by Shel Stone
“Better than not.”
And a number of the guys had acted lewdly toward her. Was that what she was going to get, them all thinking they could treat her like a total skank now? Renewed tears flowed and she wrapped her arms tightly around her.
“Someone really should tell Adrian where to stick it,” Morgan said sadly.
“I just don’t get why he would do this. He was so nice to me.”
“Because he can. I don’t know. He was bored. He’s a total bastard, always has been.”
And people had warned her, but she hadn’t listened. “I gave him the benefit of the doubt, and look what it got me. Audrina said she didn’t know me.”
“Pussy bitch.”
Mishti had walked away to. There was no way Tilly and those girls would stand by her. Overnight, she was a total outcast, but then she’d never truly cared about these people anyway. The issue was more how her friends in Europe would take this.
Walking along, she quickly unfriended all the people from Carterton Academy, except Morgan and Tory, because she hadn’t seen how Tory reacted to this yet, so the jury was still out. Then she wrote an update on how people could be deceptive and cruel and would even purposefully break your trust for their own sick pleasure.
Condolence notes were flowing in immediately and she took that to heart. Not everyone was abandoning her and that meant more than probably anything else that had happened to her. “Thanks for not walking away like the others,” she said to Morgan.
“Yeah, that’s pretty shitty. You didn’t do anything wrong. He did.”
And there was a bunch of people in Europe hating on him right now—not that he cared. To him, nothing existed other than New York. Well, he could keep it. It was a gross, nasty place with miserable people. Except Morgan, who was too good for this shithole.
They walked into a shop, which was white and full of pastel colors and mothers with toddlers. “Okay, I’m not this desperate for an ice cream.”
“It’s a bit different during the day from what it is at night. You want to go to Bergdorf?”
“I don’t care,” Cecily said, wanting to sit on social media and eye everything, and not at the same time. “What the hell am I going to do?” Cecily exclaimed with a heavy sigh.
“Ooh, I know this place where they make bonafide voodoo dolls. We’ll have one made of Adrian and stick needles in him. Or we could legit kidnap him and actually torture him.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s illegal.”
“So’s what he did.”
“I am so not going to jail for that mingy arse. He’ll rot in hell, but I won’t join him.”
“I do love it when you swear Britishly. Mingy arse,” she said, trying to repeat Cecily’s accent. It sounded so off, but Cecily appreciated the distraction. But seriously, what the hell was she going to do? Adrian had just sunk her and there was no going back from it. There was no undoing this. The only thing she could do was try to escape it, but everyone knew. If she went back to Europe, they would know, but she could control the narrative. Here, she was on Adrian’s territory and he controlled the narrative. Literally no one would listen to her.
Renewed nausea flared in her stomach. Her life here was over.
Chapter 17
“SO IS YOUR GOAL TO make the girls you date actually run from you?” Abby asked as she dropped her bag on the courtyard bench next to Adrian.
“What do you want, Abby?” Adrian asked with a sigh. Although he hadn’t expected Abby to call him out on his behavior, perhaps he should have. She was the only one so far to have mentioned it. Not even Seb had mentioned the video, even as he knew every single person in the school was talking about it.
“That was a pretty shitty thing to do to her,” Abby continued. “Why would you do that?”
“I have my reasons.”
“To what—screw over her father?”
“Shit you shouldn’t get involved with.” If it was anyone but Abby, he would tell them to fuck off. In some ways, he appreciated her attempts to set him straight, even as they were utterly futile. Maybe because she was the one person that tried.
“She’s left, apparently. I hope you’re happy.” Grabbing her bag, she pulled out a salad and pealed the plastic off. “Although I’m not sure I want to be seen with you right now, in case people think I actually endorse what you’ve done.”
“Then why are you here?”
“To tell you you’re a dick.”
Leaning back, he let his head fall back so he could better absorb the gently warming fall sunshine. “Nothing new there.”
