One Eighty (Westover Prep Book 1)

by James, Marie

  “And how did Raymond respond to that?” I ask with a wide smile on my face.

  “Dad forgot that he grounded him from the video games.”

  We both laugh loudly at the kid’s antics.

  “He’s going far in this world,” I tell her just as I place the first piece of buttered bread in the skillet.

  “Let’s just hope he doesn’t end up like Dalton,” Peyton says as she peels a slice of cheese from the stack and hands it to me.

  “Do you think he’s different? Does he seem different to you?”

  She takes a long moment to respond, and I keep my head down, watching the bread heat. I shouldn’t have asked. I shouldn’t doubt how much I hate him. It doesn’t change anything. There are some things that are too terrible to come back from.

  “He is,” she finally says. “He hasn’t insulted me once. He’s been taking time to play games with Preston. He even complimented Mom’s shitty dinner the other night. Before the accident, he wouldn’t have even been around to eat with us.”

  “But?” I ask because it feels like she’s leaving something out.

  “But look outside. He doesn’t remember, yet all those jerks are still here. I can only hope that the way he was before wasn’t actually who he is. You know? I have my fingers crossed that the jerk that used to live here stays gone forever. I kind of like who he is now.”

  I kind of do, too.

  I don’t speak that out loud, however.

  “Well, if it isn’t Bloody Mary.”

  I freeze at the sound of Vaughn’s voice, and Peyton grows tense beside me as well.

  The playful atmosphere that welcomed us when we were talking about Preston’s ability to redirect people is sucked out of the room in an instant.

  “Oh, Vaughn,” Bronwyn coos, “I’m so happy you think I’m pretty.”

  The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end as she repeats verbatim one of the messages I sent to Vaughn earlier this year. I know it was all a joke, a way to get me to that party so they could humiliate me, but the sting had worn off a little. Getting into a major accident and thinking I killed someone had a way of making the other things that happened that night a little less important.

  I should’ve gone home the second Peyton told me Dalton had friends over. I’m a fool for still being here.

  “Oh, Piper, you’re the prettiest girl in school, and every guy knows it,” Vaughn adds.

  What he doesn’t know is that was one of the lines I had on replay in my head. It was the first time I let myself consider that he was full of it, but my teenage heart wanted so badly to be liked by someone that I ignored that feeling in my gut warning me away from him.

  “What are we discussing?”

  As if things couldn’t get any worse, Kyle chooses now to join us in the kitchen.

  “Oh, hey, Bloody Mary. Are you making us lunch? I like wheat bread.”

  If I didn’t know any better, the tone in his voice could easily be misconstrued as friendly. Kyle Turner has never been friendly to me a day in his life.

  “You people are supposed to be outside. My mom and dad don’t want anyone in the house,” Peyton tells them.

  “Grown-ups are talking, little Dalton,” Bronwyn snaps. “Best keep your nose out of our business unless you want a four-year dose of what Mary has gotten.”

  I understand the threat immediately. They will easily treat Peyton the same way they’ve treated me, and I don’t wish that on anyone.

  “It’s fine,” I tell Peyton.

  My back is still to the jerks as I finish Preston’s sandwich. When I turn off the stove, I let myself imagine slapping Bronwyn in the face with the hot skillet, but violence doesn’t seem like the answer. She’d only be viler if I hurt her.

  “Why are you even here?” Vaughn asks, and I can tell he’s moved closer to me. “Are you trying to weasel your way into Dalton’s life? He may have forgotten who you are, but none of us have.”

  Bronwyn and Kyle both express their agreements with a series of grunts.

  “Are you so desperate for his attention that you come over and make him lunch?” Bronwyn adds.

  “Say something,” Peyton urges from my side. “They only do it because you don’t stand up for yourself.”

