by Eden O'Neill
I believed this to be true, but it did surprise me to hear the words.
As well as my buddies.
They gazed at me as if I’d lost my mind, but by then, our dads and LJ were making their way back.
“Phones.” Wells’s dad, Jaxen, had his hand out, grinning. “And don’t worry, I’ll keep good care of them.”
Groaning, we all handed them off to Jax one by one, sitting back when our fathers and LJ tucked themselves tight between us again. I didn’t face my buddies as the room darkened and the show began again, but I didn’t have to. I could feel their eyes.
I could feel Wolf’s the most.
It was that continued look that made me not look at my friend for the rest of the show. The thing about Wolf was, he was my closest friend. He could read me like no one else. He knew me like no one else, and because of that, he liked to psychoanalyze shit, and he wasn’t my fucking head doctor. I didn’t need him in my head, so I purposely kept him out of it.
The show couldn’t have ended quickly enough.
It did eventually, the fathers and LJ taking us boys outside and the telltale lectures beginning after. Us guys all got the same song and dance, how it was important to respect women and treat them well. The adults used no names, of course, or called anyone out, but everyone knew I was the party at fault here. The fathers and LJ all made sure to make their points directly to me when they spoke.
It all just shoved the metaphorical dagger in that much deeper, and Dad even bowed him and me out of the after-show dinner with the rest of the guys. The adults normally all took us to Jax’s Burgers after.
“I need some time with my son,” Dad said to his friends, giving them all hugs and shakes. He did the same with Thatcher, Wells, and Wolf. Dad saved Wolf for last, whispering something to him. No doubt he was asking Wolf to talk some sense into me, knowing Wolf and I were the closest.
I was sure Wolf would talk to me after he so obviously disagreed with my stance on how to handle Noa Sloane. My friend studied me good and hard before we all left each other, and I got into the car with my dad gratefully.
“So, you gonna level with me now?” Dad asked the question behind the wheel, swinging his gaze over to me. We probably had about fifteen minutes between the theater and home, but that was enough. His eyes narrowed. “What happened?”
I’d explained to him what had happened, told him and Mom what had happened. I shrugged. “I told you. Some bitch was trying to get back at me at school.” Though, I hadn’t told them the why or the circumstances surrounding it.
Dad sighed, heavily. He shook his head. “And that’s why we all took—and continue to take—you to these things, the ballet?” He frowned. “You think we enjoy it any more than you boys?”
Doubted it. My dad wasn’t a ballet guy.
His jaw worked. “You kids could do with a reality check. You don’t treat women right. Women aren’t bitches. They’re women.”
“I told you. She—”
“What I heard, son.” His eyes flared in my direction, my lips snapping closed. His frown deepened. “Is that you wronged someone so much that they decided to do such a thing against you. And getting your mother involved?” He fingered roughly through his hair. “You obviously did something to this girl. Something she felt warranted such cruel behavior.”
His words were heated, his cheeks flared. He was obviously placing the blame of what happened to Mom on me.
In fact, it was probably taking all he could to not do anything about it. This was Mom and so came my dad’s heavy control. He was clearly trying not to fly off the handle right now.
“We worked so goddamn hard so you boys aren’t like us,” he gritted, his knuckles white on the wheel. “So that you don’t make the same mistakes and aren’t such little shits like we were when we were kids.”
I shook my head. “You guys all turned out okay.”
He and my god dads all had happy marriages, had built great lives for themselves, and the love they had for our mothers, well, anyone could see that. The devotion.
My dad loved my mother with a love I couldn’t even fathom. He loved her like she was enough and would always be, and she did the same. She loved him at his core, saw him worthy of her love. He was worth her love.
Not all of us were.
Some of us were such fuckups that we deserved whatever shit we got handed. I’d had a goddamn easy life, and I’d taken that shit for granted. I didn’t count my good fortune and walked all over it. I’d become weak to it and completely ungrateful.
