All the Little Lies: A High School Bully Romance

by S. J. Sylvis

  “Hayley.”

  My eyes snapped wide as I heard his voice.

  Christian.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Christian

  The sight of her felt like I had gotten my throat punched. My knees wanted to buckle. I could barely form words. I covered every inch of her body with my gaze, fear and anger wrapping itself tightly around my windpipe.

  She was bloody. Her face was wet, shining under the car’s interior lights. The right side of her cheek was red and had small pebble-like cuts dotting the skin. One eye was swollen shut. Her shirt was ripped, and her flat stomach had scrapes down the front.

  Hayley squeezed her eyes shut when she saw me. She curled into herself even more, and that sent an entirely new line of fear down my spine. Hayley didn’t do that. She didn’t cower. She didn’t fold into herself, and I was pretty sure she didn’t cry. She was far too tough for that.

  I immediately went into action mode. I wanted to know who did this and why, and then I wanted to wrap my hands around their neck and kill them. But the most important thing was Hayley. I wasn’t going to stand here and argue with her. I wasn’t going to try and fish out information she didn’t want to give up.

  She needed help. She needed me.

  Piper whispered from beside me, “She wouldn’t let me call 911. She said she didn’t have money for it.”

  More rage bubbled within. “I’ll fucking pay for it.” My hands were squeezing the life out of the car door as I peered down at Hayley. Her face moved slightly, and she croaked, “No.” Then she tried to move and cried out.

  “Goddamnit. Stop moving.” I bent down a little further and assessed her injuries.

  “Ollie, you and Piper go to the nearest store and grab all the antiseptic shit you can find. Grab bandages, ice packs, whatever the fuck you see, and meet me back at the house.” He nodded once, and I held my hands out to Piper. “Give me your keys. Go with Ollie. Meet back at my house.” She didn’t hesitate. She slapped her keys in my hand and took off with Ollie, running and weaving through the parking lot. My shit was still in the locker room, but I'd get it later.

  Hayley was the top priority here.

  As soon as we arrived at my house, I noted that all the lights were off. Good, Dad was gone already. That meant I wouldn’t have to answer any questions. Not that I’d give a shit regardless.

  I opened the backseat, and Hayley was still curled in a ball. Her arm was wrapped around her midsection, and I knew that when I pulled her out, it was probably going to hurt.

  I did it anyway, though.

  “Wrap your hands around my neck,” I said as I reached around her body. She trembled slightly and hissed between her teeth. I was half-expecting a protest from her, but she didn’t say a word. She wrapped her warm arms around me and buried her head into my chest.

  Once we got to the front door, I bent down slightly and put the code in. She groaned, and I slowly stood upright again and whisked us inside. It was dark as I climbed the steps and passed the five doors until I got to my room. Before I laid her down on the bed, I gently placed my mouth near her ear. “I’m going to fucking kill whoever did this to you, Hayley.”

  And again, to my surprise, she didn’t protest. She opened her eyes, one more squinty than the other, and locked onto me. I felt my heart swell within the deep walls of my chest.

  I realized something at that moment. Hayley wasn’t nearly as strong as she pretended to be, and I wasn’t either.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Hayley

  I basked in the comfort of Christian’s bed for what seemed like hours but, really, was probably closer to ten minutes. He sat at the end with his head hung low for a few minutes before getting up and going through another door.

  I glanced around the open space. A small smile tried to find its way to my mouth. Christian’s room hadn’t changed much since the last time I was in here. So many years had passed, and so many things had changed, but I found comfort in knowing his room hadn’t. I felt like I still knew a small part of him. It made it real. The old Christian wasn’t completely gone. The memories we shared were still tucked tightly away in my heart.

  He came back a second later, holding a towel in his hands. He didn’t look me in the eye, and I was glad. If he looked me in the eye, he’d see just how broken I actually was.

  I pushed away the thoughts of the last hour and focused on the burning and stinging on my face and stomach.

