by Mae Doyle
I thought that the worst thing that I could run into in the woods would be him, but it looks like there are worse things hiding out around Blacksburg.
There’s no way that Teague was ever meant to be my savior. I was not supposed to be snuggled up next to his side, drawing comfort from the warmth of his body, hoping that he would stand between me and the evil that I was facing, but that’s exactly what happened.
What the hell is going on?
The glass in my window is shockingly cold and I lean against it, trying to feel something. Trying to focus.
“I’m taking you home. Stay there.” Teague’s voice cuts through my thoughts and I turn to look at him. His jaw is clenched tight again, the muscle twitching. He hasn’t looked at me since we got into the truck. Hasn’t turned on music. All he’s done is drive and brood.
And, fuck, he looks good doing it.
“What are you going to go do?” I shouldn’t even care what he’s going to do. In fact, I should wish that he would go and fall off of the face of the earth, but I’m curious what in the world could have his attention and would draw him out of the house, especially right now.
“It doesn’t matter to you.”
“But it does. Don’t you think that we should talk – ” I want to continue my thought, but he slams on the brake.
“Talk about what, Nora? The fact that we very well could have died just now? No, I don’t want to fucking talk about it, and I’d prefer if you not bring it up.” He’s breathing hard and I can see his chest rising and falling under his shirt.
Anger swells in me. “Well, shit, Teague, we wouldn’t have been in that situation in the first place if you hadn’t taken me out into the woods to rape me!”
My voice is higher than I intend it to be, but I can’t help it. Not only does my voice feel tight, but there’s a throbbing in my head that just won’t stop.
“I wasn’t going to rape you.” He hits the gas and we jerk through the intersection.
“Bullshit. You were halfway there when you pulled my pants down.” Even though he should keep his eyes on the road, he finally looks over at me.
I swear, I can’t read his face. It’s twisted up, like he’s upset, but the only thing he has to be upset about is the fact that he was interrupted right before he was able to take me, right? Right.
“You would have been begging for it before I came anywhere near you with my cock, Nora. Don’t flatter yourself or think that you’re any better than you really are.”
My jaw drops open and my face flames, so I turn from him and stare back out the window. We’ve passed through town and are heading out to where he lives. There’s more and more space between the houses and they’re set back farther from the road as they get more expensive.
I hate him. I hate everything about Teague.
He has everything that I want in my life and is willing to throw it all away just to be an asshole. His mom loves him – no, she adores him – and I bet that he’s never had to go to bed hungry. It’s just not fair that he’s willing to be such an ass to people who haven’t done anything to him.
We ride in silence the rest of the way to his house. My hand is on the handle and I’m ready to jump out as soon as he stops the trucks, but he speaks before I can move.
“Just stay home, Nora. Don’t do anything stupid, and for fuck’s sake, stay the hell out of my room, okay?” When I don’t respond, he reaches out and takes me by the shoulder, making me jerk around to look at him. “And take a fucking shower. You look like shit.”
***
For the next two weeks Teague and I hardly spoke. I noticed that he got the window in his truck fixed, but when I asked him about it, he merely grunted.
The money from the center console was gone, but he never mentioned it. In fact, it was like our time in the woods never happened.
Don’t ask, don’t tell.
Until today. Friday.
It’s 3:00, and while Teague would normally have a football game, I heard that that it may be cancelled, so I’m hanging out in the front of the school, waiting to see if he’s going to give me a ride home before the game or if I’m going to have to wait until it’s all over.
Because God forbid his mother come and pick me up. Since I accused her son of trying to rape me in the woods she won’t speak to me. There’s food waiting for me at breakfast and at dinner, but she does her best to never interact with me. That’s fine. It just means that I have all the more reason to get out of here as quickly as possible when I graduate.
“So, what are you, like Teague’s whore or something?” I don’t know the perky cheerleader walking up to me, but I have seen her around.
Brittany? Becky? No, Bethany.
That’s it.
“I’m sorry?” I heard her, but I don’t know why she’d say something like that to me.
She snaps her gum and grins. “His whore. I mean, come on, you live down the hall from him now, right? And you want to tell me that you haven’t snuck into his room? He hasn’t come to warm your bed? There’s no way that I believe that. I’ve met Teague. He’s a horndog.”
Whoever this girl is, she certainly has some balls. I’d never feel comfortable walking up to a stranger and talking to them like this, but she doesn’t seem to give a shit what I think about her.
I’d like that about her if she weren’t so abrasive.
“I…no, actually.” My mind races and I can’t stop thinking about our time together in the woods, but since the time when the two guys interrupted us…well, he’s barely looked at me. It’s like he’s disgusted by me or something.
Not that I liked the attention, exactly, but I was getting used to it.
Sure, that’s what I can tell myself. It’s not that him looking at me and touching me gave me shivers and made me want more, right? Because why would I want someone like Teague to be interested in me?
“So then you haven’t fucked him?” When I just stare at her, her laughs and continues. “Because, you know, there’s a running bet around school about whether or not you have, and between you and me,” she leans forward, close enough to me that I can smell the mint on her breath, “I think that you have.”
