School, Sex and Secrets (School, Sex and Secrets #1)

by Sheila Michelle

  “Did she say anything about the can to you?” I asked.

  “Yeah, she did. And it’s obvious that she was thinking like the way you were thinking about having it tested for DNA because she said that she did try to hit you with a soda can, but said that if you thought that you were gonna be slick by having it tested for DNA then they weren’t gonna find anything on it because it was a new soda can that she opened and poured the soda out of it because she only drinks diet soda, and that she was wearing gloves when she did,” Natalie informed us.

  I shook my head. “Wow. Well, she’s right. I had the can tested and that’s exactly what the detective told me who handled my case. She was a step ahead of me and I didn’t even know it, but I guess she didn’t know that a full, unopened can of soda thrown at me would’ve hurt a hell of a lot more had it actually hit me than one that was empty.”

  Ava and Natalie laughed as they nodded in agreement.

  “Wow, she really didn’t want Vanessa to have Brad, huh?” Ava said.

  “To say the least,” Natalie said.

  “Well, I never suspected her since the car that she was in was obviously not hers,” I said. I didn’t wanna say that I suspected John, too, because Natalie didn’t know that I had broken off a secret relationship with him to stay in one with Brad, and since that was over and done with, there was no need to tell her.

  Natalie nodded. “Yeah, it was her. She told me that she was driving her cousin’s car. She told me that she had just dropped off her cousin at the mall so she could do some shopping. She knew that you got off at around seven-thirty so she waited in the lot until she saw you since she knew you worked at one of the stores in the mall. She said that it was perfect that you were all alone because she told me that Ava was usually with you. She said that she just wanted to try and hurt you — cripple you — where Brad wouldn’t wanna be with you anymore if you were handicapped for life.”

  Ava gasped as I stood in shock!

  “Damn. I guess I was right about my instincts about her all along. This is crazy because I wasn’t even Brad’s girlfriend yet! She obviously knew about us because of that video that was sent to her,” I said.

  Natalie nodded. “Yeah, she did. She was just livid about it. She told me that she was gonna ‘take care of a problem before it gets out of control.’ I asked what was the problem; she wouldn’t tell me, but went on to say that she knew that this was gonna start happening and she had to stop it before it went any further. She obviously meant that the problem was you, and that she wanted to stop you and Brad from secretly seeing each other before it got serious — well, everyone knows that she failed at that.”

  “That’s an understatement!” Ava said.

  Natalie nodded in response to Ava. She looked at me. “Well, Vanessa, please don’t tell Brad that it was her who tried to run you down.”

  “Why not? I think he has the right to know. Sorry, Natalie, but I’m letting him know. Lisa can go to fuckin’ hell; I see that bitch in a totally different light now. I mean, she tried to run me down, and I’m sorry, but I don’t think she just wanted to hurt me because she was going too fast for that. I should call Detective O’Neil right now and tell him what you told me!” I said with full-fledged anger because I was damn serious.

  “Please don’t, Vanessa, I’m begging you,” Natalie said in a serious tone.

  Ava looked at me.

  I could see it all over Natalie that she really didn’t want me to tell the cops that Lisa was the one who tried to run me down that night. I didn’t want Lisa to hurt Natalie over what she’d told me because at this point, that bitch was capable of doing anything, and especially now that I was Brad’s girlfriend. I let out a long sigh. “That was attempted murder, Natalie. I felt that the person who did that to me was attempting to try and kill me had they succeeded at running me down, and now I find out that it was Lisa? But since she didn’t hit me then I won’t tell O’Neil that it was her, but I will say that if she has such a problem with Brad and me being officially together now then she needs to be a woman about it and discuss it with me face-to-face instead of resorting to trying to ‘take care of the problem.’ I mean, that happened when I was seeing him in secret, and now I’m scared to think what she might do now that I’m his girlfriend!” I angrily said.

  “Exactly!” Ava said.

