St Mary's Academy Series Box Set 1

by Seven Steps

  Pop songs were great for expressing my happiness and I sang old hymns when I especially wanted to feel closer to God.

  Music was my voice. An outlet in which my soul spoke words that my mind could not form. It was a shame that I didn’t sing that much anymore. Maybe that was why I felt so sad sometimes. Because my soul had no outlet in which to speak. Perhaps with a little more song, I could be the person that I wanted to be. Strong. Confident. Happy.

  I’d just Google searched Soul Singers when my phone exploded in a flurry of text and social media messages.

  Ariel: Eric just invited me to spend the day with him at South Street Seaport. Sooo excited. What should I wear?

  Jasmine: Where are you? Have you checked Facebook lately?

  Jasmine: Oh My God. Go on Facebook right now.

  Ariel: We are going to kill Dana.

  Ariel: This is bullying. We should call the cops.

  What were they talking about?

  I opened Facebook. One hundred and fifty-two friend requests.

  What?

  I clicked through the list. Who were these people? Not one face looked familiar. Why would they all choose to friend me?

  I clicked out of the screen and looked at my wall.

  Ugly words looked back at me.

  Slut.

  Whore.

  Are you pregnant?

  I had to speed scroll for a good ten seconds to get to the bottom of all of it, anger filling me with each swipe. My hands shook with rage. The comments were all about me or Jake or both of us. Some people even tagged him, though he hadn’t responded to anything yet.

  Did he see the awful words? Did he care?

  The friend request jumped to one hundred and sixty. Who were all these people? How had they heard of me? Was someone making fake profiles to stalk me? Who would do something like that?

  My blood boiled. There was only one person that it could possibly be. Dana. She was behind it. She had to be. She’d enlisted her cronies to create fake Facebook profiles just to call me names and harass me.

  I called her a very unchristian name. She could have just said that she wanted Jake back. Why did girls always make the next girlfriend the enemy instead of the guy? It wasn’t as if I’d stolen Jake from her. Did she forget that she’d dumped him?

  I tried not to let the comments hurt me, but they did. They talked about my frizzy hair, my breasts, my clothes, my face. The attacks were personal, like tiny missiles, each aimed at a different piece of my heart. I sniffed back the tears. I would not cry.

  Taking a deep breath, I allowed the logical side of me to take over. I changed my privacy settings so that only friends could post on my wall, then one by one, I deleted the ugly words.

  Hot tears threatened but I kept them at bay. I would not give Dana and her dumb friends my tears. They didn’t deserve them.

  Each word deleted and profile blocked fueled the angry fire that built within me. I was friends with family from back home on this profile. I’d even friended my father, though he rarely used Facebook. How could they do something like this? I’d never done anything to anyone and now they were calling me names like slut and whore? I was a virgin. I’d only kissed two boys, including Jake. They had gotten me totally and completely wrong.

  I growled.

  This was all because of Jake. Jake and his stupid plan. The worst part was, he wasn’t even man enough to defend me in the posts, even though he was tagged in them. Just like he hadn’t defended me at lunch during the food fight with his sister.

  The urge to find out every sordid detail of his life and turn it over to the cops rose strong. I couldn’t wait to get this deal over with and go back to my regularly scheduled life.

  My profile now cleaned, I laid in bed, put on my headphones, and blasted “Mean” by Taylor Swift. At the end of the song, I allowed a single tear to fall, closed my eyes and fell in to a restless sleep.

  29

  After the insanity of the week, I just wanted a normal day. I didn’t know how impossible that was until I put on a black leather skirt, a pink jacket and a black T-shirt that spelled out A Little Bit Dramatic in rhinestones. I paired it with a pair of low black heels and a pink purse that couldn’t fit any of my books.

  It amazed me how much I’d changed since Jake kissed me. Pink was my least favorite color. Worse than crap brown. And now, I was wearing a pink jacket and a pink purse. I looked in the mirror at my outfit. How much more would I have to change before Jake was through with me?

  I glanced at the clock. My train would be here soon.

