He looked as though I’d just punched every word out of his vocabulary. He blinked slowly. “You wanted to be with Sam?”
“Yes,” I admitted it to him and to myself. I wanted to be with Sam. I missed him. My life wasn’t the same without him in it.
What had happened between me and Eric had been a mistake. I wasn’t meant to be with Eric. I’d known that since the day that I’d found out about Natasha. What had I been doing? Why had I been wasting my time with him? It wasn’t as though I even needed his money. I had my own. I was just selling myself for money that I didn’t even need. Even a whore needs the money she sells herself for, so what was I?
Eric laughed. It was a laugh that was born in his stomach and shook his whole body. “That’s the best joke that I’ve ever heard. He’s a nobody. He’s a loser. Why would you want to be with him, when you could be with someone like me?”
“Because he’s better than you in every way,” I said simply. “You are and never will be anything compared to him. You’re going to wake up one day and realize that all those friends you think you have are fake. I don’t know when it’s going to happen, or what the trigger will be. Maybe it will be because you fumble the ball on the key play and the team loses. Or maybe it will be because daddy doesn’t give you your trust fund. But whatever, those friends of yours are going to turn their backs on you and you’re going to have no one. You’re going to have no one and you’re going to realize that you are no one.”
“Just because that happened to you,” he started and it was my turn to laugh.
“That didn’t happen to me. I had Sam. I had this wonderful guy who stood by my side and made me realize that I was so much more than just popular. You don’t have that. You did. You had me and I would have stood by your side through everything. I would have been there for you whenever you needed me to be, but you threw that away. You threw me away, so when it does happen to you, and I promise you it will, you’re going to find that you have no one.”
He looked shaken. “Well, where is your precious Sam now, then? If he’s so great, if he thinks that you’re so good, then why isn’t he here? Why did he leave you when he thought that you were with me? Why would such a good friend do that to you?”
“I’m telling your father about our agreement. I’m telling the truth about why we have been lying and there isn’t anything you can do to stop me.”
“You can’t do that.” Panic was stripping the confidence from his voice. He sounded weak and defeated, because he knew that he had nothing to use against me. “You can’t tell him about it. He’ll disown me.”
“That’s your problem,” I shrugged. “After everything you’ve done. After everything that you’ve put me through, you deserve this.”
“If you tell my father then I’ll make sure that you and Sam will never stand a chance again,” he warned me.
“Oh, is that so?” I looked at him. I tried to find the bluff in his words, but I couldn’t. He was telling the truth. He had something against me.
“Sure is.” He stood up with his confidence pulling back his shoulders. “If you tell my father about what we did, then I’m going tell Sam that it was you who burned down the arts hall.”
Why was he talking about the arts hall? That was a prank gone wrong that happened in our first year. It had nothing to do with what was going on. And it didn’t burn down, anyhow: smoke damage, sure, and some stuff got burned up, but that was all.
“You look confused,” he grinned at me. “Didn’t you know that Sam had a piece of work in there that he was planning to submit to some big art competition? My art teacher was raving about it. It had some million dollar prize if you won and she thought that he stood a chance. That was, until you burned it up.”
Was that true? Had I burned away Sam’s only chance of having any real money? I knew that his family didn’t have much. He’d only managed to get into our high school because of a scholarship it offered to one student a year. He’d got in on his art skills. I’d heard about that when everyone was talking about the new roughage that they’d let in.
I felt terrible. I felt like the worst person in the world. I’d ruined Sam’s life and I’d done it without even knowing. “Would you really tell him about that?”
“I don’t want to.” He held his hands out in front of him. “I don’t want to burst his bubble about what his precious little Cassie did to his future. I mean, can you imagine if he had won? He might have been able to get into a college like ours instead of having to slum it.”
“There’s no need to rub it in,” I said sourly.
A thought crossed my mind. Sam had said that he was trying to transfer over. How would he have done that without the kind of money that Eric and my families had? Where was he planning to get the money from? “I get it. I won’t tell your father about the agreement, but I won’t continue to lie either. You’ve got to tell him that we’re over.”
He shook his head. “I think actually, that you’re going to carry on lying for me. You see, I think that you really, really don’t want Sam to find out about what you did, so I’m guessing you’re going to do what I tell you to do.”
CHAPTER 4
I hated airports. I hated flying. I hated the way they shoved people into a metal tube and sent it above the clouds.
It wasn’t even as though I was flying in third class or anything. I was in first class. I had leg room and a chair that went all the way back. I had a flight attendant bringing me glasses of wine and the food actually looked like it was meant to be eaten. I was pretty sure that even the air was pulled through a different system, because it just didn’t feel as used as it did back in the main cabin.
I still hated it, though. I was still utterly convinced that I was going to crash to my death from the moment that I stepped on board. That’s why I hated the airport process. I got prodded and poked. I got scanned and questioned, all to walk into a metal tube that I really didn’t want to be in. As if the thought of falling to my death wasn’t daunting enough, they had to add the whole laborious process of being treated like a terrorist or something. I mean, I totally understood that they had to do it, but that didn’t make the process any nicer.
