The Mercy Academy Box Set: A Complete High School Bully Romance Series

by Lane Hart

  And whenever I think of doing good, it’s impossible not to think of Hannah and all her Mother Teresa bullshit charity.

  There’s also the added benefit of proving my father wrong.

  He served in the army for eight years and loves to tell me that I don’t have what it takes to serve my country like he did. Boot camp sucked this past summer, but I survived. All the physical activity was actually one of the best ways to help me cope with my rage.

  So, when lunch is almost over, I tell Blake to go on to class without me, and then I go up and talk to the men in uniform to find out more about enlisting.

  Chapter 19

  Hannah

  Six months later…

  “Hey, Hannah!”

  I’m on my way to the parking lot after school, enjoying the perfect spring weather when someone calls my name.

  Looking over my shoulder, I see that it’s actually Garrett. “Hey! How’s it going?” I ask him, surprised that he’s brave enough to talk to me on campus where everyone can see him without fear of Royal’s wrath.

  “Good, I’m good,” he says as he jogs up beside me and shoves his hands in his khaki’s pants pockets while we keep walking to the parking lot. “Actually, I wanted to apologize to you.”

  “Apologize? For what?” I ask since he’s never been anything but kind over the years, even if he wouldn’t speak to me after things hit the fan with Royal last spring. I can’t believe it’s been a full year since I was sentenced to high school purgatory. But I survived, and graduation is just three months away. Twelve short weeks. Eighty-four days. I’ve been counting them down since January.

  “I’m sorry about not talking to you much lately,” Garrett says to me. “I shouldn’t have let Royal tell me I couldn’t hang out with you or anything when he marked you as enemy number one.”

  “Oh, yeah, well, I understand,” I assure him. “Being friendless and unpopular sucks. At least you got his captain spot on the football team last fall.”

  “Yeah, that was pretty cool,” he agrees. “But I’ve missed you, talking to you. I hope you’ll forgive me.”

  “There’s nothing to forgive you for, Garrett. That’s all in the past and all on Royal for being a total jerk.”

  “Yeah, that’s how I see him too, a big bully.”

  “Right,” I agree, even though there’s a small part of me that wishes he would’ve shown back up on my balcony unannounced after the first time in the fall.

  He hasn’t.

  In fact, right after the homecoming dance, I would sometimes catch him looking at me. But lately, he pretends like I don’t exist, never glancing in my direction despite the fact that we sit at the same table during lunch every day.

  “So, um, anyway, since we’re past all of that, would you consider going to prom with me?” Garrett asks.

  “Prom? Really?” I ask in surprise since I had assumed I would be sitting home alone that night, bingeing Netflix and ice cream, missing one of the most important high school events.

  “Yeah, prom. I know it’s two months away, but I wanted to ask you before someone else does. So, will you go with me?”

  “What about Royal?” I blurt out. “I mean, aren’t you worried about him coming after you?”

  “Screw him,” Garrett mutters. “I’m tired of letting him and the other guys tell me what I can or can’t do. Besides, high school is almost over. Whatever retaliation he enacts on me, it’ll be worth it to go to prom with the prettiest girl in the school.”

  “Wow, um, thanks, I guess,” I say with a smile. It’s nice to have someone actually take a stand for me besides Maddie. “And yes, Garrett, I would love to go to prom with you.”

  “That’s awesome,” he says with an enormous grin. “I can’t wait!”

  “Me too,” I say, but it’s a lie, because for some reason, no matter how much I want prom to be full of making a lifetime of memories, I have a feeling it’s going to be a complete disaster.

  Later that afternoon, all thoughts and worries about prom are forgotten.

  “Hannah, you’ve got mail!” my dad says from my bedroom doorway.

  “I do?”

  “Yep. And it’s a big envelope.”

  I squeal and jump off the bed to stand in front of him. “From where?”

  “Let’s see here,” my dad says as he spins the white envelope around and around, squinting his eyes at it like he doesn’t know what it says. “It appears to be from a school called…Madison.”

