Wicked Blue Bloods: A Highschool Bully Romance - Crestwood Academy Book 1

by Devyn Forrest

  Mr. Damon Blair has been a pillar of the Crestwood community throughout his incredible career, taking on the headmaster position after his father, the late Thomas Blair. The Blair’s are one of the most respected families in Crestwood, considering when they arrived in this area, they founded the town and built Crestwood Academy itself. Clearly, an act like this is nothing short of savagery. It is expected that the school will not stop without sound punishment. The perpetrators were arrested, yet their names cannot be revealed at this time due to their minor status.

  We reached out to Damon Blair for comment in the wake of this discovery, and are still waiting for his response.

  If anyone has any information about any upcoming attacks on the city of Crestwood, please reach out to the number below. We must guard ourselves, uphold Crestwood above all things, and ensure that we have decades of prosperous years to come in the future.

  “Disgusting,” I grumbled under my breath.

  “They really know how to hammer in their status, don’t they?” Wren said, grinning.

  “They’ll never let us forget it,” I said, feeling disgusted by the article and ran a hand through my long locks.

  We started our walk toward first period as Wren babbled on about who she thought had done the graffiti, saying, “Especially since it’s a minor? It’s probably someone we know. I’ll bet they go to this school.”

  But I didn’t have the strength to respond. I slid into my familiar desk and stared at the French papers I was meant to be reading, taking in absolutely no information. “It is expected that the school will not stop without sound punishment.” The words kept running through my head like a mantra. Man. I was screwed. This was a shitty nightmare that I couldn’t wake up from. It was just a matter of time before word got out.

  That afternoon during fifth period, as I sat next to Eric in Lit class, they came for him. The door cranked open, revealing our principal, Mr. Shank and a surly-looking, lawyer-looking guy with slicked-back black hair and beady eyes behind thick glasses. Our teacher, Miss Spinn, asked what the problem was when Mr. Shank explained that he needed to see Eric Thomas immediately.

  My lips parted abruptly and I’m sure I had a look of shock on my face. Everything inside me wanted to cry out and demand why I wasn’t being brought out along with him. Eric slunk toward the door, casting his eyes back toward me just before he disappeared into the hallway. I felt like my stomach was going to explode with panic.

  When would my ax fall? I hated the waiting and not knowing what would happen next. Maybe the waiting was part of the punishment.

  I spotted Eric outside the school after last class, marching alongside the principal and his dad. His dad looked as though he had aged five years since last night, his cheeks looked hollowed out and his shirt untucked and his salt and pepper hair flapping around his head. The principal spoke in stern tones to Eric’s father, a bit too quiet for me to make out the sentences.

  I got a text from Eric about 15 minutes later.

  Eric: Sorry, I couldn’t stop to talk. They’re suspending me for a week. I have to spend a shit-ton of it at Crestwood Academy itself, helping to clean the grounds. Woo-hoo.

  Kennedy: Man. Did they say anything about me?

  Eric: Naw. But I’m sure you’ll have a similar fate.

  Kennedy: Guess I’ll see you on the grounds of Crestwood then. I’ll be the one with the trash bag.

  Eric: At least we’re in this together. Last message, btw. Dad’s taking my phone for the night. I’m gonna go CRAZY.

  Kennedy: Stay strong, soldier.

  When I arrived home, I was surprised to find Mom sitting in the living room with the TV off. When I entered, she kept her back to me and didn’t respond to my initial, “Hello.” I paused behind her with my backpack still slung over my shoulder, blinking at her. She had never gone so long without looking at me. Not even after everything that happened— which meant she probably found out what I had done.

  “Mom,” I tried again. “It’s not—I mean. It’s not what you...”

  “Come sit down,” she said, her voice soft, almost tentative and she patted the cushion.

  I had never been more terrified in my life. I dropped my bag and staggered toward her, finding her with an enormous envelope stretched out across her lap. The envelope was cream-colored and lined with gold with my name sketched across it in perfect calligraphy. What the hell is this?

  KENNEDY MARIE HARPER

  Jesus Christ. Had Eric also gotten something so—fancy? I thought.

