by Mina Thorne
"I'll have the driver meet us at the side entrance," he growled and tapped the keyboard on his phone. "Becca, go find your family. And thank you for coming to get us instead of making this a big deal. I will remember that. I'm sorry you had to see this side of her, I assure you she's not going to be like this in our household or else she'll be put on total lockdown."
Even in the midst of my fog, I realized what she'd done. Becca had set me up. I didn't know if she'd drugged me or given me more of that Russian booze but she'd fucked with me and humiliated me in front of Dad and Elaine.
As she handed me over to Dad for support, I took a swing at her. I intended to hit her chin, like Dad had hit Taylor, but I missed and almost fell to the pavement. I dropped to my knees and scraped them. I called out in pain and Dad hooked his hand under my armpit and pulled me up.
"She did this," I said and took another swing at Becca. "She did this to me."
"I doubt she made you get drunk, Stephanie. Now pull yourself together or I'll ground you until the next decade," Dad said and the low, dangerous tone he used sent a little shockwave of fear through the fog in my head.
"I'm sorry, Daddy," I slurred and let them half walk and half drag me to the side entrance where the driver was waiting for us.
"You can go now," Elaine told Becca. "Once again, thank you and I'm sorry she dragged you into this kind of thing. It must be shocking for you to see."
"Not at all, I'm so glad I could help," Becca chirped and just before she left, she gave me a sly, smug look out of the corner of her eyes. She had totally set me up and she was reveling in my shame.
She walked away, almost skipping because her step was so bouncy, and I hated her. I hated her so much I wanted to chase after her and yank her down by her hair and give her one hell of a beat down.
But I was too out of it to respond, I was too woozy to move let alone go after her.
Dad and Elaine got me loaded into the backseat of the Land Rover and our driver headed home.
The silence was weighted with Dad's disappointment and I could barely breathe because of it. He was so upset with me I didn't know what he'd do and that terrified me.
I think it would have been easier to deal with if he'd lectured me on the way home, or told me what a failure I was, or anything.
But we rode in icy silence, the unspoken words hanging between us like anchors dragging us down into familial misery.
Only Elaine seemed to be in a good mood. Well, maybe good was an overstatement, but she seemed quite pleased with the outcome. Just the part about me being on my Dad's bad side though, I still got the sense that she was upset about the actual act itself, Taylor kissing me.
Not that I wanted it, I never wanted it.
I would tell Dad how I'd struggled to get away.
But first, I had to sober up. Stop this spinning in my head and the pulsing in my ears that made it feel as if I was going to explode.
First, I would sleep.
Then tackle everything else.
Chapter 28
First thing in the morning Kit knocked on my door and came into my room. She sat on the edge of my bed and said, "How are you feeling?"
She had a tray with a glass of bubbling water and a couple tablets.
"I feel like my head got run over by a truck tire," I said and groaned as I sat up. "I was set up last night. I need to tell Dad."
"You need to take these first. It's seltzer water with a vitamin shot added, plus a couple acetaminophen pills for the pain," she said. "Our head Chef swears by this as the perfect hangover cure. Barrett and Roland both swear by them too."
I swallowed the pills and washed them down with the fizzy water. The bubbles tickled my nose and I almost sneezed, but caught myself before I did. "How bad is it?" I asked when I set the glass back on the tray. "Did Dad say anything to you?"
Her face dropped and she frowned. "I won't lie, it's bad. He's really steamed, I haven't seen him like this since Roland stole the gardener's van and drove it into the neighbor's fence."
"Did he? How old was he?" I asked.
"Fifteen. That was a while ago, but they did send him to an all boy's military private academy to get him in line. I'm concerned they might ship you off to boarding school if you don't get yourself back on track. Want to tell me what happened?"
I told her everything, how Becca had seemed so nice and how she'd apologized for being rude to me.
"But she never actually said she did it? She never admitted to projecting the video or putting the stuff on your locker?" Kit asked.
"No, I guess she didn't. Just the gross Biology thing with the tampon. God, I'm such an idiot. She was just messing with me and I'm so eager to make friends that I took her at face value."
"I've warned you before, and I'll warn you again. Don't trust people around here. They do things that would make most people curl up in shame, but around here it's dog eat dog. Either you are the one manipulating everybody or you're the one being manipulated."
"I didn't want to kiss Taylor Dennis either, by the way," I said and my eyes dropped to the comforter on the bed. My cheeks heated up at the memory of his lips on mine, how his hands had been everywhere and how closed I'd been to being...well, assaulted."
"He almost raped you," Kit told me and put her hand on mine. "We can call the police and report it if you feel strong enough to stand up to him."
"No, there's no way anybody would believe me," I choked and held back tears. "Besides, it would be his word against mine and Becca would probably back him up. Say I was asking for it. So then it would get out into public and everybody would think I was even more of a gigantic slut."
"I'll talk to your dad without Elaine around, see if I can get him to relax a little, okay? Why don't you hide out here for the time being and I'll send him up when he's ready to stop being such a jerk," Kit said and patted my hand. She smiled brightly, stood and took the tray with her.
I was alone in my room again, so I curled up and went back to sleep. I hoped I'd feel better when I woke a second time.