  “Madison!” I scream. “Give it to me!” I demand as I hold out my palm.

  “Are you sure you want to open it right now? You don’t want to wait until your mom gets home?”

  “She’ll understand!” I exclaim. “Hand it over, Dad!”

  “All right. At least let me get my phone out and record it for her before you open it up,” he says with a sigh.

  “Fine!” I agree, snatching the envelope from his fingers as he fidgets with his phone. I don’t wait for him to start recording before I rip into the paper, tearing off the edge to pull out the packet, yes, packet of documents!

  “Read it out loud,” my dad encourages as my eyes skim the first page.

  “Dear Miss Morgan, we’re pleased to offer you admission to the fall semester at Madison University!” I exclaim. “We’re also very excited to inform you that you have been chosen to receive the School of Art’s Betsy Bruce scholarship in the amount of twenty-five thousand dollars, renewable for all four years!”

  My dad wraps me in a tight hug before I can read anything else. “Congratulations, sweetheart! You deserve it! We’re so proud of you.”

  “Thank you,” I tell him as tears well up in my eyes, not only from getting my acceptance letter and scholarship but from hearing him say he’s proud of me. “I can’t wait to show Mom!”

  Finally, I have something good to look forward to – the future. One without high school gossip or bullshit. College is going to be a fresh start; one I desperately need.

  Chapter 20

  Royal

  “Why the hell is Big Red here?” I huff at Aric after Maddie shows up to dinner with him when it was supposed to be just me and him eating at the sports bar and watching baseball. I’ve been trying to get him alone, to talk to him about Collette for months now but haven’t been able to. Maybe this is a sign to put all of that shit in the past and finally forget it for good.

  “Be nice,” Aric snaps as the hostess leads us to a high-top table and gives us menus. “She’s my girlfriend, and I happen to like having her around.”

  “What about absence makes the heart grow fonder? You two could take a break from each other once in a while. I mean you live together and go to school together. Do you take showers and shits together too?”

  “Don’t be crude, man, especially in front of my girl!” Aric huffs.

  “Oh fuck off,” I say since Aric used to be the king of crude jokes when it was just me, him and Blake hanging out before he fell head over heels into an obsessed, obnoxious boyfriend. The last few months have been rocky, first with Blake sleeping with Aric’s sister Caroline after I sort of pushed them together at Blake’s birthday party, then Caroline announcing she was pregnant with Blake’s kid… Luckily, though, Aric and Blake have pretty much crushed their feud, and things are sort of back to normal with them. The only problem is that both of my best friends are so wrapped up in their own lives that I’ve been cast aside, left to deal with my dad’s fists and anger alone, other than Sophie’s surprisingly supportive friendship.

  “Well, Royal, since you’re already in a foul mood, there’s something you should probably know,” Maddie says to me.

  “What?” I ask.

  “I just found out from Hannah that she got accepted to Madison…”

  “So?” Why does she think I give a shit that Hannah got into her dream school? For months now, I’ve made it my mission in life to pretend Hannah Morgan doesn’t exist. Blake has given me a distraction since he has so much shit going on with having a kid on the way,
considering putting it up for adoption and, of course, dealing with all the drama with his baby mama.

  It doesn’t help that I feel somewhat guilty for being the one who brought Blake and Caroline together the night the baby was conceived. I really should’ve made sure my best friend had some rubbers ready before he popped his cherry with the older woman he had been crushing on for years.

  Whoops.

  “Oh, and Hannah’s going to prom with Garrett,” Maddie casually adds.

  For a moment, I just stare at her and contemplate the two reactions I could have to that unexpected news flash. One, I could go Hulk smash all over the restaurant, breaking chairs and swinging from the chandeliers as I destroy everything in my path from a fit of rage. Or two, I could pretend I simply don’t give a shit.

  “Why do you think I care about what that bitch is doing?” I ask gruffly, going with the second option, feigning disinterest.