  “Mom. What is that?” I asked, confused, although I was terrified to hear the answer.

  “I haven’t opened it yet,” Mom returned. She brought her finger and thumb on either side of it and blinked up at me, her eyes somber. “The paper envelope, I swear, costs a small fortune alone.”

  “They really know how to waste, don’t they?” I tried, hoping to spread a smile across her face.

  “Why don’t you open it?” Mom said and pushed it across the cushions, waiting, her hands wrapping themselves around one another, over and over. “It has your name on it, after all.”

  I perched beside her and lifted the envelope. I slowly tore at the blood-red wax crest, which had sealed it, and found a piece of paper within, still of incredible thickness—like parchment.

  “Read it,” Mom murmured, her voice almost demanding.

  I did as I was told.

  Dear Kennedy Marie Harper,

  You are cordially invited to attend a meeting with our esteemed headmaster, Damon Blair, on the morning of October 16 at 9:30 a.m.

  Please arrive promptly.

  Crestwood Academy

  “Only a few words for such a big envelope,” I stated after, in what seemed to be an impossible silence that stretched between us.

  I looked up at her, finding her lips making an enormous O. Her eyes glittered with curiosity and then she turned to me. Her eyebrows were knitted together in a confused look. “Kennedy... did you apply to Crestwood Academy without telling me?”

  My eyebrows instantly arched. “What! No way,” I assured her. “I hate Crestwood. I hate everything they stand for. I’m Ridgewood through and through, Mom.”

  “Honey, I wouldn’t be mad if you did.” She reassured me and I just nodded, assuring her that I did not. I was just as confused as she was.

  Mom’s eyes scanned the shelf above the television. She landed on the photograph of my grandmother, Kelly Woods—a woman who, as a young woman, once worked at Crestwood Academy in the horse stables. There was a hazy quality to the story of why she had been asked to leave her position at the Academy, one that always put a sour taste in our mouths. “They told her to go back to Ridgewood where she belonged,” Mom had said once, shivering. “She wasn’t good enough to work for their damn horses, even. Absolute assholes.”

  “But why did they send you this letter?” Mom continued, still staring at my grandmother’s portrait.

  “I—I don’t know...” I answered, and I really didn’t. Eric hadn’t been required to go into the Academy for his punishment, so why the hell was I being forced to or rather invited? Did they want to berate me in front of my mother? Punishing me was more than enough? Why did they have to include my Mom in all of this?

  “You don’t have to come with me,” I commented suddenly and picked at the hem of my skirt. “I know you have so much work to do. This cuts into your sleeping hours.”

  Mom’s head turned to me and her look was incredulous. “You think I’m just going to ignore the most prestigious school on the west coast, sending a letter to my only daughter?” She stabbed a finger onto the parchment paper, shaking her head wildly. “If you think that for a minute, then you’re not as clever as I thought you were, young lady.”

  “But Mom, they’re evil...” I conceded. “Whatever it was they did to Grandma? It almost ruined her. You even said so yourself.”

  Mom’s lips were stitched in a straight line across her face. “Kennedy. If Crestwood thinks that you’re someone to call in
to speak with, you can’t turn it down. Plus, you’re a minor” Her eyes glistened with tears. “You’ve been through so much this past year, Ken...”

  “So have you,” I returned, my heart hammered against my chest.

  “That’s beside the point. I’m in my career. I have my life. It’s not much, but it’s what I’ve built. You’re at the beginning of your story. You have so much left to figure out. And if Crestwood allows you a fresh start...”

  “Mom, I don’t need a fresh start,” I argued and reached out for her hand. “We have everything here in Ridgewood...”

  Mom’s lips buzzed together. Her shoulders eased forward. “Let’s just go to the meeting, Ken. Let’s just go and see what they have to say. Any decision we make, we’ll make it together. Okay?” She leaned in and kissed my forehead before getting up and making her way across the small living room.

  I searched through the rest of the envelope for any sort of clue about what this meant or why I was being called in. But there was nothing. I stared up at my grandmother’s photo as I watched Mom grab her phone and dial the pizza place, ordering us a super-veggie extra-cheese pizza before her shift began. As she always said, grease and cheese could fix any problem.

