Who Breaks First: A New Adult Bully Romance (Clearwater University Book 1)

by Eva Ashwood

  Holy shit.

  I see it now.

  When Emma told me she’d gotten into a huge fight with her mom, I couldn’t imagine her ever getting as crazy mad as she described. She’s such a naturally sweet person, it was impossible to picture her screaming bloody murder.

  But I’m witnessing it right now.

  It’s sort of terrifying, honestly.

  “I’d seriously like to see that happen,” Trent replies, laughing under his breath. “Do your fucking worst, Holloway.”

  “You guys, this is ridiculous,” I say, because seriously, I’m fed up with this shit. It was better when we were happy, when we were all spending time with Emma and things were peaceful. And if Trent wants to be mad at anyone for lying, his mom seems like a much better candidate for that honor. I throw a glance at West. “Get her out of here, dude. Now.”

  “No! I’m not done yet!” Emma shouts, renewing her struggles.

  “Fucking Christ, Emma. Stop fighting,” West grunts out.

  I can tell he’s trying not to hurt her, which I appreciate. We’ve got our boy’s back, always, but I’m not willing to get into a physical altercation with her over it. I still care about her, for better or worse. I don’t think that’ll ever go away.

  She finally goes limp in his arms, as though she has no physical strength left. She’s heaving and out of breath. I’m wondering if she regrets all of this, just like I’m starting to. Does she regret sleeping with all three of us? Does she regret introducing her dad to Claire? Why the fuck did she do that, anyhow? After all these years, there’s so much that’s still unclear.

  “You chill now?” West asks Emma, still holding onto her even though her body has gone limp.

  “Yeah,” Emma replies softly, and West lets go of her.

  As soon as his arms release her, Emma is suddenly full of fire and energy once more. She throws herself forward and jumps on Trent again.

  This time, Trent’s defenses are down, and she gives him a good, solid hit to the face. Although it’s fucked up as hell, I must admit I’m kind of impressed. I didn’t know Emma could pack such a punch.

  “You’re going to pay for this,” she hisses, before walking to the door and flinging it open. She doesn’t bother to close it behind her.

  “Dude, what the fuck? This is insane.”

  West sounds pissed as shit, and I don’t even know if he knows who he’s mad at. The whole damn world, maybe.

  “Tell me about it,” Trent says, his voice raspy. Now he’s bleeding from both sides of his mouth and is already starting to show a black eye. “Well, you know what they say. Liars always protest their innocence too much.” He swipes the back of his hand over his mouth, wiping away the blood. “And that was way over-the-top. I knew she fucking lied about it.”

  West doesn’t respond, and neither do I. My gaze is locked on the door Emma vanished through.

  This is so fucked up.

  None of us will ever be the same again. Things have crossed the line so far, I’m pretty sure there’s no turning back.

  24

  Emma

  The Icons’ house is about ten minutes’ walk from campus, and the whole way back to my dorm, I sob. Deep, heaving gasps that feel like they pull out bits of my soul, shredding little pieces of me and making me hurt everywhere, inside and out.

  He’s ruined my life.

  Trent has officially ruined my life.

  And this is so much worse than in high school. Because now he’s broken my heart twice.

  That thought sits in my chest, occupying the empty space where my heart used to be, and as I walk, it starts to pump poison into my veins.

  Trent is so big on revenge, on not letting those who’ve wronged him go unpunished. It’s time for me to take a page out of his book. I’m already about to be kicked out of school. My life is wrecked. I might as well burn the whole fucking world down with me.

  Although Trent never explained what happened, I know for sure that he didn’t turn the project in for Anthropology. He probably burned it or something. If we all fail the class, it’s just me who’ll suffer. The rest of the guys will take a hit to their GPA, but they aren’t on provisional admittance. I’m the only one who will end up getting kicked out of school. Rage is pouring through me, and my body is exhausted after going after Trent the way I did.

