by Eden Beck
Sterling hands over the lit cigarette and I press my lips around it and take a drag. The bitter taste rolls over my tongue and down my throat.
“Still trying to stay out of trouble?” he asks as he watches me closely.
“Depends on what you define as ‘trouble’,” I reply with a smile as I hand him back the cigarette.
“I’d say it looks like a girl who’s got it in her mind to shake some things up.” That old glint is back in Sterling’s eye as he says it.
“Isn’t always a bad thing,” I say, then nod toward another familiar face down the lawn. “So, I’m guessing you gave Savannah back her phone.”
Even from here, not too far off, it’s hard to recognize the girl hunched over her cell phone from here. Her face is red and puffy, probably from crying.
And if Sterling’s face tells me anything, he’s probably the reason for it.
He just shrugs.
“Not my fault she thought we were something more than we were,” he says, eyes drifting lazily from his heartbroken fling to stare out at the silhouette of the trees lining the dark property.
“Ah well, better her than me,” I grumble.
“Where is all this coming from, anyway?” Sterling says, eyes cutting over to me briefly. “A few weeks ago, you were a girl running an art class who was afraid to let anyone know that the worst thing she’d done was neck a TA, and now you’re what? Some badass chick defining what trouble is? Pick a lane, girl.”
I stare at him a moment. His words sting a little, but there’s something in his eyes that gives me some pause. There’s no malice. He’s looking at me like a boxer in a ring sizing up an opponent he’s known for years, a worthy challenger.
He wants me to punch back.
So, I do.
“Who says I can’t be both? No one sees the art class teacher coming for them,” I reply. “Why haven’t I seen you with a guitar in your hand anywhere there’s people under 75?”
Sterling pauses halfway through a drag as the words land. I can see the wheels in his mind turning. He starts to open his mouth to respond, but at that very moment, a loud crack blasts through the air.
My head snaps around and I notice the group of guys that Alaska had talked to earlier lighting a second firework just on the other side of the pool.
That’s my cue.
Chapter Thirty-Four
I look back at Sterling. “Think on it,” I say, and then I turn and head back inside.
People are rushing toward the windows to see what’s going on. As soon as I get inside, I see Warren barreling his way through the crowd of bodies to get out onto the front stoop. I quickly sidestep behind a group as he rushes past. I scan the room looking for Bridget, but I can’t see her anywhere.
Looking further, I push through the crowd and head back toward the entryway.
Still no Bridget.
I find myself back in the foyer staring at the towering staircases. I take a breath and head up one of them to the landing at the top. My spine tingles with the uneasiness of being somewhere I clearly don’t belong.
At the end of the hall, I see a room with the door open and the light on. I head for it and poke my head inside. There, I finally see Bridget sitting at a vanity adjusting her lipstick.
Lipstick the same color as the first words she used to harass me when I first arrived at Ridgecrest.
The sight of it banishes any lingering doubt I feel as I slide inside and close the door behind me. The sound makes Bridget turn around.
She immediately freezes, her gaze flickering over me as the light of recognition slowly alights in her eyes.
“Um, can’t say I remember inviting you,” she says coldly. “In fact, I specifically remember not inviting you. What are you wearing?” she asks, looking me up and down.
“Look, I think we need to talk Bridget,” I say calmly, ignoring her jab.
“Talk about what? I can’t think of anything we need to talk about. The little bit of news about Mr. Peters is such a shame … but just serves as a reminder of why I thought it was a bad idea to invite you here in the first place.”
Bridget snaps the makeup compact that she’s holding in her hands shut with a snap. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a party to get back to.”
Bridget hops to her feet and starts for the door, but before she can reach it, I clear my throat.
“Remind me, what were you doing the summer before you got to Ridgecrest?” I ask.
She stops, not daring to look at me for a moment before she ever so slowly lifts her eyes to stare at me. “I was taking care of my grandmother. She was sick.”
“Really?” I ask, taking a step toward her. “Because your Instagram has photos of you in Bali the entire summer,” I say, pulling the printouts from my purse and shoving them in her hands.
“Seriously Aubrey? You should know better than to trust everything you see on social media,” Bridget scoffs as she rifles through the papers.
I watch her guard drop with each new photo. “Obviously people wouldn’t be interested in boring ass photos of me at my grandma’s house, I have an image to upkeep. Was this your plan? To what, get me to call off Warren and his boys over some throwback Instagram photos?”
She laughs. “That’s no scandal. Everyone does that.”
“Okay Bridget, I know you don’t think I’m very smart, but give me a little more credit than that,” I say. “I just think it would be in our best interest to work together. Your brother, Chase, and Sterling are assholes and it’s not just me that suffers for it.”
“Since when am I suffering?” Bridget says. “I’m doing just fine, don’t go projecting your own sad psychology onto me.”
