Thin Skin: A High School Bully Romance (Vestamont High Series Book 1)

by Indi Bluehart

  “You know what they'll say if they see you with me,” I said with a fake gasp. “Silas and new girl OMG!”

  A smile crawled onto his face. “You really think anyone would dare try to mess with me? You really do know nothing.”

  He tucked my phone into the inside of his jacket and started walking toward the driver’s side door. There was no opening of car doors for him.

  He opened the door and gestured at the passenger side. “Get in.”

  Chapter Nine

  It felt awkward to be in Silas’s car. The guy who’d told me I didn’t belong. One of the many that disliked me. Tormented me. But I was in his car.

  I wanted to hate him. I should have hated him but I couldn’t.

  Being close to him made my blood boil in many different and confusing ways. If he hadn’t been driving in the right direction, I would have thought it was some elaborate plan to drive me into the woods and torture me before leaving me alone.

  “You shouldn’t be alone with him, you know,” Silas finally said, breaking the silence as he handed me my phone.

  “We were just having coffee,” I said as I crossed my arms. “I know you and your girlfriend think you control everything in this town but you can’t tell me what I can do in my free time. If I want to have coffee with a friend, I’ll have coffee.”

  “You’d be surprised what we can do,” Silas said expressionlessly. “But that isn’t what I meant.”

  I shook my head. “Then what did you mean?”

  “Reed is different,” Silas said.

  “How so?”

  “Damn you are nosy.”

  I shook my head. “You’re telling me to stay away from someone, it’s natural to want to know why.”

  “Reed doesn’t do well in relationships,” Silas said.

  “Maybe it just wasn’t the right relationship,” I said with a shrug.

  “He can be charming at first, trust me I know since we’re related,” Silas said with a smirk. “But he gets… obsessed.”

  I stared out the window. “He’s been nothing but kind to me. And pretty much the only one.”

  “What’s he supposed to do when no one else in this school wants anything to do with him?” Silas shot me a look. “Ask any of the girls he’s dated how he is in relationships.”

  “Right. Because people will talk to me.” I rolled my eyes.

  “You’re right, they won’t.” Silas ran his hand through his perfectly wild dark chocolate hair. He exhaled loudly as if he were frustrated with me. “He dated Aria last year.”

  I scrunched up my nose. “That’s hard to picture.”

  Aria a bad-ass chick with the nerdiest looking guy at Vestamont High which truth be told wasn’t all that nerdy.

  “Aria has made her way through the school,” Silas said with a short. “She’s actually working on round two but she won’t give Reed a second chance, that much I know.”

  “What happened between them?” I asked not sure if I wanted to know.

  I liked Reed and I didn’t want anything to taint that. There was always a good chance that whatever Silas told me would just be a lie to make sure I didn’t have anyone at Vestamont High.

  “He was very possessive of her. If another guy even looked at her, he—he’d go off the rails.”

  “That’s interesting since Aria is very… outgoing.” I shrugged. “But so what if he gets jealous?”

  “Jealous would be putting it lightly,” Silas said looking into my eyes. “I’m just trying to help you.”

  I shook my head. “What makes you think I need your help? So far, you’ve been anything but helpful.”

  “You have no idea,” Silas said. “This town is a mess. Lies, deceit, backstabbing… and the problem isn’t just Reed.”

  “He’d tell me to stay away from you,” I said.

  “And you should,” Silas said. “Have your parents considered homeschooling?”

  My brow wrinkled. “How can you hate me so much without knowing anything about me?”

  “This has nothing to do with hate and everything to do with keeping you away from Reed.” Silas slowed the car to a stop at the exact spot he tried to hit me. “He marked her. Every time they had sex, he would tattoo her with a tally mark.”

  “That’s not true,” I said.

  “It’s absolutely true.” Silas pointed at his leg. “The marks are on her inner thigh. I’ve seen them myself.”

  I snorted. “I bet you have.”

  “She probably hasn’t even told me the half it. The only reason I know about the marks is because I asked her about them and eventually, she broke down and told me,” Silas said. “Pretty sure things got way worse than that too. I think my aunt and uncle exchanged some money under the table to keep her quiet.”

  “You’re making this all up,” I said feeling anger rising up the back of my neck. “I’m sure you have something terrible to tell me about everyone in this town.”

  “I could,” he said.

  “What about you? Tell me how terrible you are because I bet it doesn’t end with trying to mow people down before school,” I said turning away from him.

  He chuckled. “If I wanted to hit you, I would have hit you.”

  Silas pulled up to the curb and grabbed my wrist before I could exit the car. I tried to yank it free but he held it harder.

  “I wasn’t joking about staying away from Reed,” Silas said. “Promise me you’ll at least think about what I said.”

  “Let me go,” I said with another yank.

  “First, promise me,” Silas said.

  “Okay, okay, I’ll think about it.”

  He let go and I fumbled for the door handle. I wanted to get out of his car and away from him. The tension I felt around him was far worse than anything I felt with Reed.

  “Oh and consider staying away from Lacey too.”

  I leaned down with my hand on the top of the door. “Yeah, yeah, I know, stay away from everyone.”

