Bully Anthology: Boys of Westview Academy, books 1-4

by Mina Thorne

  He seemed extremely uncomfortable by the public displays of affection, and I couldn’t blame him. It was probably hard enough to watch your daughter with one boyfriend, but getting the sense she had more than one was going to sting a little.

  Especially when one of them was still technically her stepbrother, but I was sure with a little time even he would get used to it.

  We walked up into the house, and the moment we stepped through the front doors, I felt like a princess.

  Everybody had worked so hard to decorate the foyer and dining room with beautiful flowers and banners proclaiming their happiness that I was finally home.

  As we walked through to the kitchen, I was surrounded by family, friends, and even our staff who all expressed their love and joy that I was safe, and I was where I belonged.

  And I truly felt as if I belonged. I felt their love, and I felt the security brought by the house that had once felt so foreign to me.

  I couldn’t stay for long though, the places where I’d been burned were itching badly, and my body ached all over.

  “Open your presents before you head upstairs,” Kit said when she saw me start to falter. The guys helped me to a seat at the dining table where it was practically groaning under the weight of food, drink, and gifts.

  “I don’t know if I’ll make it through all of them,” I laughed and looked around in amazement.

  To think just a short time ago I sat at this very table with Dad and Elaine and Barrett and he was a total dick to me. And Elaine was a nasty asshole.

  And now here I was in a room filled with love next to a table stacked with presents.

  It was almost too much.

  Dad shoved one small box in my face and said, “Open this one first.”

  I peeled back the gold wrapping paper and smiled when I saw what was inside.

  A new iPhone, the most recent model, and it was in rose gold, my favorite color.

  “It’s already set up,” he said, looking pretty pleased with himself. “I know yours was lost in the…well…the fire. This should more than make up for it though. I have a buddy who works for Apple, so this particular model isn’t available until the spring.”

  “Oh awesome,” I said, pulling it out. He might not know me that well yet, but he knew what would make the happiest.

  “I didn’t get you anything,” Mom said, her eyes shifting down in that look of shame I’d once known so well. The feeling you had when you lacked the funds to fit in completely.

  “Just being here is enough,” I told her and reached for her hand. I squeezed it, and she leaned down to hug me.

  “You can come home any time you like,” she said in my ear. “These people are as bad as I remember them. I’m sorry I sent you out here.”

  “I’m okay,” I told her. “They’re good to me, and this has become home.”

  “I understand,” she said and stood up, but she looked down at me with the saddest eyes. It was as if she realized she’d lost her little girl, and in a way she had.

  I would never go back to being her lonely daughter, to the girl who had hung around on the fringes of every group. Back to a time when I was on the outside with my face pressed against the glass, looking in.

  I was now on the inside, and I wouldn’t give it up for anything.

  I opened a few more small gifts from Sienna, a couple of kids from school and the house staff.

  And I was done.

  I managed to cram a chocolate-filled croissant in my mouth and then hobbled upstairs to have my long soak in the tub and revel in having survived.

  Barrett and Rome were about to follow me, but Dad intervened and started asking them about the football team this year to distract them.

  They watched me leave, and I didn’t mind having the time to myself.

  I wasn’t going to stay awake for long, and I needed to sleep in my own bed.

  And figure out what the hell had happened that night as my memories slowly came back to me.

  Chapter 71

  I felt incredible the next day. There was nothing like surviving an attack by a psychotic cheerleader with a ridiculous name and subsequent fire to make a person feel truly alive.

  And there was nothing like a week spent in an uncomfortable hospital bed on scratchy sheets over a pee-resistant plastic mattress cover to make a person truly appreciate their own bed.

  I slept late and woke to find that Mom had texted me about a hundred times. Whitt had texted me twice.

  He was going home too, but not for a couple of days. I let him know I’d see him the moment I could.

  How had I ever been that mad at him? How had I ever been so suspicious of him, in spite of what he’d done at the lake?

  Becca’s insanity sure put everything else into sharp focus.

  Back to Mom, she was waiting for me to wake so she could have some mother/daughter time, she said.

  I groaned when I read it. I got that she was distressed, but all I wanted was to be left alone today.

  Maybe invite Barrett and Rome to my room later to chill out and make me feel even better if we had a chance, but Mom was decided to be the ultimate cock block.

  Not that I could totally blame her, she had been traumatized by the fire and was going home in a couple of days. Reg was holding down the fort at work, but Mom couldn’t be gone for too long, or it was going to go off the rails eventually.

  As much as I loved Reg, he sure was a disaster without Mom around.

  I texted her after I had a quick shower and got ready for the day. She knocked on my door shortly after.

  “I was thinking of doing a shopping day,” she said, sitting on the edge of my bed. “Nothing big, just a new top or something.”

  She looked around my room and laughed. “Although I guess you have everything you could possibly want right here. This place is bigger than our entire main floor, isn’t it?”

  “Not quite,” I replied. “But it is pretty wild. And I think shopping would be good, but let me take you. We can put it on my card.”

  “No,” she exclaimed. “That feels so cheesy.”

