All the Little Truths: A Standalone Enemies-to-Lovers High School Romance (English Prep Book 3)

by S. J. Sylvis

  I squinted and crossed my arms over my chest. Eric wet his lips and swallowed, his throat bobbing up and down. My skin flushed.

  I quickly moved around his body like he had the bubonic plague and reached up to snatch the first shirt I could find, which was an old English Prep Cheerleader shirt. Good times. I threw it on quickly and snatched up a pair of jeans that were laying on the floor.

  Eric watched my every move with a careful eye. He reached up and rubbed the back of his shoulder and sighed loudly. I darted my gaze down to his neck, which was becoming redder and redder as the seconds ticked by.

  “I see your mom isn’t home again,” he stated, still standing half in my closet.

  I squinted again, ignoring him. “What were you doing in my closet?”

  “You told me not to worry about you.” His cheek twitched. “So this is me not worrying about you.”

  What was he getting at? “Wha—”

  Eric’s warm palm wrapped around my wrist as he pulled me into the closet quickly. He flipped around, putting my back to him and shut the door. The light switch was flipped off, and panic began to crowd me.

  “Eric,” I said. “You know I don’t like the dark. Stop it.”

  “Shh,” he hushed, rubbing his hands along my goosebump-covered arms. He whispered down into my ear, his breath tickling something sensitive, “Look up.”

  My head tilted slowly, my hair falling down my back. I gasped. My eyes were blurry, and my heart cascaded to the floor in one single breath.

  “Just in case I’m not here.” His hands were still on my arms, rubbing back and forth in the most comforting way as we both stared at the ceiling that was lined in what seemed to be a hundred glow-in-the-dark stars.

  A soft smile graced my lips as I continued to gaze up. “This…”

  I didn’t have any words. I hated how much I enjoyed him caring about me and protecting me. It went against everything I stood for, because deep down, I knew I trusted Eric with everything I had, and I couldn’t remember the last time I truly trusted someone.

  There was no corrupted plan for him to make me fall in love with him only to crush me in the end. He wasn’t doing this to get back at his father and my mother. He was doing it because it was him. The boy who was fiercely protective above all else.

  I was still at a loss for words as I gazed upward, resting my back along his sturdy front. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “You do know what to say…” He paused before bending down to my ear again. “You just won’t.”

  He was right. I was too afraid to say anything that I might regret later. Couldn’t he see that this was me trying to be selfless? Couldn’t he see this was me trying to change? Why was he making it so difficult for me?

  Eric’s finger brushed over my skin like a feather, causing my heart to skip a beat. His hand rested on my shoulder for a moment before he came up and caressed my neck. “I can feel your pulse sky-rocketing, Maddie.” I stopped breathing, hoping it would help disguise the way that he was affecting me. I hoped he couldn’t see the way he was making me trip on my words. “Do you know how many times I caught you staring at me today? With that sad, puppy-dog look in your eye?”

  My head barely shook. His hand was still resting along my neck, and I found myself pressing into him even further. I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t fucking stop.

  No one had ever affected me this way before. He was consuming me. I felt crazed. My blood was buzzing.

  “Thirty-one.”

  No way.

  “Thirty-fucking-one times I caught you looking at me. Want to explain that?”

  Thirty-one?!

  I shook my head again. I didn’t trust myself to talk. Eric’s hands suddenly dropped from my body, and the disappointment was ground-breaking.

  He spun me around to face him, his hand grasping my chin. He tipped it upward, both of us now looking at the glow-in-the-dark stars above our heads, surrounded by hanging clothes rubbing along our arms. “Well, until you can admit that you want me in the same way that I want you—sans whatever the fuck anyone else says—at least you’ll have these to remind you that you’re safe in the dark.”

  I wasn’t safe without him.

  “Stars aren’t going to protect me,” I said breathlessly, looking him in the eye. Everything around us was shadowed, but with the neon stars above, our faces were glowing.

  His head tilted. “No, but I can.”