  “I didn’t think you would care, which is why I want Hannah and Garrett to ride in the limo with us…”

  “No!” I exclaim before she finishes that sentence. “No fucking way. The only people going with us to prom are you and Aric and me and Sophie since Blake refuses to find a substitution for Caroline.”

  “Told you,” Aric whispers to his girl.

  “Fine,” Maddie sighs. “But you’re being a dick, Royal.”

  “What else is new, Big Red?” I ask her.

  “Why are you going with Sophie?” Aric asks. “I didn’t know you two were, like, a thing or whatever.”

  “We’re not. We’re just friends who decided to go together since we can’t go with the person we want to…”

  Fuck.

  “Who did you want to go with, Royal?” Maddie asks with a grin and tilt of her head.

  “Correction, Sophie couldn’t go with the guy she wanted to go with. That’s what I meant,” I lie.

  “Who did she want to go with?” Aric asks.

  “How the fuck am I supposed to know?” I ask. “Taking a guess with Sophie and all of her kinks, he’s probably a minister or a rabbi or a married man.”

  “I love her perky ass,” Aric says. “But the girl does have some serious daddy issues. Her parents are, like, never home.”

  “Hey! My parents weren’t either, and I don’t have a thing for older men,” Maddie says.

  “You’re an anemone.”

  “I think you mean anomaly,” Maddie corrects him with a grin.

  “Yeah, that’s what I said, anemone,” Aric contends.

  “That’s right, Big Red,” I agree. “You are a complete anemone, the plant or sea life. Your choice.”

  “Better than being a cunt,” Maddie says with a glare in my direction. “Besides, we all know you’re just deflecting so you don’t have to talk about who you wanted to go to prom with.”

  “I wanted to go with Sophie. End of discussion. Now, shut the fuck up.”

  “Oh yeah,” Aric says, taking a sip of his water. “He definitely wanted to go with his nemesis. Royal is totally jelly.”

  “I’m not…jelly,” I argue. “And please don’t ever use that word again. It makes you sound like a twelve-year-old girl.”

  “He is so jelly,” Maddie interjects with a laugh. “It’s sort of cute coming from the angry ginger.”

  “I’m not jealous, it’s not cute, and I am not a ginger, Big Red.”

  “That orange tint in your hair begs to differ, Leprechaun,” she throws back at me.

  “My hair is not orange. It’s…copper.”

  “Copper is on the orange spectrum.”

  “And you’re on the far end of the bitch spectrum,” I respond.

  “I’ll forgive you for that insult since you’re obviously distraught about your girl going to prom with someone else.”

  Rather than continue to argue with her that I don’t care about Hannah and Garrett, because I do, I simply flip her both of my middle fingers.

  Neither Maddie nor Aric thankfully bring up Hannah again while we eat.

  And on the drive home, I realize that this news about her moving on with someone, even if he is a prick, is a good thing. It means I can finally stop obsessing about her. She’s moving on, dating someone else like she should’ve done a long time ago. But she never did because of me. At least I think I’m part of the reason.

  The two of us were never meant to be together. Hannah’s the innocent good girl, and I’m the broken bad boy who can never be fixed no matter how hard she tries.

  Soon, I’ll be leaving her and everyone else behind to start over, so the last thing I need are the memories of her holding me back.

  Hannah

  “What you’re doing to Royal is wrong,” Sophie says, accosting me as soon as I climb out of my car in the school parking lot one morning just a week or so after Garrett asked me to prom, and we started being sort of a couple. I now sit with him and some of his jock friends at lunch instead of Maddie and the Royals.

  “I’m sorry. What?” I ask, turning my back to the scowling cheerleader to grab my backpack and slam the car door.

  “Seeing you with Garrett is hell on him and you know it.”

  “I seriously doubt that,” I say when I face her again since Royal’s been avoiding me since the day he came over to my house six or so months ago.

  “It’s true.”

  “Well, he’s the one who ruined everything, so if it does bother him, which I don’t think it really does, then it’s his own fault.”

