"Oh, there is always a good reason when your father is a high ranking political figure and there are people willing to pay good money to an ex-girlfriend to create a scandal." Chad's lip twitches. "She used you."
"You used me." My voice is barely above a whisper. It annoys the hell out of me. "You knew what I was up to the entire time."
"Yes."
"And you went along with it."
"Yes."
"You..." Wait, no... "That morning on campus, you ran into me on accident, didn't you?"
Chad twitches and his gaze falls to the floor before immediately meeting mine again. It's all he has to say.
"Oh my God. You didn’t. You planned it all along."
"I didn't plan for you to get hurt."
Like that is supposed to make it better. "You lied to me from the beginning."
His nose flares and he stands straighter. “Wanted to make your job easier on you.”
My heart breaks in a million pieces, and I’m not sure why. Yes, I know why. I, somehow and without my consent, fell in love with Chad Harris. I had been willing to give him a part of myself I hadn’t even given anyone, and now I’m paying for it.
I hate my job.
“You have a lot of nerve acting hurt about this! You set me up! What did Dana want you to find anyway?”
“Drugs,” I whisper.
“What?”
“Drugs, okay? She wanted me to find evidence of you either doing drugs or selling drugs or paying a prostitute or something even if I had to make it up so she could use it against you.”
He takes a shaky step back like I've punched him in the gut. “And people pay you for this? To hurt men? To be a vile, disgusting person?”
When he puts it that way… “I never meant to hurt anyone who didn’t deserve it.”
“And you think I deserve it?”
The pain and anger in his words knock the wind out of me. If I could take it back, I would. Every bit of it. “I wasn’t sure.” It’s the honest truth. I wish I hadn’t said it.
He licks his lips, those same lips that wanted mine not five minutes ago. He nods his head a few times, a release of the anger he no doubt feels.
“Good to know where I stand with you.” He grabs what’s left of my camera and throws it in my bag. “I wanted to be wrong about you. I wanted to think that maybe you’d see the best in me and see that I’m not the person Dana says I am. I thought maybe…”
“You thought what? If everything you did was a lie, the coffee shop, the dinner date, then what did you want from me?” I grab my bag from him and hug it tightly against my chest. This can’t be how it ends. I chose him! After everything, I chose him and I’ve lost everything because of it.
He coolly walks to the door and opens it. After a second of gazing at the floor, his jaw flinches, and he looks me dead in the eye, “I wanted to see how far you’d go. I could have had you, and then you’d have been my first and only prostitute.”
A knife through the chest would have hurt less.
I’ve hurt people’s feelings before. It comes with the job. Someone is always mad at me. This is different. This is Chad. Chad who only a few minutes ago, I thought liked me. I thought I was playing him. Turns out, he’d been playing me all along.
I can tell this conversation is over. It is time for my walk of shame. He holds the door open for me, his eyes trained on the floor as I start to walk by him. Is there anything I can say to make this better? Do I want to make it better? “For what it’s worth, I had decided not to show that picture to anyone. I had decided to choose you over all the money Dana offered me.”
“I’m sure you did,” he seethes.
“It’s the truth.”
“How am I supposed to trust anything you say now?”
He can’t. I want to tell him everything. How I know it doesn’t make it any better, but Dana offered me five thousand dollars for damning evidence of him. How I need that money or I get thrown out of school. My father is laid off, I don’t... It all sounds so petty in my ears. Money at the expense of someone’s reputation, someone’s life. “I’m so sorry.” Tears don’t drip down my face, not yet. “I’m sorry I never got to know the real you. And I’m sorry you never got to know the real me. I’m just… I’m sorry about everything.”
I limp away only to hear the slam of the door behind me. I jump. Then the sobs come.
“It’s going to be okay.” Amy strokes my hair as I lay face down in the pillow. It’ll be ruined. I know it. Black mascara doesn’t come out of pillowcases easily.
I’m a moron. Plain and simple moron.
“I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you sooner,” I mumble. Amy found me like this when she came home from God knows where. She asked no questions, just sat beside me and ran her fingers through my hair. She’d seen me leave with Chad Harris, so she knew something was up. She hadn’t known about Once Bitten and all those men I hurt, though. I don’t know what she thinks about it. I know I feel pretty rotten. I didn’t even know when I was being played. How stupid am I?
A man does all the “right” things for me. Takes me to a sweet coffee shop, gives me sob stories, looks at me like he feels something for me, and I, what, open my legs for him? I manipulate him? Who is the one getting what she deserves now?
I cry harder.
I never cry.
But here it is, all coming out. My father’s job, tuition, school, finishing, the pressure to be the first in my family to get her degree, Chad, the money….
Dana will not be happy. I’ll never see that other five hundred. Hell, I'll have to give back the five hundred she paid me in advance. I didn’t earn it. Chad Harris got the best of me.
I blow my nose in the pillow, I’ll wash the sheets in a few minutes... or a few days after I quit wallowing in my grief.
