Bitter Kisses (It's Just High School Book 3)

by Thandiwe Mpofu

  “What about when she was missing?” I question.

  “She has full and detailed accounts and evidence to match each day that she was reported as missing,” Cole says, looking pleased. “She really does have an IQ that matches Sherlock Holmes.”

  I’m tempted to fire back that Shezza is nothing more than a fictional character hyped up by Hollywood, but in this moment, the relief that floods my system is too intense to fire out insults. I wouldn’t be able to do them justice anyway.

  “She has evidence?” Dad questions, the tense expression on his face melting bit by bit.

  “Yup,” Cole says. “Saw everything myself. Records. CCTV footage of the hotel we traced her to that other time. Everything really.”

  “Holy shit,” I mutter, running a hand through my hair.

  “You do know what this means now, don’t you?” Cole looks at me, a look of relief crossing his face.

  “But coach…”

  “Is waiting for you back at school. I filled him in on everything.”

  “And if Dad can take care of letting the world know of your innocence,” Liam says, looking at our father who nods, taking out his phone to make phone calls, obviously desperate to make sure the Fitzgerald family name is cleared of any public wrong doing.

  The secret stuff however, will remain hidden in plain sight. “Now you’re all set to resume life as you intended to live it.”

  Resume life…

  “Mia,” I whisper, searing pain shooting through my insides. The way I treated her….

  “She really did come through for you and cleared your name,” Liam says, all the bravado draining from his face. “You’d think we could have shown her a little bit more trust when she practically told us she didn’t do it.”

  “I never doubted her,” Cole says with a grin, the shithead looking like a fucking saint in that moment. Of course, he never doubted her. He adores the ground she walks on.

  “Fuck, where is she?” I need to go see her right fucking now. God, I was such an asshole. I shut her out, treated her horribly when she was right all along.

  My Little Minx never lied to me. She really didn’t know what her father was doing. Fuck. I messed up big time.

  “Down boy, you know how she takes her education seriously,” Liam chuckles at the urgency in my voice.

  “Fuck, it’s the first day back to school today.”

  Shit, how did I forget that?

  “Yeah, Romeo Capulet,” Liam says with a sarcastic bow that makes me roll my eyes. “Her grace, Lady Montague takes her future seriously, unlike some people.”

  I deadpan.

  “Romeo was a Montague, asshole.”

  “Exactly.” He winks, then we start walking toward our cars. “Fuck, I have a lot of groveling to do.”

  “Yup,” Cole agrees, grabbing Liam into a headlock to mess his hair up. “You basically accused her of sitting on a throne of lies.”

  Liam winces, the color draining from his face. “I couldn’t sleep for days, the look on her face when I said that will haunt me forever.”

  Her tears and cries will haunt me forever. But then again, I have forever to make up for it and make sure she doesn’t cry a day in her life because fuck, she was mine to trust and I failed miserably.

  Just then, Cole’s phone rings, breaking the camaraderie. When he fishes it out, a frown crosses his face. Then he glances up at me, a hard look on his face that makes the blood in my veins freeze.

  “What is it?”

  “Where the fuck is your phone?” he questions instead. I reach in my suit jacket for the damn thing that I switched off because I didn’t want to read Mia’s texts. She stopped trying to contact me a few days ago, but I still have a habit of re-reading the texts she sent before, pretending she’s still important to me—which she’ll always be.

  “What’s wrong?” Liam demands, looking between us. Just then, his own phone buzzes and he fishes it out.

  I press the damn button to power on my phone and glance up to look at my best friend as the hole in the pit of my stomach widens. Alarms start blaring in my head with a chilling effect that seeps into my bones.

  The look on his face hardens with repressed anger but it’s what’s in his eyes that stops my heart.

  Pure and unadulterated fear.

  The hairs at the back of my neck stand up on end. That dread I felt before? It comes back with a rush, slamming into me like a freight train.

  “FUCK!” Liam bellows and I… I almost drop to my knees in shock and pain as my vision blurs, shrinks and dims at the edges until I feel like passing out.