  I start to march past her up the sidewalk when she calls out, “Did he tell you that his dad is the one who sent the guy to cheat on the SAT?”

  “Yes, but how do I know if that’s true or not?” I ask her over my shoulder.

  “Because it is!” Sophie shouts. I stop for her to catch up to me. “His dad is a monster who abuses him, mentally and-and physically.”

  My jaw drops at hearing that. “H-how do you know that?”

  “Royal told me months ago,” she says, making me dislike her even more since they must be close if he would tell her something so personal and awful. “Do you think he’s lying about that? I don’t. Why would he? I’ve seen the bruises. He’s ashamed and embarrassed about that and other things, which is why his default personality is to be a total dick.”

  “I-I didn’t know all of that,” I say, wondering about what she means by the “other things.”

  “That’s right, you don’t. But you would if you gave him a chance.”

  “I’m sorry if he’s going through that at home, but I just can’t give him another chance.”

  “You have no clue how much he’s about to lose. Don’t you think he’s been punished enough for whatever happened between the two of you?”

  “What is he about to lose?” I ask in concern.

  “How about you get off your high horse and just talk to him? Otherwise, I think you’ll always regret it.”

  “I’m not sure what Royal’s told you, but you don’t know the whole story, the things that happened between us almost two years ago.”

  “Oh yeah? Well, it can’t be that bad.”

  “It is,” I argue, standing my ground. “In fact, I’ll let you listen to something, and then you can tell me if you still think Royal deserves a second chance.”

  “Fine. Tell me when and where.”

  “My house, tonight. I’ll be home since I don’t have much of a social life anymore thanks to Royal.”

  “You didn’t have much of one before he labeled you persona non grata at Mercy either, in case you forgot.”

  “Until you’ve been in my shoes, I don’t think your opinion is worth a shit,” I tell her, tired of her arrogance.

  Rolling her brown eyes, she says, “Oh, calm your tits. I’ll see you at seven.”

  “See you then,” I agree.

  Later that night, I hear a knock on the door around six-thirty and know it’s Sophie showing up early. From the top of the stairs, I can hear her oozing fake sweetness when my dad answers the door.

  “Oh, hi, Mr. Mo
rgan. I’m Hannah’s friend, Sophie. She invited me over to hang out.”

  “Oh,” my dad says in surprise since lately only Maddie comes to visit. “She’s upstairs. Go right on up.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Sophie responds before she comes around the corner and sees me halfway down the stairs. It’s not fair that even in a plain blue t-shirt and jeans with her blonde hair pulled up in a ponytail she still looks pretty and dainty. Except for the fact I notice that her eyes look a little red and puffy, like she’s been crying.

  “I’m here. Let’s listen to whatever it is that you think is so bad,” she says with a huff.

  “You sure you don’t want to braid each other’s hair and talk about boys first?” I ask in her same honey sweet voice she used on my dad.

  A glare is her response before I turn around and lead the way back up the steps and to my room. Shutting the door behind her, I go and pick up the recorder from my desk, the one I never returned to Garrett and he’s never mentioned.

  “Here,” I say when I hand the device to Sophie. “It’s ready, so just hit play.”

  She does and then Garrett’s voice is filling the silence, taking me back to that horrible night in my dorm room where I had my heart shattered into so many pieces it was impossible to find them all.

  “So what if it sucks for her? At least you’re getting some pussy, right?”

  “Right,” Royal replies. “Besides, I don’t give a shit about Hannah. Everything I’ve done the last four weeks was solely for the purpose of getting in her panties. And it obviously worked.”

  “You two aren’t going to be a couple or whatever when we go back to school?” Garrett asks.

  “Hell no,” Royal answers, his voice so adamant about that fact that once again tears well up in my eyes like the first time I heard it. “There are going to be so many hot new pieces of freshman ass at Mercy. Not to mention the senior girls who are pros at deep throating. As soon as I make the varsity football team, they’re going to be all over my dick, so why would I want to be tied down to some goddamn prude?”