“What hurts the most…” I raise my head so Amy can hear me. I’m sure Amy is glad about that. “…is that I chose him, Amy. In the end, I chose him over everything, over the money, over making my father happy, and it backfired. I mean, why would I do that? That isn’t like me. I’ve never been in love, never liked a guy that much, and here I was willing to go all the way with him, to give up everything for him, and I have no idea why. What happened to me?”
“Hormones happened to you.” She smiles sympathetically. It doesn’t make me feel better. “I’m serious, Nancy. Love is scary, and it doesn’t make any sense. But it can make you act totally out of character, look at me and Johnny Slade.”
“Whatever happened with him?”
She smiles and shows me the hickey on her neck. “Love.”
I didn’t sleep much last night. I was too busy feeling sorry for myself and studying. The last two days, I haven’t studied much and I’ll lose my scholarship if I don’t make better grades. I can’t control Dana or the money. I can control my grades and how much I apply myself.
Added bonus, it distracts me from how miserable I am.
At around ten, my phone rings. Amy is already at class so I answer it.
“Once Bitten?”
It’s Dana. I flop my head on the pillow. Great. Just great. “Hi, Dana. How are you?”
“I’ll be better if you tell me you got my evidence.”
This should be fun. “I don’t. There was no evidence to find.”
Silence. I imagine smoke erupting from her ears. “Did you not go to the bathroom?”
“I did.”
“Did you not see the locked drawer?”
“I saw that too.” Accidently took a picture of it too, but you’ll never know that.
“And you didn’t think it might be important, or at the very least something the tabloids could have a field day with?” Her voice is getting so high, I swear a dog’s ears is going to erupt.
“Not really.”
“Ha,” she scoffs. “He got to you, didn’t he?”
“He didn’t.” He totally did.
“I warned you! I told you to watch yourself around him because he has this like magic about him that dr
aws everyone in.”
“I doubt that.”
“Really? Really! I bet you turned to mush around him, didn’t you? Bet he made you feel special. Probably took you to his house last night and cooked for you, right?”
I don’t want her to be right about this. I don’t think my heart can take it.
“Oh my God. He did! And you fell for it! I thought you were the best at what you do. I thought you wanted the five thousand dollars I offered you, but you sure backed the wrong horse. Cause here you are, with nothing to show for it, and darlin’, I can already guarantee you that he’s already forgotten about you.”
A tear slips down my cheek. The thought had crossed my mind. “Don’t worry. I’m going to get my revenge. Too bad for you, you’ll be the prime star.”
The phone clicks and I sit with it on my ear for a few minutes to try to comprehend what in the world she’s talking about.
Two days later, I find out.
There are pictures of me everywhere, on Inside Edition and Entertainment Weekly. I’m outside the limo, standing at Chad’s penthouse. It is the night before things went to hell, and he’s kissing me.
The rustling we heard in the bushes was a photographer. He captured everything. The headline? Once Bitten, Twice Shy.
Dana outed me as the underground “Once Bitten.” She gave an exclusive to People Magazine, saying how she was the victim and how I’d deceived her. How I took her money and ran. The tabloids had a field day with it. My father did not.
He still won’t return my phone calls. Sometimes I think maybe he would have rather I became a stripper. At least that was a respectable business. Well, more respectable than revenge on ex-boyfriends.
Amy and I have had to change our number five times. People call it all the time wanting me to get revenge for them. I’m out of that game now. I’ve learned my lesson. Only I’m not sure it’s the lesson I was meant to learn.
Three weeks later, my life still isn’t back on track. Some people smile at me when I walk by. Some of them sneer. I’m sure they all think they are better than me. Maybe they are. I can’t polish their crown though. Heavy hangs the head…
I have a lot on my mind as I walk through the campus quad and, in a fit of irony, end up on my backside. This seems to be a theme with me.
I look up through the sunlight to see who in the world knocked me down this time. Sure enough…
“What are you doing here?” I hope I’ve put enough venom in that question.
Chad Harris has his hands in his pockets and a frown on his lips. His hair is a little longer than I remember, which suits him. He has on a jean jacket which I adore and black pants. I hope there aren’t any photographers around here to catch our reunion moment. I’m sure Mary Hart needs a new lead story.
“Running into you.”
I swear there is a smile pulling on his lips. “Something you are good at.”
“Apparently.” He reaches his hand down to help me up, and I hesitate before I take his hand. Part of me wishes I’d never seen him again. Part of me, a huge part of me is glad I did.
Ugh.
I don’t take his hand. I help myself right on up and toss my bag over my shoulder. “No, seriously. What are you doing here?”
“I’m here to find you.” He runs his fingers through his hair. “Look, Nancy. I know I haven’t contacted you since that night and then everything that came out, you got the bad end of the deal and I’m sorry about that.”
I shrug. My heart beating a mile a minute. “You have nothing to be sorry about. I’m the one who broke your trust.”
“And I broke yours. I’d say we are even there.”
“So… what do you want?”
He kicks a rock with the side of his foot like he’s stalling. Would he please get this over with so we can get on with our lives? “I wanted you to know, before it comes out, that Dana was playing you.”
“I know that.”
“No, you don’t know why. Turns out, Dana was working for my dad’s political opponent. He paid her royally to find evidence to ruin me, in effect ruining my dad’s squeaky clean campaign image. We were both pawns in a political game. Nothing more.”
