“Well, I’m not gonna steal his thunder then. He’s got some explaining to do. I’m sure you’ll be delighted when you find out.” One corner of her mouth quirked up in a tiny sneer.
“Right,” I muttered absentmindedly, still trying to remember what this was about.
“I guess Jules will never find out then.” Dad cut in. “This is not going to happen again. From now on, we’ll do everything necessary to keep him away from that boy.”
Victoria nodded and smiled brilliantly at my parents. “Of course, I’ll try my hardest to assist with that. It’s as much in my interest as it is in yours after a recent turn of events.”
“Thank you so much, Victoria. You truly are a blessing,” Mom said warmly.
I couldn’t hold back a snort, ignoring my father’s grip tightening around my arm.
“No worries, Mrs. Hatcher. I like to help where I can, especially when it means helping a friend. Hunter told me about the car accident. They both could’ve gotten seriously injured last night. I think that’s just another sign that they clearly aren’t good for each other.”
“Because you’re always so careful when it comes to Hunter’s well-being, right?” I asked. Keeping my voice calm was one of the hardest things I had done in weeks. “I could see how great he was after he’d been with you.”
Victoria crossed her arms over her chest defiantly. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that you should be damn careful what you’re doing to him,” I hissed and stepped as close as my father’s unforgiving hold on me allowed. “You should’ve seen him Friday night after you left him there. He…he wasn’t okay.”
“It’s not my problem that he can’t handle the news,” Victoria said with a shrug.
Still not knowing what she was talking about, I pointed at the door at the end of the corridor. Through gritted teeth, I pressed out, “Get out of here.”
Victoria’s lips curled into a scornful smile. “I was on my way out anyway.” With that, she walked off and only turned around once more when she had almost reached the exit. “I’m so glad nothing happened to you, Jules. Have a nice day, Mr. and Mrs. Hatcher.”
I stared after her, not even bothering to try to conceal the disgust on my face.
“We’re leaving,” my father declared and dragged me after him, out of the exit Victoria disappeared through.
I searched the parking lot for her since she couldn’t have gone far yet. My eyebrows shot up in surprise when I saw her getting into a car. Only when I got a good look through the windshield, I saw that it was Sean’s. He was gesturing animatedly between them and seemed to be shouting, but Victoria seemed entirely unimpressed.
Before I could find out what all of it was about, Dad opened the door to the backseat for me and told me to get in. I did so, albeit reluctantly.
The twenty minutes it took for us to get home was the longest twenty minutes of my life. There was a tense silence only interrupted by my father’s occasional swears at other cars. Mom reached to turn on the radio once, but after glancing at Dad’s stone face, she dropped her hand back into her lap and stared out of the window instead.
When we finally arrived, Dad wasted no time and stormed into the house with my mom and me in tow.
“Go to your room,” he said, barely looking at me.
I figured that resistance was pointless, especially since my head started pounding again, and headed towards the stairs. The way to the second floor took longer than it should have since I felt dizzy and had to cling onto the banister to stop myself from tripping.
Mom, who was watching me worriedly from her spot next to the door, noticed and hurried towards me. I struggled to stop myself from flinching when she slung an arm around my waist and helped me the rest of the way.
Instead of letting go of me at the top of the staircase, she led me to my room as well, despite my protests.
I stopped short as soon as I set foot in the room. Someone had been in here and hadn’t even bothered to be sneaky about it. Finally shaking my mom’s hand off, I slowly turned in a circle to take everything in.
They clearly searched through my stuff. Things were lying differently than I had left them. Even the drawer with my underwear had been thoroughly rummaged through, as I could tell after a quick look into the wardrobe.
The drawings I had worked on were still scattered across my desk, but I knew after a few seconds of going through them which of them were missing. One night, a few days ago, the feeling of missing Hunter was so overwhelming, and since I didn’t have any photos of him, I had gone to work and started to sketch him. They weren’t here, but I had a pretty good idea what my parents had done with them.
After a few more minutes of assessing the situation, I moved to look out of the window so I wouldn’t have to face my mother, who was still hovering in the doorway with a pity smile. My breath caught in my throat when I saw the new addition there. In my absence, my father had installed a window lock that prevented it from opening without a key.
I knew that it was in vain, but I tried to open it anyway. After a few seconds of rattling and yanking, I finally gave up and leaned my forehead against the cold glass. Over the ringing in my ears, I didn’t hear my mom approaching. Her hand stroking my back in what was probably supposed to be a comforting gesture made my entire body go rigid.
“You can’t do this,” I said tonelessly as I closed my eyes. “This is insane.”
“Shh, it’s okay, baby,” she cooed into my ear. Her hand traveled up my back and began carding through my hair instead. “This is going to help you get over it.”
I didn’t have enough energy left to tell her that taking away my last bit of privacy and locking me in could never help me get over my sexuality. Instead, I shakily asked, “Is Dad really going to sell Froggy?”
“Yes. He just wants to make sure you won’t be seeing that boy. He’s not good for you.”
“No, you don’t understand,” I said frantically and finally looked at her. “He’s the best thing for me.”