  By the time I finished doing my make-up and flat ironing my hair, I was exhausted. I didn’t know how the popular girls did this every day. I walked out of my bedroom, fanning my shirt against myself.

  “Hey, pumpkin,” Dad called from the kitchen. He was eating his standard toast and eggs. The newspaper was folded up in front of him.

  “Hey, Daddy.”

  I kissed him on the cheek then reached over and grabbed an apple.

  “Heading to school?”

  “Yup.”

  “Then back home?”

  “Yup.”

  “Nowhere else?”

  Three questions in a row? He was digging for information.

  “No, Daddy. Nowhere else.”

  He nodded slowly.

  “Just text me when you get home, okay?”

  “Yeah. Sure.” My brows furrowed. “Are you worrying? Because there really isn’t anything to worry about. I’m not in any trouble.”

  He squeezed his lips together, let out air through his nose and pushed the newspaper in front of me.

  The headline read: Two dead in drug related shootings.

  I put my hands over my lips.

  “Please tell me that you broke up with that boy,” Dad said. “I don’t want to read your name in the paper.”

  I felt Daddy’s anguish in his words and put my arms around him, holding him tight. Was Jake involved in this? Was his father? I shook my head, trying to clear it from millions of questions that ran through it.

  “It’s fine, Daddy. I broke up with him.”

  His shoulders sagged in relief.

  Mine tensed with the ease of my lies.

  His hug around me tightened.

  “Good girl,” he said. “Very, very good.”

  He pulled away, brushing the hair out of my face.

  “Just be careful, okay? Keep an eye out. You see anyone running or screaming, get to a safe place and stay there. And if you ever feel unsafe, call the police then call me, okay?”

  I nodded. “Okay.”

  My steps were heavy with guilt; my mind full. I felt almost zombie like as I walked to the door. I’d lied to my father about Jake. Every lie I had to tell over the last few days had been about Jake. But they came from my mouth, I reminded myself. No one told me to lie. I did it on my own. That was who I was now. Popular, well dressed and a liar.

  I gulped in a breath of air. Was this really the life that I wanted? Did I want to be a liar? A fraud?

  “Hey, kid!”

  I turned back to my father, my breathing still uneven.

  “I love you.”

  I nodded, putting my hand on the door handle.

  “Love you too, Daddy.”

  The words came out quietly. Or at least, I thought they did. I couldn’t hear them. I could only hear the voices in my head.

  You. Are. A. Liar.

  My guilt grew heavier on my back. I felt so bad that I barely heard Ariel and Jasmine as we walked to the train station.

  “Bella, are you okay?” Jasmine asked, her eyes filling with concern. “You’re all pale and splotchy.”

  I cleared my throat, as if that would help my complexion.

  “Nothing,” I said. “I’m fine. Just tired.”

  “Well, don’t be tired,” Ariel said. Her happiness was usually infectious. Now, with my mood in the toilet, I found it annoying. “Eric invited me to the Stamford Club on Friday, so take your B-12 because we are going to roc
k the dance floor.”

  I halfheartedly nodded. I didn’t want to rock anyone’s dance floor. I wanted this Jake business to be over. I wanted him out of my life. I wanted to tell Ariel the truth. I wanted … something. Someone. Someone that I shouldn’t have wanted at all.

  Cole’s face came in to my mind, and I crushed it. I couldn’t like Cole. Not only was he my nemesis, but he was my fake boyfriend’s brother. It was dangerous. Too dangerous. Especially with what Detective Harding had told me about his family. I pasted a smile on my face and pretended not to care, but it was all another lie.

  The train ride to school was a blur and before I knew it, we were passing through the front doors. I turned to my friends.

  “I have to meet Jake at first period,” I said. “I’ll catch up with you guys later.”

  Ariel and Jasmine said their goodbyes and I went to put my heavy books in my locker.

  I froze.

  Someone had taken a picture of me from my Facebook page, printed it out and written WHORE in big, red letters across it.

