The Trouble With Bullies: A High School Bully Romance (A Meadow Creek High Book)

by Ruby Vincent

  “—I can’t imagine having to tell people that my daughter was the brain-dead gold-digger all of Meadow Creek used to talk about—”

  “Madison!” She flung her vile words like daggers, striking me where it hurt.

  “I bet she wishes she could throw you away too! Just like you did with Jun—”

  It happened so fast. One moment Madison was screaming in my face, the next my knuckles were smashing into her face. Blood spurted form her nose as her head snapped around. She spun like a top then crumpled to the floor.

  The lunchroom erupted into chaos—people cheering, laughing, shouting, taunting all at once.

  “Rachel!” I heard over the noise. Estelle, Christian, Ryan, Liam, and Jace rushed me. They grabbed me and pulled me back but I wasn’t planning on touching her again. I looked into her wide eyes in disbelief. I couldn’t believe I had hit her at all.

  “My nose!” She clapped her hand over it, trying to stem the bleeding. “My nose!”

  “What on earth is going on in here?!” All eyes flew to the double doors as Principal Davis stormed in. “Silence!”

  A hush fell on the room. Soon all you could hear were Madison’s piteous moans.

  Principal Davis broke through the crowd and his eyes fell on Madison lying at my feet and the pairs of hands holding me back. His beady eyes narrowed.

  “Miss Bryant, are you responsible for this?”

  Madison leveled a bloody finger at me. “She punc—”

  “No.” Christian stepped forward. “Rachel didn’t touch her. No one did. She slipped and fell on her face.”

  Madison gaped at him. “Christian!”

  “Yep,” Ryan agreed, joining Christian. “That’s what I saw.”

  “Definitely,” echoed Jace.

  “She fell,” said Liam.

  Then to my shock—and Madison’s—the rest of the students piped in.

  “Yep, she fell.”

  “Rachel didn’t touch her.”

  “No one got into a fight.”

  The anger drained from Davis’s sallow face, leaving him bemused. “I see. Well, then, get to the nurse, Miss Bernard.”

  “But they’re lying!” Madison scrambled to her feet. “She did this! She broke my nose!”

  “No, Madison’s lying.” Stacy pushed through to the principal. “She’s making it up to get Rachel in trouble, because she’s the one who put the scorpion in her locker.”

  His eyes popped. “Is this true, Miss Bernard?”

  “No! No, I—”

  He stepped back, his stern mask returning as he pointed toward the door. “I think we’d better have a talk in my office.”

  Madison took one look at him, the crowd who turned on her, then her band of cheerleaders. They shrank under her gaze, looking away rather than meet her eyes.

  Finally, she looked at me...

  ...and burst into tears.

  Madison fled the room. A few of the cheerleaders picked up their feet and ran after her, but Xenia wasn’t one of them. Her eyes found mine and I stepped back at the look in them, bumping into Estelle.

  A chill went up my spine until she spun away and ran after Madison.

  “That was intense,” Estelle murmured.

  I rubbed my sore hand. “Tell me about it.”

  “I hope that’s the last we have to deal with her and Madison.”

  “Me too.”

  SCHOOL WAS FINALLY over and students streamed past us heading for the double doors. Christian checked my locker again before letting me near it.

  “I’m taking you somewhere after school,” he said.

  “Dinner with Nicky?”

  “No. Just you and me.”

  I paused. “Just us?”

  “That’s right, Bryant, so hurry up.”

  I shook my head but picked up the pace anyway.

  We got in Christian’s car and drove out of campus. When he turned onto the road leading out of town, I knew where we were going.

  “The ravine?”

  He nodded. “I know you like that spot, and it’s private.”

  The buildings fell away and were replaced by dirt paths and thick woods. Christian parked on the side of the road and twisted around in his seat. He picked up the blanket. “Come on. Let’s find a spot.”

  I took him to our favorite oak tree and Christian spread the blanket on the shaded grass. We both lay flat down and looked up through the leaves.