The chef's miracle hangover cure truly was amazing. When I woke again, it was after noon and my phone was blowing up but I felt way better. My head no longer throbbed and I no longer felt like I was going to vomit.
It was my mom though, and I wanted to crawl back inside my bed and hide under the covers until she left me alone.
But the constant buzz of message after message indicated she wasn't going to leave me alone any time soon, so I wrote her back.
"I'm fine, just a little sick. Somebody put something in my drink and the tennis instructor tried to force me to kiss him."
"WHAT? Pick up the phone I want to talk."
"No talk, I'm tired. But I'm fine."
"Where was your dad? He sounded angry this morning but why would he blame you?"
"He didn't know, people told him differently."
"Like that Elaine bitch. I'm sorry you have to deal with her. She's always been a sociopath."
I didn't respond to her last one but I did wonder what it meant. Had she known Elaine back then? Had Elaine been part of the reason mom and dad broke up?
I wasn't strong enough to unpack that particular puzzle though, so I hopped in the shower and let the water wash everything away. By the time I finished, I felt incredible. Like a totally new person.
I threw on some loose yoga pants, a tank top, an oversized hoody and some fuzzy socks and curled up in my chair with a book to pass some time.
I didn't have to wait long, Barrett practically knocked the door off its hinges when he swung it open and burst through.
"Shit, what the hell happened? We were at a football development camp or else I would have been here. Who did what to you and what did they do?"
He was pretty wound up, he paced in front of me and his gorgeous features were twisted into concern. His eyes sparked like green lightning as his emotions rose to the surface. His bruises had faded over the week, but in certain lights they still looked a little darker under his eyes but
it only served to give him a rock star look that I loved.
"I'm okay, I promise," I said and he calmed down immediately. He dropped to his knees in front of the chair and rested his hands on my thighs. I kept going, explaining what happened. "Becca drugged me or tried to fuck with my drink. Then she invited Taylor Dennis to sit with us and left me alone with him. He tried to force me to—"
I realized I couldn't admit it out loud, even when Kit had said it, I hadn’t really let it sink in. It had been hard enough to think about it, to let my inner thoughts go to that dark place, but looking at the concern in Barrett's eyes barred me from saying what had happened.
"He tried to rape you?" Barrett demanded.
I nodded and felt a single tear slip out of my left eye and roll down my cheek. So far I hadn't cried about it, I'd kept it all inside.
"Where the fuck was everybody? Why wasn't somebody watching you around that fucking creep? Everybody knows what kind of man he is, he's the one my mom—"
And Barrett it seemed reached his own unspeakable point. We both knew Elaine appeared to be having an affair with her tennis instructor, and I'd had a strong feeling that Taylor was the one she'd been sleeping with, but until that point I could pretend it wasn't real somehow. That he hadn't just about destroyed my life by forcing himself on me, that he wasn't destroying my father's life by fucking his wife.
And yet, there it was. We both knew exactly what was going on but we couldn't quite open that particular door just yet.
"He's trash, for sure," I said quietly.
"I'll kill him," Barrett said, his voice was cold and hard and he stared past me into the distance. "I'll fucking kill him for what he's done."
I didn't want to ask him to elaborate, if he meant what Taylor had done to me or the fact that Taylor had been banging Elaine. I wasn't ready for the answer, and either way, it wouldn't make a difference.
"I don't need you to do anything for me," I said quietly.
"Fuck that, Steph. Let me fuck up that shitbag. I'll kick his ass for what he did to you."
And then it did make a difference. I realized he wanted to protect me, this had nothing to do with him and Elaine. I told him no though, I just didn't want him to do anything stupid, something that might get him in trouble...even if his intense need to care for me was incredibly sexy.
"Why would Becca do that?" I asked him, trying to distract him from his anger. "What the fuck is her problem with me?"
"She knows you're the reason I dumped her," he replied.
"I thought you weren't her boyfriend, how did you dump her?"
"We were something. And then you came along, and we were nothing."
"So you wanted nothing to do with her after I showed up?"
"Basically," he grinned. "You did that to me, so she hates you for it."
"Oh well, sucks to be her," I replied. "Sucks to suck."
"True that. Sucks to suck. And Becca fucking sucks, don't forget that. She'll never like you and she'll never be your friend. Never let your guard down again, okay?"
I nodded and again I felt emotions fill me up inside, to the point where they threatened to spill over in the form of tears.
I was still so tired, and whatever I'd been given last night made me foggy even now.
I yawned and Barrett stood up, took my hands in his and pulled me to my feet. He wrapped his arms around me, turned and flopped back down in the chair, taking me with him.
I curled up on his lap and let him stroke my hair and kiss me gently until I fell back asleep.
I found safety in the most unlikely of places, in the arms of my arrogant, stunningly handsome stepbrother.
And there was no other place I'd rather be.
Chapter 29
"Why the fuck didn't you tell me what happened?" Whitt demanded the moment we got to school on Monday morning. "Who did it? Who tried to rape you?" Barrett and I were walking from the parking lot and he fell into step with us the moment he saw us.