  “I agree with you a hundred percent, Vanessa. She’s hating bad on you and Brad. Lisa is sneaky; always has been,” Natalie said.

  I continued to shake my head in a somewhat surprising disbelief. “She seemed so cool with me being with Brad. When we had that talk out in the parking lot that night her and Brad broke up, she told me that if he asked me to be his girlfriend that I could say yes and that’s just what I did, but she’s obviously against me and has been ever since she found out that I was seeing Brad in secret.”

  “She has always been against you, Vanessa. You were her number-one threat when it came to Brad — her worst nightmare. She really didn’t care about any other girl being able to get Brad like the way she cared about you getting him because she knew that if there was one girl that was gonna be able to take him from her, it was you. Lisa thought she was always gonna be with him; I don’t care what she says. Reality hit her hard when she heard rumors about Brad’s interest in you for so many years, and then John sending her that video of you and Brad dancing together at Sparkle, and then the cherry on the top when she was sent the video of the two of you kissing out there in the student parking lot. She knew that she was losing him to you.”

  Ava and I looked at each other. I couldn’t believe that Natalie was telling us all of this, but I was very happy that she was!

  “I really think Lisa started to freak out when she realized that night at the coffee shop that Brad was gonna end things with her, that’s why she took the initiative in mutually ending their relationship. She wanted you to think she had nothing against you, Vanessa, that’s why she wanted to talk to you that night,” Natalie explained.

  I sighed as I shook my head again. “Wow, she just seemed so forgiving of me being with Brad secretly, but it’s obvious now that she didn’t mean any of it.”

  “Like I said before, Vanessa, she’s very sneaky. That’s what she wanted you to believe. The minute I got into that car that night and she drove off, she called you every kind of slut, whore, and bitch that she could think of; I think she even made up some words,” Natalie said with a grin.

  “She’s got a lot of fuckin’ nerve on her, especially since she was no angel in her relationship with Brad!” Ava said.

  “Exactly!” Natalie said with a grin.

  I nodded. “Well, I’m glad you told me all of this, Natalie. The only way I was gonna find out was from someone like you since you’re one of her best friends besides Marie, so thanks.”

  Natalie nodded. “No problem, Vanessa . . . but there’s more I need to tell you.”

  Ava and I looked at each other in shock!

  “Oh, shit! What else?!” I asked.

  The bell rang!

  “I’ll tell you later,” Natalie said, and then walked away as she got on her beautifully embellished initialed-crystal phone with multicolored flowers on it.

  Ava and I walked off in the opposite direction to class.

  I sighed deeply. “I’m telling Brad everything Natalie told us. I’ll fix the bitch for this!”

  “Hell yeah, Vanessa! He should know what kind of a bitch he was really with for all of these years and how he should’ve been with you.”

  “You got that right! If she wants to play fuckin’ rough then I can play like that, but she’s not getting Brad back!”

  “That’s right, Vanessa!”

  “And I can’t wait to tell him that it was her who tried to run me down that night. I still can’t believe it, but I do.”

  She nodded with a smile. “Let me know how it goes.”

  “I will,” I replied. “I also wanna know what more Natalie had to tell me about Lisa, and I thought that her trying to run me
down was bad enough.”

  “Now that’s what I really wanna know, too!”

  Suddenly, I thought about something else that’d happened that night! “Oh, shit, Ava! I forgot to ask Natalie something else!”

  “What was it?”

  “The rose! Remember I told you I got another rose that night that Lisa tried to run me down? That it was sitting in my car vase just like the first one when we left Sparkle? Now it’s obvious that it probably was her who put it in my car, pretending to be John!”

  She looked at me. “But how would she know about John giving you a single rose? Unless he told her that he used to give you one.”

  “Very true,” I said. I sighed. “And that’s not likely, now when I think about it. I think John only told Brad that he was in a secret relationship with me, unless Lisa found out from Brad somehow.”

  “It’s possible. But I can’t wait to hear what more Natalie has to tell you. Hopefully, she’ll text you soon.”

