Sitting in the stall of the bathroom, I reframe my thinking and square my shoulders. What am I thinking? I am my father’s child, raised by a criminal. A girl who stole a billionaire’s limited-edition sportscar. A girl who stole said billionaire’s sex tapes to use as leverage. I am not going to wallow in self-pity just because my hot boyfriend didn’t acknowledge my existence to a bunch of kids I couldn’t care less for.
High school is but one piece of my life, of our lives. No matter what happens, Seven chose to be with me. Had asked me to be his girl. Asked me to declare him as mine too. I also have my friends.
I can always count on Maddox, Rue, Red, Winslow, Shay, Miles, and Sorrow to be there for me. Like me, they don’t care what people think. They pave their own paths in life. Will forge their own futures. Those are the people who matter most, and not everyone else.
My mind made up to have fun and enjoy my time with Seven, I do my business, wash my hands, and walk straight into a nightmare.
Seven is in the hallway, swapping spit with Ginger. His mouth full on hers. Her arms wrapped tight around his neck. I see red. Hear the blood roar in my ears. I want to rip her hair out. I aim to kick him in his cheating balls. How could he? How the hell could he do this to me?
I march toward them.
Hear Seven’s voice in my head. All I ask is for you not to mouth off. We won the game, Leigh. Let’s celebrate, yeah?
He wants a girl who falls in line.
A girl who follows the rules.
Who doesn’t defy.
I’m not that girl, and he can go to hell for all I care.
Tears well in my eyes and obscure my sight. Dashing at them, I stumble past Seven. He must’ve felt me brush up against his back as I hurried past. He calls after me. I don’t stop. I keep going until I push open the double doors, the cool breeze caressing my tear-streaked face.
Why cry?
Why hurt?
I am done.
Done with believing he’s changed for the better. Done with his lies and his promises. Done with being obedient and “falling in line.”
Doing those things has gotten me nothing but heartache, and I hate when my heart breaks.
39
LEIGH
I shimmy the lock and jack Seven’s truck.
I don’t feel bad at all. Not one bit.
I can’t drive worth a damn. Don’t have my license. My foster family wanted to keep me in line and out of trouble. Well, here is a middle finger to them all.
I careen down the road headed for the sanctuary of my place. As soon as I get there, I’ll smash the remote for the skylight into little bits and pieces, then bury those pieces next to the rose bushes after I yank the roses from the ground with my bare hands. Forget the little thorns.
After what Seven did, I’m numb to feeling anything except for anger.
I hate this town. Regret that I contacted Thomas. Wish to God Alistair never told me the truth of who my real father is.
If he hadn’t, I would be living on my own in a dingy apartment somewhere with a bunch of roommates. Being of legal age, an adult, I can do that. And stuck in that hopeless situation, I would have the motivation to be better, to climb my way out of the hole of poverty and hopelessness for someone in my predicament.
Instead, I got a taste of what money can give me and the type of guy I can be with. Someone who has a future. Who isn’t addicted to drugs or drinking or considers breaking and entering a paying job. I pound on the steering wheel and blink at the tears in my eyes.
“Stupid, stupid, stupid. How could you fall for his dumb words? He only wanted in your pants. Only wanted you to give him oral.”
Except he didn’t just want things from me. Seven gave of himself. Shared with me his dreams and his failures. Dug a hole and planted me roses, for goodness’ sake. Risked life and limb to teach me to drive, a girl who crashed a car on her first time behind the wheel. He’s a good guy.
No matter what I saw, after what he believes his father put his mother through, Seven would never cheat on me. I should go back and get an explanation from him. Should’ve defied and made a stink, demanding to know what he was doing with his tongue shoved down Ginger’s throat. I’d mouth off. I’d defy. I’d pull that bitch’s hair for messing with what’s mine.
I make a wide turn onto the road leading to our houses. Then I see it. Flames shooting from way up past where Seven’s parents’ house is. Sorrow.
I back up and barrel up the street. With one hand on the steering wheel, I reach for my purse. I have to call 911. My hand grazes the empty seat. Crap! I left my purse and cellphone at the dance, and Thomas and Eleanor aren’t home.