“There’s a bet?” My throat feels like it’s closing in and it’s hard for me to breathe. Why in the world would the kids here want to bet on something stupid like that?
“Of course there is! I put down a couple hundred that not only did he fuck you, but he took your virginity. Am I right? Were you a virgin before you met Teague? That’s the rumor, you know.”
Her grin is terrible. I’m sure that she’s pretty, but the way that she’s smiling at me is making me sick.
Taking a step back from her, I try to focus and finding my footing. This conversation is not going the way that I want it to, and I need to get back in control. “Is everyone betting?” My stomach sinks as I wait for her answer.
“Everyone who’s anyone. You want to see the list?” I don’t answer but she pulls out her phone anyway and opens a document, flicking through it with her finger. Names and amounts whizz past on the screen. Even though I don’t know a lot of the students at this school, I still recognize their names.
Kids in my class.
Kids I thought I might try to eat lunch with. Bethany puts her finger on the screen, stopping the scrolling and then tilts her head to the side. “No way! I think that I’ve seen you two hanging out, right? Aren’t you two friends?”
Jade Davis. Her name makes my stomach twist. She’s been the only real friend that I made here, or so I thought. All week she’s been hanging out with me after school and even asked me to come over and spend the night one night.
Was it all just to learn more about Teague?
How in the hell has he managed to turn everyone at the school against me?
Especially her. I thought that Jade hated him, but it’s becoming pretty obvious that the students here made their choice between Teague and me…and I lost. My stomach drops and I struggle to take a deep breath of air.
<
br /> “So, you going to tell me the truth about what’s been going with you and Teague or do we need to ask him?” Bethany’s still chomping her gum and grinning at me.
Taking a step back, I look around for someone friendly, but now I have the feeling that everyone here is betting against me. People glance at the two of us while we talk, and I wonder if they’re trying to guess the outcome of the bet.
It’s enough to make me sick.
The pasta that I had for lunch is suddenly sitting heavy in my stomach and I feel it lurch.
“I’m going to be sick.” Turning, I look for the closest entrance to the school. I have to get to a bathroom, but they’re all packed with students coming outside. There’s no way that I’m going to make it in time. My stomach twists and I spot a trash can a few feet away.
Running to it, I pull my hair back the best that I can and lean over the edge, throwing up all of my lunch. There wasn’t a lot, but I instantly feel relief when I’m finished. I wipe my mouth and pant, feeling my breathing return to normal. Rubbing my eyes, I take a deep breath to steady myself. Okay. It’s okay now.
Until I look up, that is. Bethany is standing on the other side of the trash can, grinning gleefully, pointing her phone at me. “Smile, Nora!” She laughs as she snaps picture after picture. What the hell. I turn away, reaching up to cover my face, but I know that it’s already too late.
“Don’t be camera shy! This is the best that you’ve looked since you came to school here!” Her voice is too loud and I instantly know that people are staring.
Sure enough, when I drop my hand from my face, we’ve amassed quite a crowd. A bunch of students are around us, laughing and pointing, but they don’t have their phones out. Just Bethany.
My face burns and I turn away, looking again for Teague. I still can’t see him even though the crowd is thinning out. He’s the last person that I want to see right now, but he’s also my ride out of here. I have to find him, and I turn and stumble away from the trash can and Bethany. She calls after me, but I ignore her until she comes running up to me and grabs my arm.
“Don’t you want to see your new beauty shot?” Her voice is full of glee, but I won’t look at her. Instead, I keep staring around her, trying to find Teague. I have to get out of here. “Fine then,” she says, and pulls out her phone to jab at it.
I don’t know what she’s doing, but right now I don’t care. That is, until I hear the pinging. It’s just one at first, but then the noise surrounds us and comes from all sides. What the hell? As I search for Teague I notice that people are starting to look down at their phones, then back up at me.
I don’t have to wonder what they could be looking at. They’re smiling, some pointing and laughing. Turning around, I lock eyes with Bethany.
“I hate you.” I don’t know that I’ve ever spoken truer words to any person, but she simply grins and wiggles her fingers at me.
“You didn’t think that I was going to miss out on such a great photo shoot, did you, Nora? If you give me your number, I can send them to you, too, but I bet that you’ll see them eventually anyway. You blew chunks but someone managed to look great! Amazing, really. Probably because I’m such a great photographer, because you really looked like shit.”
She laughs at me once more before turning away and sashaying back towards the building. I watch her go, my stomach twisting harder than before.
If I didn’t believe it before, it’s even more obvious now.
I really don’t belong here.
Teague
My goal has been to spend as much time away from Nora as possible since our run-in with those guys in the woods. Besides the fact that my mom makes me drive her to and from school and I have to see her in the hall between classes, I’m doing a damn good job.
She makes sure that her door is shut and locked before I go to bed at night, and I do my best not to think about our time in the woods, although it’s literally all I can see in my mind when I close my eyes at night. Every single night I get into my huge bed and pull the covers up over my eyes. It doesn’t matter if I’ve been drinking or working out – sleep doesn’t come as easily for me as I wish it would.