It was going to be worth it this time, though. It was going to be worth being prodded and poked. It was going to be worth the guard getting a noticeable hard on when he was groping my ass in the name of a pat-down search. It was going to be worth it all, because I was going to get Sam back.
The plane landed with a bump that felt hard enough to cause an explosion. I spent a few minutes mentally thanking the fates for letting us survive the journey before I stood up and collected my things.
“Rough landing,” the guy next to me in an Armani suit said, as he stood up and fastened his briefcase. “I always hate the bouncing at the end.”
I just nodded. I hated it when strangers tried to talk to me. I never knew quite what to say, because those people were clearly weirdos and I was pretty sure that one wrong word might start some psychotic fit or something.
I gave him a quick scan with my eyes. He was in his mid-forties. He had tired looking lines around his eyes, which told me that he’d got his money later in life. He didn’t look like a mass murderer though. He looked like an ordinary guy.
“Well, at least we landed safe and sound,” I muttered to him, so that he wouldn’t think that I was totally ignorant.
He smiled at me and our eyes caught. There was something about them that struck me. The color: I’d seen it before, but only once.
The door to the plane opened and we broke eye contact. He walked over to the door without saying another word and disappeared from my sight. I pulled my bag onto my back and followed him, but he was long gone by the time I got to the metal stairs that led down to the runway.
The weather was hot. It was much hotter than it had been when we’d taken off and it was a lot hotter than I had expected it to be. I took my sweater off before I’d even reached the terminal.
It took an hour to get out of t
he airport. There must have been something about the way I looked that seemed suspicious, because people stopped and questioned me on that side too. They kept talking about drugs and whether I’d let anybody near my bag.
I wondered whether it was because I was young and blonde. I didn’t ask though. I had a very distinct feeling that if I pissed them off then I’d be waiting a long time to be let go.
There was a cab waiting for me outside. It had arrived when the plane touched down and I’d had to call the company and explain about the questioning so that I could be sure it wouldn’t leave before I was inside of it.
The cab driver looked pretty happy. It was a happiness that I could understand, because he’d left the meter running and my interview with the guards had cost me nearly a ton.
“Where are you going, miss?” he asked, when I’d leaned back against the leather interior.
“I’ve booked a room at the Starlight Inn?”
He nodded and pulled away from the airport. I wanted to go and see Sam right away, but I knew that I’d feel better after I’d had a chance to wash the flight off of me.
The inn wasn’t too far away from the airport. It was pretty cute. It looked a bit like something you’d find in a fairy tale with wooden log walls and quaint little bushes lining the path which led up to the front door. The woman who signed me in was friendly. She fit into the fairy-tale theme well. She looked as I’d always imagined Little Red Riding Hood’s grandmother would look like.
I got to my room and didn’t waste any time before I started to get ready. I’d come all that way to see Sam and it was finally nearly time to see if I could make him listen.
CHAPTER 5
A different cab took me to Sam’s college. I got out after paying the guy and took a quick look around. It was nothing compared to the campus that I was living on.
The college was barely even three buildings, as far as I could tell. The buildings had clearly been built at different periods in time and they’d made no attempt to match materials. It was a mess. It was the kind of horror story that my father had warned me about. It was the public education system, underfunded and over-used, and you could tell from one look that nobody at the top gave one damn about making it an enjoyable experience for those who were forced to suffer through it.
There was a set of cracked stone steps that led up to what was the largest building. I walked in and found a hanging sign above my head that pointed down the hallway to the reception desk. I walked down slowly, taking in the faded paint and old posters which warned against the use of drugs and too much liquor. The posters were retro. There were guys wearing bell bottoms and girls sporting beehive hairdos in the pictures.
The receptionist was young. She looked as though she’d barely even finished high school. She had a round face that was framed with big, brown curly locks. “Can I help you?” her head tilted my way and a smile pulled across her lips.
“I was hoping you’d be able to help me find one of the students here.”
“Sure,” she nodded and all her curls fell forward. “What’s his name?”
“It’s Sam Hayden.”
“Okay, one second.” She looked down at her keyboard and started to type slowly. After a bit she looked up with a frown pulling across her perfect, skin. “I’m sorry, but it doesn’t look as though he goes here any more.”
“What do you mean he doesn’t go here?” I demanded. Her eyes widened at my sudden outburst and I tried to pull myself back, so that she would continue to help me.
“He’s transferred to a different college.”
“What college?”
“I’m sorry, I’m not at liberty to say.”
Shit. What was I going to do? He’d transferred and I had no idea where to. I had no way of finding him. “Thanks,” I told the receptionist who had done everything that she could for me.
“Don’t mention it,” she said brightly.
It was a wasted journey. It had been pointless. It was like Sam didn’t want to be found. He didn’t want me to know that he’d transferred, because otherwise he would have told me.