I hurry up Seven’s road, and not giving a care that I’ll leave tire marks on the pristine field of cut grass, I step on the gas, hold on to the steering wheel for dear life, and drive across the field and straight up to the back of Sorrow’s house. I shove the driver-side door open, and yelling Sorrow’s name, I hike up my dress and bolt to the front of the house where the door going down to the basement is.
Sorrow stays down there to keep out of her dad’s way. Out of sight, out of mind. He’s a jumpy drunk, but he can also be mean and vindictive. He blames Sorrow for her mother’s suicide, and every chance he gets, he reminds her that his addiction is Sorrow’s fault.
What a bunch of bullshit. Sorrow is the kindest person.
“Sorrow! Sorrow, let me in!” I bang on the door. Last time I was here was for Sorrow’s birthday. She’d answered right away.
There’s none now. Worried, I twist the doorknob and pull. The door doesn’t budge.
I bolt for the front door. The barrel of a gun shoved against the back of my head stops me.
“Get in the house, now.” Sorrow’s dad’s words are slurred, and there is a distinct smell on his breath and his clothes. Alcohol and pot.
“Sorrow—”
“I said get in the house.”
Sorrow’s dad shoves me toward the back of the house. His shoves are forceful, and I fall forward, tripping on the steps of the back deck. He rights me, stopping me from faceplanting. His fingers dig into my arm.
The door opens. Sorrow is on the other side. Her face twists into an expression of terror when she sees me, her dad, and the gun.
“Leigh.” She rushes to me.
Her dad waves his gun. She stops.
“Dad, please, let Leigh go.”
He tightens his hold on my arm. “Did you give my daughter a connection to the outside world?”
“Yes,” I admit. “Sorrow needs a lifeline. A way to get you help.” Sorrow would never have the nerve to ask her father for a cellphone.
“We don’t need you meddling in our lives.”
“Sorrow needs friends and a life of her own. You can’t keep punishing her for something she isn’t responsible for. Your wife was deeply depressed. You need help with your drinking. Please. I can help you and Sorrow.”
“We don’t need your goddamn help! We were fine before you broke into our place.”
“I didn’t break in. I heard Sorrow crying. She let me in. We talked.”
The fire is burning faster and hotter on the other side of the door. We’re in a different room of the house. What used to be an office before it was gutted and emptied of every piece of furniture. There is nothing in here but moving boxes.
“Please, Mr. Sophia, we need to call 911.”
“You ain’t calling anyone. Open the damn door.”
“The fire—”
“Open the damn door!”
I can’t. If I do, it’ll be the death of us.
“No.”
“What did you say?”
“No. You will hand over your gun and get yourself help. You owe Sorrow that. You took away three years of her life.”
Sorrow’s dad told everyone Sorrow ran away.
Pissed at him for the lie and sad for Sorrow, I shove my elbow into his gut and come down hard on his shin with the point of my high-heel shoe.
He cries out.
I pivot and pull back my arm, ready to nail him again. Something hard jams into the side of my head. A cracking sound fills my ears. My world spins. I crash to the ground.
“Leigh! Leigh!”
Sorrow’s voice comes to me as though from a distance.
Dazed, I blink and stare up at the white ceiling. Heat sears one side of my body. Groaning, I glance off to the side. The office door is open. Sorrow and her dad are in the middle of the burning room. I push onto my feet and stagger after them. He has a gun pointed at Sorrow’s head. Oh, God, it was my fault. I gave her the phone. My fault that he found out and is so angry.
I can’t let it end like this. I take a step, and another.
“Please, let her go. Hurt me instead.”
I stretch out my hands, palms up, imploring, begging him to let her go. Tears blur my vision.
“No one needs to know what happened here. It’ll be our secret. Please. She’s my friend.”
Something in him changes. The craze in his eyes fades, the haze of his drunkenness and his high momentarily replaced with clarity.
“You’ll make sure she’s taken care of?”
“Yes.” I step closer. He backs up toward the flames.
“Leigh! Leigh, are you in there?”