Nora has completely infected my brain. We’re two halves of the same problem and whenever we’re together, things get worse, not better. I can’t help but see Nora on her back, breathing hard as I slide her panties down around her ankles. The way that her ass looked when I flipped her over and pressed her face into the dirt.
How good I knew that she was going to feel.
Dammit. I was supposed to use Nora, not start to feel things for her. Whenever I think about her I get so confused about what I’m supposed to do, and that is not something I’m used to. Hating her is easy for me to do. I’ve gotten used to hating people and using them for what I want, but it’s when I allow myself to actually feel things for her that I know I’m fucked. Falling for sweet little virginal Nora is definitely not what I need to be doing right now, but that doesn’t mean I can talk myself out of how I feel.
I have a plan for my life, and catching feelings for Nora definitely isn’t part of it.
Maybe I just need to try something new with her. Maybe it’s time for me to start being nicer to Nora and see how that goes. Yeah, right. After the rocky start that we got off to, it’s hard for me to believe that she could ever see me as anything other than her attacker.
I don’t know if Nora is big on forgiveness, but I’m not sure that I want to find out. She’s easier to play with, and it’s easier for me to pretend that nothing has changed and that I’m not dealing with new emotions if I keep using her as a distraction and a toy.
After another restless night, however, I think that maybe it’s time to try something different. She always looks rested in the morning, while I’m dealing with dark circles under my eyes. Something’s not right here, and it has to do with her, so I decide to change things up a little. What’s the worst that could happen? She thinks that she can trust me and then I can make her break apart even more later.
I’m already eating breakfast when she comes down the stairs, but I put out a bowl and some cereal for her. Who says that romance is dead?
“What’s this?” She pauses by the counter, eyeing the bowl. I know for a fact that my mom told her she’d take her shopping this weekend, but she’s still wearing the same stupid baggy clothes as she was when she first got here. It takes all of my self-control not to roll my eyes at her paint splattered shirt and jeans.
“Thought that you may be hungry.” Reaching out, I slide the pitcher of milk over to her. After a moment’s hesitation, she sits down and pours herself a bowl, but pauses before she raises the spoon to her mouth.
“How do I know that you didn’t put something in this?”
“In the milk jug? Are you serious?”
She nods, her eyes never leaving my face. A drop of milk splashes into the bowl, but she doesn’t look down.
My face heats and I feel frustration grow in me. Leaning over to her, I grab the spoon from her and shove it in my mouth, chewing and swallowing it as quickly as possible. Gross. I hate cereal. “Happy?”
She nods, a small movement that would be easy to miss, and takes her spoon back from me. I watch as she carefully dips up a bite. It’s going to make her nervous, but I keep an eye on her while she eats. When she looks calmer and less homicidal, I speak again. It’s not that I expected a thank you from her, but it sure would have been nice. Someone really needs to teach her some manners.
“I also thought that it was time we bury the hatchet. You know, what went down out there in the woods sucked, but maybe now we can move on.” It’s all a lie, but I have to try something. I have to figure out what the fuck I feel about her, and I have a feeling that Nora is so desperate to fit in at school that she’ll believe anything I tell her, and I’m not surprised when her face brightens.
Nora wants friends so badly that at this point I think she’d do anything I asked her to. I wanted to break her, but hell, I didn’t thi
nk that it would be this easy. I feel the fingers of remorse in the back of my mind, but I shove them away. There’s no time for that bullshit.
“Really?” She pauses to take a bite of cereal. “That’s all I’ve been wanting since that day, Teague. It was…well, it was terrible, but that’s no reason why we can’t be friends.” For the first time since she started eating, she looks down, and I wonder if she’s telling the truth or spinning a tale.
I wonder if she’s more upset about the fact that those guys thought about shooting us or the fact that I was just a few minutes away from plowing into her.
I know what upsets me the most. Nobody wants to die at 18, but dying with my dick in her virgin cunt doesn’t seem like it would be the worst way to go.
But Nora? When she looks up at me again, her face is all lit up like a little kid getting a puppy for the first time. God, she’s pretty.
And pathetic. I find it hard to believe that she actually thinks that I want to be friends with her, but the way that she’s grinning at me makes it obvious that she’s falling for my bullshit.
But what if it’s not bullshit? Fuck. The last thing I need to be thinking about at school today is how I feel about little Nora. This was supposed to be easy, but if I actually feel something for her then I know that I’m fucked.
“Great. Hurry up and we’ll head to school. I want to be there a little early so that I can get fitted for new pads.” Coach had told the whole team that we needed to come in early enough today so that he could make sure that our new pads fit correctly. There are few things worse than playing a game with pads that are too big or too small. There will be some more people at school than usual, but Nora will just have to make nice with them, even if she doesn’t want to.
“Okay!” She slurps down the rest of her cereal while I pick up the kitchen and, in a few minutes, we’re walking out to my truck. It feels almost normal, but then I remember how much we’ve hated each other since she moved in. She darts out of the kitchen and runs upstairs to grab her backpack, and when she comes back down, she’s actually smiling.