  The bed dipped down low, and I felt the warm towel softly hit my face. Christian dabbed it a few times before he shifted. I flicked my attention to his, and he was staring at me, jaw set, reddened towel in his hand.

  We were locked on one another for eons. My heart thumped. My pulse went haywire. My resolve was slowly slipping. Tears threatened to spill.

  I was afraid.

  I felt unsafe.

  And now, looking at someone that made me feel the opposite of those two things, no matter how badly I tried to forge the truth of them, was breaking me in half.

  I wanted to succumb.

  It was all too much.

  My father.

  My mother.

  My life.

  Foster home after foster home.

  Gabe.

  Pete.

  “Are you okay?” he finally asked, his voice softer than I’d ever heard before.

  I almost wished he was mean to me. I wished he had his cold, brooding expression on his face. It would have made things so much easier if I could have been mad, if I could have covered up my fear and pain with anger.

  My voice cracked, and my lips felt dry as the word rushed out. “No.”

  Christian shut his somber, gray eyes tightly. His mouth set in a firm line. He blew out a heavy breath as one single tear rolled down my cheek.

  My hand shot out to brush it away before he saw me crying, but he stopped me at the last second. His warm palm enclosed my wrist, and he shook his head lightly. Instead, he took his other hand and swiped the tear away with his thumb. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t speak. I was too afraid that I would completely lose the hold I had over my emotions. If I moved or spoke even a syllable, I would break in half.

  Christian opened his mouth to say something, but our attention was pulled away to Ollie and Piper flying into the bedroom.

  Ollie was carrying several bags, and Piper was, too. I almost laughed at the sight of them. When did this happen? When did I become this person who had people who cared about her? For the last several years, I’d been on my own. If I got a scrape, I was the one who put a Band-Aid on it. If my heart got broken by a stupid boy, I was the one who picked up the pieces. If my mom spent all of our grocery money on drugs, I was the one going through the trailer dumpsters for leftovers. I depended on me and only me.

  But now, looking at Piper’s worried face and Ollie buried by bags of medical supplies, paired with Christian’s tender hand, I somehow morphed into a girl who wasn’t as alone as she thought she was.

  Piper rushed to my side as Christian’s hand left my wrist. I slowly pulled myself up, trying to hide my wince. “How are you? Are you okay? If you ever scare me like that again, I’ll kill you! Who did this?” I huffed out a small laugh. Ollie was unboxing things, Band-Aids falling at his feet and landing on the soft carpet. Christian got up and went to get another towel. Water was running in the background.

  Piper brushed some of my hair out of my face, her emerald eyes getting serious. “Was it Gabe?”

  “Who the hell is Gabe?”

  I didn’t get to answer Christian before Ollie blurted out to him, “Let’s go. Get your keys. It’s time someone teaches that piece of shit a lesson.”

  “Where is he?” The soft voice Christian had earlier was long gone.

  I began to shake my head as Piper snatched the towel from Christian and began wiping my face and then my stomach.

  Christian interjected. “Don’t fucking shake your head at me, Hayley. Do you see yourself right now?” He was pacing back and forth. His broad shoul
ders were drawn upright. He stopped right in front of the bed, peering down at me. “I know you like to keep your secrets, Hayley. You like the taste of lies on your lips, but this has gone too fucking far. I get it. I was a fucking dick to you. I told you I hated you, but so help me God, if you don’t tell me who did this, I’ll beat the face of every single Gabe in the world until I know he has paid for this.”

  Piper’s hand clenched mine. “You should tell him.”

  “I’m not so sure it was him,” I whispered. Gulping, I thought back to the exchange. It might have been someone Gabe asked to rough me up, but that didn’t make sense. The guys said they were going to take me; they were waiting for confirmation that I was who they needed. Chills broke out along my arms, and it felt like acid was boiling in my stomach.

  Christian began ripping open antiseptic and Band-Aids left and right, taking out his anger on the medical supplies.

  “Then who was it?” Piper asked, her face drawn in a frown.