  But that night, I tossed and turned, not getting any sleep. My stomach had a life of its own, grumbling and then all at once, making me rush to the toilet with panic, thinking I was about to toss my cookies. I gazed at myself in the mirror, spreading my fingers across my cheeks. What the hell had I gotten myself into?

  And what sort of agenda did Crestwood Academy have up their sleeve? I guess I would find out soon enough. Either way, I was going to stand strong against these entitled rich assholes.

  Chapter Five

  My nightmare came back again with a vengeance.

  The truck shivered beneath me. My mother’s angry words over the phone—so different than her ordinary, sweet disposition—filled my head. Why the hell was this happening? Why was I out on the highway after midnight anyway and why the hell was it so cold in Southern California? I thrust my foot harder on the pedal, as though that would make things better, going faster. God, I was so wrong.

  I had been so wrong about so many things.

  Again, the crash—busted glass thrashing across my cheeks, blood cupping in my eyes. My screams didn’t remain in the dream. Now, I threw myself around my bed, my screams and cries coming out of me like water pouring from a faucet. Sweat pooled itself in the crevice of my neck, across my belly, between my legs. Again, I blinked at the ceiling, forcing my heartbeat to recede as I sucked in a large breath.

  It was over. It had been over for more than a year. Although my mind was still a prisoner and the horrific memories wouldn’t leave. I was stuck in this damn loop that replayed that night over and over again and it always knew where to find me— when I was fast asleep.

  I heard the light rap on my door early that morning. Mom lingered outside when I didn’t answer back immediately, saying, “Ken? Are you up? I heard your alarm, but you must have slept through it.”

  Shit! Of course, it was the day of our meeting with Crestwood Academy and surely the day that my life would change forever. Mom would know not to trust me. She would know once and for all that I had this evil inside me, this spitting fire. What would happen, then? “You’re not the girl I raised,” I imagined her saying. “What could have possessed you to do this?”

  Crestwood is evil, Mom, I would tell her. They deserve every insult I can possibly throw at them. Look at what they’ve put us through? How they cross the road when they see us? Like we’re beneath them?

  Once, when Mom and I went shopping for school clothes in Crestwood, a guy had actually yelled at us to go back to Ridgewood, where we belonged and then muttered under his breath, “Dirty Ridgewood scum.”

  Immediately, tears had sprung to my eyes. I had reared around to tell him what I thought, only to have Mom grip my arm and then yank me back. “It’s not worth it, baby,” she whispered. “They don’t see us as equals. They don’t see anyone as equals. Just let it go. We know who we are and that is all that counts.”

  “I’m awake,” I finally croaked out, rubbing my eyes until I saw dark red spots. “I’ll be ready in twenty.”

  Inside my closet, my very small selection of ‘nice’ clothing hung on wire hangers. I slipped my fingers across the dark green dress with cream polka dots. Crestwood’s colors were dark red and gold—regal, royal colors, while Ridgewood stuck with dark green and cream. I slipped the green dress over my shoulders, hoping to translate that what I had put on that wall, was something I meant and stood by. I was not going to be intimated. I understood what I had done was wrong, but that was as far as I would admit.

  Mom waited for me in the foyer in a tight-fitting white dress, which hugged her curves and cinched waist beautifully. Unfortunately, I knew that the Crestwood elite would look at her outfit and think it was ‘trashy.’ In Ridgewood's eyes, however, she looked stunning, every bit the gorgeous woman she had been when she had given birth to me. The pregnancy had been an accident—as most were at age nineteen, I guess. But, she had explained to me that she and my dad had absolutely no regrets. “The minute I got that pink plus sign, I knew our lives would change forever. And you were the greatest gift of all.”

  Mom’s car was second-hand, purchased with the insurance money after the car accident. It was ruddy and white and a bit rusty with a collection of paper food wrappings in the back from our various trips. I blinked at the mess, wondering if it would hurt Mom’s feelings if I moved back and cleaned it up a bit. But then, I reminded myself that I didn’t care at all what Crestwood thought of us. They had already made up their minds, so it didn’t really matter.