  “Hey, he didn’t pay us a lick of child support over the years,” I said. “Think of this as his way of paying us back. Let’s blow a bunch of his cash, he deserves it, and he probably won’t even notice.”

  “Well, if you think so…” she said, looking up at me with hesitant anticipation in her eyes.

  “Let’s do it,” I said, and that was that, she was convinced.

  I couldn’t go out for long, but we did spend an hour getting a manicure at a boutique spa in the mall near the outlet shops.

  Mom had insisted on not going to the designer stores, and I had insisted on buying her a handbag or two, and a pair of shoes. Or two or three.

  I wanted to spoil her for once after everything she’d done for me. After all the sacrifices she’d made so I could have everything that I’d thought was important as a teenager.

  I wanted her to go home with enough beautiful things that she would never feel frumpy in front of the neighbors again.

  “Can I ask you something?” she said hesitantly as two spa workers massaged our feet and got our toes ready for color.

  “I guess,” I replied, but in my gut I had a good idea where she was going to go with her line of questioning.

  “Which one of the guys you hang around with is your boyfriend?”

  And there it was, blunt and out in the open.

  I wanted to bluff and distract as I had in the hospital when she’d asked. My first instinct was to hide the truth of what was going on, but I decided that I was tired of it — especially hiding it from her of all people.

  I took a deep breath, noticed the girls weren’t paying attention to what we were saying, and I looked at Mom.

  “All of them, I guess,” I replied with a sheepish grin.

  “All? Roland and Chase too?” she gasped and held her hand up.

  I started to laugh. “Oh, god, no. Roland has a boyfriend and Chase is with Sienna. But you know wh
ich ones, three of them.”

  “Let me get this straight,” she said. “You have…three boyfriends?”

  “Yeah,” I replied and laughed. “It’s not as crazy as it seems. We’re all pretty chill about it.”

  “How do you time manage with them? Is there an app for that?” she asked.

  “No, but there should be,” I laughed louder. “It would save a lot of hurt feelings; none of them ever feel like they get to see me enough.”

  “I suppose Barrett has the advantage,” she said.

  “Home court advantage,” I smiled.

  “I can’t pretend to understand what is going on, but if you’re happy and being careful about everything, then I suppose I can’t complain,” she said. “I could tell in the hospital that they each care for you so much.”

  “And I care for them,” I said. “I just don’t know if I care for one of them more than the others.”

  The girls at our feet were clearly paying attention at this point, and they looked at each other with wide eyes.

  “I guess I’m probably one of the more interesting clients you’ve heard today?” I grinned down at them.

  “We hear a lot of crazy stuff, even crazier than that believe it or not,” the girl working on Mom’s feet said.

  “But you’re one of the youngest. Usually girls your age are worried about finding one guy, and you have three!” the other one said, looking up at me with admiration.

  Mom insisted on showing them pictures, and they ooohed and aahed appropriately over my hot boys. When we were done, I tipped them very generously on Dad’s credit cards, and we headed out of the spa, bags of product hanging on our arms and me with a bubbling joy in my heart.

  I hadn’t really understood how much I’d missed Mom until I had her with me. I vowed to visit California more often to get more of this.

  I held the door open for Mom, and she stepped through, looking down to admire her pretty red toenails in the open-toed shoes she’d just bought.

  I was looking at them too when I heard, “Hello, Stephanie. I see you survived the fire.”

  I jerked my head up and found myself staring into narrowed eyes that radiated hate and evil towards me.

  “Mom,” I said and gestured towards the woman who was standing before us in a skin-tight leopard mini dress, clutching a Birkin bag in one hand and a tiny Yorkie puppy in the other. “This is Dad’s…um, ex-wife E—”

  “Elaine,” Mom said with acid dripping from her voice.

  “How do you know her?” I asked, startled.

  “She used to be our nanny,” Mom replied.

  Chapter 72

  “When?” I exclaimed. “When was she the nanny? You mean to me?”

  “Yes, to you,” Mom said and stared at Elaine. “A long time ago, when you were just a baby.”

  “Why didn’t you ever tell me this?” I asked, scanning Elaine’s face for a sign of any emotion at all, but I only saw smug indifference.

  “What did it matter? So I knew you when you were a baby. You played with Barrett and Roland even back then,” Elaine replied with utter disdain. “I suppose that hasn’t changed, you still like playing with them now, but this time it’s a little different.”

  I didn’t bother with a response. I was so shocked at her disgusting insinuation that I was sleeping with both Barrett and Roland that I didn’t know how to react.

  Mom did it for me, though. I heard a crack of Mom’s hand hitting Elaine’s face before I even registered that she’d hit her.

  “Let’s go,” Mom said and grabbed me by the wrist. “Let’s get away from this bitch. I see some things never change.”

  “You still think you’re too good for all of us,” Elaine sneered and held her hand to her cheek. “You’re still trash though.”

  “No,” Mom said as we walked away. “I know I’m too good for all of you. You most of all, Elaine, you pathetic whore!”

  We stomped off together, our feet and steps matching perfectly. As we began to approach our car, I started to laugh.

  She stopped, and I did too, coming to a skittering halt with her.

  I was still laughing.

  “What’s so funny?” she asked with a bemused smile on her face.