Mom looked at me in silence for a moment. Then she raised a hand to my forehead as if to check my temperature. “Oh, dear. I think you might have a fever as well. You’re a little confused right now. That’s all. Better go to bed, alright?”
I stared at her incredulously. “Mom, please. You need to listen—”
She wouldn’t let me finish the sentence. Instead, she got onto her toes and pressed a kiss to my cheek.
“Sleep well, Juley.” With that, she turned around and left the room, closing the door firmly behind her.
I swallowed against nausea and sunk onto my bed to prevent my knees from giving away. Then I just sat there for what felt like hours, staring numbly at the opposite wall.
It was only then that I noticed that something was missing from my bookshelf, too. I didn’t need to check to know that it was The Picture of Dorian Gray.
The ringing of the doorbell interrupted my thoughts.
I didn’t bother getting up. It was probably just the babysitter bringing Maya home. Only when I heard my father calling for me, I got to my feet and hurried down the stairs as fast as possible without tripping.
I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw who was standing next to my dad.
“You have five minutes.” Dad announced and left us alone in the corridor.
I gulped and stared at the unannounced and unwanted guest.
“Sean?”
“Jules,” he drawled and took a moment to look me over. “We need to talk.”
“We do?” I asked, puzzled. “Last time I checked, you hated me.”
“I do. But not as much as I hate people stealing my things.”
When he didn’t elaborate, I looked at him in confusion. “So, what do I have to do with this? I didn’t touch anything that’s yours.”
Sean flicked his hand in a dismissive gesture. “You touched Hunter, but that’s beside the point. I couldn’t care less about you dimwits anymore.”
He stepped closer until I could almost feel
his breath and looked down at me with carefully studied calmness. “I need to talk to you about Victoria’s baby.”
Chapter 36
Victoria’s baby?
The words hit me like a tidal wave. Memories of Hunter telling me about the pregnancy and looking absolutely heartbroken washed over me all of a sudden until I felt like I was drowning.
I had to support myself on the wall with one hand. This time, the dizziness wasn’t just because of my concussion.
“What about it?” I choked out.
Sean rolled his eyes at me. “Pull yourself together. It’s not his.”
“It’s…not?” I echoed, wide-eyed. “What do you mean it’s not his? Whose is it then?”
Sean quirked a brow at me. “You really aren’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, are you? Do I need to spell it out for you?” He pointed at himself and said exaggeratedly slowly, “The baby is mine.”
My eyes were probably the size of saucers when I stared at him. “You were sleeping with Victoria?”
“For months,” Sean said nonchalantly. “It wasn’t something serious, just a few hook-ups here and there.”
“Then how did…it, you know, happen?” I asked, still trying to process the new turn of events.
“What? You don’t know about the bees and the birds?” Sean snorted. “One night we were drunk as hell at a party. We were in a walk-in closet. Neither of us had a condom, and apparently, she hadn’t taken her pill. Boom, there you have a baby.”
“I—okay…If she knows this, why did she tell Hunter it’s his?”
“Because she’s a shady bitch?” He suggested. “She knows that that’s a way to bind Hunter to her.”
I nodded slowly. “Sean…Why are you telling me all this? I mean, you could just play along, and you wouldn’t have to worry about having to deal with all of this.”
Sean shook his head with an impatient scowl. “No, you don’t get it. I want the baby. It’s mine, not his. I know that he won’t care about it like I would because he hates Victoria and is probably disgusted by the thought of having a child with her.” He took a deep breath. “I told my parents, and they’re willing to help me support the baby. Seeing as Victoria will probably never be a responsible mother, I want it to at least have a caring father.”
I blinked at him, still dazed. “So are you going to take a paternity test to prove it?”
“I already did. Told Vicky’s mom about the pregnancy and she forced her to go there to give a sample today. We’ll get the results this week.”
“Wow,” I said. “I…thank you. This will help us so much.”
Sean’s glare replaced the almost soft look on his face immediately. “I’m not doing this for you. I just thought you should know, so you don’t have to be a crybaby about the whole pregnancy thing. Plus, I don’t want to go to Hunter and tell him myself. You do that.”
I knew that he wouldn’t appreciate anymore thanks, so I let it slide and looked at him as he turned around and left the house as fast as he had come.
***
“No way. No way,” Nate choked out when I narrated the entire story the next day at school. We were sitting on the stairs leading to the school’s front door between the second and third period. “She’s really pregnant? With Sean’s child?”
“Yes, Nate, for the fourth time,” I retorted impatiently. “Sean told me everything yesterday.”
“Maybe he isn’t that much of an asshole after all,” Alexis muttered.
“Yeah, he is,” Adam said from where he was leaning against the banister, lighting a cigarette. “But he’s an asshole who at least cares about his own child.”
“He really agreed to support Victoria and the baby?” Emily inquired. She was perched on the steps next to me with her cup of coffee halfway to her mouth. Apparently, she had forgotten about it in the heat of the moment, so I reached over and took it from her.
After taking a sip, I said, “Yeah. He seems pretty serious about it. His parents will probably be paying most of it.”
“Well, they can afford it.” Nate snorted. “If they can buy him a Cadillac for his birthday, they can probably easily pay for his baby as well.”