  “I hope so, too, because she’s got my curiosity really piqued!”

  Minutes later, I walked to class as I thought about this. I knew that there was always something up with Lisa, and what Natalie told me confirmed it. None of her smiles were genuine when she found out that I was seeing Brad in secret, and now I just didn’t find her to be a genuine person at all. I don’t blame her for having been upset about me secretly seeing her boyfriend because that was normal, but what wasn’t normal was her trying to run me down with a car over it before I even became his girlfriend, so I knew that she wasn’t sincere when she told me that night out in the parking lot that she wasn’t gonna be mad if I said yes if Brad asked me to be his girlfriend. This had me fearing for my safety now because if she tried to do what she did to me when I was seeing Brad in secret, it had me wondering what she’ll do to me now that I’m his girlfriend, and she wasn’t the only one that I felt this way about . . . I felt this way about John as well.

  CHAPTER 20

  I rolled my eyes as Brad fucked me from behind on his bed after school. I really didn’t feel like having sex, but I decided to do it anyway since he said he had a very stressful day, but he had no idea just how stressful it was about to get.

  He let out a loud sound as he obviously relieved some of his stress, and then pulled out of me.

  I turned back over and laid on his bed while he got out of it to throw the condom away in the toilet in his bathroom, and all the while I thought about how I was gonna tell him about what Natalie had told me earlier at school.

  He came out of the bathroom and smiled at me as he got back in bed. He slowly moved his left hand in between my legs.

  I slowly pushed his hand away. “Not now, Brad, okay?”

  He looked at me as if he was shocked that I did this. “What’s wrong, baby?”

  I looked at him and then looked away as I tried to figure out how I wanted to say what I wanted to say.

  “Well, okay. If you don’t wanna talk then do you wanna gimme some head?” he asked with a grin.

  I sighed. “Brad, I really don’t wanna suck your dick right now, okay? Don’t take it the wrong way.”

  He nodded with a grin. He then turned towards me. “Okay, I won’t. There’s obviously something wrong, so what is it?”

  I sighed again. “Brad, before I tell you this, I want you to know that what I have to tell you came from a reliable source.”

  He looked at me. “What?! What the hell is going on, Vanessa? Just say what you have to say, baby.”

  I let out a deep sigh. “Brad, Lisa is the one who tried to run me down that night in the mall parking lot,” I informed him.

  “WHAT?!” he shouted as he jumped up.

  We were both sitting up in bed now.

  “How do you know? Who told you?”

  “Natalie,” I said. “And I believe every word that she said to me, Brad. You know that she’s one of Lisa’s best friends so she wouldn’t lie about this.”

  He nodded as he sighed. “I know she wouldn’t. So, what did she tell you?”

  “She just told me that it was Lisa who tried to run me over that night after she had dropped off her cousin who was shopping there. She told me that Lisa told her that she waited in the parking lot until I got off of work, which was at seven-fifteen, but I didn’t leave out the mall until seven-thirty. She was driving her cousin’s car, obviously, because we both know that her car is white with no tinted windows, and the one she was in was dark in color with tinted windows.”

  He shook his head in disgust. “Damn. I’m so sorry, Vanessa. Had I found out sooner that it was her and she admitted to me that it was, then I would’ve broken up with her on the spot. I knew she was the jealous type and wanted to try her best to hold on to me, but shit, I didn’t think she would try to kill you to do it.”

  “Well, Natalie said that she said she wasn’t gonna try and kill me, she just wanted to hurt me; make me cripple for life where you wouldn’t want me anymore.”

  “That would’ve been bullshit, Vanessa. Now that you’re really my girlfriend, I hope you don’t believe that shit,” he said with anger.

  I smiled as I could tell that he was really mad. “No, I don’t believe it, Brad.”

  We held hands.

  “I’m gonna talk to Lisa about this, but I’m gonna try and do it as calm as I can,” he informed me.

  I looked at him. “Brad, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “And why not? She tried to run you down! I want the bitch to know that I know that it was her!”