Seven? And there are sirens and commotion on the other side of the front door. Over Sorrow’s dad’s shoulders, I see my guy. The look of sheer horror and panic on his face.
Sorrow’s dad raises the shotgun, drawing my attention back to him and Sorrow. This is it. This is it. Uttering a wish and a prayer that we make it out of this alive, I charge him the same time Sorrow twists out of his hold.
“I love you, Sorrow. I’m so sorry, sweetheart. Take care of her, Leigh.”
The gun goes off. Mr. Sophia tips to the side and crumples to the floor. The roof caves in, the fire having started on the top floor. I reach for Sorrow. She puts her hand in mine. We close our eyes. The heat is unbearable. I choke on the smoke. This is it. Eighteen years of living going up in flames and smoke.
Robbed of breath, my lungs filling with smoke, I close my eyes and give in to the darkness.
40
SEVEN
Her eyes flutter open, and I heave a sigh of relief.
“Leigh, baby.” I clasp her head in my palm and lay a kiss on her forehead. “Goddamn, you scared the fuck out of me.”
We are back at the hospital. Both Leigh and the girl in the burning house with her suffered smoke inhalation. The doctors kept them overnight for observation to be on the safe side.
The oxygen mask is off her face, and she now has these prongs in her nostrils giving her a smaller dose of oxygen. I’m expecting her to ream me out for that damn kiss, but of course, Leigh isn’t predictable.
“My friend Sorrow? Is she okay? Her father. What happened to her father?”
Sorrow, the girl with long black hair and the deepest blue eyes set in a dainty face is the shy girl her father claimed ran away at fifteen. Happened after her mom overdosed. To think she’s been living in that house right under our noses. I bet her “running away” had to do with her dad’s fucked-up mind and drinking himself to oblivion.
“She’s good, babe. They have her in the next room. Smoke inhalation. What you have too.”
“Her dad?”
“He killed himself, Leigh. I’m sorry.”
She bunches the covers in her hand, a single tear sliding down her face. “What will happen to her? I should ask Thomas if she can stay with me or in his place. I doubt Sorrow will want the couch. Or I can crash on the couch and she can have the bed. She’ll love the skylight.”
I silence her concern for her friend with my mouth pressed on hers. She kisses me back, her soft sigh of contentment the best sound I’ve heard in a long time. We break off our kiss, and I hold her hand, needing to touch her. For her to know I’m here and will always be here for her.
“Leigh, Trace’s parents already spoke with Sorrow and offered their guesthouse to her. They told Dad and I it was their fault Kyle ended up the way he did. Trace’s dad and Kyle were partners. Something happened between them, and Trace’s dad ended the partnership.”
I wipe the tear from her cheek. Cup her face in my palms. Her eyes close, and she utters the words I knew were coming the moment she saw me and Ginger.
“I hate you, Seven.”
“I know, baby.”
She opens her eyes, and I love the hardened defiance in their amber depths.
“When I saw you kissing Ginger, I wanted to steal your letterman jacket, toss all your expensive shoes out the window and set them on fire. Then I would use condoms like water balloons and chuck them inside your bedroom.”
“You still can, Leigh. Use me as target practice too, baby. Or you can kick me in the balls and send your friend M after me. Go right on ahead. I deserve it. But don’t take away our pinky swears. I live for those.”
“Pinky swear I can use you for target practice.”
“Do I stand in one place or will I be a moving target?”
“I have great aim. Am a fast runner too. The fun is in the chase, isn’t?” She smirks.
I shake my head. This girl. I kiss the corner of her mouth. “We are on for a game of dodge cock sock.”
She chuckles. “Nice. I love it.”
Her laughter dies down and she gets all serious.
“Seeing you with her hurt, Seven. I hated you so much. But after what happened with your parents, I don’t believe you would cheat on me. What’d Ginger do? When I get out of here, she’s going to get a face full of cornstarch in every color of the rainbow.”
“That’s my girl. My spitfire.” Smiling, I capture her mouth in mine. She sucks on my bottom lip. Tangles her tongue with mine. She’s sweet and warm, and after she’s feeling better, I intend on showing her who I belong to until we both can’t walk straight.
