She gave birth to a beautiful, healthy baby boy in July. He had her coloring, so they would never know if Ricky was truly Keenan’s biological father, but none of them cared. Bethany came to visit, and so did her parents, who were still married and going strong despite all of the troubles they had had in their married life. Molli, who was by then officially Savannah, liked her grandparents very much. They made plans to visit all four of her uncles, who were in touch with both their parents and Bethany.
Savannah gave birth to a baby girl three years later and their family was complete for the moment with their two children, two dogs and a cat. Seneca married Grant and they moved down the street from Savannah and Marco. Seneca gave birth to twins a year later and they were soon playing happily with the Santos children. A few years after her departure from Crestview Academy and her life with the Archers, Savannah was in a small town with her children shopping while Marco was at a book signing for his new collection of poetry which had been called some of the greatest love poems of all time; when she saw her old classmate Tory. She touched her blonde hair and smiled at her former classmate and hoped that Tory had found a life of love and happiness like the one she had found with Marco.
Crestview Academy: Mellenda
Misty Reigenborn
Copyright 2012 By Misty Reigenborn
Chapter 1
Seventeen year old Mellenda Brooks was studying at the local library. Her roommate at the private school she attended, Crestview Academy, took so long to do her homework that she always monopolized the one desk in the room that they shared. She knew that Molli wasn’t stupid, and suspected that her roommate had an undiagnosed learning disability that she hadn’t been able to get help with, but she didn’t like Molli, and didn’t plan on admitting any of that to her anytime soon.
Mellenda pulled her cell phone out of her purse. She glanced at the time and was surprised at how much time she’d let get away from her. It was getting late, but she didn’t feel like going home just yet. The library was still open for a couple more hours. She noticed that her boyfriend Ricky had called her several times, but she wasn’t in the mood to talk to him.
She loved Ricky. He was nineteen and gorgeous. He was smart and had a good job while also attending college at the university in the town of Upton which was an hour and a half away from Brentwood where Crestview Academy was located. Ricky had always been good to her, but she was feeling out of sorts lately and didn’t feel like she could talk to him about the things that were really on her mind. She wasn’t sure he’d ever look at her the same way if she shared her secrets with him, and she was afraid to lose him.
Mellenda knew that she was pretty. She had long dark hair, clear skin and dark eyes. But she wasn’t as skinny as many of her classmates, and had always been concerned that guys would consider her to be fat rather than curvy. She had ample breasts and what her grandmother had once teased her to be “child bearing hips”. Mellenda didn’t like to think about kids. Her older sister had been pregnant when she’d died in a car accident a few years before. She’d felt like she was invisible to her parents ever since.
She missed her sister, and wondered what the child that she had been carrying would be like now, but she couldn’t understand why her parents felt the need to ignore her and make her feel as if they didn’t love her anymore.
She had gone to a support group for people that had lost family members a few times. They had said that sometimes parents that lost children hold on too tightly to their living children or that sometimes they withdrew and are afraid to love their other children like her parents did, but she’d begun to feel like it was all a copout long ago. She knew that Adrina wouldn’t want any of them to stop living their lives because she was gone. She also knew that her sister would be disappointed to see the way their parents were living their lives now. They were in debt up to their ears, and Mrs. Brooks had a gambling problem.
Sometimes Mellenda wondered how they could afford to send her to Crestview Academy, but then she figured that they found a way to pay for it because they no longer wanted to deal with having to take care of her.
Mellenda hid a sigh as she opened her English book. She wasn’t in the mood to study. There was a part of her that wanted to say screw it all. She was tired of being responsible. She was tired of feeling invisible and constantly worrying about college. Sometimes, she wanted to run away. But she knew that Ricky wouldn’t come with her. He was very settled in his life. Ricky was cultured and seemed more mature than some men twice his age.
Earlier that year, she had gone out with local drug dealer Tony Wilson. A part of her had wanted to prove herself. Tony was gorgeous and had a body that made women drool. Mellenda had given her virginity to him. It had been incredible. Tony was so good in bed that she had continued to sleep with him for several months after she’d started going out with Ricky. He had been the one that had ended it. She thought that it was because he was seriously into her classmate Tory Collins. She’d found it hard to believe at first that Tony could be seriously into just one girl since he had never been faithful to her, and was known to give women a discount on the drugs they bought from him for a good blow job, but it was going around Crestview that Tony and Tory were hot and heavy into their relationship.
Mellenda didn’t talk to Tory much. The other girl was quiet and kept to herself, while Mellenda made at least a token effort to remain in Crestview’s “in crowd”. She honestly didn’t care what most of the other girls thought of her though. Most of them were fickle and dumb and more than a little slutty.
Take Molli for instance, she thought. Molli had stolen Tory’s ex-boyfriend Jude. Jude was eighteen and went to Brentwood High. Mellenda thought he was cute but too damned skinny. She didn’t think he was so cute that Molli and Tory needed to fight over him either. He was a player. Mellenda had no idea why Molli was so dumb as to think that Jude wouldn’t cheat on her like he had cheated on Tory.