Firstly, he was surprised Cecily had even shown up today. More so than the fact that she had left. Perhaps she was already on a plane leaving the country—going back to her precious Europe.
“How do you even get it up for someone you hate so much?” Abby asked, crunching on her salad.
“Surprisingly easy,” he responded. That part had been easy. It had been hot, but he didn’t know if it was the hate and deception that had made it so. They said hate sex was amazing. Although was it hate? Something in him had been very cold throughout. It had been revenge more than hate.
“I don’t think anyone is going to fuck you now.”
“Yeah they will,” he said with assurance. They would absolutely take the risk, maybe even love the risk. God, he hated people.
“So what are you going to do next? What cruelty are you going to inflict now? Is this your thing now?”
Running his hands through his hair, he sighed. There was an emptiness now that Cecily was gone. Pursuing her, messing with her, had absorbed him completely and now it was over, and there was nothing to replace it. Back to the same old shit. “Look, Abby. It was necessary. Jeffrey Chambers took from me, and now I took from him.”
“Took what exactly?”
“His daughter. A relationship with his daughter.”
“That is fucked up. So what did Cecily do to deserve being in the middle of this?”
Adrian was getting annoyed. “I don’t know. Do you think Jeffrey Chambers considered the repercussions when he tried to destroy my father?”
Abby didn’t answer, because she knew Jeffrey Chambers hadn’t given a fuck who would be hurt by him realizing his own gains.
“If your aim is to make me feel guilty about this, then you’re wasting your breath.” Okay, maybe there was a twinge of guilt, but he abjectly refused to entertain it. It was a harsh world, and if Cecily Chambers hadn’t understood that, she did now. “Can you believe she unfriended me?”
“Bitch,” Abby said sarcastically and then shook her head. “I worry you’re going down a road you can’t come back from.”
“Back to where?”
“To where you were a decent, lovely guy.”
“Sometimes I think you never knew me at all,” he said, picking up his own bag and taking off. He didn’t want to be there, but made a point of being there. This was his school and he had chased off the person he didn’t want there. Although he was more than ready to leave this school behind. Then again, there was the question of what to leave it behind for. That, he hadn’t really gotten a firm grasp on yet—what he wanted to do with the next few years. College was the logical and easy choice. But yawn.
Else he could go hang in Europe like some idle piece of shit. There was a certain appeal to it, but it came from that subversive place he didn’t often like to entertain. Because that was where she was. It would be additionally cruel to go after her, wouldn’t it?
*
Another day. Get up, dress, energy bar, because he couldn’t be fucked sitting down for breakfast. The car ride the few blocks to school. It annoyed him that Cecily had unfriended him, because he wanted to see where she was. He wanted to see her response.
There was nothing on Audrina’s account, but there was a photo on Morgan’s. A selfie of her at Bergdorf, Cecily in the background. It was dated from the day before. Her eyes were a little red, but she didn’t look distressed. It looked like any other shopping trip—while skipping school
.
There were numerous people calling her a slut in the comments, and Morgan had responded with a fuck you to each one. Well, Morgan’s loyalty was a bit of a revelation. He respected it. Showed more strength than Adrian had ever given the girl credit for.
The most interesting thing was that Cecily hadn’t headed straight to the airport. Instead, she’d gone shopping with her bestie. What could he make of that? What did it mean? Was Cecily going to try to play this off as nothing? Oh, people weren’t going to let her do that.
But did this mean she wasn’t being chased off? Energy ran through his body—anger and annoyance, and excitement. It may well be that the game wasn’t over. Was Cecily going to take him on? Was she dumb enough to think that would work? Or silly enough to think there would be any empathy for her? No, the victim card didn’t play well here.
Getting out of his car, he looked around as if searching for her, but she was nowhere to be found.
“You’re a fucking dick, Morecroft,” a harsh feminine voice said. It wasn’t her. He knew her voice. Looking over he saw Morgan.