  And I want fucking revenge.

  I’m glad I managed to get one good hit in. Maybe it makes me fucked up, but I liked seeing blood on his face. If I could have, I would’ve scratched his eyes out.

  I barge into my dorm, still in a rage, and Leslie looks at me like I’ve gone absolutely insane.

  “What the fuck?” She jumps to her feet, her eyes wide.

  “It’s done,” I bite out, going straight to my desk and sitting down at my computer.

  “What? What’s done? What the hell is going on? What’s up with you today?”

  “He ruined my life. He just torched my entire life.”

  “Who?”

  “Trent.”

  “What did he do?”

  “He never turned in our Anthropology project. I’ve failed the class, and they’re throwing me out of school.”

  Her eyebrows shoot up. “Are you serious?”

  “Dead serious.”

  “Holy fuck.” She shakes her head, sinking back down on the bed. “Why’d he do it?”

  “Because he’s pissed off that years ago I introduced my dad to his mom. They had an affair, and it broke up Trent’s parents’ marriage,” I explain. There’s no reason to hold back the truth any longer. Leslie needs to know everything so she can help me figure out what to do.

  “Damn.” Leslie is still shaking her head, like that will help her process everything I just threw at her. “That’s fucked up.”

  “Tell me about it,” I say, scouring my computer for information.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m trying to find evidence that I did the project. If I can explain to Professor Sykes what happened, maybe there’s a chance I can save all this.”

  “Do you have any files?” Leslie asks, perching on the edge of my desk. Her eyes are gleaming with interest, and I get the uncomfortable feeling that this is more entertaining for her than a soap opera. Not that she doesn’t care—I’m sure she does—but she’s always been a little drama-hungry, and it’s like I just presented her with a ten-course buffet of angst.

  “I don’t know.” I groan, resting my head in my hands as a fresh sob works its way up inside my chest. “We wrote everything down by hand, and then Trent typed it all up. He had all of the information. He had the entire binder, and he probably destroyed it. Why was I so stupid? Why did I let him have control?”

  “Well, you had no way of knowing he would do anything like this.”

  “Still, I’m such a fucking idiot. This really is all my fault. I trusted that he would follow through with this. Why would I ever do such a thing, knowing our history?”

  “Okay, okay. Calm down.” Leslie claps her hands together, going into damage control mode. She may thrive on drama, but she also thrives on being a fixer, and right now, I need that. “We’re going to find a way to get through this. There’s got to be a way to prove you did your part.”

  Even though I know that there’s nothing on my computer, I’m still frantically checking for any kind of evidence I can find. And that’s when I stumble upon it.

  The video.

  The one I took of Trent.

  “Oh my God,” I mutter.

  “What is it?”

  “There is something I have.”

  Leslie leans in to look at the screen, I press play, and we both watch several seconds of Trent jerking himself off in close view of the camera.

  “Woah,” Leslie murmurs, a note of lust in her voice, and even though I’m currently thinking of ways to castrate Trent, a flare of possessiveness rises up in me before I can stop it.

  But I force it down. My stupid heart and body might still be a little confused, but my m
ind has never been more clear.

  No more second chances. No more trying to find peace. This is war, and there are always casualties in a war.

  Leslie can look all she wants. Pretty soon, she won’t be the only one.

  I pause the video and turn to her. “It’s all I have.”

  “Yeah?” She drags her gaze away from the screen to me. “And what are you going to do with it?”

  “I’m going to use it to destroy him.”

  Interest flashes in her eyes, but she bites her lip, looking back at the video. “I dunno, Emma. Maybe he doesn’t deserve—”

  “Leslie.” I cut her off, fury filling me, “Either you help me, or you leave me alone. You’re the hacker. You know how to do this shit and I don’t. But if you won’t help me, I’ll find some other way.”

  She scowls, and I know she hates the position I’ve put her in. I hate it too, but I’m steeling my heart against feeling anything right now.