  I slammed the door and briskly walked up the sidewalk to my house. I could feel Silas’s eyes on me until I closed the front door. His car roared as he sped away.

  I dropped my school bag when my mom stood in the living room. She wasn’t alone although there hadn’t been a car in the driveway.

  “Alyssa! Perfect timing,” my mom said cheerfully as she guided me into the living room. “These are our neighbors, Whitney White and her son, Tyler.” My mom squeezed my shoulders. “This is my daughter, Alyssa.”

  “Hi,” I said giving them a little wave.

  “I suppose you two might already know each other,” my mom said looking back and forth from me to Tyler.

  He shook his head. “I’m homeschooled, Mrs. Hill.”

  “Oh. Well, Alyssa wanted that as well, but I just didn’t have time to deal with it. She attends Vestamont High,” my mom said.

  “Are you liking your new school, dear?” Mrs. White asked.

  I shrugged. “It’s only been two days.”

  “Two days was more than enough for me,” Tyler muttered.

  Mrs. White gently nudged him, keeping a smile on her face but the sourness in her eyes was unmistakable.

  “Our neighbor, Mr. Rivers, teaches at the school.” She looked over at my mom. “The house next to ours.”

  “Oh, that’s wonderful,” my mom said keeping a smile pasted to her face.

  Mrs. White nodded. “It’s his second year. He’s quite a young man. Do you know him, Alyssa?”

  “I have him for my first class. He seems very nice,” I said.

  “His mother was such a lovely woman. He only moved back to town recently after his parents divorced, then his mother died, leaving the gigantic house to him. It’s a sad story really,” Mrs. White said looking down at the tiny watch on her wrist. “We should go. My husband is a busy man but I’m sure he’d love to meet you all sometime.”

  “Sure,” my mom said walking with them to the door. “I’ll let you know a good time after I discuss it with him. New jobs take up a lot of t
ime.”

  Tyler looked at me for a long moment before following his mother out of the house.

  “It was lovely to meet the both of you,” Mrs. White sang as she waved and walked away from the house.

  After the door closed, my mom drew in a breath. “I’m not sure about them.”

  “Was she from the fifties?” I asked. “She was dressed like Joan Cleaver.”

  “It’s June Cleaver but yeah she totally was,” my mom said crossing her arms as she narrowed her eyes at me. “Your home earlier than I thought you’d be. I thought you were going out?”

  “It was just coffee,” I said.

  She nodded slowly. “Are you going to tell me about it?”

  “There’s nothing to tell.”

  “Boy or girl.”

  “Boy.”

  “Does he have a name?”

  I blinked several times. “Reed.”

  “Tell me more?” my mom asked.

  “There isn’t any more to tell. He’s the only one that’s even talking to me at the school, so I figured why not?”

  “Is he cute?”

  “Oh. My. God.”

  My mom dropped her hands to her side. “What? It’s a simple question.”

  “He is but he’s just a friend.”

  “That boy, Tyler, was pretty cute too, don’t you think?” my mom asked.

  I started to walk away from her. “You’re insane, mother.”

  “Well, he was,” she called after me as I stomped up the stairs, anxious to be in my own space.

  She wasn't wrong, though. Tyler was tall with wavy butterscotch hair. The kind that looked like it was soft to the touch. It also looked like he had to be spending more time working out than studying.

  But he'd been quiet other than to voice his dislike of Vestamont High.

  My phone buzzed disrupting my thoughts. I grabbed it and saw a number I didn't recognize.

  I swiped to see the message.

  It's Reed. Just making sure you made it home okay.

  It was sweet. But it was also unsettling after what Silas had told me. How did he get my number?

  Chapter Ten

  Maybe what Silas had told me about Reed was the truth. It definitely made me uneasy that he’d tracked down my number but maybe it was only because of what Silas had told me.

  My phone buzzed again.

  I got your number from Lacey. Hope that’s okay.

  I rubbed my hands over my suddenly chilled arms. It annoyed me that I was letting what Silas told me about Reed get to me.

  I typed back a quick message

  Okay. I’m home fine.

  “Alyssa!” my mom called from downstairs. “Dinner will be ready in twenty minutes.”

  She said twenty but she would take longer trying to wait until my dad got home from work. But every night seemed to be later than the last.

  Another buzz.

  Great. I hope Silas didn’t cause any problems. He’s always doing stuff like that for attention. Anyway, glad you’re home. When can I see you again?

  I pressed my hands to my face as I sat down on my fluffy bed. Reed wasn’t doing anything abnormal but yet what Silas had told me just kept repeating in my head.

  I stood up and walked over to my window. The clouds above swirled and darkened. Rain was coming.

  My eyes shifted downward and I could see into the neighbor's backyard. Tyler was doing pull-ups on a bar set at the back of the yard just past their gorgeous pool.

  I looked at my phone again, trying to decide how to respond. I wondered if Tyler knew anything about the students of Vestamont High or if he knew anything about the death of Piers Howard.

  I took one more look at Tyler before walking to my desk. It almost seemed for a second that he’d been looking at me too but it had probably just been my imagination. He’d shaken his arms refocusing before doing another set. There was one thing I had to do and that was to find out more about Piers.