  Mia…

  She lies there in what looks like a dimly lit room, completely naked, bruises on her face, a dead stare in her eyes that twists my gut and will stay tattooed on my eyelids for the rest of my fucking life. And in the background, Sean Matthews is sitting beside her, also naked.

  Jesus.

  There’s a text as well.

  Matthews: You sold her off just so you could avoid paying for your sins in jail? But she’s delicious though! Thanks Fitz!

  HEADLINES

  SCANDAL OF THE DECADE IN PALOS VERDES!

  After two weeks of tensions mounting, hard truths being exposed and the disgusting actions of the rich and privileged finally being realized, Palos Verdes’ very own football star—now with a highly uncertain future—Julian Fitzgerald goes to court today.

  Out on bail set at whooping $2 million dollars on the very day he was arrested, Julian Fitzgerald seems to be untouchable even with the number of charges against him; kidnapping, assault, rape, just to mention a few. It’s no surprise that the defence team of the poor victim, whose been through so much, Mia Montague, is pushing for justice at all costs.

  The nation now waits on pins and needles for the outcome of today’s hearing.

  However, while there’ve been calls for justice, there have also been reports of a social media uproar as many, nation-wide, come out in defence of the famed young star, Fitzgerald.

  Now, we’re left to wonder, is he guilty or did Mia Montague cry wolf and make this all up just to stain another wealthy legacy as some sort of smear campaign?

  Twitter

  @clintwoodhotsuff: Ice Queen, Mia freaking Montague, what a fucking joke. I bet you anything she made all this up because he moved on to better. #desperatewhore

  @marg47: That bitch is an attention seeker. Prancing around the school like she owns it. She deserves to get thrown in jail! Look at what she’s done to sexy Julian. #desperatewhore #tiredbitch #povertystricken

  @palosverdesmetro: Julian Fitzgerald: rising, knowing no one will touch him.

  Ice Queen Mia: someone hold my freaking wine cooler.

  @sexyvee: That bitch set my husband up! There’s no way Julian MOTHERFUCKING Fitz would stoop so low 4 her. #desperatewhore

  @yngyen: Bet she got fucked and dumped, then she decided to cry rape. Like bitch, what? We all know how broke you are. And to think her mother was an icon. Bet she’s turning in her grave right about now.

  @theOG: Nah, I think she’s being honest. Why would Mia Montague lie? She’s not dramatic. She’s not as desperate as many of you are saying, smearing her cries. You guys are the reason why women to come forward when they’re abused. You should be ashamed. Poor Mia. I hope they lock him up forever.

  @queencasey: Whatever. Can’t wait to see what the #RACK does to her. Heard they’re going to eviscerate that Ice Queen bitch.

  @naenaebitch: You know what, this is about to be a banging senior year! Bet!

  1

  Julian

  There’s a something that happens when you’re being torn apart from within, like the broken skin on your fractured and shattered bones is being slashed and pulled every which way to gut you, spilling your insides out for the fucking world to see.

  That’s what’s happening to me as I read the text over and over the realization of tragedy falling over me, hazing my vision until it’s tinted in red, my focus on the image attached to the fucking tex
t.

  There’s a ringing in my ears.

  The thing in my chest feels tight, like it’s being twisted up, wrung like a fucking dirty rag, ripping it to shreds.

  I can hardly breathe. The alarms in my head keep blaring. It’s the sound of catastrophe, devastation and a fucking horrific end that I didn’t see coming.

  And in all that, all I can think, all I feel, all I fucking know is… Mia. Has. Been. Taken. From. Me!

  “J?”

  A cold, endless darkness has seeped in on my soul.

  I can feel the blood in my veins swooshing violently with the promise of war hanging over me. I can taste the violence on my tongue and I know this time, I’m not denying that side of me. Not with this.

  “Julian, bro, speak to me.”