  More heavy-lidded silence fell between us before he worked his jaw back and forth and took a step away from me. His hands fell as the light came back on and the door was swinging open. He put necessary distance between us, and I hated it.

  “I don’t hate you anymore, Maddie.” Eric gave me a half-hearted grin, almost looking sad. “But you knew that already, right?”

  I wanted to reach out to him so badly it hurt. Taking one step forward, I said, “Please stop.”

  “Stop what?”

  “Stop making me regret being a good person. I’m really trying here, and you’re ruining it.” I took another step toward him. “I’m trying to be selfless, Eric. For once in my fucking life, I’m trying to do the right thing.”

  He scowled, meeting me halfway. “You think you’re being selfless because you’re pushing me away? Again? You think you’re bad for me?” He laughed sarcastically, rubbing a hand feebly down his face. His angry eyes drove into me, and I licked my lips eagerly. “Since when do you care if you’re bad for someone, Madeline?”

  An exhausted sigh left me. “I’m trying to do better, Eric. I want to be selfless. You are better off without me. Have you seen me? I am a wreck.” My chest began heaving, and my arms were shaking. My tone started off calm but suddenly turned chaotic. The words were rushing out of my mouth so fast I couldn’t even catch my breath.

  Eric threw his arms up. “Fuck that, Madeline! How can I make you see yourself the way that I see you?” He quickly spun around, putting his back to me for a second before whipping back and shouting, “You cut me out of your life because you were protecting your mom! She brings home fucking creeps who try to fuck you in your bed at night! You made yourself out to be this terrible mean girl all so you could protect the perfect image you and your mom had conjured up in your heads.” The veins in Eric’s forearms were bulging as he clenched his fists together. “Okay, you know what? Fine.” He threw his hands up again. “Yes, you were a bitch. You were cold and calculating in your mean-girl efforts.” I stepped back from the harshness in his voice. “Is that what you want to hear? Huh?” He got in my face. My eyes watered as I scanned the pain and fury coming off him in waves. “Well, guess what?” he spat. “I still fucking loved you, even then.”

  Tears rushed to the surface, falling down my cheeks so fast I couldn’t wipe them away fast enough. “Well, that’s too bad, Eric! You can’t love someone like me.”

  “Says who?” He wiped my tears away with force, his dark brows crowding his face in a twisted bunch.

  “Me!” I shouted. A sob was trying to wrack out of my body, but I broke it into pieces before it had a chance. “I’m messed up! My dad is abusive. I’m scared of the dark. I hardly sleep. I’m a fucking rape victim. Everyone hates me! You should hate me! Why are you so intent on fixing me? Protecting me? I’m not whole! I’m broken into itty bitty pieces. There’s nothing left of me to love.”

  “That’s not true. You are not broken.” Eric’s hands wrapped around the back of my hair, and he pressed our foreheads together.

  My chest split open, and tears ran down my face like rain droplets dancing on a windshield. They were scattered all around, dripping fast. I cried even harder, and Eric tried his best to wipe every last tear away.

  “How can I make this stop?” he finally asked, his thumbs coming in and wiping my face clean.

  I swallowed, gaining my control back for a second. “You can’t. The past is the past. Trust me, Eric, if I could change it, I would. I would do everything differently.”

  The slam of a car door had us both pausing.
His thumbs stopped moving. I stopped sniffling. Eric craned his neck back, still keeping a hold of me, and then his entire body stiffened. He was like a brick wall, every muscle locked up tight.

  “Eric?” You could hear the urgency in my voice. “Is it my dad?”

  “No.”

  Oh no. “Is…is…is it…?”

  Eric’s features softened for a second. “Relax, Maddie. It’s my dad.”

  “Your dad?” I croaked.

  The vein in Eric’s temple was out, and it was proud. “You stay here,” he said before dropping his hands. “This conversation isn’t finished. But I need to take care of something.”

  “Eric…” I warned. He was hurting. He was hurting, and he was using that hurt and turning it into rage. I watched the slow dip of his brow when he looked through the window. I felt the moment of betrayal go through his body. Then I watched as he hardened. “Don’t do anything you’ll regret.”

