuse. What the hell was wrong with him? I stalked after him and grabbed his arm. “Bellamy!”
“What?” He released the handle and the engine died down.
“Why are you being a dick?”
“What do you want me to say?” His jaw set as he yanked away from my hold. “Congratulations?”
So many things flew through my mind, but I settled on: “How about, just not be an asshole?”
He paced the length of one of the overgrown flower beds, his hands behind his head. “Why did you apply to Alabama State, Drew?”
That stopped me for a minute, because how did he even know about that? I hadn’t even heard back from them. “I...I’m just keeping my options open.”
“Options open.” He half laughed. “You got into fucking Cornell, Drew. What other options do you need to keep open?”
“Just...Options.” Because I was torn. Because I wasn’t sure that the thing I had always wanted was, in fact, what I wanted anymore. Bellamy confused the matter far more than I’d ever like to admit.
“I don’t want to talk about this.” I turned and headed back to the house, fighting the tight feeling in my chest.
School was over. Summer would be over before we knew it, and I had to make a decision like, yesterday. And the rational, obvious decision was not the one I wanted to make.
Cornell was in New York, and I knew how this went. For a few months, we’d see each other, but eventually, the distance would get too hard. Missing someone all the time would get too hard.
I wasn’t ready to miss him. I wasn’t ready to let him go.
I was terrified of turning ar
ound one day and realizing I’d lost him while gaining, what? A degree in philosophy from Cornell. There was literally no way to make a career out of that. My half-assed, Ivy League, middle finger to my dad was starting to seem very unimportant.
Bellamy snatched hold of my wrist as I reached for the back door. “Why did you really apply to Alabama State, Drew?”
I looked at him, at the guy who suddenly felt like the center of my world. How could he not know? “Do you really need me to say it?”
“Yes.”
“Because I don’t want to move a thousand miles away from you!” It felt like a gunshot, something I couldn’t shove back in the barrel once it was out. But the fact he didn’t know this pissed me off.
His chin dropped on a sigh, then he pulled me tight against his sweat-slicked chest. “God, I hate you.”
“This isn’t complicated, Bellamy.” I closed my eyes, inhaling the scent of fresh-cut grass and gasoline and sweat.
This, what we had was easy, it was pure. It was two people, and a connection that some would never be lucky enough to find. It was love. And I’d forgo pretty much anything for the one thing I’d never had. Perhaps it made me a fool, but I didn’t care.
“No.” He took my chin in his hands. A torn expression creased his brow as his eyes searched mine. “It’s stupid.”
“Then I’m stupid.”
I wanted to tell him I loved him, but fear wrapped around my throat.
What if he didn’t feel the same way? What if I’d inadvertently trapped him by moving in here?
It was rash, a heat of the moment decision he’d made when my dad was being an ass. He was an eighteen-year-old guy living with his girlfriend…
Maybe he wanted me to go to New York.
His thumb swept along my jaw. “You’re messing up your whole life for me, baby girl.”
I didn’t want to talk about this anymore, didn’t want to fight, and try to justify this hurricane of feelings. So instead, I kissed him.
The home goods aisle at Wall-E-Mart was crowded, thanks to a summer blowout sale.
I maneuvered the shopping cart around a group of women fighting over a sequin-covered pillow as Nora scooped up a set of purple bed linens.
“When are you leaving for France?”
I looked away, feigning interest in an ugly frog lamp. “Uh, I’m not. I’m going to stay here for the summer.”
“What? Why? I thought you always went to France for the summer?”
“I got a job. I can save a bit of money before I go to college.”
It was a lie. I would work and put the money in that envelope to help Carol. She needed every penny, and I knew as soon as I was in college and not living with Bellamy, my mom would probably activate my credit card again.
It was the living with him part she had an issue with, not dating. Like she thought I would marry the guy tomorrow.
“You’re staying for Bellamy, aren’t you?”
I shrugged.
Nora sighed, then turned to face me. “I get it. You want to spend the summer with him before you go to Cornell. It’s still gross because it’s him. But whatever.”
“Something like that,” I said, drawing a line over the sequin pillow.
Nora was my only friend beside Genevieve, but Gen was going to Brown, and I’d never tell her what I was considering. I figured Nora might understand, and I needed to talk to someone who wasn’t Bellamy. “I got accepted to Alabama State.”
Nora’s eyes narrowed as she put a toothbrush holder back. “I’m sorry. You did what?”
“I applied as a backup, you know, in case Cornell rescinded their offer after I got kicked out of my last school.” Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.
“Right….” She pushed the cart down the aisle, then stopped. “I know it’s bullshit, Drew, but I don’t blame you.”
“What?”
She closed her eyes, sucking in a deep breath while mumbling that she couldn’t believe she was saying this… “He’s like, in love with you. Like big time. I don’t blame you.”
And that was the last thing I expected from Nora, because everyone else, including Bellamy, seemed to want me to go.
“He wants me to go to Cornell,” I said.
“Doubtful.”