  Every shred of humanity in me—the humanity she saw in me, the humanity my brothers brought out in me, cultivated by my solid friendship with my best friend—all that falls away like a fucking piece of paper towel in a storm.

  I re-read the text that’s now engraved on my eyelids along with Mia’s dead stare at she stares at the camera, her naked bruised body on display to not only hurt me but to destroy me. And it fucking worked.

  I feel like I’m being strangled, my lungs shrinking with each second that passes.

  “What the hell kind of joke is this?” At Liam’s hesitant, unsure question, I snap like that’s the trigger.

  “She’s been fucking taken!” I roar.

  Mia has been fucking taken by that disgusting vile sonofabitch, and I’m going to kill him.

  Cole’s right there beside me. “Just breathe, man,” he mutters lowly, a firm hand on my shoulder. “Breathe.”

  I shake his hand off. I’m way past reasoning with at this point. I’m past common sense, humanity or understanding. I can feel the anger igniting in my veins, licking through them like acid down my back.

  “You don’t want to snap in public like this.”

  Fuck me if I care.

  We’re still in the courtyard right outside the front steps of the courthouse where I was supposed to be tried and sent to jail in short order for my supposed crimes of kidnapping, raping and threatening to kill the girl that stole my heart when I was a fucking mess years ago.

  While Mia went ahead and saved my fucking life, my future—and my fucking sanity for a temporary feel good moment before it all got shot to hell with one fucking text—proving she never lied to me, I’ve been hating her, cursing her name and the way I still wanted to kiss her.

  And now, she’s been fucking taken! And God only knows what—

  “Fuck!” I roar, turning heads and startling babies in my rage.

  “Shit, fucking shit,” Cole mutters, looking around. “We don’t need attention right now. Nit with what I assume is about to happen.”

  He’s probably right but at this point, it’s useless to try and tame the blazing inferno of pain, anguish and torture I’ve been thrust in.

  Mia…

  “Okay, hold the fuck up,” Liam says quickly. “Before we lose our fucking heads over this... this disgusting picture, let’s focus and talk this out.”

  “Liam—” Cole mutters, but I cut him off.

  “There’s nothing to fucking talk about here!” I growl and just as quickly, my gaze falls back on the image on my phone.

  I can feel my stomach flipping in my chest, every muscle in my body tightening to a point of pain as my vision hazes with a tint of red, but still in all that, I can’t look away.

  “What the fuck, man?” Liam bites out again. “What kind of sick joke is this?”

  “Liam,” Cole starts, his voice low and pained. I can feel his gaze settling on me even as he speaks to my brother. “This isn’t a joke.”

  “You’re damn right this isn’t a joke!” Liam explodes. “If they think we’ll let this slide like that trashy picture they had floating on the internet of Mia’s dead mother-aunt whoever the fuck she was to Mia, then they have another thing coming!”

  “What fucking picture now?” Cole seethes.

  “The one they had with Mia’s old house in the background, talking about sucking dock for two fucking dollars!”

  “Ah, Liam—” Cole starts but it’s too late. I turn to my brother.

  “If you so much as say something like that shit again in my presence or to anyone else for that fucking matter, brother or not, I’ll wring your fucking neck.”

  “J—”

  “I fucking mean it.”

  He clamps his jaw shut and jerks his head in resigned surrender, silently and angrily conceding.

  “Yeah, I get it, but let’s not pretend like we have all the facts right now,” he bites out. “Because of this is real—” he trails off, a shudder going through his body as his face clouds with anger.

  “I don’t need fucking facts for this or some kind of fucking confirmation,” I say. “They took what’s mine. They took her.”

  I know the Matthews inbred bastards and I also know this is not some fucking threat. This is fucking real.

  “Yes, I understand the urgency of this fuck fest but Liam’s right,” Cole mutters. “We shouldn’t jump to conclusions. Not with this. We need all the facts before we…”

  “Before we fucking what? Charge in and fuck it all up?” I seethe, stepping away from him. “This is a call for me and I’ll fucking answer it!”

  “Keep your damn voice down, people are staring.”