“Leigh—” Blowing out a breath, I tent her hands and rest my forehead on them.
What I am about to tell her will hurt her, and I never want to hurt Leigh. But I want her love more than I hate hurting her, so this is my selfishness coming out to play.
“Leigh, it was stupid of me to let Ginger corner me and catch me off guard with that damn kiss. She threatened to get up onstage and broadcast the truth of why you’re in Cambridge living in Thomas’s guesthouse. She hired a P.I. He found a paternity suit drawn up by a lawyer you hired with the little money your parents left you. Except the suit didn’t go through. Thomas moved you here in exchange for you dropping the suit. Leigh, Thomas isn’t your father.”
“That’s right. I’m not, Leigh.”
I turn toward the door. On the other side of the partially opened curtain is Thomas, along with his wife, Eleanor, and Hannah and Henry. Leigh’s friends are behind them, as well as Malice and Trace.
They crowd into the room. Leigh’s eyes water. She shoves her fist against her mouth. My girl is hurting, and done with seeing her hurting, I climb into bed with her and set her on my lap. I wrap my arms around her and tell her what she means to me.
“I love you, Leigh. I don’t give a shit that Thomas isn’t your dad. That your dad is a criminal and your mother was ready to leave him for my uncle, Tony. You’re my Beautiful Defiance, and that’s enough for me.”
The guys, her friends, and her “family” hear me loud and clear. They chime in with their words of love and encouragement.
“Family isn’t all about blood, Leigh,” Thomas says with a big smile on his face. “Your parents taught me that. Yes, your mother worked for me when she was young, only seventeen, her first job at a factory I owned in Oakland. Eleanor and I were married and going through some rough times.”
He sits on the chair I vacated. Eleanor follows and sets her hand on his shoulder as though saying, “Go on. Tell her the truth.”
After making sure Leigh was taken care of by the hospital staff, I confronted Thomas about what Ginger said. That bitch is vindictive. I thought I had learned my lesson from a different girl who accused my father of b
eing an arrogant ass who only wanted to see me with a girl whose family has money, but I hadn’t.
Never again will I make the mistake of dropping my guard, not when it comes to Leigh and the ones who want to cause a rift between us. I also won’t be misleading a different girl in, oh, never. Leigh is it for me.
When Ginger told me of her plan to get me to break things off with Leigh or she’ll get up onstage and expose Leigh’s life back in Cali, I was on the verge of telling her to fuck off. I opened my mouth. She grabbed me by the back of my head and slammed her mouth on mine. Stuck her tongue down my throat.
Then I felt before I saw my girl. The look on her face. She hurt, and I wanted to shake Ginger and yell at her for fucking up Leigh’s night, but I had already done that when I basically called Leigh a disloyal girlfriend. Then I fucked up more when I didn’t thank her for helping me pass my classes.
Shit, I’m a clueless, ungrateful bastard, unworthy of being Beautiful Defiance’s guy. Blowing out a breath, I drop kisses on the back of Leigh’s hand. I’ll make it up to her. Apologize until I’m out of breath. Stargaze with her every chance I get. Continue to teach her how to drive. Let her have a go at me with rounds of PIG or HORSE or whatever damn animal she chooses to play hoops to.
As though she understands what all I’ll be doing for and with her, Leigh relaxes into me, and we listen to Thomas’s side of the story of why he withheld the truth from Leigh.
“Your mother started dating Alistair while working for me. She didn’t approve of your father’s extracurricular activities.”
I smirk. It was Leigh’s father’s extracurricular activities that brought in extra money for the family until Alistair straightened his life for love.
“We can’t help who we fall in love with. Your mom fell in love and had you with Alistair. Then she fell out of love and into love with Tony.”
The other news Ginger dropped on me. My uncle, Tony, had an affair with Leigh’s mother and was planning on marrying her as soon as her divorce went through.
Beautiful Defiance: Cambridge High Mayhem (Kiss Starter: Cambridge High Book 1) Page 20