by Linda Kage
I stared at him as if he spoke a foreign language. But free? I was really free?
For some reason, I couldn’t yet trust it.
Chapter 12
BECKETT
It felt strange changing back into the clothes I’d been wearing the night I’d been with Melody. I actually wanted to set them on fire and watch them burn to ash, incinerate any kind of reminder of her and what I’d been through these last few days.
The things they’d taken from my pockets had been stored in a manila envelope that they returned to me next. After slipping my wallet, loose change, and keys back where they belonged, I tried my phone, but it was dead.
Okay, so I guess I was walking back to campus.
Typically, a walk like this would’ve been invigorating. I would’ve grinned the entire trek and lifted my face to the cold breeze and swam in the feeling of being free again. But I still felt like shit. My face was bruised and battered, my ribs ached and made my breathing wheeze, and I walked with a limp because my fellow convicts had kicked me pretty good in my knee.
Also, I’d been arrested without a coat, so I was a popsicle by the time I reached Alpha Gamma Rho. When I saw the white pillars rising up in front of the front door, I wanted to weep with relief. I stepped onto the porch, groaning from the aches and pains, just wanting to get inside to the warmth and sit somewhere soft for a minute.
I wasn’t even thinking about Chance and what he might do, so when I opened the door and saw Max first thing, lounging with his feet up, watching TV, I grinned, just happy to see my bud.
But his eyes flew open wide, and he jumped to his feet, already looking around for other people.
“Beck?” he hissed on an exaggerated whisper. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“They dropped my case,” I said. “All the evidence showed I told the truth.”
“Well, you can’t stay here.” He wasn’t looking at me as he hurried forward and took my arm as if to usher me right back out the door. “If Chance saw you—”
“I can handle the cowboy,” I muttered, pulling my arm from his grip and glaring at him. Honestly, I doubted I could handle Chance, especially in the shape I was in. We were the same height but he outweighed me by a good thirty pounds.
I was too ticked at Max to really think about that, though. He hadn’t said one thing about my fucking mutilated face, or how glad he was to see me free, or that hey, he was sorry he never got around to visiting me and showing his support.
“All my shit is here,” I said. Where else did he think I’d go? “My truck’s parked out back. My—”
“We boxed up your stuff already,” Max rushed to say, finally looking at me long enough to pull back in surprise before scanning my wounds from head to toe. Then he sighed and more quietly added, “I put it all in the bed of your truck.”
“So, there’s no way they’ll let me back into the fraternity?” I gulped, dreading his answer.
His eyes widened. “Dude, there’s no way they’ll let you back into the university.” He glanced into the kitchen to make sure it was clear before he dragged me inside. Then he picked up a piece of mail and handed it to me. It had my name on it, but it had already been opened. “Man, I’m sorry.”
I looked at him before tugging the envelope free of his grip and pulling out the letter inside. Granton University had officially kicked me out, and then gone as far as to warn me there would be legal consequences if I ever stepped foot on campus again.
Holy shit. I didn’t even know you could get a restraining order from a college. This sucked.
It sucked more than I thought it could.
Max shifted closer. “You need to go. I’m sorry, man, but I can’t be found talking to you.”
I looked up at him but didn’t really see him. Was Max breaking up with me too? He was the only friend I’d been certain I could rely on.
“But…?” What the hell was I supposed to do? I grabbed his arm. “Wait, you don’t actually think I did it, do you? You don’t think I’m a—”
“No!” Max whispered harshly before glancing around to make sure once more we weren’t spotted together. “I knew you were innocent. But that chick showing up, claiming she saw everything, really cemented it for me.”
“What chick?” I asked, shaking my head.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Never seen her before. Short, blonde, chubby thing. Said her name was Bailey Prescott and that she’d seen the whole thing between you and Melody. She came here looking for you and almost got into a knock-down, drag-out fight with Chance because she was so adamant about defending your innocence.”