I’m having a hard time processing this. “So, everything I went through. Everything she did, outing me as Once Bitten, that was for some political agenda just like you thought?”
“Well, I think the Once Bitten thing was her own form of revenge on you because you didn’t take her money.”
“You know about that?”
He nods. If he knows about the money I turned down then maybe, actually I don’t know what it means. How can you build anything on a lie?
“Turns out, it was all to find something to beat my dad with. They knew they couldn’t get anything on him. He’s as good as they come, and I mean that. But me… I’m the black sheep. Find dirt on me and take my dad and his campaign down with me.”
I don’t know what to say to that. My entire life has been turned upside down by revenge and greed… then again, is that not what I did to those exes? Did I not turn their lives upside down? Hurt them to get gain for myself?
I’m going to be sick.
Chad takes my hand. My stomach does cartwheels. “Nancy, I am truly sorry for what I said to you. If I could take it back, I would. I wasn’t honest with you, then got mad at you for not being honest with me.”
“We were playing each other.”
He nods and rubs my knuckles lightly. “No, we were being played. But, you should know that I did… I do… have feelings for you. Very real feelings.”
He drops his gaze onto our hands. “Nancy, I can’t sleep at night thinking about you. You have no idea how many times I thought about calling you and seeing if you were okay, but I was afraid it would make things worse for you. We both did things we regret, please… please, can we start over? Can I take you to the coffee shop today as a fresh start? Can we see where this connection takes us?”
He brings my hand to his lips. “Please.”
The old saying is once bitten twice shy. I was bitten once. I took a chance on him once, and it bit me on the butt. I’m not doing it again. I learned my lesson. All those times the magazines were having a field day with me, Chad Harris was nowhere to be seen. He didn’t call, didn’t seek me out, didn’t try to find me in anyway. And now here he is and I’m supposed to forget it all? I can’t. I won’t. I’m smarter this time.
“I haven’t slept either.” I try very hard to stay composed. Inside, my heart is telling me to jump into his arms and see where this takes us. My mind is right, though. I bet on him once and my entire world suffered for it. “I’ve worried about how I was going to pay for school now that Once Bitten was gone. I’ve wondered if my father would ever speak to me again. Most of all, I wondered about you, and if you were wondering about me.”
“All the time.” He blinks a few times. “Nancy, I know it won’t be easy, and I know you are scared to try this again…”
“Again? We never tried the first time. We were both using each other. That’s not healthy.”
He shakes his head. “No, I wasn’t faking all of it. I couldn’t. There is something about you, Nancy. I want to know it better. I have to, and I don’t care if it makes me less of a man for saying this. I want you to know that I miss you. I want to start all over. Please.”
He drops to one knee, right in the middle of the quad. I look around to see if anyone is watching. “Don’t. Don’t worry about them. Focus on you and me. What we should have focused on to begin with. Look, Nancy. I don’t know what the future holds. All I know is that I would regret it every day for the rest of my life if I didn’t at least try to see what is between us. You felt it too. I know you did.”
“It was a lie,” I squeak out.
Once bitten.
Twice shy.
Don’t fall for him again.
“Do you mean to tell me that that kiss in my living room was a lie? Because I don’t believe that for a second. There is something between us, Nancy.
Something real. Maybe it started on a lie, but it doesn’t have to end that way.”
I’m shaking, my mind fighting with my heart on what I should do. He’s on one knee in front of me, laying his heart on the line. He wouldn’t do that unless he was serious.
“One cup of coffee… or rather, one Slush Puppy if that’s what you’d rather have. I’m serious, Nancy. I can’t stop thinking about you, and that scares the hell out of me. It also makes me feel more alive than I’ve ever felt in my entire life. Come with me. Please. An hour of your time is all I’m asking.”
An hour of my time.
How many people can say their lives changed in an hour? I take a deep breath. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to say no to him. “One hour.”
He smiles from ear to ear, stands and pulls me into a hug so tight he lifts me off the ground. I giggle into his ear. I haven’t felt this light in so long. “I said I’d give you one hour. I didn’t say I’d marry you.”
“One hour is all I need.” He kisses me on the nose and laughs as he spins me around.
One hour is definitely all he needed.
The End
“Before the internet…before sext messages, selfies, like buttons, and d**k picks…epic loves and broken hearts played out offline, on mixtapes that became the self-made soundtracks of a generation.
Love in the 80s: A New Adult Mix is a collection of ten contemporary romance, new adult, stand-alone novellas set in the 1980s.
Written by award-winning and bestselling authors, one digital novella will be released on the last Friday of each month January - October in 2016.
The title of each love story will be a hit song from the year that the novella represents.
Love in the 80s: A New Adult Mix was created by UTOPiAcon founder, Janet Wallace, and is co-produced with award-winning book cover designer, Regina Wamba (together they are WaWa Productions).
Join the Love in the 80s Facebook event party for giveaways and surprises all year long!
My name is Tina. I’m a freshman at USC, a good student and friend…
1989: Once Bitten, Twice Shy: Love in the '80s: A New Adult Mix Page 7