  Like I said, there are casualties in every war, and maybe my friendship with Leslie will be the first one.

  “Please,” I say, softening my voice. “I need your help. After the shit he pulled on me… He deserves this. He deserves so much worse than this. It’ll torch things between us for good. I need to do this.”

  She narrows her eyes, looking from me to the laptop screen and back thoughtfully.

  “Well, he has seriously hurt you,” she says, pulling a face as she considers it.

  “He wrecked me, Leslie.”

  “Okay.” She nods decisively. “I’ll help you. But you can’t ever tell anyone that I’m doing this. Do you promise? My parents don’t know about my hacking, and if I get ratted out, I could get in serious trouble. You’ll owe me, okay?”

  “Yes. Absolutely. I promise,” I say, putting my palm up in the air.

  “Jesus.” Leslie rolls her eyes, pulling the laptop toward her. “Now I have to watch this whole fucking video.”

  I can’t watch. If I watch, it’ll remind me of what at the time felt like one of the best nights of my life. And I can’t afford anything that makes me weaken right now. I can’t afford any softness.

  Any pity.

  But I sit next to Leslie as she edits and prepares the video to upload, telling me as she works about how she’ll nudge the video to make it go viral, and how many sites we’ll upload it to.

  I don’t watch, but every once in a while I glance up and get a small glimpse. I try to let the memories of that night wash over me as if they belong to someone else. Because in a way, they do.

  I’m not that girl anymore.

  Not only will Trent and I never have sex again, we’ll also never be friends. It’s completely over between us. Now, the only thing I can think about is sweet revenge.

  “It’s done,” Leslie finally says, saving the file. “Ready to upload it?”

  “Yes.” I sit up straighter, my entire body going taut.

  “Okay. We’ll put it up a bunch of places, but I hacked into the school’s network, so I think the first place we should post it is the Clearwater University student portal.”

  Adrenaline surges through my system.

  Clearwater U allows students to check their grades and other class assignments online. It’s not usually something students are able to post on—we can only access information that teachers and admins post. But if Leslie uploads the video of Trent there, it’s practically a guarantee that the whole school will see it.

  Finals just finished. People will be logging in all across campus to check their grades.

  And instead, they’ll see… this.

  A tiny part of me feels like absolute shit right now. But although it seems way too harsh to do this, Trent has already done far worse to me. I don’t even care at this point. My life is over with anyway, so might as well take a page out of Trent’s book.

  It takes a devil to beat a devil.

  With a few keystrokes, Leslie uploads the file—but I’m the one who presses ‘Post’.

  25

  West

  As Trent, Reese, and I walk across campus, silence reigns between us.

  We’re all trying to decompress from what happened yesterday. I didn’t think things were going to escalate to that level, but considering the fire I’ve always seen in Emma, I’m not all that surprised she went after Trent the way she did.

  Fuck. Some days, it feels like all four of us are going to destroy each other. Like we’re on a train that’s hurtling toward a brick wall, but we’re all too stubborn to pull the fucking brakes.

  Reese finally breaks the silence. “Dude, why didn’t you tell us what you were doing?”

  “Because I didn’t want you to stop me,” Trent shoots back, his voice stony. He’s still got a bruise by his eye.

  “You’ve fucked us over too, you know,” I grunt. I’m lucky as hell my grades were solid in all my other classes, so this didn’t affect me too badly, but still. I would’ve appreciated a fucking warning.

  “It’s fine. We won’t be kicked out of school.”

  “It was too far, man,” Reese says, anger tightening his voice. “We’ve always been a team. And you went behind our backs on this. It’s not fucking cool.”

  “Listen,” Trent says, stepping ahead of us. He turns around to face us, putting a hand on each of our chests to stop us in our tracks. “I know it’s fucked up. But it was the only way. I was ready to forgive her. Fuck, I was fall—” He breaks off, his face hardening. Then he shakes his head. “It’s better this way. We wanted her gone, right? Well, now she’s gone. We won’t have to see her face ever again.”