  “Today was a lot,” I said, breaking the silence. “I almost feel bad for Madison.”

  “Why would you feel bad for her?”

  “Because,” I whispered, “I started all of this. None of this would have happened... if I wasn’t such a bully.”

  “That was freshman and sophomore year,” Christian said after a pause. “You’re not like that anymore.”

  “But I was awful to her—and to Xenia.” It all came pouring out. “I was determined to be popular in high school. Be the queen bee. Captain of the cheerleaders and dating the hottest guy in school. And I was willing to cut down everyone in my way. I was vicious. I found people’s weaknesses and pushed and pushed until they broke.

  “Madison was sweet back then. A kiss-up, but I liked her because I thought she was too timid to be a threat to me. She joined the cheer squad and we became friends. That was until Devin Belmont transferred into our school.”

  “Rachel, we don’t have to talk about this.”

  “No, it’s okay.” I shifted, turning on my side. “I want to. I’ve never had a chance to get it all out.”

  “Alright.” Christian turned so we were facing each other. “I’m listening.”

  I smiled, but there was a hint of sadness behind it. “I think everyone knows this part. All the girls in school wanted to be with Devin. He was rich, handsome, and already the most popular boy in school after a week. Everyone wanted him, but I was going to be the one who got him. I hung all over him but, in the end, he chose Madison.

  “They started going out and suddenly the whole school was talking about them and how lucky she was to have a cool boyfriend. I got jealous of the attention she was getting so I made the team turn on her and her best friend, Xenia. We were so mean. We made her run out of practice in tears like four times.

  “She tried to talk to me—ask me why I wasn’t her friend anymore, but I brushed her off. I had her and Xenia running scared until, in the middle of a game, fed up with me putting her down, she smacked me in front of the whole school.

  “Everyone laughed and that started the war between us. Back and forth we went trying to one-up each other in who could be the cruelest until I decided to take it a step farther and seduce her boyfriend.”

  My eyes drifted off Christian’s face, gazing unseeingly over his shoulder. “I lost my virginity in his parents’ basement while I was supposed to be in geometry class. Then I came back the next day and threw it in her face. Madison ran out of school and didn’t come back for a week, while I ended up on Devin’s arm. Everything was perfect again. Sophomore year ended and Devin and I were dating.”

  I sighed, squeezing my eyes shut. “Then I found out I was pregnant. Devin freaked out. I was a slut who slept with other girls’ boyfriends so there was no way the baby could be his. I told him the test would prove it, but never got the chance to take one as his parents moved him out of Meadow Creek and blocked my number.”

  My eyes snapped open when I felt a hand settle over mine. I smiled as he laced our fingers together.

  “So there I was,” I continued. “Pregnant and my baby’s father gone. My friends all turned on me. They backed up Madison and kicked me off the throne of popularity I had done so much to get. The rest of the school didn’t miss a chance to kick me the rest of the way.”

  I let out a soft breath. “The trouble with bullies is... they always get what’s coming to them.”

  Christian pressed a kiss to my palm. “You think you deserved all of that?”

  “I did. I deserved it for what I did to Madison—and not just her. I bullied peo
ple for the stupidest reason imaginable, and it’s no wonder karma caught up to me. I only wish I hadn’t affected my family.

  “After they found out, my dad started working late hours and taking shifts to avoid coming home. He couldn’t deal. My mom was a mess over problems with Dad, losing her job, and now her daughter getting knocked up. They both made it clear to me that adoption was my only option. They wouldn’t help me raise my son.”

  “Did you want to raise him?”

  I stiffened.

  “I’m sorry,” Christian said when my silence stretched too long. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

  “No, it’s not that. It’s just... you’re the first person to ask me what I wanted.”

  Christian pushed the hair back from my face and stroked my cheek. “What did you want, Rachel?”

  Tears filled my eyes. “I wanted to keep him,” I said as wetness rolled down my cheeks and spilled onto the blanket. “But more than that I wanted him to have the life he deserved. I knew I couldn’t give that to him.”