I shook my head, wondering who the hell Bailey Prescott was. The only girl I thought had seen me and Melody was—oh wait. I suddenly remembered Stempy mentioning she no longer had rainbow hair.
Warmth and soothing relief filled me to learn she’d come here too to defend me, since apparently even Max didn’t feel so inclined to back me up.
I suddenly wanted to find Bailey Prescott and give her a big thank you hug. I owed her my entire life.
“…Still have to go now. I can’t be seen with you,” Max was saying, making me frown at him. Fine. If he didn’t want to help me out, I guess I was out of here. “You really need to go before Chance catches you.”
I waved him silent, rolling my eyes. “Whatever,” I said. “I’ll see you around.” Or not. Probably not. I had a feeling Max didn’t want anything else to do with me.
I headed out the back door, and sighed with another bout of relief when I saw my truck…until I realized a word had been keyed into the side.
Rapist.
Oh no. Fuck no. They’d mutilated my baby. I slowed the closer I got to it, only to realize most of the boxes my shit that had been packed in to the bed of the truck had been pulled open and broken or strewn about, my favorite jeans cut into shreds and the blanket I’d had on my bed splattered with some kind of red paint.
I didn’t even want to know what those said.
My tires hadn’t been slashed, though, so I unlocked the door and gunned the engine, plugging my phone into my car charger before I was even a block down the road.
I wanted to go home, but I still wasn’t sure how my family would receive me. Maybe I should call first. I didn’t know, but I did know before I did anything, I needed to regroup.
I found a cheap motel on the edge of town. As soon as I stepped inside to ask about renting a room, the lady at the desk pointed and said, “No. You’re that rapist on the television. You get out of here before I call the police.”
The couple who’d been trying to enter behind me, backed away, staring at me as if I were, well, a rapist.
I hurried from the motel and raced back to my truck, my face getting hotter and hotter as more people in the parking lot gaped at the word on the side of my truck and back to me, recognition lighting their gazes.
Whipping on a ball cap as soon as I climbed back into my truck, I cranked the engine and drove out of town, taking dirt roads until I knew I was absolutely alone. Then I found my pocket knife in my glove compartment and climbed out of the truck while it was still running.
My heart sank as I read the word gouged into the white paint job. “I’m so sorry, baby,” I said, my voice choking up as I flicked open the knife and proceeded to scratch through the word rapist until there was no way to determine what it had said before.
It was going to take me months to afford a new paint job to fix this.
My heart still felt broken as I returned to town and tried a new hotel, wearing my hat low along with an undamaged hoodie I’d found in the back seat of my truck.
I got further without any complications this time, all the way up to the point that I needed to pay for a room. When I took out my debit card, the guy swiped it. Then swiped it again before telling me the charge was declined. I didn’t have a credit card, so I opened my wallet for cash, and had just barely enough to cover the fee.
Grateful I’d gotten a room, I hurried, grabbing enough from my truck to get me throug
h the night, and immediately tried my phone. For some reason, I feared it’d be out of service too, but it worked, thank God. I looked up my bank account first.
It’d been cleared out. Completely. I stared at the zero balance in shock, unable to believe what I was seeing. When I’d opened the account in middle school, I’d shared it with my dad so he could put some occasional funds in for me. I must’ve forgotten to take his name off, because there was no way anyone else could’ve wiped out my money like that.
But the thing was, he hadn’t given me money since I’d gone off to college. All the funds I’d had in there was from my work at the University barn.
Feeling not only abandoned but now betrayed by my family, I started to dial home, but then disconnected, not sure I could talk rationally to them just yet. I couldn’t believe they’d stolen from me.
So I called my boss at the barn instead, only to be frostily told I was no longer employed there.
I wiped a trembling hand over my face, wondering what to do next. Who to go to for help. I’d never realized how having people in your life was such a big deal until there were no people there for you at all. Contacting any of my fraternity brothers was out of the question, and that had pretty much been the only clique I’d hung with.