“Do you want me to tell Hunter?” Adam asked after a moment.
I considered it for a second before I shook my head. “No, I want to tell him myself. But can you tell him I’ll go to his house tonight?”
Adam nodded and pushed himself away from the handrail. “Alright. I’m gonna check on him and Liam.”
“Wait, I’m coming with you,” Alex said and scrambled to her feet, grinning at Nate when he pouted in disappointment as she pulled her hand out of his.
“Don’t take too long!” Nate called after her when she sprinted after Adam, despite wearing four-inch heels.
“Hey, Adam!” I shouted. He turned around and raised a brow at me in question. “Thanks.”
Instead of answering, he stomped his cigarette out under his heel and headed into the school building.
I shrugged and turned back to Emily and Nate. Noticing that Nate was fiddling with something in his hands, I pointed at it.
“What’s that?”
He looked up with an uncertain grimace. “It’s for Alexis.”
“Can I see?”
Nate hesitated before he finally handed it over to me. “Promise not to laugh, yeah?”
Nodding absentmindedly, I took a closer look at the box. It was black and square, without any decoration aside from For The Most Amazing Girl I Know scribbled on the front in barely legible silver letters.
Emily nudged me encouragingly and leaned over to have a better view. “Open it! I wanna see.”
I did so carefully, placing the lid on the concrete next to me. A wide grin spread across my face when I saw the silver CD laying in the red velvet lining of the box.
“Is this what I think it is?” I asked teasingly as I took it out and turned it over in my hand.
My guess was confirmed when I read the tracklist scribbled on the backside of the CD.
“Oh my God, Nate,” Emily exclaimed and reached over me to ruffle his hair.
He slapped her hand away and buried his blushing face in his hands. “I know it’s kinda stupid. Maybe I won’t give it to her.”
“If you don’t, I’ll personally kick your ass to the other end of the country.” I informed him, scanning over the song titles.
Most of them I didn’t know, but the ones I recognized were all rock songs, the kind of stuff Nate always played in my car. The list started with “Welcome to the Jungle” by Guns N’ Roses and ended with “Enter Sandman” by Metallica.
But more important than the actual titles was the order of their first letters. It took a few seconds, but then I realized that they spelled out Will you go to prom with me.
“You’re setting the bar impossibly high for everyone else.” I laughed.
“This is the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen,” Emily added. “Alexis is so damn lucky.”
Nate still didn’t look confident with his gift. “I don’t know. What if she says no?”
“Then she’s insane.”
“Seriously, dude. She won’t say no. I’d bet my car on that,” I said.
Not that I have one at the moment.
My mom drove me to school today and promised to do the same every day from now on. To my question, if she didn’t think she was taking it too far, she hadn’t replied. Instead, she had turned the radio on to prevent any more conversation with me.
It was weird. Since the accident happened, my mother was all over me, constantly hovering and making sure I was okay. Still, whenever I wanted to talk and have an actual conversation with her, she blocked me out. I knew it was better than complete silence between us, but it was affecting me more than I cared to admit.
My father was still glaring at me every time he saw me and only talked to me in short commands and subtle side blows. More than once, he would leave the room when I entered. He was leaving a lot in general. It seemed like he was o
n business meetings and the like every other evening. I decided not to ask about it.
Nate wrestling his gift out of my hands, interrupted my thoughts before they could get too depressing. “So, what about you, Emily? Are you going to prom with Liam?”
Emily knew just as well as I did that Nate was trying to steer the conversation away from his love life, but she chose not to call him out on it. Instead, she shrugged with a smile and said, “I’m not sure. He hasn’t asked me, and I don’t know how to ask him.”
“One of you needs to make a start,” I said. “Watching you guys being too shy to actually do anything is beyond frustrating.”
“True. We all know you guys have the biggest crush on each other. Just date already,” Nate said, ignoring Emily’s scowl.
“Says you.” She snorted.
Nate held up the black gift box. “Hey, I’m doing something about it! You should do the same.”
Emily finally accepted that there was no reasoning with us, so she let out an annoyed huff and ripped her cup of coffee out of my hand. “Fine. Maybe I’ll ask him later.”
“Aw, look who’s blushing.” I mocked and pinched Emily’s cheek before she could slap my hand away.
“I hate both of you.” Emily groaned but didn’t try to ward Nate off when he slung an arm around her shoulder and said, “You love us.”
***
To say that I was nervous when I rang Hunter’s doorbell that evening is an understatement.
Being able to come here hadn’t been that much of a struggle as I had expected because Dad was out with his friends and Mom was having a parent-teacher conference at the school. Maya was being babysat at home, so it was easy for me to leave the house without anyone asking me where I was going.
It took so long for him to open the door that I already feared he wasn’t home. My breath caught in my throat when the door finally flung open and revealed him standing in the doorway.
“Jules?” he asked in surprise as he looked down at me. “I didn’t believe Adam when he told me you’d come here.”
It took a few seconds for me to understand his astonishment. “Because of the pregnancy thing?”
Why You Shouldn't Lend A Bad Boy Your Clothes Page 39