  “If I haven’t told you this before, I respect the hell out of you, Rachel.”

  I laughed as I wiped my face. “Yeah, and I’m just as surprised to hear that as I was the first time.” I dropped my hand and looked Christian in the eyes. “These last few years, you haven’t acted like you respect me. What happened, Christian? Why did you go from my best friend to my bully out of nowhere?”

  Christian released my hand. He rolled onto his back, looking away from me.

  “Christian, talk to me.”

  When he did speak, the words came slow. “Rachel, I didn’t want to stop being friends with you. I didn’t have a choice.”

  “I did?” I pushed myself up. “But you left.”

  “No.” His amber eyes were dark. “You did.”

  “Christian, you went away after Miss Ruth got hurt. Then you came back and you had changed.”

  “No, I came back and you had changed.” Christian shot up and faced me. “You think I didn’t know you were obsessed with that popular bullshit. Freshman year you blew me off all the time to hang out with the cheerleaders and sit at their table. We were barely friends, Rachel, but you were wrapped up in yourself to notice.”

  I opened my mouth but no sound came out. Was that true? It couldn’t be.

  “We still hung out,” I blurted, finding my voice. “I know we did. We—”

  “We didn’t.” He tossed his head. “Not really. Not like before. You pushed me aside for your new friends, and when I left, I knew things had changed between us. I just didn’t know how much until I came back.”

  “When you came back?” I whispered. “What does that mean?”

  Christian’s eyes swept over my face. “You really don’t know, do you?”

  “No,” I cried. “I have no idea what I did that was so awful that you spent the next two years either freezing me out or putting me down—making sure I felt more like shit than I already did.”

  Christian blurred through the tears and I roughly wiped them away. This wasn’t the time to cry. What I needed was the truth.

  He was silent while I got myself under control. I took a deep breath. “Tell me, I’m listening.”

  “I had just moved back. We had that stupid orientation the weekend before school started,” Christian began. “Parents had to come so Miss Ruth came with me. I got the looks I always got when we went anywhere together. ‘How can she be related to him?’ On the way to the auditorium, we ran into you and your friends.”

  “Oh, no...” Christian’s words were beginning to fill in the blanks. I remembered that night. I remembered ditching my parents to hang out with the girls from the varsity squad. I was showing off to them all night.

  “I said hi,” he went on, “and you did too like you were really happy to see me. You hugged me and I thought we were good again. Miss Ruth and I went inside and left you there. A little while later, I came back out to use the bathroom and you were still there with your friends.”

  I groaned—a deep, pitiful sound as it all came back to me.

  “Rachel, who’s your friend?” asked Megan. She flipped her hand over her shoulder in one perfectly executed move. “He’s hot.”

  “That’s Christian.” I copied her stance. “And yeah, he totally is.”

  “Who’s that Black woman with him?”

  “That’s his foster mom,” I said easily. “Miss Ruth.”

  Megan’s smile melted off her face. “Are you for real? Foster son?”

  “Yes...” I looked from her to the other girls. “What’s wrong?”

  Another girl from the varsity team piped up. “Aren’t foster kids like super messed up?”

  Megan nodded. “Yeah, they’ve all been like beaten and locked in closets and fed garbage for breakfast so they’re really screwed up.”

  I reeled back. “What?”

  Megan was on a roll. “There was one in our class freshman year. The kid never talked to anyone and stank like shit. They had to pull him out of school because he told a teacher he was going to bring a gun to class. Crazy.”

  Her crew murmured in agreement, backing her up.

  Megan’s eyes narrowed on me. “You’re not really friends with that kid, are you, Rachel? ’Cause I’m not interested in hanging out with you and your psycho boyfriend.”

  “He’s not my friend!” I blurted. “We don’t hang out. I haven’t even seen the guy for months.”

  Her lips were still curled. “But you were friends, or why were you hugging him.”