“Well, good morning to you too, Morgan.” Her eyes were harsh and she stepped forward onto his toes, absolutely deliberately. There was a strict no violence policy at the school, but she didn’t need to. Her intent was clear enough by languidly stepping on his toes. Adrian smiled and that annoyed her even more. “Never knew you were such a defender of the innocent.”
“I’d like to say I never knew you were such a dick, but I can’t. I seriously don’t know what people see in you, but they keep letting you do these things. Maybe this time, you actually went too far and they’ll do something about you.”
“Yeah, but we both know they won’t.”
“Maybe Cecily’s father will?”
“Except he can’t really afford a war. Got too much invested in this town.” Men like Jeffrey Chambers, and Adrian’s own father, didn’t make moves that hurt their wealth, no matter what was on the line. And Jeffrey Chambers wouldn’t declare a war for his daughter’s virtue—but Adrian’s father would respond for the spoils of tearing Jeffrey Chambers down. “So is she coming today?”
“Fuck you, Morecroft,” Morgan said and marched away.
Down the hall, he could see Cecily’s locker. Someone had written ‘whore’ on it. It was a little chicken all these people jumping in on his move. It annoyed him. They swarmed when someone was down. There was no respect in that as far as he was concerned.
The entire corridor hushed, which told him that Cecily Chambers had just arrived. A smile spread across his lips. Oh, this game wasn’t over, it seemed. He’d underestimated her, because she was here to face down the music. Or was she here for face down him? To rail at him before she finally left town, to preserve some sense of pride perhaps?
And then, there she was, dressed in her school uniform, her gold hair hanging loose around her shoulders. And she saw him. Her mouth was drawn and her eyes were narrowed. With straight back, she walked toward him, refusing to skulk around the walls. To some degree, he was impressed. That pride was shining through. It hadn’t disintegrated like wet tissue paper.
She walked straight up to him and stopped about eight feet away. There was neither anger nor hurt showing her on face, just stoicism. The sheer stiffness of her gave her away.
The bell rang, but no one moved.
“Back for more?” he finally asked.
“You’re an asshole.”
Adrian smiled. “I told you so, didn’t I?”
With a look of disgust, she walked past him. It was as if the audience was released and they returned to their murmuring chaos, all now late for class.
Chapter 18
‘WHORE’ WAS WRITTEN ON her locker when she got there and Cecily’s cheeks burned when she entered her combination, her fingers trembling so, she had to try three times. Turning up at the very last minute hadn’t avoided her a confrontation with the person she’d least wanted to see. And he’d so enjoyed every minute of it. She’d seen it in his eyes, all the time wishing the roof would crash down and kill him.
Every step away from her bed this morning had been painful and forced. People were still laughing at her, guys making lewd catcalls. This had all tripped some line to make them act disgusting, and no one was objecting to it. The reaction of people around was probably what hurt the most. They weren’t offended by what had been done to her, and now they treated her as though she didn’t deserve basic respect.
And from the sounds of it, this had been Adrian’s intent all along. She felt so dumb, having believed all the things he’d said. And those kisses. How could someone kiss her like that when their intention was to do this to her all along? Who did that? Who was he?
Then again, she didn’t want to know. What point was there in understanding a person who could act that way? That was not the kind of people she wanted to be surrounded with.
It still hurt, though, like a pain you couldn’t escape from no matter what you did. Before, she thought Jasper had been bad, but he’d never betrayed her like this. Although she liked to think her friends and acquaintances would never act so despicably, the worst part of all this was that she wasn’t sure now. This made her question everything and everyone she trusted. Because how much of that trust was real? How many would turn on her like just about everyone at the school had?
Neither Tory, Mishti or Audrina had been in touch. Although she wasn’t surprised by Audrina, who had more or less told her never to speak to her again. And she was technically family. Only Morgan was left and she was stalwart. That meant so much.