I leaned back against one of the shelves with a groan. “I feel like I’m being stupid, and naive and completely ridiculous.”
“Do you love him?”
“Yeah.” And I hadn’t even told him that.
“Then stay with him. You can get a degree anywhere.” She turned down another aisle cram-packed with towels. “God, I hate myself for being on his side right now. He’s such an asshole.”
“This is a weird moment for me too.” I patted her shoulder. “I thought you’d be the first person to stick a foot up my ass and death threaten me into going to Cornell.”
“He’s a complete dick,” she said. “But I wish someone looked at me the way he looks at you.”
By the time I walked out of the store, my mind was made up.
50
Bellamy
I sat on the half-rotted picnic table in my backyard, staring at the letter in my hand that read: We regretfully write to inform you that you were not selected for a scholarship for the upcoming academic school year.
My leg bounced on the seat, my chest going tight as the hopes I’d had to get the hell out of here went up in a cloud of smoke. Then again, hadn’t it been stupid of me to think I would?
The bang of Nash’s screen door cut through the quiet afternoon.
“Hey, man.” Leaves crunched on the other side of the fence, then stopped. “You still out here?”
“Yeah.”
“You got any sauce?”
I balled the rejection letter in my fist and tossed it to the fire pit in the corner of the yard, telling myself I’d just have to push a little more weed, steal some extra cars, and go to the community college. Because I refused for this to be my life forever.
“Yeah, man,” I said. “Give me five and I’ll be over.”
I grabbed a baggie from my room, then headed back outside and climbed the fence to Nash’s yard. He raised a Budweiser from his tattered lawn chair as I waded through the overgrown grass to his dilapidated porch.
“Ten bucks.” I tossed the weed to him, and he handed over some cash.
“Dude, what’s the sad panda face for?”
“Just same old shit.” I sank to the chair beside him, trying to forget that my only options were still dealing and stealing for a short while.
“What’s up with you and the pink Porsche girl?” He jerked his chin toward my house, already pinching a bud from the bag to roll a joint. “She’s like, living with you or some shit?”
“Yeah.”
His brow lifted. “Why?”
“What do you mean why?”
“Just saying, dude.” He tipped his chair back, skimming his hand over the knee-high grass. “She’s a rich girl.”
“Was a rich girl…”
“What do you mean, was?”
That I was not going into right now. “Man, just some bullshit with her parents cutting her off--”
“‘Cause of you.”
I swiped a hand over my face, watching the gnats dance in the late evening sunlight. When it got down to it, it was because of me. She wasn’t a rich girl anymore because of me…
“Oh, shit. You’re like, into her. Dude…” He whacked a hand over my back, patting me like he pitied me. “Hate to break this to you, but in a year or two, that girls going to resent your ass so much she won’t even be able to look at you. Take it from someone older, who's been there, done that, made those mistakes.”
Older. He was only twenty-one. He rolled a joint and passed it my way.
I took a single toke before handing it back. Just enough for the calming buzz to start working its way through my veins. “And what the hell do you know about rich girls, Nash?” I asked.
“Rich girl. Poor girl. They’re all the same when you take
something away from them.” He placed the paper to his lips, eyes narrowing like he was thinking. “I dated this girl a few years back. Totally into her. Fucked like rabbits. I thought I was gonna marry her or some stupid shit. She got an offer to go out to UCLA to do some theatre bullshit.” Smoke billowed from his lips. “She’d always wanted to act, but when it came down to me or UCLA, she picked me. Then got pregnant. Then we broke up. And that was it. No UCLA. No chasing her dreams.” He offered me the joint again, but I declined. “And guess whose fault she thinks it is?” He thumbed at his chest. “Mine. And she fucking hates me.”
“You have a kid?”
“Yeah. She won’t let me see him though.”
An old engine rattled into his drive, blasting its horn. Spencer, the singer of his band, leaned through the lowered window and shouted that they needed to leave.
Nash pushed up. “I wished I’d told her to go. At least she wouldn’t hate me…And I could see my kid, maybe.” Then he skirted around the side of his house, leaving me alone in his yard with a very real fear. The last thing I wanted was for Drew to resent me.
I was in bed that night when she came in from her shift at the mall, scrolling my phone, comparing pictures of Cornell to Alabama State while wondering how in the hell she wasn’t going to hate me if she stayed.
“Hey,” she said, kicking off her tennis shoes.
“How was work?”
“Good. How was...business?”
“Shit.”
She changed out of her clothes, pulling on one of my t-shirts, then crawled into bed beside me. This had become so normal--her here, with me. It had only been a matter of weeks, but every thought I had about my future revolved around her.
I’d stay with her no matter what. But if she ended up resenting me...
Her lips went to my neck. “Pretty sure I can improve your day.” She trailed her fingers down my stomach, beneath the waist of my boxers, but I stopped her hand from dipping any lower. We couldn't keep going like this, or at least, I couldn’t.
No Good: A Standalone Enemies to Lovers Romance Page 29