I ended up calling Jana. I knew we’d broken up, but we’d been together for a year. She would know better than anyone that I wasn’t a monster. And we hadn’t even broken up for really strong reasons. There’d been no big, nasty, ugly fight where we now hated each other’s guts. We were still friends.
I thought.
I hoped.
I’d just grown distracted after all the problems had started at home, feeling like I needed to be there, while she’d felt as if I needed to be more mentally with her. That was how she’d worded it anyway. It had sounded like a pretty selfish excuse to me. When I’d needed her support most, she’d flaked on me. But hell, maybe she’d support me now. Maybe—
“You fucking prick bastard,” she growled, answering on the third ring.
“Jana,” I breathed her name in relief, glad she’d actually picked up the phone.
“How dare you call me? How fucking dare you? I mean, seriously, Beck. Melody? Melody the fucking slut Fairfield?”
Ah, shit. I hadn’t thought of the scenario where she’d believe me but still be pissed because of my lousy taste in rebound partners. Not that I’d picked Melody, exactly, but—
“Lose my number,” Jana growled.
“No, wait! I need—”
She hung up before I could plead my case.
So, yeah, I guess Jana wasn’t going to be supportive this time around either. I’d been an idiot for even trying her.
I sighed and fisted my hand before setting it against my forehead. What the fuck was I supposed to do now? I had no money, no family, no friends, no job, no place to stay after tomorrow when the hotel kicked me out. I had nothing but the broken junk in the back of my vandalized truck.
For some reason, I thought of rainbow-hair girl. What had Max said her name was?
Bailey something? Bailey…Prescott. That was it.
I logged into the Facebook app on my phone to see if I could find her, but before I could even think about searching, the newsfeed had me freezing.
“Holy shit,” I uttered.
Everyone hated me. They hated me and wanted me to die a slow, agonizing death with parts of my body cut off and burned before putting me out of my misery.
Silently, I turned my phone off and placed it face down on the mattress of the bed beside me.
This was worse than I ever could’ve imagined.
Chapter 13
BAILEY
I felt groggy and sore when I woke. Sleep had come in sporadic bursts here and there throughout the night.
And it was all Chance “The Cowboy” Fairfield’s fault.
It’d been a day and a half since he’d spit on me, and it was still bothering me.
I was a realist. Logically, I knew I had never stood a chance in hell with a guy like him. All that ‘he was my soulmate’ bullshit I’d spewed about him had been just that. Bullshit. A pipedream if you will. It’d been fun to imagine the what-if of being with him.
In real life, I didn’t even want a boyfriend really. I don’t think, anyway. And even if I did, a hot cocky cowboy like him wouldn’t even have given me the time of day. I mean, I wasn’t pretty, or tall, or slim, or smart, and I didn’t have a sparkling personality on top of that.
At best, I could hope he didn’t have very high standards and would settle for a one-night stand with me, and then I’d maybe get to try sex out once more in my life, see if it was better or still sucked as bad as the first time. But yeah, I never really honestly thought there’d ever be anything more than that between us. Not in reality. But the pipe dream had been fun. It had filled the hours and given me something to focus on.
Why the hell had he gone and opened the door to that fraternity house to ruin it all?
At first, it’d been cool. He’d called me pretty, and I’d thought holy shit, maybe he would be willing for a little hot nooky with me. Maybe he’d show me that sex wasn’t such an awful, icky sport after all.
Except it’d gone horribly, awfully wrong. Then he’d called me…well, everything he’d called me, and he’d crushed my pipedream. A year of what-ifs surrounding him, and he’d shattered them all in ten seconds flat.
Bastard.
Now I had to come up with a whole new pipedream to keep my company on lonely nights.
I was still trying to deny the fact that he’d ever made me cry in my shower as I applied a thicker layer of eyeliner to my lashes than usual. People didn’t make me cry. And I didn’t want a jerk with an even worse sister to be one of them.