  I want to tell her how wrong she is, but she doesn’t know about the time I shoved Bronwyn into the lockers in second grade when she pulled my hair while in line waiting for the bathroom. Even seven-year-old Bronwyn was a spiteful little girl. She retaliated that time by cutting off my ponytail at a sleepover we both attended later that month. I was in tears when my mom showed up to get me, but even then, I didn’t tell her what had really happened. I’ve spent my entire life hiding the truth and my pain from my parents.

  “That’s it,” Bronwyn snaps. “You just put yourself on the list, little Dalton. I hope you’re happy right now because once school starts, you’ll wish you never defended her.”

  I see red. They’ve been picking on me for years, but threatening Peyton is going too far. None of them seem surprised when I spin around to face them. Angry tears are already rushing down my cheeks, and I hate that I cry when I get mad. I’m usually able to save the tears for home, but today it’s just all too much.

  “You’ll leave her alone,” I hiss.

  “You won’t have any friends,” Bronwyn continues as if I’m not standing here with steam erupting from my ears. “Even the girls you hang out with now will turn on you for a chance to be in our crowd. You won’t have any more true friends.”

  “True friends?” I snap. “Is that what you consider you assholes?”

  I point at each of the three tormentors standing in front of me. I focus on Kyle.

  “Were you Dalton’s true friend when you slept with his girlfriend at that party?” Kyle sneers in my direction, the ugly snarl only worsening the evil look in his eyes. I ignore it. “And you, Bronwyn. Does being a true friend mean that it’s okay to spend your time performing oral on one guy while the other has sex with you?”

  Peyton gasps.

  “Oral?” Bronwyn says with a chuckle. “Sex with me?”

  “It’s like she’s eleven or something,” Vaughn says. “Good thing you told me not to try to sext with her. She would’ve known something was up then.”

  “First off,” Bronwyn hitches her thumb to indicate Vaughn, “I was sucking his dick while this one fucked me—hard.”

  Bile fills my throat at her words, the memories of that night coming back in full color, but what irritates me most of all is her talking about this stuff in front of Peyton. Not only is she young, but Dalton is her brother. Some things just shouldn’t be shared with a sibling, but I guess I’m the one who brought it up, so this is just another mistake I can own.

  “Why don’t you fill me in on what happened at the party?”

  Bronwyn, Vaughn, and Kyle spin around so fast to face Dalton, I’m surprised that they don’t fall over.

  Standing in the doorway of the kitchen with his arms crossed over his shirtless chest, he doesn’t look very impressed with what he just walked in on.

  Chapter 15

  Dalton

  “What. About. The. Party?” I repeat when my so-called friends turn around to look at me.

  Shock fills their faces at the sight of me, and I can tell that all of them are worried about what I might’ve overheard before I made my presence known. I heard enough that I’m annoyed that I didn’t cancel this damn pool party like I wanted to a million times this week.

  “Oh, that’s right,” Piper says, and even when she’s being mean to me, I’ve never heard her sound as spiteful and vindictive as she does right now. It’s possible she hates these three people more than she hates me, and that’s saying a lot because the girl can barely stand the sight of me. “You don’t remember. Let me tell you exactly what happened at the party.”

  “Don’t,” Bronwyn hisses, and I can tell she isn’t the nice girl that’s spent most of the day trying to convince me that she’s my girlfriend.


  Bronwyn was shy when she first showed up today. She kept her distance with a couple of other girls she arrived with, but as the day passed, she got braver. I found it odd that she hasn’t called or stopped by if she was my girlfriend, and it was even stranger that she didn’t speak to me when she first got here. There’s a reason she’s kept her distance, and I’m certain it has everything to do with what I just overheard.

  “Vaughn here,” Piper says, pointing to the boy I’ve barely tolerated since meeting him at the diner, “thought it would be funny to convince me that he liked me. He wanted me to show up at the party at Kyle’s that night to humiliate me.”

  My blood boils at the thought of Piper liking this piece of shit, but I’m also angry with myself for setting all of this in motion so many years ago.

  “When I showed up, he texted me to meet him upstairs.” My fists clench at my sides. “When I got up there, your girlfriend was in the middle of a three-way. Vaughn was enjoying her mouth while your best friend…”

  She pauses, darting her eyes in Peyton’s direction.