  Gone.

  It’s true. She’s gone. Emma might not be physically off campus yet, but she will be soon. The school will rescind her admission, and she’ll leave. Maybe she and her dad will leave Clearwater again, just like they did when we were all in high school.

  This is what I wanted. Right?

  It was all I could think about for weeks after she first showed up here. Getting her out. Out of school, out of my life, out of my head and my heart.

  But now?

  That’s the last fucking thing I want.

  Trent, Reese, and I have always had each other’s backs, and that means more to me than almost anything.

  But I don’t know if I can have Trent’s back on this. I know she fucked him over in high school, but after hearing her scream at him yesterday, seeing the wild look on her face, I’m nowhere near as convinced as he is that she’s lying.

  I’m starting to think maybe he let his pain at the fucked-up shit his parents went through blind him to the truth.

  Trent turns without another word and continues walking across campus. Reese and I slide each other looks, and I can sense that he’s not totally convinced everything has gone down the right way either.

  “Let’s go.”

  I jerk my head toward Trent’s retreating back. It’s about time the three of us had this out once and for all. All of it.

  We start to head after him, but that’s when I notice something strange happening around us.

  The three of us are used to owning whatever school we’re in. It was the case in high school, and it’s still the case at Clearwater U. That’s why it seems sort of odd when I see people staring at Trent and whispering to themselves as we pass. I even see some girls laughing at him, and all the other guys are shaking their heads and grinning.

  What the fuck is going on?

  “What’s up?” Reese mutters, just as we catch up to Trent.

  “I dunno,” Trent replies, obviously picking up on the same thing I am.

  “Something is definitely going down,” Reese says.

  “It’s probably not a big deal,” Trent shoots back, but I can tell he doesn’t quite believe that.

  We keep moving, and the whispers and stares only get more pronounced. Finally, Trent stops. We’re standing near the entrance to Frances Hall, and we can hear a group of girls talking just inside the building. It doesn’t seem strange at first, until we hear them say Trent�
��s name.

  “Oh my God, did you watch the video? With Trent Cooper?” one girl asks.

  “Seriously? I watched it, like, three times. It’s so insane,” another girl replies.

  “Jen texted me in the middle of the night. She told me to check out the online student portal immediately. Oh my God, I just about died.”

  “Me too!” a third girl pipes in. “I mean, he’s hot, but how embarrassing is that? Didn’t anyone ever warn him about the sex tape rule?”

  “What rule?”

  The first girl laughs. “If you make a sex tape, it will get out. It’s like some kind of law of nature of something.”

  The three of us are frozen. What the fuck is she talking about? Trent? Sex tape?

  But Trent’s expression has gone stiff. His jaw clenches as he yanks out his phone, typing furiously. A second later, his nostrils flare as he stares at the screen.

  Reese and I step up beside him, and my head jerks back. Motherfucker. Not only is it a video of Trent jerking off, but there are, like, six hundred comments below it.

  “What. The. Fuck?” Trent grates out, his voice hoarse.

  “Jesus,” I breathe.

  I watch Trent’s face turn red with anger, and Reese and I share a look.

  Emma.

  “Did you know about this?” Reese asks Trent.

  “Of course, I didn’t fucking know about this.” Trent’s hand tightens on the phone. I looked away a long time ago, because I don’t really need to see one of my best friends abusing himself on camera, but he’s still staring at the screen, like if he just looks at it hard enough, he’ll be able to make it disappear.

  “I didn’t think she’d stoop so low,” Reese mutters.

  “That fucking bitch.” Trent curses. “If she had any guts, she could have at least kept herself in the video. But she’s too much of a coward.”

  “Dude, did you know she was making a video?”

  “No, I didn’t. Of course I fucking didn’t. This was weeks ago. She’s been planning this all along.”