Stepping back, I inspected myself in the mirror. Satisfied with the results, I tossed down the eyeliner and found my book bag and coat before hurrying from the apartment without even going near the kitchen. I was congratulating myself on escaping without talking to anyone or answering any questions when I heard a call from behind me.
Curses. I was only five feet from my car too.
Gritting my teeth and muttering under my breath, I spun around to find Tess hurrying after me. “Can I ride to class with you today?” she asked, opening the passenger’s side door before I could even answer.
I frowned. “Where’s Jonah?” She usually rode to campus with him.
She sighed. “I wanted to ride with you today.”
I let out a grumble of defeat and tossed my things into the backseat before sliding behind the wheel. She popped into the passenger seat.
“Well?” she was demanding even as I turned on the car. “You worked so late yesterday, we didn’t get a chance talk last night about what happened the night before that. Was he there? Did you talk to him?”
Oh, he’d been there all right, I wanted to answer bitterly. And unfortunately, yes, I’d talked to the bastard. But then I realized she was asking about Beckett. Not the cowboy.
“Oh. Yeah, no. He wasn’t there. I think he’s still in jail, actually.”
“What?” Her face fell. “Really? But your testimony—”
“Well, it turns out my testimony doesn’t mean shit,” I answered bitterly. “Believe it or not, some people actually think I’m the liar.”
Some people in stupid cowboy hats, wearing stupid belt buckles and stupid boots.
Tess just blinked before saying, “Why would you lie? You don’t even know Beckett Hilliard.”
I know, right!
I shrugged as I pulled onto the road and headed toward campus. “Don’t know,” I mumbled. I was tired of thinking about it. I was tired of cowboys, and non-rapists, and every fraternity ever invented. I was just…done. Done with them all.
Good night.
“Jonah still planning on going home with you for Thanksgiving?” I asked, needing a topic change more than I needed anything right then.
“Uh…” Tess blinked, not expecting that. “Yeah, of course. The
re’s nowhere else he’d go.”
I nodded. “Yeah. Makes sense.” Well, poop. That conversation didn’t last long. Now what did we talk about?
Usually, I was bursting at the seams for the chance to tell Tess something or other, and now that I had her exclusively to myself, I kind of just wanted to be alone.
Sadly, I think I was still licking my wounds.
Stupid jerk cowboy, calling me a lying, fat bitch.
Tess kept sending me covert glances, looking concerned. I knew she wanted to ask what was wrong with me, but that wasn’t Tess’s style. Open direct confrontation was more my style. So we arrived to campus in silence.
Though she always rode with Jonah, she shared more classes with me. We still had a few general ed courses we’d signed up to take with each other, and today we had three classes together. Two right in a row, then a lunch break, and the third after that.
The first two passed with relative boredom. The guy in front of us in speech class tried to ask out this girl next to him, but she shot him down hard, which had been entertaining, but other than that, it’d been blah, blah, blah.
At lunch, we went to the food court at the student union and once we were in line behind a chatty pair of girls, I leaned in closer to Tess and finally admitted, “Does today just feel weird to you?”
She nodded. “It does. But why?”
I started to shrug, not sure. I knew why I was in a funk. But why was Tess feeling it too?
In front of us, I overheard some girl say, “I can’t believe they let that Hilliard rapist free. It’s so scary.”
Gasping, I turned fully toward them to listen in.
But Beckett had been released? This was amazing! Thank God. Why hadn’t I heard—
“Poor Melody,” the girl’s friend cooed.
I sent Tess a significant glance and gave her an eye roll. Poor Melody my ass. That liar deserved some of her own time in jail if you asked me.
“Ohmigod, did you hear who got him out, claiming she was a witness,” the first friend asked.
I paused, opening my mouth, as she made air quotes around the word witness.
The second girl grabbed first girl’s arm. “No. Who?”