  We drove in silence and I was well aware that both of us had far different thoughts about what this meeting was going to entail. I felt the secret of the graffiti ballooning in my belly, as though I had eaten something rotten. I stitched my fingers across my abs, making Mom say the first words in over fifteen minutes. “Shoot! I should have made you breakfast. Are you starving?” She stole a glance at me and I shook my head.

  It was difficult to explain that I didn’t think I’d ever be hungry again.

  As we made our way up to the school, Crestwood Academy appeared at the top of the cliff, stitched between several enormous redwood trees. The landscape was always so beautiful up here. Mom cracked the windows and inhaled deeply as our little car struggled up the mountain road. “That air is so fresh isn’t it?” she sighed, taking in a deep breath. “Can you imagine what it feels like to breathe that in every day? Not the tainted air that we’re used to breathing in from the factories.”

  Mom parked the car very close to where Eric and I had parked only two days ago. From there, you could see the graffiti wall I had chosen. It had, of course, been covered up with an enormous yellow tarp, with the words, ‘Under Construction’ pressed across it. Mom clucked her tongue, saying, “I wonder if they’re adding another wing? As if they need more space!”

  We walked side by side up to the massive dark mahogany front doors of Crestwood Academy, which felt a lot like walking the plank of my demise. I swallowed hard, trying to remind myself to breathe. It wouldn’t look very good if I passed out in front of everyone in the middle of my sentencing. I had to be brave.

  When we enter the foyer, a surly-looking woman with an enormous, three-dimensional mole above her top lip made her way towards us. I’m sure we stood out like a sore thumb in the surrounding space. Her eyes scanned Mom’s little white dress, making her eyebrows stitch together in obvious disapproval. After a strange moment of silence, Mom feigned a half-smile, saying, “We have an appointment at 9:30 with Headmaster Blair.”

  The woman accepted the envelope from Mom and peered at it, almost as though she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. The woman nodded and then said, “Very well. Follow me. You know, it’s really beneficial to arrive twenty minutes early in the event of a meeting with the headmaster. He has such little time.”

&
nbsp; Neither of us knew how to respond and just looked at each other as we followed the woman. Our footsteps echoed in the enormous foyer as we walked along. On either side, staircases swirled up into higher floors. On the wall, before us, was a ten-foot-tall painting of Headmaster Blair himself, perhaps painted twenty years ago. He looked a lot like the painting I had made of him outside, without as many fine lines and wrinkles. I smirked to myself, taking a moment’s pleasure in the quick bit of art I had made. Probably that painting above us had taken months to finish.

  The woman, who introduced herself as Mrs. Crooks, marched us forward, her hands clenched on either side of her. We followed, passing several additional paintings of previous headmasters and prosperous former students that hung on dark mahogany wood walls. The hallway was the length of a football field, with only light spilling in from the far end, where large windows overlooked the ocean below.

  Finally, we appeared in front of an enormous wooden door, with the words, “Headmaster Blair” pressed into it with gold letters. I felt my mother shiver beside me. This felt like an out of body experience. There was no way to know what would happen next.

  Mrs. Crooks rapped her knuckles across the wood. We heard a grumble of “Come in,” on the other side and then we entered into one of the most beautiful rooms I had ever seen in my life. Another painting of the headmaster hung in the center of the wall, just above a huge stone fireplace, in which a small fire crackled, despite being completely unnecessary for fall California weather. A hand-made, Asian rug was spread out before a desk that was nearly the size of Mom’s car, ornate, with little lions carved into the sides. Each wall held shelves and shelves of books, all of which seemed impossibly thick.

  And located on the other side of the desk was the headmaster himself, Damon Blair—a man who, in my eyes, was the very embodiment of evil, greed and entitlement. Immediately, my nostrils flared, as though I was looking at a snake that might rear back and bite us.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Harper and Kennedy Harper,” Damon Blair greeted us. His voice was deep and brooding, and as he spoke, his mustache twitched. His eyes never removed themselves from me, and they seemed to be trying to dig deep into my soul.