Charlie wouldn’t have been that way. He’d loved his life.
Loved…
Looking outside, I couldn’t breathe, staring instead into the darkness.
“It wasn’t without struggle, Dorian,” my dad said, his reflection through the window. We’d been driving for a while, almost home. My dad was looking at me, and I saw his eyes through the window.
Why can’t I fucking breathe?
I grabbed the seat, the leather tight under my hands.
Breathe. Fucking breathe goddammit.
It was like my dreams at night, the ones where I couldn’t wake up. The ones where I was drowning, and no matter what I did, I couldn’t get out of the nightmare. I just kept seeing Charlie’s face, and the fear he must have had the last day I’d seen him. He had to have had fear.
How could he not?
I undid my tie in the car. My father sighed beside me. I wasn’t brave enough to look at him. He psychoanalyzed worse than Wolf.
“I know you’re not sleeping, son,” he said to me. “I know you’re working out at night and jogging in the evenings. Your mom does too.”
I figured. I wasn’t quiet about it.
Not that I could be with Chestnut, our chocolate Labrador, around. She took a second to get quiet whenever I came in and out of the house, not like her mom before that. She was the only one we’d kept from Hershey’s litter, a dog my parents had had before I was even born.
I’d cried like a little bitch when she’d passed, but having Chestnut made it easier.
“No one expects you to be okay, you know,” Dad said, his attempt at a talk. He didn’t do them a lot. He knew they didn’t work with me and I didn’t like them. He sighed again. “Not after all this just happened. It’s a lot. A lot for all of us.”
I swallowed, gripping the seat again. Why couldn’t I just fucking breathe? Charlie wouldn’t have been this way. He would have been strong.
Why couldn’t it have just been me?
I didn’t want to die. I cared about my life, but Charlie shouldn’t have died. It was before his time.
It was too fucking soon.
“I’m fine,” I managed to struggle out despite the lack of breath. I wet my lips, staring outside. “I’m okay.”
I’m okay.
I’m okay.
I’m okay.
If I said it in my mind enough times, I’d convince myself, my parents. If I said it enough, it’d become true.
I’m okay.
I’m okay.
There was silence in my dad’s car, silence all the way through our neighborhood, then into our driveway. He said nothing once inside the garage, turning off the car.
He squeezed my shoulder.
It was enough for me to almost say something, but I didn’t.
Breathe, you fucking idiot.
“You’re not okay,” Dad said beside me. Like he knew. Of course, he knew. He knew me. I was his son. He nodded, his reflection still in the window. “But maybe, once you want to be, you’ll come talk to me and your mother.”
I didn’t want to tell him fat chance. Dad wasn’t one to talk about his feelings either.
I’d probably gotten it from him.
Like he had his own process with his anger, I had mine. I could control it. I could if I just held on to it long enough. I had my own way of release.
I just needed the time to do what needed to be done.
Chapter Eighteen
Sloane
Word of what I�
�d done to Dorian Prinze (sent his mom) made it back to school somehow. I had no idea if he’d spread the information himself, or if it’d been his friends, but people found out.
Virtually overnight, I’d become known as the lying bitch amongst the halls of Windsor Prep on top of the terms Legacy bitch/Vapor. Worse, once people found out about the pregnancy prank (I’d gotten some pregnant lady at a gas station to pee on the stick for twenty bucks), I’d also been labeled as a Legacy groupie whore. People had assumed that I wanted the attention of the Legacy boys so bad, I faked a pregnancy just to get to their dark prince.
The halls of gossip and rumors ensued, and they quickly made it to my breakfast table. One of the things my brother, Bru, and I still actually did was eat together on the rare days he didn’t have to be at school early for practice.
Even if we didn’t talk to each other.