  He chuckled as he walked out of my room. His voice had a poisonous bite to it. “The only thing I’ll regret is not doing this sooner.”

  Oh, Eric.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Eric

  They always say you see red when you’re angry. Red was the devil’s color, an angry color, the color of blood. But all I saw was black. A deep, dark tunneling abyss of pure blackness.

  The moment I saw his stupid sports car parked in the driveway, my blood ran cold. He wasn’t allowed to just show up. It wasn’t okay that he was going to try and swoop in and talk to my mother face to face because she wasn’t answering his calls. I wasn’t stupid. I knew what desperation looked like. To be honest, it looked a lot like me trying to get through to Madeline.

  Like father, like son, I guess. But he had some fucking nerve showing up at the house. And that was exactly what I said to him as I crossed over the green patch of grass and landed on the concrete drive.

  “You have some fucking nerve showing up out of nowhere.”

  My father spun around, glancing at me for a brief second and then at Madeline’s house. Something flickered behind his gray eyes, and it was a slap to the face. “You have some fucking nerve looking over there, too.”

  “Eric,” he warned. “I’m about half tired of this high-and-mighty attitude you have with me.”

  I laughed sardonically. “Just like I’m about half tired of you fucking around on Mom and trying to get me on your side.”

  Grabbing my phone out of my pocket, I read his last text aloud. “Eric, I know you’re still angry that I put you in an unfair situation and that you saw me in a compromising position…” I snickered and continued reading. “But please understand I love you and your mother. I want to fix things. I made a mistake.”

  My phone clicked off, and I slid it back in my pocket. When I met his face again, he was clenching his smooth jaw, the muscle jumping in his temple. “Don’t you mean…mistakes, Dad?”

  Nothing on his tanned face moved. No dip of his eye, no twitch of the nose. Nothing. In fact, he appeared bored.

  “What are you referring to, Eric?”

  I smiled, and I hoped he could tell it was as conniving as he was. “I know you’ve been fucking Madeline’s mom—amongst others—for years, Dad. Fucking years.”

  His face blanched as he took a step back. “That’s not true. Stop filling your mother’s head with lies. It’s no wonder she won’t answer my calls and is threatening divorce.”

  Good for her.

  “You really have the audacity to stand there and lie to my face?” I asked with an even tone. The rage was bubbling up, my mother’s cries echoing in the back of my head, Madeline’s sad face when she told me why she threw me out of her life so long ago. It was the calm before the storm. I was ready to punch my own father right in the fucking face. He was a selfish asshole.

  “Eric.” His voice grew deeper, like he was reprimanding me.

  “Admit it. You’ve been fucking her since we moved into the neighborhood.”

  I heard a door open, and I wasn’t sure if it was mine or Madeline’s. I would prefer that neither she nor my mom heard this conversation, but that was inevitable. I continued stalking toward my father, watching him scramble for words.

  “That is not true…”

  “Yes, it is.” A ding went off in my chest at the sound of Madeline’s voice.

  “Madeline.” My father looked past me, and I almost snapped.

  “Don’t you dare say her name like that.” I could feel the grittiness in my mouth as my words carved through. His face faltered for a moment before he put two and two together.

  Yes. That’s right. I’m fucking your mistress’s daughter. How do you like that?

  Another door opened, and my mother appeared on the porch steps. “What’s going on out here? Brett? What are you doing here?”

  “He was just leaving, Mom.”

  He snapped at me. “No, I wasn’t.” Then he turned to her, lowering his voice. “We need to talk, and since you”—he glanced at me—“both have been ignoring me. I thought I’d just come by.”

  “Brett.” My mom was tired. She had worked a shift last night and didn’t get home until after I had gone to school. I eyed her sleepy eyes and messy hair.

  “Heather. We need to talk. You said so yourself.”

  Make him leave, Mom.

  “Fine,” she sighed. “Let’s go.”

  “Mom.” I pushed past my father, shouldering him hard. His hand reached out, and he gripped my arm hard. “Get your hand off me,” I snarled, hearing a gasp from ahead.