  I read the word again. Slower this time. It was like it was written in Mandarin. My mind couldn’t process what was happening. I looked at the surrounding lockers, verifying that this was mine. Slowly, reality caught up with me. Overtook me.

  It was my locker. And someone had written whore on it. Someone had just called me a whore.

  I was angry. So angry that I saw red.

  Several students stopped, whispered and laughed at the picture. The same students who had called my name and complimented me on my clothes when I walked in this morning.

  Vultures. The second they smelled blood in the water, they turned on me.

  My body felt hot with rage. My eyes scanned the crowd, looking for the culprit.

  “Who did this?” I whispered.

  I wanted to punch something. I wanted to punch someone.

  “Who did this?” I demanded again.

  More students approached, laughed and pointed at me, sending my rage into orbit.

  “Who?!”

  Cole appeared by my side, ripping the pictures down, tearing them to shreds and scowling at the laughing kids.

  They quickly moved along.

  My heart was racing, my breathing quick, my hands formed into claws.

  I wanted to scream at something. I wanted to yell and cry out. I wanted justice.

  Cole put his hand on the small of my back and bent down to whisper in my ear.

  “It’s okay. Just breathe.”

  A small bit of my anger seeped out of me, but not enough. I felt like it would never be enough.

  “Oh my God, Bella. Are you okay?”

  Regina approached me, her hand over her heart, her pink lips turned down into a worried frown.

  She resembled Cole, with her jet-black hair and blue eyes, but her personality held the meanness and domineering that I’d recently seen in Jake.

  I was immediately on high alert.

  “I can’t believe that someone would deface your locker like that. I’m so sorry.”

  “What do you want, Regina?”

  “Just to show solidarity to my brother’s girlfriend.” She pulled me in to a tight hug and held it for a moment before letting go and taking my hands. “I know that we’ve had our differences in the past, but I want you to know I’m here for you. I’ve realized the error of my ways. You are a good girl. Not like that tramp, Dana. I can’t believe she would do this to you.”

  I narrowed my eyes in suspicion.

  “How do you know that Dana did this?” I asked.

  Regina nodded. “Don’t forget, Dana and I tend to run in the same circles. She’s practically on a one-woman crusade against you and Jake. Yesterday at The Center, she was going on and on about organizing something big on social media. I guess this was her plan.” Regina looked at the papers scattered around my feet. “If there is anything that you need, anything at all, please let me know.”

  I shouldn’t have believed her, but she sounded so genuine. Maybe she had turned over a new leaf.

  “Why are you being nice to me?” I asked.

  “Yeah, Regina,” Cole interjected. “Why are you being nice to her?”

  Regina looked hurt at our accusation. “Can’t a girl change for the better? Bella is a good girl, and no matter what happened in our past, she doesn’t deserve this.” She squeezed my hands. “I suggest that you march over to that brother of mine and let him know that he needs to get Dana in check, pronto.”

  Though I didn’t completely trust Regina—after all, she had threatened me twice this week—I couldn’t fault her logic. Dana was responsible for this. She had to be. And with Dana being Jake’s ex-girlfriend, he should be the one to tell her to lay off me.

  I was going to put a stop to it, once and for all.

  I threw my bag in my locker and marched down the hall to where Jake waited for me. I somehow knew that Regina and Cole were hot on my heels but I didn’t stop or turn around.

  When Jake saw me, he gave me a big smile.

  “Hey, babe,” he said.

  “Don’t babe me!” I cried out.

  I knew that he wasn’t the one who put the mean things on my Facebook wall or who put the picture on my locker but somehow, it still felt like he was responsible.

  He frowned at me and stepped forward.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “You know what’s the matter. Someone put horrible things on my Facebook wall and on my locker this morning, and I want you to put a stop to it.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes. You.”

  He looked incensed that I would even ask him to step in and defend me. Well, if he wanted my help, he was going to have to work for it.

  “What am I supposed to do?”

  “What are you supposed to do? Stop her.”

  “Her who?”

  “Dana. She’s behind this. She’s behind all of it.”