  “Apparently, Kyle was fucking her,” my sister says before Piper can think of a polite way to explain what happened.

  “Is that so?” I look at Kyle for confirmation.

  “You know how it is,” he begins. “All the JV guys have to pull a prank to get on the varsity team.”

  “Hmm,” I muse. “So, you and Bronwyn were just helping him out?”

  “Exactly,” Kyle says with a smile on his twisted lips.

  “And you thought I would be okay with that?”

  His eyes dart to Bronwyn, but it’s clear that they were both hoping I wouldn’t ever find out about that night.

  “Okay with it?” Bronwyn says with a throaty laugh. “You were in on it.”

  Peyton snorts in disbelief.

  “So, I helped you guys plan to set Piper up?”

  “Doing that to Mary was your idea,” Bronwyn answers.

  Piper stiffens across the room, but I can’t focus on her right now.

  “So, I wanted to do something so vile to Piper,” I emphasize her real name since Bronwyn insists on using the insulting one, “that I thought it was a good idea for you to suck Vaughn off while getting plowed by Kyle?”

  The three of them share a look before nodding at the same time. They’re full of it and must think I’m an idiot if they imagine I’d fall for this mess.

  “I should’ve told you sooner,” Piper says.

  “You need to leave,” I snap.

  Piper’s eyes widen as she looks at me, but she just nods and turns to walk around the group.

  “Not you, Piper,” I clarify before looking at the people standing in my kitchen. “Get out of my house and take all of those idiots in the pool with you.”

  Kyle opens his mouth like he’s going to say something, but he sees the look on my face, and his jaw snaps closed.

  “Now,” I spit.

  Piper walks away before Kyle, Vaughn, and Bronwyn move a muscle, and as much as I want to go after her, I want to make sure they don’t damage my parents’ property on their way out. I don’t know much about them, but they seem like the malicious type. Peyton follows her out of the room, and I’m glad that my sister will be there to comfort her until I can get to her.

  Bronwyn scuttles out of the kitchen first, followed closely by Vaughn.

  Three-ways and betrayal in Westover? What is this, an episode of Game of Thrones? I started the series yesterday when I was avoiding Piper, and even while I was watching it, I thought it was just a little too much drama for me. That show has nothing on this bunch of spoiled brats.

  Kyle stops beside me, and it takes all I have not to punch him in the face for what he’s done to Piper.

  “Is this part of your plan?” He smiles at me like we’re sharing some sort of inside joke. “Are you trying to get on her good side so you can score?”

  My jaw tenses.

  “I’m all for it, dude, but I think alienating your friends to get a piece of ass is taking things a little too far.”

  “Get. Out,” I spit again, seconds away from grabbing him by the hair and physically removing him from my house.

  “I’m your best friend, Dalton. Don’t let a little sex with Bronwyn ruin all of that.”

  Is this guy for real?

  I don’t know how I know what they said were lies, but somehow, I do. Surely, I wasn’t so bad that I would’ve been okay with my girlfriend sleeping with other guys, and if I was that guy, I’m just glad he’s gone.

  The thought of anyone touching Piper makes my skin crawl, and flashes of murder infiltrate my brain. Even if I didn’t really like Bronwyn all that much while we were together, I know deep down I wouldn’t have been okay with sharing her, if only for proprietary sake.

  “You need to leave before I hurt you.” He merely stands there and glares at me like I’m speaking a language he doesn’t understand. “Get the fuck out of my house. I don’t need people like you and them in my life.”

  “Us?” He doesn’t bother to hide the confusion in his tone. “You started all of this years ago. You called her Bloody Mary first when she got caught with blood on the back of her jeans in sixth grade. You put the spiders in her locker because you found out she was terrified of them. You convinced her to eat Reese’s in fourth grade, knowing she was deathly allergic to nuts. You were the reason she ended up hospitalized that day. All of that was you. We were just following your lead.”