  I turned on my laptop and googled his name. His obituary was the first thing to pop up.

  My breath caught in my throat when I saw his picture. He was smiling but there wasn’t anything behind it. It was completely empty. Fake.

  He may have been pretending to be happy but he wasn’t fooling me. Perhaps there could have been truth behind the suicide theory.

  But that wasn’t what surprised me. What caught me off guard was that he wore the same glasses as Reed.

  The two of them could have been brothers. Why hadn’t anyone mentioned it? Although no one had probably realized how deep my obsession with the Piers case was getting. It would have been odd for someone to point out their similarities.

  Reed told me he’d been wearing glasses ever since he’d been teased. Why had the students of Vestamont High picked on Reed but not Piers?

  Because he was captain of the swim team? Because he was the big shot of the school?

  I clicked through the pages and found a photograph on the school website of the swim team. Piers wasn’t wearing glasses and Silas was standing next to him with his arm around his shoulders.

  It seemed like everyone was somehow connected to Piers, which I guessed in the small town probably wasn’t that unusual. What was unusual was how no one seemed very torn up about his death even though they all knew him.

  Lacey hadn’t told me about her connection to Piers, nor had Silas mentioned being on the swim team so close to him that he had his arm around him. But why would that have come up in our short and awkward conversation?

  Aria was his step-sister.

  How was Reed connected to him other than looking similar? Something had happened between Reed and Aria, so bad that their parents were involved. Money had exchanged hands. Unless of course, Silas hadn’t been telling the truth.

  I closed my laptop feeling silly for even looking into any of it. The police surely did their job, although if there was one thing that everyone seemed to have in common was that no one believed he would have committed suicide.

  Perhaps the police just hadn’t been able to dig up anything because everyone in Spring Meadow was good at keeping secrets.

  Maybe I could be the one to figure out what happened. It wasn’t like I had anything better to do.

  What I wanted to do first was find out of Silas was telling me the truth about the marks on Aria’s thigh. It was going to be hard to find out without looking like a creeper but I’d have to figure it out somehow.

  Three dots blinked on my phone as if Reed was going to type more. I waited but the dots disappeared.

  I didn’t like not responding. Not to mention he’d see me in school on Monday.

  Soon. :)

  Hopefully, that would be enough to satisfy him while I thought things over. The dots appeared again.

  Can’t wait. :)

  Chapter Eleven

  I slept nearly until noon. Apparently, being an amateur sleuth was exhausting. Although most people would probably just call what I was doing ‘being nosy’ and I’m not sure they’d be wrong.

  I’d spent the night after dinner going through everything, I could find online about Piers Howard and his family. I also was very busy ignoring messages from Lacey. If there was another party, the last thing I wanted to do was go to it.

  Piers had an older brother, Preston, who was off at a prestigious college. He’d gotten a full scholarship for swimming which apparently was the same path Piers had been on. Only the end of Pier’s story was much more tragic.

  His father had made billions on some invention he created in the early nineties. He still worked in the same field but he didn’t have the same success, not that he needed it because he was set for life.

  Pier’s mother had died from cancer ten years ago. He remarried two years ago, a gorgeous woman who wore too much makeup. Octavia Lewis, Aria’s mom, apparently was some interior decorator for celebrities and traveled a lot.

  There wasn’t much about Piers online. Everything was quite basic. Most everything was about his dad or step-mom. If there were clues,
I couldn’t find them.

  I was going to have to find a way to ask questions but I wasn’t sure where to start because no one wanted to talk to me.

  As I descended the stairs, I saw my mom dancing around the living room with her feather duster. Music was blaring and when our eyes met, she didn’t stop performing.

  “Good morning, sleepy head,” she shouted between the lyrics. “Saved you some breakfast.”

  I nodded and went into the empty kitchen. My dad must not have been home or my mom wouldn’t have had the music turned up so loud.

  I heated up the cheesy eggs in the plastic container and ignored the buttery over-sized biscuits in the plastic bag on the counter. They looked delicious but if I touched it, I’d gain ten pounds.

  Before I finished eating, the music turned off and my mom pranced into the kitchen, sweaty and out of breath. Only she could get a workout doing chores.

  “I forgot to tell you, Mrs. White invited us over today.” My mom held up her palm before I could let out a groan. “Because we can use their pool while they're out of town for the weekend.”

  “Oh,” I said perking up. “That could be fun. Where’s dad?”

  “Working. Mr. McGuire works him hard,” my mom said.

  “He’s always worked hard. This isn’t any different from the last job,” I reminded her.

  She widened her eyes. “Trust me, dear, I know. Dad and I need a date.”

  “Ew, mom I don’t need to hear that.”

  My mom laughed. “So how about it?”

  “The pool?”

  “Yeah, let’s do it! I know I’d love to cool off and relax a bit poolside.” My mom bumped me with her elbow. “Unless you have plans with that boy. What was his name again?”

  “Reed, but no, I don’t have plans with him. The pool sounds great.”

  My mom sat in a lounge chair wearing her big floppy hat and her one-piece bathing suit. Her skin was painted white with something like SPF one thousand.