  “You’re gonna tell us who this Gabe guy is and why he would do something like this, even if it wasn’t him.” Ollie was standing in the doorway with his arms over his chest. He was wearing a frown, too, which was unusual for him. His blond hair was tousled, his hard jaw an exact replica of his brother’s.

  “You need to tell them. Let us be here for you, Hay.” I bit my lip as Piper squeezed my hand again.

  To be honest, I was scared to trust them as much as my heart wanted me to. There was nothing like the pain of losing someone you trusted indefinitely. But I was tired. I was so tired of keeping everything under lock and key. For once, I wanted to spill the secrets I had underneath my hard exterior.

  I was ready. Tonight scared me enough to let some of my walls fall down.

  Christian handed off the antiseptic spray to Piper, still staring down at me as my voice cracked. “Gabe was my old foster brother, but before I tell you,”—I shot an unbending glare Christian’s way—“you have to swear that you won’t lose your temper and try to be my knight in shining armor again and get me justice.”

  He clenched his teeth. His lip curled. “I can’t promise that.”

  A groan escaped me. “You will promise me that because this is my life and things are different for me.” I shook my head, sighing. “I’m property of the state, Christian. I have a record. Things go on that record. If something happens to Gabe, even if I didn’t technically do anything, it could be traced back to me, and I’d end up back in juvie. There is no proof that Gabe did this. In fact, I don’t think he had anything to do with it. So, promise that you’ll listen to me and do as I say. This isn’t some little high school game. This is the real world.”

  Silence passed between all of us. I wouldn’t go on until he agreed. I knew he didn’t understand. He wasn’t from this world. And if you didn’t live in the world I lived in, it was hard to wrap your head around it. It truly was. Sometimes I even struggled to wrap my head around it.

  “Fine,” he finally grunted. He moved to the far wall, just beside the door, and propped his leg behind him and crossed his arms over his chest. He looked hot with all the anger bouncing off him.

  “I was in a different foster home before Jill and Pete’s. And for once, it wasn’t a complete shithole. They were rich.” I looked around Christian’s room. “Not like you guys are rich, but they had money. They bought me clothes and let me eat dinner with them. Gabe later told me that his parents had wanted to have a girl after he was born, but his mom couldn’t have any more children, so they started to foster when he was in middle school.” I swallowed, looking down at Piper cleaning the scrape on my stomach. “He thought that since his parents were so nice to me and gave me things that it meant he could take what he wanted from me.” A sarcastic laugh fell off my lips. “He was wrong. He tried to…” I worked my jaw back and forth, sweat coating my neck.

  “He tried to?” Christian’s voice sounded like he had swallowed bark from a tree. Rough and calloused.

  “He made a pass at me, and I refused. So, then he tried to force me, and I took a baseball bat to his car. It landed me in juvie. The bruise on my face when I first started English Prep was from our encounter.”

  Christian’s face remained unmoving. Ollie blew breath out of his mouth but stayed in his spot, so I continued with my story.

  “The reason I thought he may do something was because he told me if he ever saw me again, he’d make me pay.” An escaped groan fell off my lips as Piper laid something cold and gooey on my stomach.

  “Sorry,” she whispered with a crescent-like smile.

  “But,” I started again. “I don’t think tonight was a result of Gabe.”

  Christian pushed off the wall. “And why’s that?”

  Memories from that night five years ago tried to assault me. Tiny images of my father lying on beige carpet with blood pooling around him flashed through my brain. His last look at me still had me shaking to this very day. The black-masked men who killed him and their ugly laughter echoed, as did my mother’s shrieking scream that I’d ruined everything.

  Licking my lips, I looked Christian in the eye. “Because Gabe isn’t the only one who has threatened me before.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Christian

  Thump. Thump. Thump. My heart was crashing against the bones inside my rib cavity. Blood was rushing down my limbs, my fingers tingling to inflict pain on someone.

  My shoes stomped against my bedroom floor. Piper took Hayley into the bathroom so she could change her dirty and torn clothes and finish cleaning her up. Ollie was sitting on the end of my bed, staring down at the carpet.