  I saw my chances of getting tight with the varsity squad going up in flames. I had to do something.

  “We were friends in middle school, but I dumped him a while ago. He got super weird like you said. Listening to creepy music and talking about the people he wanted to hurt and how he would do it.” My mouth burned with every vile word that hung my lips. “One day, Christian told me he found a cat behind his house and killed it.”

  The girls gasped. “Oh my god,” Megan cried.

  I nodded, putting on a grave expression. “That’s when I told him we couldn’t be friends anymore. I stay away from him, but my parents and his foster mom are still friends so I have to pretend I like him when they’re around.”

  Megan looked horrified. “But that dude is a total psycho! Listen, just stick with us, Rachel, and we’ll make sure he doesn’t mess with you.”

  I smiled, desperately hoping the twisting nausea in my stomach didn’t make it look like a grimace.

  I clutched my stomach as the twisting nausea returned. “Oh my god, Christian! I never meant for—”

  “Me to hear you,” he finished. “I figured that. Did you also not mean for your friends to spread through the school that I was a knife-toting, cat-killing sociopath?”

  “No!”

  “But they did. They told the juniors and seniors and some of them thought it would be a good idea to get in my face. Derek Chang told them it wasn’t.”

  The wind picked up and danced around us, playing with Christian’s raven-black hair. It flicked into his eyes, obscuring just for a moment his piercing gaze. I could picture him there all those years ago, standing there listening to his best friend spout all those disgusting lies.

  I shivered. “So that’s why... you and me...”

  “I wanted to hurt you, Rachel.” Christian said this so matter-of-factly. No emotion reflected on his sculpted face as the wind carried those words back to me. “I wanted you to hurt worse than Chang. Worse than all the others because eventually their pain would stop... and that’s not what I had planned for you.”

  Christian tangled his fingers in my curls. He gave it a gentle tug, drawing me closer. “I wanted you broken, bleeding, torn apart.” His breath ghosted over my lips and they parted, drinking him in.

  “And what do you want now?” I whispered.

  “Now.” Christian freed his fingers and lightly brushed them against my cheek. “Now, I just want you.”

  I laughed as my heart galloped out of my chest. I
felt weak, fluttery, and the hand that gripped Christian’s collar shook. “We’re really screwed up, aren’t we?”

  Christian chuckled. “I told you, Rachel. There is no limit—not with us.”

  I pulled him down just as his hand wrapped around my neck and drew me closer. Our lips collided in a kiss that was all fire and heat. No playful nips. No feeling each other out.

  Christian took hold of me and pulled me onto his lap. I straddled him, wrapping my legs around his waist, and swallowed his moan as I moved against his growing arousal. In one fevered breath, I was flipped over and looking into the sky as Christian kissed a burning trail along my jaw.

  None of this made sense. We had done so much to hurt each other. But here under this tree with Christian felt so right. Like this was where we were always going to end up.

  Like this was the only end to the game.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Mom?”

  Christian stepped inside and I closed the door after him. A peek into the living room didn’t reveal my mother.

  “Mom?”

  We moved into the dining room and through the doorway I saw two wrapped plates of food. “She only does that when she’s going to miss dinner. But why didn’t she tell...”

  I took out my phone and across the screen read three missed calls from Mom. Heat flooded my cheek as I remembered why I didn’t hear her calls. Intense make-out sessions in the ravine can make a girl scattered.

  I hit play on her voicemail and turned on the speaker so Christian could hear.

  “Rachel, call me when you get this. Your father and I booked ourselves into a hotel for the night. After you left for school this morning, we had an open and frank discussion—”

  Argument, I translated.

  “—about our feelings. It was a difficult conversation to have but we got a lot out and were raw and vulnerable for the first time in a while. It was very healing for us and ignited our desire—”

  My eyes popped. Oh no.

  “—to explore that intimacy. So we got a hotel to—”

  “I don’t need to know what you’re going to do!” I slammed my finger down on the end button.