“Since you broke up with Sterling after you found out about the baby … and he’s never let you live it down,” I say, pulling another two pieces of paper out of my purse and handing it to her.
It’s the last photo of her and Sterling cozied up together, and her re-post of an inspirational quote that—turns out—was from a pregnancy resource center page.
“Thank god for Facebook’s constantly changing page rules, am I right?” I say, waving the photo in front of her again for good measure. “You really should have tagged them though, since you stole that quote right off their profile. Good thing they liked your photo, otherwise I never would have thought to look at them in the first place.”
Bridget goes pale as she looks at the two pictures, but her lips set in a straight line. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says quietly.
“Oh, I think you do, Bridget,” I say. “I think you found out you were pregnant and you didn’t go to your grandmother’s place to take care of her, I think she took care of you.”
Bridget stares at me angrily. “You have no fucking proof of any of this, you’re just guessing.”
“Maybe, but I think I have enough evidence to convince a good amount of the school of my side. And once enough people believe it, well, no one trusts a slut,” I say. “Thanks to you, I know that firsthand.”
Bridget holds the papers tightly in her fist. “So, what do you want? You want to shame me? Make me look bad? Get back at me for the way I’ve treated you?”
“No,” I reply. “I want to work together again … but this time, you’ll be working for me.”
There’s another pause, and I take another step closer to her, but she doesn’t so much as start to flinch away now. Despite the incessant thump of the music below, I keep my voice down.
“Warren, Chase, and Sterling have way too much power to make both of us miserable. I bet Sterling hasn’t forgiven you since you broke up with him without telling him why. I bet he hasn’t been half as cruel to me as he’s been to you. And Warren? How long has it been since he hasn’t taken advantage of how smart you are to slide by in his classes? Aren’t you sick of him taking all the credit while you do all the work?”
Bridget stares quietly at me, her hand still tightly gripping the papers. I take a step closer.
There’s no space between us
now.
No space for Bridget to run.
I see her glance down at the quote in the photos, and for one second her thumb strokes the edge of the page with a look on her face that almost makes me feel guilty. Almost.
“I’m not showing you these things to hurt you. I think we’re both women who made choices in our lives and there are people outside of us who want to make us feel bad about those choices. And I think it’s time we put a stop to it. So, do you want to help?” I ask.
I see the shift of emotions flicker across her face.
Rage. Realization. Resignment.
None of these comes as a surprise, after all … she doesn’t actually have a choice.
“Well … can’t say I saw this coming,” she says, after a moment. “But if you’re gonna do this, you’re gonna have to be smart.”
“Oh, I plan on it,” I reply. “It’s time to take these boys down a few pegs.”
Bridget nods once, the lifts her head high. “So, where do we start?”
“How about with a celebratory drink?” I ask. “We are going to be partners after all.”
As we arrive back in the great room, Bridget crosses over to the fireplace and tosses the papers inside. Then she turns back to me.
“Just symbolic, I’m sure you have copies,” she says with an eyeroll.
“Dozens,” I laugh as I pour us a couple drinks. Alaska and Clark spot us from across the room and cautiously approach.
“Hey …” Alaska says. “You two look … close.”
“Well, you know what they say …” Bridget says.
I hand Alaska and Clark each a drink and raise my glass.
“To being the best delinquents we can be,” I say.
“Cheers!” Clark, Alaska, and Bridget all chime in, the first two albeit a little hesitantly as they glance my way just to be sure. They must find what they’re looking for in my smile, because we’re soon clinking our glasses and downing their contents together.
I’ve barely looked up from my glass when I spot all three boys gathered just outside. Sterling with his cocky lean. Warren, telling some sort of joke as Chase chuckles next to him. The three of them sitting like kings on top of their tiny hill.
Well, boys, I hope you’re ready for one hell of a trip down.
First them, and then Bridget.
Or did that little bitch think she’d already suffered enough for her crimes?
Not.
Even.
Close.
A Note From The Author
Thank you for reading Her Shame, the first book in The Forgotten Elites. The next book in the series, Her Spite, should be releasing mid-March, so keep an eye out for the upcoming preorder on Amazon!
If you enjoyed Her Shame, please consider leaving a review on Amazon.
One important note—this series is meant to be a work of fiction and is not meant to glorify abuse or bullying. If you or someone you know is a victim of this kind of behavior, please consider reaching out for help:
https://www.stompoutbullying.org
https://www.stopbullying.gov
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (1-800-273-8255)
Xoxo,
Eden
Also by Eden Beck
The Forgotten Elites
Her Shame
Her Spite (March 2021)
Her Wrath (April 2021)
Wicked Brotherhood
Bitter
Hateful
Wretched
Wolfish
Wolf Bonded
Wolf Broken
Wolf Bargain
Hawthorne Holy Trinity
Dirty Liars
Dirty Fraud
Dirty Revenge