After the news had broken, he’d paid no attention to me, but this morning he actually scoffed at me. I’d been pouring a box of Frosted Flakes into an empty bowl, and quite honestly, that pissed me off. My kid brother hadn’t been in my corner at all since I made it to this school. Sure, I hadn’t told him about many of the terrible things Dorian had done to me, but that didn’t negate that he was well aware they were bullying me. He’d had to have heard about the pranks. Then, of course, there was the way things had started with Ares Mallick.
Bru hadn’t gone to bat for me whether I left certain things from his attention or not.
“I still can’t believe you did what you did,” he mumbled, on his phone while eating a piece of French toast. God, as if he’d actually made the thing for himself. He had gotten Callum to arrange a food delivery service for him. The service made him special meals Bru claimed he’d needed to bulk up for his new sport. I’d overheard this conversation my brother had had with our guardian at the beginning of the month.
My brother truly was taking advantage of the situation here. Becoming one of those people at the school and milking our new guardian for all he could. It disappointed me as much as how he still continued to be friends with those terrible boys…
And their wicked prince.
I hadn’t forgotten that day on the bleachers with Dorian. I mean, how could I?
He’d brought me down to my knees.
I’d sucked him off (openly) and for anyone to see. What was worse was I’d pretty much begged him to do it. He’d gotten into my head, and I hadn’t liked that.
Even if I’d enjoyed his taste.
Even if I’d indulged in his power and who he clearly was around the academy’s campus. How it’d all gone down had been sick, and I thought I truly would be ill the way he’d left me there. He’d said I had been a conquest, nothing but a mouth to fuck, and I’d fallen for the shit. I had become one of them, the girls who obviously fell all over him.
I was still waiting for that particular ball to drop. Either he hadn’t told anyone about that day on the bleachers, or he was simply waiting to expose me. He may want to keep me nervous and at his mercy. There was no way he’d conceal that information on purpose.
He’d said he wanted to break me.
He’d said he wanted me to scream for him, and he’d be the one to deliver. He’d gotten off on breaking me down and turning me into someone I didn’t want to be. I didn’t want to think about him.
I didn’t want to remember his taste.
Dorian Prinze was already enough in my head, in this house. He hovered in it with how my brother had become his own personal fanboy. I’d also caught Bru singing Dorian’s praises to Callum when my brother had been updating our guardian about his football stuff on the phone.
Bru dropped his fork on his plate. “You just couldn’t help yourself, could you?” Bru shot, really going there. “You can’t let me have just this one thing. You know, I’m actually good at football?”
I did know that. I mean, of course he wouldn’t know that I did. I’d snuck in on a couple of his practices, missing my brother and wanting to see what he’d been doing.
I moved my lips. “I know you’re good, Bru.”
“Do you?” He frowned. “How about how much I enjoy it? That I’m actually making friends—”
“Those aren’t your real friends.” And I’d stand by that. I didn’t know the Legacy guys’ angle (Dorian Prinze’s angle), but I knew they were still playing him. Them getting close to Bru was nothing but a power play—point blank. I sneered. “They don’t like you. They’re letting you get close because they hate me.”
“Look how you sound right now.” He shook his head. He pointed at me. “You know, I think you’re just paranoid. Paranoid that I might be leaving and finding something for myself. I swear to God you’re just like Dad—”
“Enough!” I growled, slamming my hands on the table. He wouldn’t speak to me like that and not about Dad. I directed a finger at him. “Say what you want about me. Say whatever you want but leave Dad out of this. You know he was sick.”
Our dad was a troubled man with problems we obviously didn’t get. He’d never told us, but he had to have had them. He was guarded and so obviously missed Mom.
Bru wiped his hands off, apparently done with his plate.
“I’m going to school,” he mumbled and then that was that.
I eventually got to school too, and though I normally didn’t go around talking to too many people, I did stop Bow Reed at her locker.
I hadn’t seen her around class.
In fact, she’d all but disappeared after the news broke of what I’d done to Dorian around the halls. She wasn’t in our math class, and I didn’t see her around. Not even at lunch, and I looked for her.