  Ah, fuck this. Gripping the phone with a white knuckled grip, I turn on the heel of my fucking dress shoes that I apparently now have reserved for things like Aiden’s funeral, a court case made up against me and now, ripping the fucking Matthews assholes heads from their fucking shoulders for how touching Mia.

  “Where?” I demand.

  “Over there,” Cole says. Spotting Cole’s matte black Dodge Challenger parked in front of Liam’s Lamborghini, I start striding toward it, fucking glad that he and my brother drove separately. It makes this all fucking easier.

  “Will you ride with me?

  “You don’t even have to say a word.”

  Just then, my father looks up, finally noticing that something’s up with us. I watch from the corner of my eye as he quickly ends his call and rushes to us. It’s then that I notice Cole and Liam are broth walking with me, thunderous yet impassive expressions on their faces. I have no fucking clue how I look like and right now, I don’t give a flying fuck. Not when I’ve failed this hellishly.

  “Whoa, whoa, what’s going on here?” John demands, stopping in front of us, his searching, suspicious gaze moving from me to Liam and Cole. “Why do you all look like you’re about to go on a murder spree?”

  Cole glances at me warily, his gaze shifting from me, to Liam, then toward his car parked across the courtyard by the curb. I can just about hear him calculate how fast he’ll be able to drag me toward the car before I snap.

  “What’s going on?” Dad demands.

  A heavy, violent silence hangs over us until Dad faces Liam.

  “These two might be fucking tight lipped like a dead fish but you, what’s going on here?”

  With a grunt of annoyance, Liam passes his phone to my dad and I sidestep him and continue on my warpath toward the car. Cole’s car is throaty and loud, we’re going to need something more silent for what’s in store.

  Already, my mind is whirring with all sorts of strategies and contingency plans I need to put in place, but one thing is clear, Sean and his fucking brother won’t make it to the end of this fucking night.

  “Jesus Christ,” Dad curses, his voice filled with disbelief, horror and disgust behind me. “What is this?”

  “We still don’t…” Cole starts, but Liam cuts him off.

  “It’s a fucking prank we’re going to return with a swift brutality.”

  I stop, my palms balled into fists as the phone cuts into my hand, but the pain is nothing like the chaos in me.

  “This?” Dad starts, a catch in his voice. I don’t have to see his face to know wh
at he’s thinking. “This is a prank?”

  Swiftly turning around, my gaze lands on my brother who clearly still in fucking denial over this.

  “A prank?” I start, the incredulity of the word scorching my tongue like acid. Cole and Liam pause, their dark, hooded gazes now on me as they both finally see the rage in me, but dad just stares down at the phone, his jaw locked.

  You sold her off just so you could avoid paying for your sins...

  The empty, almost lifeless look in her once vibrant, aquamarine eyes.

  She’s delicious though...

  The way she was lying there fucking naked, battered, bruised and bleeding.

  My Little Minx.

  I’ve failed this girl so many fucking times but now the universe has finally conspired to really fuck me up. It’s as if the universe has finally demanded for your existence to come to an end, and now here I am, feeling like I’m taking in my last breath, going straight to the pits of hell.

  “You think this is a prank, Liam?” Dad questions, the doubt in his voice clear as the alarm in his eyes when he looks up at me.

  “I mean what else could it be?” Liam says, shifting on his feet, regarding me with caution. “Well, to be fair, maybe it’s just a manipulated photo.”

  “A manipulated photo, huh?” I whisper, ignoring how broken I sound as I walk back to my brother. Cole steps in, shaking his head slightly. “Do you really think that’s some fucking cadaver with bruises and a nasty bleeding gash to the head? You think that’s manipulated to resemble the girl who’s had my back when I didn’t have hers?”

  The truth of my actions and the shit I said to her the last time I saw her is disgusting.

  Great move, asshole. Get a fucking pat on the back while you’re fucking at it.

  “Julian—” Dad starts but I cut him off as I stare at my brother but speaking to all three of them.