  “Well, I told Natalie that I was gonna tell you, but if you confront Lisa about it, then Lisa is gonna cuss Natalie out since Natalie told me and Ava that Lisa only told her that she did it; she didn’t even tell Marie because she thought that Marie would eventually tell me.”

  He sighed. “Well, like I said, I want her to know that I know that she did it, and that you know that she did it, too. Don’t you think we had a right to know?”

  “Of course.”

  He sighed again. “So, the tea — as you and Ava say — has been spilled about Lisa. I have to admit that I didn’t think that she would go that far and do something like that; I honestly thought it was someone else.”

  “So did I. I thought that she was a genuinely nice person . . . until she found out that I was secretly seeing you. Natalie told me that I was her number-one threat when it came to getting you, so I shouldn’t be that surprised that she tried to get rid of me before we became an official couple.”

  “You were, but she didn’t have to go that far in trying get rid of her number-one threat.”

  “I agree. But now I feel that she’s gonna continue to be a threat to me now since we’re officially together. I feel that way about John, too.”

  “Don’t worry, baby. Neither one of them are gonna try and do anything to you, me, or us — I dare them.”

  I nodded with a slight smile . . . but I still wasn’t sure.

  “So now I know why no DNA was found on that soda can that she threw out at you. She wouldn’t put her mouth on a can that’s not diet since I know that she only drinks diet soda. She was probably wearing gloves so she wouldn’t get any fingerprints on the can.”

  “Natalie said that she was; Lisa told her. And she was one step ahead of me because she even told Natalie that she probably knew that I would collect it for testing, which I did.”

  “Yeah, well, she wasn’t that slick; she couldn’t keep her fuckin’ mouth shut about it. I’m really fuckin’ mad that the bitch tried to do this to you!” he said. He groaned and then jumped up and grabbed his phone.

  “Who are you calling?” I asked.

  “Who do you think? Lisa!” he said angrily. “I want her to admit to me that she tried to run you down!”

  “Brad, no, don’t, okay?” I pleaded with him.

  He looked at me, and then put his phone down. “Why don’t you want me to call her, Vanessa?”

  “Because of Natalie — but I told her that I was gonna tell you, though. I just d
on’t wanna cause any more drama. Trust me, I wanna beat the fuckin’ shit out of Lisa, but I told myself I have to be more woman than she obviously is. Natalie told me that Lisa has always been against me, and especially against the two of us being together, Brad — should that really surprise you?”

  He looked at me and shook his head. “No, it doesn’t.”

  “Brad, we have to be the better people here. Lisa is your ex, and yes, in lots of ways it surprised me when Natalie told me that she was the one who tried to run me down, but then again it didn’t surprise me. Lisa is acting as if I stole you from her, that I’m the biggest immoral bitch in the world or something, and that I deserve to have all of these bad things happen to me.”

  “Well, Vanessa, you know what you are and you know what you’re not. I personally think you’re a strong person to put up with all the talk that people have done about the two of us being together. Trust me, I know that people are talking about me, too, they’re just not doing it out in the open as much.”

  “Yeah, and that’s just it. People are making it like I’m the immoral bitch and you’re the principle of morality, like it’s a double standard or something.”

  He slightly grinned. “I’m sorry, Vanessa. I know that’s the way it seems, but we’re together and will be for a very long time. Everyone has done things that are immoral or what some would consider immoral, and anyone who says they haven’t can eat shit.”

  I laughed. “You can say that again!”

  “They can eat shit!” he said with a laugh.

  We laughed as we held each other.

  “You know, there’s something that I also can’t get off my mind,” I said.

  He looked at me. “What is it?”

  “Natalie told me that there was more that she had to tell me, but the bell rung for first period before she got to tell me. She told me that she would tell me later and I thought that she was going to and was waiting for her to all day, but she never told me what she wanted to tell me, and I didn’t wanna bug her about it.”

  “Did it have to do with Lisa?”