He’d cut me out of his life without me even knowing. I’d been too wrapped up in my scheme with Eric. I was still wrapped up in the scheme with Eric. I’d risked a lot by flying out to try and talk to Sam. If Eric needed me then he’d flip over me not being at hand.
I called a cab and had it take me back to the hotel so that I could pack. It wouldn’t take me long. I figured I’d be able to catch a flight straight back and Eric would probably never even find out that I’d left. I zipped up my suitcase feeling defeated. There was nothing I could do. I didn’t even know where his parents lived.
Wait. I could find that out though. I could call my old school and sweet talk the receptionist into telling me.
I made the call. I got the address. It was close to where I was. Sam had chosen a college that was practically next door to them. I rushed out and grabbed a cab off of the street. I could feel my heart hammering in my chest, as I realized that I was running through my last possible chance of working things out with Sam.
The cab pulled up at the side of a modest two story house and I jumped out and raced up to the door. I knocked. I waited. Nobody came to answer and I knocked again with the fury of a girl who was starting to lose her sanity. Somebody had to answer. Somebody had to be there. This was my last chance. I wasn’t going to give up, even if I had to beat the door down.
“Nobody lives there any more,” an elderly lady’s voice called out from behind me. I turned. She was standing at the end of the driveway. The door to the house across the street was open and I assumed that she’d come from it.
“Where have they gone?” I asked in desperation. “I need to find Sam. He used to live here. I need to find him,” tears were building up in my eyes.
She smiled at me. It was a smile full of warmth and understanding. “You’ve got yourself into quite a state, haven’t you?” she said as she walked over to me and put her arm around my shoulder. “You know, no man is worth crying over.”
“This one is,” I told her with certainty.
“It always feels like that at the time,” she nodded. “The Haydens moved a couple of weeks ago, but you’re in luck. They haven’t moved far. I’m surprised that you haven’t heard about it, to be honest. I thought that everybody in the town had.”
“Heard about what?”
“Mr. Hayden won the bonus ball. It was a triple rollover. He’s got more money now than he’ll ever be able to spend in a lifetime. He’s opening up a bunch of stores in the town and he said he’s going to hire all the local people he can. He’s raised everybody’s hopes, and the money has barely touched his hands. The only thing he’s done for himself is upgrade his house.”
CHAPTER 6
The old woman hadn’t been lying when she’d told me that he’d upgraded. The old, humble two story house was a far cry away from the stately home that I was standing in front of. It wasn’t a mansion like Eric’s dad’s place, but it was pretty respectable.
I walked up the long and winding drive way that had been paved to perfection. Low hanging willow trees arced over the driveway, but there wasn’t a single leaf to be found on the ground.
I knocked on the white door and waited for someone to answer. It was a woman. She looked as though she was in her mid-forties. She was pretty, with soft features and bright eyes. “Can I help you?” she asked, as she peered behind me to make sure that I wasn’t with anybody else.
“I was hoping to talk to your son,” I told her. “I knew him from school and we were friends. But then, I don’t know, we had a falling out, I guess.”
She inspected me. I could feel her curiosity pulling at information in her mind, as she tried to work out who I was. “Are you Cassie?” she asked and I was surprised. I nodded. She frowned. “He’s told me a lot about you. What are you doing here?”
“I needed to see him. The stuff that happened, it wasn’t what he thought. I need him to understand that.”
“I didn’t know where else to look,” I admitted to her. “I tried the college, but they said that he’d transferred, so I didn’t know what else to do. I called my old school and asked them for your address, which took me to your old house. A lady on your street told me about this place and now here I am. Is he here? Can I see him?”
She smiled at me. It was a warm smile that surprised me, because I was sure that she probably hated me. “He’s not here,” she told me gently.
“Where is he?” I asked desperately. “Please, I need to know.”
“I can see that.” She pondered for a minute. “I don’t know if my son would approve of me telling you about this, but he transferred to your school a couple of weeks ago. I’m surprised that he hasn’t come to see you already. He told me that it was for you.”
“He transferred to my school? When did that happen?”
“He came over to visit you and transferred a few days later,” she said, as though she was thinking back. “I can’t remember the date exactly. He said that he was going to find you, though, so I don’t know what happened there.”
I did. I knew what had happened. He’d come to see me and he’d found me going out with Eric. He’d seen the act that I was putting on for Eric’s father. He’d had his heartbroken all over again.
“Thank you,” I told his mom quickly. “Thanks for telling me,” I turned and started to run away from the porch. I had to get back. I had to get back and explain everything to Sam. It was the only way. He had to know the truth, even if he hated me for it.
I didn’t stop running until I got back to the hotel. My chest burned like a fire had been set inside of it. Air actually hurt when I took it in, but I didn’t care. I pushed my legs past the point of pain, as I took the stairs two at a time, and I only stopped for a second to grab my bag, before I raced back to the reception desk so I could sign myself out.
She Always Wins Page 2