Slamming her locker shut, she went to class. The last thing she wanted was to sit through English Lit next to Adrian, but there was nothing about this she wanted to do right now. She was doing this in some insane attempt to show this wasn’t getting to her—which was an abject lie. But whatever his intention was by releasing that video and completely ruining her, she wasn’t going to budge.
Adrian clearly hadn’t had the decency to move seats like she’d hoped. Her option was to take her usual seat or to ask someone to move. Every person in the room would watch her if she did, and it was a toss-up between the horror of sitting next to him or drawing more attention to the fact that she refused to sit next to him.
She chose her normal seat, but she refused to look at him. Someone shot out their foot as if trying to trip her and she corrected herself awkwardly.
“Sims, cut it out!” Mr. Anderson said sharply. “Detention.”
If nothing else, that told her that the teachers all knew too. Yet Adrian was sitting in class like nothing had happened, because they probably wouldn’t do anything unless she complained. And no doubt they would go through the motions to end up giving him a slap on the wrist. The school was too scared to really discipline the students. Morgan had told her about a stalker incident last year and the school had been completely incapable of dealing with it. There had been endless meetings called with parents, and suggestions of counselling, but in the end, nothing had happened until the girl had chosen to leave the school. Stalker boy, being of a prominent family, was still here, although it seemed he had a girlfriend now. Cecily shuddered.
Although she refused to look at Adrian, she was one hundred percent aware of his presence. Sitting there was utter misery. Fucking Hawthorne. When Mr. Anderson’s back was turned, she snuck one of her cordless earphones into her ear, hidden by her hair and played Abba on her phone. One of her friends had convinced her to watch that movie and it never failed to carry her away, which was exactly what she wanted right now, imagining she was a free spirit on a Greek island.
If all else failed, maybe she would become a hermit on a Greek island. Yeah, well, she had to get into a good college first.
A note was passed onto her desk from the guy sitting in front of her.
Want to come over later? It asked. The guy sniggered as Cecily scrunched up the paper and threw it on the floor. She didn’t dare look over to see if Adrian was watching. The asshole was probably gloati
ng.
This was her life as the social pariah of Carterton Academy. From the moment she’d arrived, she’d known she didn’t need these people and that was true now more than ever. She would simply not need anyone. These were not her people and they never would be.
The pep talk and Abba were getting her through the period, and she sighed her relief when it ended, being out of her desk the moment it rang. The hallways were a gauntlet of pain and she tucked her other earpiece into her ear and blocked out everything they said. There was only six, seven months of this to go, right? Her job was to get good grades, and that was all she needed to focus on.
Not on how Tilly just looked at her like she was dirt, or how this other girl flipped over a phone, showing a video of her riding Adrian. So that’s what it looked like. She’d refused to look at it and she refused to now.
As for being strong, it only lasted as long as she was forcing it to. Any free time she had, she hid between the bleachers and the wall at the far side of the gym, or alternatively the library if there was a class going on in the gym. The last thing she could do was face the cafeteria at lunch. Because he would be there and she did not want to spend any time at all anywhere near him.
“You alright?” Morgan asked, coming around the front of the bleachers. “Thought I might find you here.”
“Just taking a Zen moment,” Cecily replied as Morgan came to sit down against the wall and stretch her legs out.
“Some other scandal will come along and they’ll jump on that. You’re just scandal du jour.”
“You mean belle du jour.”
Morgan sighed. “Honestly I’m most disappointed in Mishti. I’m questioning our whole friendship.”
“I guess you really see someone’s character with a thing like this.” And Cecily had certainly seen Audrina’s. Not even an ounce of sympathy. Seriously, the girl was dead to her. “Perhaps the upside is that you truly get to see who your friends are.”
It had also made Cecily question the whole concept of worth. What was worth? Although she might not have been totally crazy over it, she had been quite pleased to be included with Tilly and her friends, because they were the ones everyone wanted in with, but what were they really worth? Because they were still the girls everyone wanted in with. Nothing had really changed except her position within this whole structure. Chewed up and spat out. But she refused to feel worthless.