Mellenda returned her attention back to her homework and was able to finish it well before the library closed. She packed up her study materials and headed out to the bus stop that would take her the closest to Crestview. She still had quite a walk, but the bus system in Brentwood wasn’t the greatest.
As she walked quickly in the brisk night air after she had gotten off the bus, she wished her parents weren’t too cheap to buy her a car. She wished that her father didn’t feel the need to buy so much useless crap and instead would save some money or try to make at least a token effort to pay off some of his credit card bills.
There was a good looking security guard outside the doors when she reached the grounds of Crestview. He gave her a wide grin. She looked away. He was sexy as hell, but she’d heard that Molli had given him a blow job the other night to keep him from telling on her for sneaking back in. The thought disgusted her. Mellenda thought that if he had taken a blow job from a slut like Molli, he was probably sleeping with many more girls around school.
She sighed as she slipped back inside the school. She’d had permission to be gone of course, since she was studying, but it wasn’t as if she hadn’t snuck back in plenty of times herself. She really missed spending whole weekends with Ricky, but he’d had to work so much lately that it felt like they barely saw each other anymore.
She almost ran straight into Molli when she neared their room. She gave the taller girl a dirty look and then opened the door to their room. She made a face and rolled her eyes as she shut the door behind her. It smelled terrible in their room. She knew that Molli had to have snuck a guy in there while she’d been gone.
“Stupid slut,” she muttered as she closed the window. The room was frigid, though she thought that if it hadn’t been so cold she would have kept the window open all night to air the place out.
She put her books away and then stepped into the bathroom. She made a face again. She could smell cigarette smoke and it made her want to throw up. The only thing she hadn’t liked about Tony besides the fact that he had never been faithful, was the fact tha
t he smoked. She thought that Tony smelled really good if you could get around the stench of cigarette smoke that clung to him and everything in his house.
She sighed again as she looked at herself in the mirror. Why can’t I be skinny like Molli she thought? She’d started working out recently so that what she thought of as her extra weight would be muscle instead of fat. Many guys had told her that she had a nice body, but she figured they had all been trying to talk their way into her pants. No guy had made it into her pants besides Tony and Ricky. She didn’t plan on letting another guy get there anytime soon either.
She planned to join Ricky at the university in the fall and hoped that they’d get married someday. He already had a good job and a nice car, so she figured that it would only get better as he got older. She just hoped that her secrets stayed hidden long enough that he would want to marry her-maybe even forever.
Mellenda switched off the bathroom light and went back to the bedroom. She flopped back onto her bed and stared at the ceiling. She let her mind drift to thoughts of Ricky until Molli returned. She gave Molli a dirty look when she closed the door.
“Why did you leave the window open? It’s freezing in here.”
“I’m sorry Mellenda.”
“It smells in here too. Did you have sex with some smelly guy in here while I was gone? I know you were smoking in the bathroom. Cheap air freshener does not cover up the nasty smell of cigarettes. What type of cologne does your boyfriend wear eu de pooh? Tell him to learn to take a bath instead of splashing on half a bottle of cheap cologne. You owe me big time Molli. Though I have no idea how you’re going to pay me back. Just keep your smelly boyfriend out of here. I swear I will rat on you for every time you’ve ever snuck in and out to save myself if I have to. You didn’t do it on my bed did you?”
Mellenda thought that Molli looked like she wanted to laugh. “What the hell is so funny Molli? You did do it on my bed didn’t you? Now I’m going to have to burn my sheets. You are so lucky I won’t go tell Marcune. How did your moronic boyfriend make it in here anyway? Did you give the security guard a blow job again so they’d let him in?” Mellenda smirked at her.
Molli’s laughter faded. “Like you haven’t ever done anything bad. You’re not perfect either.”
“I’m sure as hell a lot more perfect than you are. Was it even your boyfriend you screwed in here or was it someone else’s?”
Molli bit her lip, but it looked to Mellenda like she was hiding a smile. “Yes Mellenda, it was someone else’s boyfriend I had sex with on your bed. It was your boyfriend.”
Mellenda snorted. “As if Ricky would waste his time with a girl like you.”
“Someday said that I was the one he wanted to go out with when he was hanging around in Brentwood all the time earlier this year.”
“Yeah right. Ricky is going places. You’re going to end up pregnant with Jude’s kid or some other guy’s kid and you’re going to be stuck in some shithole like Brentwood forever. I’m going places too. I could go to any school I wanted, but I’m going to the university so I can be with Ricky. They call that love Molli. You wouldn’t know anything about that because it’s different than just spreading your legs for any guy around.”
“Like you don’t do it with Ricky.”
“We make love. It’s okay for people who are in love to do that. It’s not dirty when you’re in love.”
“Sex doesn’t have to be dirty at all Mellenda. I’ll bet you don’t even like it, because that would be wrong. It’s wrong anyway. You’re doing it without being married.”
“Who believes that crap anymore? My parents did it before they got married. All the sex you have is dirty because you’re a slut.”