  “Eric.” My mom was warning me, but there was no need. I knew exactly what I was doing.

  “I’m still your father, and you will respect me. You will not talk to me like that.”

  “Oh really?” I asked, ripping my arm from his grasp. “What are you going to do? Cut me off?” I laughed. “Oh, wait. You’ve already done that.” I looked to the sky, the sun just beginning to set. “You won’t pay for college? I couldn’t care less.” We met face to face, both of us the same height. “You always taught me to respect my elders, but you’ve ruined my respect for you, which means I will punch you right in the face if I learn you’ve mistreated her again. So, you go in there, and you hear what she has to say, and then you accept it.”

  “Eric, baby, calm down.” My mom’s voice was distant even though she was only a few yards away. Everything was distant except for the feeling of hot blood running through my veins. I couldn’t stop the words from coming out. “And how dare you keep fucking Madeline’s mom when you knew her daughter was keeping your secret. Do you even realize how much hurt you’ve caused? Not just with Mom, but with me and Madeline, too?”

  My father looked flabbergasted. He was stunned, as if I truly had punched him. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. I was ready to throw something else in his face, but then I felt two tiny hands land on my tight forearms. “Eric, come on.”

  I glanced down and saw Madeline staring up at me with her baby blues. She was worried. “Let’s just get out of here. Come on.”

  “No,” I said as she pulled me away. “I, at least, want him to admit it.”

  She shook her head lightly, rubbing her soft palm down my arm. “He knows the truth. He doesn’t need to admit it. Let’s just go, okay?”

  I glanced back at my father, who now had a pale face. He looked sick, but maybe I was the sick one because it made me happy to see him like that. To see him hurt. My mom shouted to Madeline. “Madeline, you drive. Okay?”

  Madeline nodded quickly, continuing to drag me away.

  “Call me when he leaves,” I managed to say to my mom. She gave me a gentle nod and blew me a kiss. I could tell she was worried, too. I could see it all over her face. But she didn’t need to worry about me. I may have been pissed, but I still meant every single word I’d said to my father.

  “Where do you want to go?” Madeline asked as we exited through our gated community. Her little fingers drummed on the steering wheel in a jittery manner, and she kept glancing at
me.

  “Cabin.” I stretched my fingers out on my jean-clad leg, curling and uncurling. The adrenaline was still running me high, and my skin was burning, likely hot to the touch.

  I glanced at Madeline’s now frozen fingers wrapped around the steering wheel tightly. “The cabin. Okay, yeah. I’ll take you there.”

  Why was she so wound up?

  “You okay?” I finally managed to ask, still staring at her tightened fingers.

  Her blonde hair caught a shine with the interior lights as she briefly caught my eye. “Me? I’m fine. The question is…are you okay?”

  I scoffed, relaxing back into the seat of her car. “I’m great. Never been better.”

  “Eric,” she sighed. “You almost punched your dad in the face. You’re not great.”

  The blinker switched on as Madeline climbed onto the highway. “He had it coming.”

  “Can’t argue there. Your mom is literally the nicest person I have ever met. Your father is a complete idiot to let her go.”

  I chuckled. “Why do you think he’s trying so hard to get her back?”

  A sad laugh left her, filling the small space. “Do you think she’ll take him back?”

  I clenched my jaw and cracked my neck, staring at the blurring lines out the window. “I fucking hope not. She deserves better.”

  “I agree.”

  Neither one of us said anything else as she continued to drive us to the cabin. Soft music played through the speakers, and it did nothing to calm either one of us. My hand was still aching to punch something, and Madeline was still wound tight. She kept sighing, her fingers flexing every few seconds on the steering wheel. “What’s wrong with you?” I finally asked.

  “Huh?” She spun toward me for a moment before going back to the road. “Me? Nothing.”

  “You’re nervous. Why are you nervous?”

  “I am not nervous.”

  A choppy laugh came from my throat. “Yes, you are. Why are you nervous? Are you afraid to be alone with me again? Afraid you won’t be able to keep up this little charade of yours?”