  “I don’t remember any of that,” I seethe.

  “Doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Listen, man. I know you’re pissed right now, but eventually, you’ll get all of your memories back, and you’re going to regret alienating all of your friends.”

  “Why are you still here?”

  “Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” he huffs, but thankfully, he walks away.

  I stay in the kitchen for a few minutes before heading back out to the pool. The last couple of people are drying off, preparing to leave.

  “I think it’s great that you put them in their place,” a girl I hadn’t been introduced to says as she walks past me. “There may be hope for you yet. Westover will change if you make them.”

  I don’t respond to them, but her insinuation that people will still follow me no matter which direction I take things grates on my nerves. I don’t want to be their leader. I don’t want to be the one that influences what people think or how they react. I just want to be left alone, and everyone else needs to be their own person.

  Bronwyn doesn’t make eye contact with me when she grabs her bag and turns to leave. Vaughn also refuses to make eye contact, but at least he has the wherewithal to look ashamed of his role in what happened. I watch all the teens load up into a half dozen different vehicles, and it doesn’t even bother me when Kyle wraps his arm around Bronwyn’s shoulder as he leads her to his car. They can have each other for all I care. The only person that matters to me right now is inside my house.

  I lock the front door, but before I head upstairs, I grab the plate with Preston’s sandwich on it. Piper has been cooking for him all week, and I don’t want her hard work going to waste. I reheat the sandwich in the microwave and carry it up the stairs to my brother.

  “Thanks,” he says when I hand him the plate. “All of your friends gone?”

  “Those people are idiots,” I mumble.

  “I’m only ten, and I could’ve told you that.”

  Chapter 16

  Piper

  “I hate that I cried in front of them,” I confess through my sobs.

  Peyton wraps her arms tighter around me. I’m grateful that she’s here, grateful that she witnessed what happened in the kitchen and not Frankie. My best friend would’ve clawed their eyes out, and then she would’ve turned on me for not letting her know just how bad things had gotten with the kids at school.

  “I’m normally stronger than this.”

  “You’re the strongest girl I know,” Peyton whispers.

  I cry quietly for
a few more minutes.

  “Let me get you some tissues.” She’s off the bed, disappearing into her bathroom before coming back with a length of toilet paper.

  “He’s actually making them leave,” she says when she crosses the room and looks out her bedroom window.

  I watch her as she continues to look down at the people that have made my life miserable. Her brow is creased, and she looks like she wants to say something, but I’m sure my sobbing for the last couple of minutes is keeping her lips clamped shut.

  “Just say whatever it is that you’re thinking,” I urge.

  It’s been hard with Frankie gone, but Peyton has made it easier to deal with the bouts of loneliness.

  “What if he is different?” She turns to face me. “What if the guy who was mean to you for so long is gone?”

  I open my mouth to tell her it doesn’t matter but then close it so I can actually think about how that really makes me feel.

  “It doesn’t change anything.”

  “It’ll change the future,” she counters. “That’s something, right?”

  “I’m not saying I’m going to hate him for the rest of his life—”

  “But you won’t forgive him,” she interrupts.

  “I don’t think I can.”

  “I think you should. I think he’s genuinely sorry for how he’s treated you.”

  “I don’t think someone can authentically regret doing something that they don’t remember doing,” I argue.

  “But you think it’s right to continue to dislike him when he isn’t that guy anymore?”

  “I should’ve known you’d be on his side,” I complain.

  “I don’t know if you remember this, but Dalton hasn’t always been nice to me either.”

  “He didn’t torture you as he did me.”

  “Because I wouldn’t just roll over and let him do it.” Her jaw snaps shut.

  “Tell me how you really feel about me,” I snap. “I’m weak, a punching bag for every kid at Westover Prep. I deserve everything that has happened to me because I don’t stand up for myself.”

  “That’s not…” She sighs as she crosses the room to join me on the bed. “You’re not weak. You stood up for me in the kitchen, but when they were picking on you, you just stood there and took it. Why do you defend others and not yourself?”