"Wait, what did you hear?" I asked and stopped at the bottom of the steps.
"That you got drunk at the club Saturday night and one of the staff tried to force himself on you." Whitt looked down at me, then his eyes flitted to Barrett's and he raised his eyebrows. "Somebody tell me what the fuck went down."
"I'm sorry I didn't reply to your texts, but it was a rough day yesterday," I said. Mom had continued to text me throughout the day, and I'd told Maddy and Brie about it but hadn't been in the mood to divulge everything as much as they'd demanded details.
Whitt's texts had gone unanswered, five or ten of them, and I'd felt guilty leaving him hanging like that.
“I was just concerned,” Whitt said, but I could tell he felt left out of the loop because he wasn’t at home with me like Barrett was. I did seem a little one sided, me living with one of my guys while the other had to wait all weekend to see me again.
We went our separate ways and my first class was a fucking nightmare of students laughing and whispering at me to the point that the teacher had to send a couple boys to the office.
For the first time since starting school at Westview Academy, my uniform felt scratchy and uncomfortable and I couldn't stop tugging at it during class. It was like my body was rejecting the school or something.
Rome even asked me about it in math class.
"Something got under your skin?" He looked me up and down, giving me a little eyebrow raise at the same time. "Maybe you should take your vest off...unbutton your shirt."
"Not necessary," I smiled and wondered how much he'd heard about the club.
In this town, in this school, I imagined he'd heard everything. It was a little different than back home where the school was big and chaotic enough to be able to blend into the background during times of rumor and gossip.
Unless you went viral, that was.
But here at Westview it felt like every god damned thing I did went viral. People were watching me to see what I'd do, they hung on my every word, analyzed my every gesture.
And in spite of me trying to keep my composure or shield my dad from the ugly rumors that were being spread, I'd failed. He'd been drawn in and he was appalled at my behavior even when I'd tried to explain myself.
So fuck them all, fuck trying to keep him safe from my reputation.
I was going to reclaim my reputation.
Rome's suggestive comments were innocent enough, and I liked passing the time in Math class by flirting with him, but he also had another purpose.
His comments gave me an idea. I had a plan formulated by lunch, so when I met up with Whitt and Barrett outside the cafeteria, I jumped up and down and said, "We need to go somewhere."
"Where?" Barrett asked.
"When?" Whitt added.
"Now! Like right now. I'm dying for this to work," I giggled and told them what I needed.
"I know exactly where we can get that," Whitt said with a grin. When we both looked at him quizzically, he added, "What? I was into magic when I was a kid. Don't laugh, it's a good hobby."
"Dude, I remember that!" Barrett started laughing. "Seventh grade talent show, when you tried to pull the rabbit out of the hat but it got away! The entire school was trying to catch it in the auditorium, and when Coach Smythe finally did round it up, it shit all over his desk and ate through his phone charger. That was fucking epic."
"Yeah, I never said I was good at it," he chuckled.
I laughed with them, imagining the two boys back in the day before they had built up competitive tension between them. I'd never found out if there was one incident that had prompted their dislike of each other, but it seemed as if being interested in me had kinda brought them together at long last.
They had to get along to spend time with me, defending me and protecting me had created a new bond that went above whatever bullshit that had pulled them apart.
We took Whitt's Land Rover so we could all fit in it comfortably. We had exactly fifty minutes to drive to the mall, buy what I needed, and make it back.
I had PE with Becca right after lunch and I was dying to put my plan into action.
Whitt led us through the mall, introduced me to the shop's owner, and the two boys let me tell her exactly what I needed. I told her why, as well, but I didn't go into all the details because I was still traumatized by the memory of Taylor's hands and mouth and my near-miss.
But I did tell her enough that she laughed so hard she sold me two pouches for the price of one, but only if I told her if it worked or not.
We got back to school, I promised Whitt and Barrett I'd record as much as I could on my phone and went on my way just before the end of lunch bell rang. I snuck into the change room and found Becca's cheer uniform. While the rest of us had to run laps, Becca and the cheer squad got to practice their routines for upcoming football games, so I might not get a front row seat to watching the hilarity unfold.
I opened the two pouches of itching powder, careful to not breathe them in or get any on my own skin, and dusted the inside of every one of her uniforms with it.
I threw out the empty pouches, washed my hands, got changed and was sitting on a bench lacing up my sneakers when the rest of the PE class came in.
"Hey, slut, I missed you at lunch," Becca said and Sienna, Agnes, Marie and the rest of the squad laughed nervously behind her. "I thought you must be off getting hammered and fucking some old dude or something. Is Mr. Maynard looking might fine these days?"
Even I knew Maynard was about eighty and should have retired from teaching Physics years ago. I just smiled and said, "I was studying. Something you should think about doing, I saw the grades posted for the last Biology quiz and let's just say yours are....womp womp." I said the last bit like a sad trombone and gave her a thumb's down.
Sienna laughed, Marie and Agnes giggled, and Becca gave me a look that could freeze a volcanic eruption.
"Whatever, whore. Tell yourself what you need to get through the night. We all know you're a loser. Just poor white trash clinging to her Daddy's bank account in order to maintain relevancy."