“Screw you. Maybe I did do it with your boyfriend and maybe he liked it better than he ever does with you, because I liked it too. Don’t you love the way he smells Mellenda? Wouldn’t it be fucking hilarious if I did do it with Ricky and you called your own boyfriend smelly?” Molli laughed.
“Oh please. Ricky pays more for one bottle of cologne than any of the men you date do in a year. Ricky would never do it with you. He’d be afraid he’d catch something.”
“I did do it with Ricky and we did it without a condom. He told me he didn’t have one with him because his prissy pants girlfriend happens to be allergic to regular condoms. Now how would I know that if I didn’t screw your boyfriend’s brains out?”
Mellenda gave Molli a dirty look. “You were probably digging in my purse when I wasn’t looking. I do carry condoms. A lot of people are allergic. Just not cheap whores like you.”
“I wouldn’t want to touch your purse. I’d be afraid I’d catch whatever you have shoved up your ass. You know your boyfriend wants me. You’re jealous because he thinks I’m hotter than you.”
“You’re cheap and trashy. Who’d you blow to get your tattoos and your piercings Molli? I know your parents didn’t give you permission to get a tattoo on your fat ass.”
“Fat ass. You weigh more than me. I know you do because your jeans are at least two sizes bigger than mine. I accidentally put a pair of yours on once. They fell off they were so huge.”
Mellenda colored. “I am not fat.”
“Then don’t say I am because I do weigh less than you do. Go to bed Mellenda. I have to finish the rest of my math homework.”
“I’ll do it for you. I’m so sick and tired of you going over shit again and again for hours. Just give me the damned assignment and I’ll write the right answers on another piece of paper and you can copy it. It’s not like it matters if you cheat here. You’re never going to get into college anyway.”
“Thanks a lot Mellenda. Will you really help me? I can’t understand any of what they’re trying to teach this year.”
Mellenda rolled her eyes. “It’s not like you’re the only one Molli. They teach us a bunch of crap we’re never going to use in the real world and they do it in ways that don’t make any damned sense. I wish I could have been home schooled like my best friend from back home was. She’s really smart. She’s going to get a good job without having to worry about going to college and building up a bunch of student loan debt.”
“Why do you think you’re going to have student loan debt? Aren’t your parents rich?”
Mellenda sighed. “Not like yours. They spend way too much money. Yes, I really will help you with your math. I’d try to show you how to do at least some of it, but I’m starting to get a headache and I want to go to bed soon. Let me see what you have so far so that I can check and see if any of it’s right. What kind of cologne does your boyfriend wear? It really did stink in here when I walked in, even with the window wide open.”
“I think he smells really good.”
Mellenda made a face. “Yuck. You have bad taste in men and they have really bad taste in cologne. You wanna know who smells really good? Mr. Harris. Holy shit does that man smell good.”
Molli handed her math homework to Mellenda. “I’ve never been close enough to him to really smell him. I’m afraid he’ll give me whatever Iris has got.”
Mellenda giggled. “That girl is so nasty.”
“I thought you two were all buddy buddy.”
“Yeah right. I don’t really like any of the girls around here. I can’t wait to get away from this place. It’s not like you have a lot of friends here either.”
“No, but I do have Seneca. She goes to Brentwood High.”
“Public school girls are usually even sluttier than private school girls. I don’t want to hang out with trash.” Mellenda handed the paper back to Molli after checking it over. “You actually did pretty well. You only have three wrong. Give me some paper and a pencil and I’ll give you the right answers to those ones and finish off the rest so that we can go to bed.”
“Okay. Thank you.”
“Don’t worry about it. You don’t really owe me. You haven’t told on me when I’ve snuck out and back in. I think I sneak out even more than you do sometimes. I miss spending whole weekends with
Ricky. He’s got to work most weekends now though.”
“Oh.”
Molli handed Mellenda a piece of paper and a pencil. Mellenda quickly finished the math problems, thinking that they were much easier than what she was doing in her advanced math class.
When she handed Molli the paper back Molli said “I didn’t really have sex with Ricky in here. I haven’t even seen him around town in a while. Is he still as fine as ever?”
“Oh yeah. I know you didn’t sleep with him. He wouldn’t do that to me. Was it Jude you were with? How can you do it with a guy that’s that skinny and short? I know he’s eighteen, but he looks like he could be twelve.”
Molli laughed. “His voice still squeaks sometimes. Do you really want to do it with Mr. Harris?”
Mellenda shrugged. “I probably would I wasn’t with Ricky and he wasn’t doing it with so many other girls. I don’t blame you for doing what you did with that security guard either. He is hot. Hey, you wanna know who Mr. Harris really wants to have sex with? Iris would be so pissed off if she heard this.”
Molli giggled. “Who?”
“Tory Collins. He wants her bad. I was walking by the dark room or that closet one day. He was describing to somebody in explicit detail what he wants to do to Tory.”
“Wow. Do you think she knows he wants to do it with her?”
“Probably. I know that I can tell when a guy’s undressing me with their eyes. They do it all the time.”
“Because you’re gorgeous.”
“Thanks, but I always wanted to be taller and skinnier, kinda like you. You could be a model.”
Misty Reigenborn Romance Boxed Set Page 169