She wasn’t with her brother and his friends when they actually showed up for lunch. Lately, I hadn’t seen the guys either in the courtyard, and I considered that a blessing.
When they weren’t there, I didn’t get food thrown at me.
It was like the lunchroom acted on their behalf whenever they were around. Legacy boys never did their own bidding. They had minions to do it for them. I still found shit in my locker. Sex toys were pretty much the exclusive thing, but most recently, boxes of pregnancy tests had been added to the haul. They fell out into the hallway after that first day and hadn’t stopped since.
I’d grown accustomed to simply throwing them away, an act I’d just finished when I spotted Bow at her locker. I raised my hand to her. “Hey.”
Her head had been in her locker, and she gazed over the door, full smile on her face.
But then, she spotted me.
The smile wiped away as if I’d taken an eraser to it. Next thing I knew, she was pulling things out of her locker in quick time. She filled her arms with books and ignored me standing not a foot away from her.
I eyed her. “Little rabbit?” She continued to ignore me. I frowned. “I haven’t seen you in class…”
“I dropped it,” she stated, more bite in her voice than I was used to from her. She huffed. “Well, I didn’t drop it. I transferred.”
“Why?”
“Maybe I didn’t want to see someone who was taking advantage of me every day.”
“What?”
She whipped from behind her locker, getting in my face. This was crazy since I had more than a few inches on her. Even still, she stood tall in her heeled Mary Janes. She shook her head. “You know, I didn’t tell you any of that stuff at my house, Sloane, for you to go and use it against Dorian. Dorian is like a brother to me. All the guys are.”
Fuck.
“My brother actually had to break it down to me what you did.” She frowned, definitely not used to that from her. She was always so cheery. “How you took advantage of me with all that stuff I told you.”
She had shared a lot, more as I poked.
I’d poked a lot.
I’d found out exactly where Dorian’s mom worked, and that made it easy to send the note with the pregnancy test.
Her arms crossed over her books. “I kind of actually thought we were friends.”
“We are friends.”
She put her hand up. “Well, if that’s a friend, I’ll just take family.” She closed her locker. “Which Dorian and all the other guys are to me.” She leaned in. “I told you. Our families are close as hell, and I may not agree with a lot of the things the guys do around here, but that doesn’t stop the fact that they’re my family. Always have been. Always will be.”
Her family.
“And you hurt them.” Her face grew red in color. “You hurt Dorian, and what’s worse is, you did it through me.”
“Little rabbit—”
“It’s Bow,” she countered. “Not little rabbit. Just Bow, and tutor yourself from now on.”
“Bow.”
Her hair swayed when she charged in the opposite direction away from me, and I couldn’t even be mad at her or blame her. I had used her, and if she really was as close as she was with the Legacy guys, she should hate me.
I’d hate her too if someone did that to my family.
Chapter Nineteen
Sloane
The impending feeling of doom I got every time I walked the halls of Windsor Prep made me feel like maybe my brother had something to his claims of me being like our father. Besides people staring at me and still not acknowledging me by anything other than Vapor or Legacy bitch, I had a sense of dread following me. Like the shoe was about to drop, and I was simply waiting for the crushing blow. It had started the day Bow had called me out about taking advantage of her.
It never left after that.
Legacy hadn’t been shy about making their presence known in the hallways. Whenever I did see them, they made sure to pass me a look, to sit closer to my brother at lunch, or to sneer when they tucked Bow in tighter between them at their table. The one with the most heat in his eyes had been Thatcher. He always had his arm draped around his sister, a hate in his eyes whenever I saw them all eating at lunch. The worst had been Dorian actually. Because unlike Wells’s and Ares’s “looks” and Thatcher’s protective hold, Dorian didn’t acknowledge me at all. I got none of his attention when I probably should have gotten his the most. He made sure to keep it on his girls he always had around him. Never once looking at me.