  “You and me, we’re the same,” I said and kept laughing. “That’s basically what I wanted to say to Elaine, word for word, and then we marched together in perfect time.”

  “We did, didn’t we?” she smiled and let go of my arm. “Like mother, like daughter, after all, I suppose.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed.

  We stopped laughing and there in the parking lot of the mall, she put her hands on my shoulders and looked me in the eyes. “I’m sorry, Steph,” she said. “I’m so sorry I never told you about it. You must feel really blindsided right now.”

  “Did Dad cheat?” I asked. “Is that why you left him?”

  “Yes,” she replied, and I saw a long-ago memory of pain flicker across her face. “And no, that’s not why I left. It’s all so complicated. I don’t know how to explain all the reasons I left. Why I took you away.”

  “I wish somebody would tell me more about our family secrets,” I said wistfully. “I don’t know what happened to you two, or even why you left him. You’ve never talked about it. Ever.”

  “I know, sweetheart,” she said and dropped her hands off my shoulders. “I owe you an explanation, but maybe not here. Okay? My hand stings and I want to get you home in case you need a rest.”

  “I am feeling a little tired,” I said, even though I would have stayed standing in the parking lot to find out what had happened to my parents. But I could tell Mom had had enough. She was looking for a way out.

  I gave it to her; I let her walk back to the Range Rover and climbed into the passenger side as we drove him.

  I couldn’t help myself, though. My mind was racing a million miles a minute as we headed through Harrisburg. I needed to know everything at some point, how Elaine had fit into the equation and what had happened to my grandparents and then why my mom had left.

  But I’d let her have a moment to think about it, and I’d take a moment to go lay down.

  As much as I felt like things were back to normal, I still wore out quickly, and my lungs never quite felt full.

  Any excuse for a nap was good, though.

  * * *

  I was dozing on and off, half asleep and half awake when I heard somebody open my door and come into my room.

  Only two people in the house did that, Barrett or Dad.

  Barrett because he always felt like he could see me whenever he wanted.

  And Dad because he felt like he paid for the house, so everywhere belonged to him.

  Either way, I’d find out soon enough, so I didn’t bother opening my eyes.

  “How are you feeling, princess?” Dad asked, sitting on the end of my bed.

  “I’m tired,” I said and sat up slightly, looking at him. He’d just gotten home from work by the looks of it. He was wearing a perfectly tailored suit and a crisp white shirt underneath. He was a handsome man for his age, and I could see some of him when I looked in the mirror. I hadn’t just inherited his stubborn streak; I’d gotten his nose and the way his eyes crinkled around the edges when he laughed.

  “I’ll bet,” he said. “Listen, you mom said you’re upset about Elaine. Do you want to talk about it?”

  “You mean about the lie?” I asked and sat right up, looking at him in the glow of my night light.

  “We didn’t lie, not really,” he said and had the good sense to looks a little contrite at least. “We just decided it would be best not to tell you. You were coming out here in such an emotional state. We didn’t want to make it harder on you.”

  “By what, telling me my father was a cheating bastard and banged his new wife when he was still married to my mother?” I asked with a sneer. I couldn’t help it. I was still angry about what I’d found out.

  “It wasn’t like that,” he said, and his eyes narrowed with pain. “Okay, it
was kind of like that. I treated your mom badly back then. I regret it every day of my life, what I did to her. And you.”

  “Is that why you weren’t there when I was growing up?” I asked.

  “I tried, but she was angry with me. I decided to respect her wishes and put any child support money into a trust fund for you. But of course, now you know you have inherited a fortune from me already,” he smiled.

  “I feel betrayed by this,” I said quietly. “As if you were cheating on me too. And with Elaine! What were you thinking?”

  “I was thinking… I mean, damn. I wasn’t thinking, was I?” he said. “I was thinking I needed attention, the kind I wasn’t getting from my wife. And Elaine… back then she was just Elena, and she made it so easy. Her husband was constantly traveling, and your mom was so unhappy that she wasn’t around that much.”

  “So it was easy to have an affair with her?” I asked, trying to understand but unable to completely quell the sense of betrayal that had crept into my heart.

  How much of his life had been a lie? How much of what he’d shown me so far had been a lie? Was there anything about him that I could be one hundred percent certain about when it came to him?

  I thought back to when I’d first seen him, how he’d chosen Elaine over me from the very start, and now it hurt all over again.

  Why had he chosen to raise Barrett and Roland instead of facing Mom’s anger and raising me, even just part-time?

  He couldn’t seem to look me in the eyes, so he dropped his gaze to the floor and took a moment to respond. My father, the CEO of a multinational Fortune 500 company and he couldn’t even look his teenage daughter in the eye.

  That just upset me even more.

  “It wasn’t that it was easy, princess,” he said at last, his voice quieter than I’d ever heard it, barely above a whisper. “I took the easy way out, yes. But it’s more about who I am. Where I grew up. There’s this underlying rot here in Harrisburg that makes it almost impossible to find the kind of love I thought I had with your mother.”

  “So you’re blaming your parents?” I asked with a slight roll of my eyes. “Is that my excuse now too?”