  “Dana? Why would she-”

  “Don’t be stupid. You know why!”

  He frowned, and I could tell that he was warring within himself.

  “Look,” he said, shoving his hands in to his pockets. “I-”

  “Just fix it or I’m gone.” I whipped around, and stomped away.

  “Don’t forget why you’re here,” he shot back.

  And just like that, any confidence I had that Jake was going to do the right thing was gone. I stared at him, good and hard. In that moment, I hated him. I hated him for putting me in this situation. I hated him for manipulating me at every turn. I hated everything about him. And I hated myself for letting him do this to me.

  I was so angry and frustrated that my throat choked up. God, I hated that. Why did I cry when I got too emotional? It made me feel weak and stupid. I wiped my nose and walked away, forgetting about our good morning kiss on the cheek and hug. I didn’t have to look behind me to know that Dana was somewhere listening, with a smile on her face.

  30

  I was angry.

  I was so angry that I wasn’t sure who I hated more. Jake for putting me in the situation or myself for agreeing to this stupid plan.

  I told Ms. Mitchell that I didn’t feel well and she gave me a pass to the nurse. Instead of going, I took a detour and went to my one place of solace in this entire school. The library.

  Mrs. Smalls, the librarian, smiled at me when I walked in. She didn’t speak much unless she was talking about books. I appreciated her for that, seeing as how I wasn’t feeling particularly chatty today. Murderous was more like it.

  I staked out the very back table and put my head in my hands, dreading the next bell. All my anger was draining. My eyes drifted shut as I tried to wrangle my crazed thoughts.

  The fifth period bell rang and I didn’t move. I couldn’t. I just sat there in the library with my head in my hands and my world spinning around me until a familiar voice called my name.

  “Bella?”

  I looked up from my one-woman pity party to see Ms. Mitchell pulling out a chair. She
wore a navy, sleeveless top and a matching skirt today. Her red glasses swung from around her neck. She was still wearing her T-strapped heels.

  “Honey, what’s wrong?”

  Hot tears formed behind my eyes. Suddenly, all the stresses I felt that week hit me all at once. I threw myself in to her arms and sobbed. Jake’s plan, Ariel, my strange feelings for Cole, Detective Harding. All of it etched itself in wet, dark lines on Ms. Mitchell’s shoulders. I cried until there were no more tears left in me. And through it all, Ms. Mitchell silently rubbed my back like my mother used to. She didn’t say anything. She had no questions. She was just there. A warm body with loving arms, catching me as I fell apart. It was what I needed. A place where I felt safe enough to fall, knowing that there would be someone to catch me.

  After what felt like an hour of crying and boy did it feel good, I sat up and wiped my eyes with the back of my hands. I was sure that all my makeup was absolutely ruined but I didn’t care. I had to let my worries and my fears free. If I didn’t, they would have crushed me.

  Ms. Mitchell gave me a small reassuring smile and handed me a few tissues. They turned blacker with every swipe across my eyes and cheeks.

  God. I must’ve looked like a raccoon.

  I cleaned up as best as I could, all while Ms. Mitchell ran her fingers through my hair in that comforting way that parents do to their children. I only had one parent left but I was glad that Ms. Mitchell filled in today. I needed it.

  “My mom always said that people only cry when they’ve been strong for too long.” She brushed a long string of brown hair behind my ear. “Have you been strong, Bella?”

  Strong? No. I’ve been weak. I’d let Jake manipulate my life until it wasn’t recognizable anymore. The problem was, I didn’t know how to make him stop. How was I supposed to get off this runaway train? I needed advice but I couldn’t let Ms. Mitchell know who I was referring to.

  “Have you ever told a lie that grew and grew until you didn’t know where the truth ended and the lie began?” I asked, still dabbing at my raccoon eyes.

  Ms. Mitchell nodded. “Everyone lies, Bella. Even old matrons like me.”

  I didn’t believe that Ms. Mitchell had ever told a lie in her life. At least not like the lies that I’d told. I didn’t mention it, though.