  “Man,” he said quietly. “What a fucked-up life.”

  And I was certain we didn’t even know half of it.

  I didn’t say anything. I didn’t trust myself not to self-combust.

  “Hayley was the girl who always smiled when we were in middle school. Do you remember that?” Ollie shook his head as soon as the words left his mouth. “Of course you do. She always smiled when she was with you. But she was nice, and sweet, always including everyone.” She did. Hayley was the nicest girl in our seventh-grade class unless someone messed with her or one of her friends. Ollie shifted on the bed. “You know, I always felt sorry for us. Sorry that Mom died. Sorry that Dad was never home. But this?” My feet stopped moving, and I tore my eyes away from the bathroom door. Ollie smashed his lips together before saying, “I bet you’re regretting being a fucking dick to her a few weeks ago, huh?”

  I didn’t say anything. Because yeah, I fucking did. I was up on my high horse, putting blind blame on Hayley for what? Forcing me to face my own shit? For inflicting the guilt on me that I always pushed away?

  The bathroom door swung open, and I had to tear my eyes away after a few seconds. Hayley came out with her braids re-done, two of them trailing down her back. Her face looked a little brighter, some color dotting her cheeks along with the tiny cuts and swelling. She was wearing one of my bulldog T-shirts, and it hit her mid-thigh. That was it. Her jeans and T-shirt were draped in Piper’s hand.

  When she sat back down on my bed, her bare legs were peeking out from below the shirt, and I had to focus on something else.

  “Tell us,” I managed to ground out. “Who else has threatened you? And I want to know exactly what they did and said to you tonight.”

  I cracked my knuckles and tried to calm myself by leaning against the wall again. The slick coolness coated my back through my shirt, grounding me to the spot.

  Her tongue darted out to lick her lips, and a flame tore through my body. A reminder of the forbidden kiss came through my head like a wrecking ball. That would surely ground me.

  “Well, I’m sure you all remember my father was shot and killed in my house five years ago.”

  No one said anything, and Hayley didn’t even bother looking up at us.

  “When the men came, my mom and dad were in an argument. They were fighting over money or something.” Her eyes crinkled around the edges as she brought
back the memory. “I can’t remember exactly because a lot of what they said didn’t make sense to me, but I was upstairs in the hallway, listening over the banister. The door flew open, my mom screamed, and my father started to apologize and ask for more time. I peeked through the banister slats and saw that the men had black masks on.” She shook her head slightly, her voice growing weaker. It took everything I had to stay in my spot against the wall. “There was a lot of yelling, threatening words being thrown around. My father’s voice was breaking, and it scared me. I’d never seen my dad scared before, so I called 911.” Hayley sucked in a sharp breath. Piper’s hand covered hers. Ollie kept his head down low, staring at the carpet. “My heart was beating so fast in my chest while I was on the phone. The operator told me to go hide, but when I got up to do that, large hands wrapped around my upper arms. The man snatched my phone out of my hand and hung up. He saw that it was 911. He dragged me down the stairs and kept a hold of me as he yelled out to the other two men what I had done. They didn’t even give my father a chance to explain. Our eyes met briefly, and I still, to this day, can’t decipher what he was trying to tell me. They shot him right in front of me. My mom screamed at me. The man held my arm so tight I had a bruise, and my mother didn’t even care. She was mad that I’d called the cops. Sirens wailed in the background shortly after they shot him, so they quickly left, but not before they turned to me and my mother. They threatened us. Said they’d be back for everything and that they’d come for me when I turned eighteen for the rest.”

  Breath escaped Hayley. Her cheeks puffed up as she blew it all out.

  “The police ended up freezing all of my father’s assets, which left my mom and me with nothing. We moved to a trailer not long after, and she got a job at a diner and went even further off the deep end. I’ve only seen her once since CPS took me, and I’ve never once asked her about that night or the threat.”

  I couldn’t move. I was plastered to the wall as each and every word flew out of her mouth. Ollie didn’t move a muscle either.