My heart jumped up into my throat.
My eyes filled with tears.
I was upset that I couldn’t remember him. That he was actually once part of my life.
I looked down and wiped my eyes.
Then I approached him.
“What happened here?” I asked him.
“There are no classes today,” he said. “I’m sure you heard that by now.”
“That I did,” I said.
“But here you are,” he said.
“Here I am.”
Werthwood just kept staring. “Not the first time I’ve had to deal with something like this.”
“No?” I asked. “A lot of people want to break your windows?”
“Well, truth be told, the office window is a new one,” he said. “But I’ve dealt with a car window… twice.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
“I could tell you who did that. But you probably know.”
“Are the police involved?” I asked.
“There was no choice on the matter, Belle,” Werthwood said.
“Belle…”
“Belle,” he said.
“I just want to know if it’s true…”
“Luckily we have cameras that record all the time,” Werthwood said.
“What?”
“So I have the footage,” he said. “To make sure this is handled properly.”
I looked around.
Waiting for the police to show up.
“Okay,” I said. “That’s good.”
“I suppose it’s good,” Werthwood said. “Just glad nothing was damaged or stolen. Or at least that’s what it’s assumed to be.”
He knows. Of course he knows. Jo called him. Or he called Jo.
“So you’re going to ignore what I said,” I said. “Pretend that nothing is wrong here? Act like you don’t know what I know. What I found and saw. How fucked up everything has really gotten here…”
“There’s something I need to show you, Belle,” Werthwood said. “Come with me. Please.”
Werthwood walked toward the building and I followed him.
My emotions were mixed. Anger. Duh. But there was sadness, confusion… this desire to…
He held the door for me and we entered the building together.
It was empty and quiet.
Our shoes hit the floor and echoed down the hall and back.
I didn’t say a word.
He didn’t say a word.
When I realized Werthwood was taking me to his office, I started to slow.
“Trust me, Belle,” he said. “One thing at a time.”
“I’m tired of hearing that and thinking it,” I said.
Werthwood went to his heavy office door and opened it halfway.
“Just look for a second,” he said.
“What am I supposed to look at?” I asked. “I was already in there. I know everything. The love letters to my mother. The pictures. Jo told me everything too. There’s nothing you can show me right now that will… matter…”
Werthwood opened the door the rest of the way.
“I think you’re wrong, Belle,” he said. “Because I know who broke the window to my office.”
“Of course you do,” I said.
“You’re not listening. He showed up this morning to confess.”
I opened my mouth…
I hurried toward the office.
There was a person sitting in a chair in the office.
That person stood up, turned, and looked at me.
And that person curled his lip high into the air.
“Good morning, angel…”
* * *
Ash looked as hot as ever.
I noticed a red mark under his right eye. And it looked like the corner of his left lip had been cut.
The fight.
I wanted to jump at him. I wanted him to catch me. I wanted him to kiss me.
Instead I just stood there and tried not to look shocked.
But that was impossible.
I was shocked.
“Ashby Rivers confessed,” Werthwood said. “Security footage shows someone in a hoodie… a hoodie that he says is his.”
Well, it was his hoodie… but I was the one wearing it.
“Why?” I asked Ash.
“No choice, Belle,” Ash said. He then stepped toward me. “Sometimes you just have to do the right thing. How fucked up is that?”
“Breaking a window isn’t the right thing,” Werthwood said.
Ash looked at Werthwood. “We were done talking. Remember? I’m no longer welcome here. We discussed that. I guess I’ll show myself to Brooks Crest.”
“What’s Brooks Crest?” I asked.
“A place where guys like me go,” Ash said. “The bad boys… the worst of the worst… the ones that need to be hidden so they stop causing trouble.”
“You’re leaving here?” I asked.
“Considering his actions,” Werthwood said, “what choice is there?”
“What about Uly and Hil?” I asked. “Them? The Rulz?”
Ash reached for my hand and squeezed it. “Everything will work out, angel.”
“I assume you’ve made calls and arrangements, Ashby,” Werthwood said. “The family power and struggle will ensue.”
“Unless we consider this a misunderstanding,” Ash said.
“If only you could tell me the real reason why it happened,” Werthwood said.
Ash set his eyes on me again.
He lowered his lips down to my ear. “Told you I’d see you soon, angel. There’s nothing I won’t do to see you. We still have a lot to talk about.”
Ash brushed his lips to my cheek and then exited the office.
I turned and was stuck in the middle.
Chasing after Ash.
Staying with Werthwood to talk.
And I just froze.
Until Ash was out of sight.
Then I looked at Werthwood again. “You know what happened here.”
He nodded.
He stood behind his desk.
“You know what I found. And I’m not sure why I found it.”
“You made me break a promise I said I never would,” Werthwood said.
“So all of it is true…”
“You have the pictures, Belle.”
“Leave Ash alone. And tell me why everything fell apart.”
“Ashby was adamant about confessing, Belle. He was worried about you. Seems to me more than a few knew about your plan. But I’m not sure who knew what you’d find.”
“That makes two of us,” I said. “Leave Ash alone. Call the police on me. I already told Jo everything. And she told me plenty too. If you want your letters and pictures back, you’ll listen to me.”
“Are you threatening me?” Werthwood asked.
“I’m standing up for myself,” I said. “I’m doing what I feel is right. Finally. Without anyone else influencing me.”
Werthwood crossed his arms. “You were always stubborn, Belle. You always had a place for everything. And you always told stories. I loved listening to your stories.”
“Go find Miss Whitaker then,” I said. “She has some of my stories. And I have more to hand in to her. Think about what I said. Because this…” I looked back at the window that was getting replaced. “This is crazy…”
I reached for the door and Werthwood whispered my name.
When I looked back, he hung his head down, staring at his desk.
“It wasn’t her fault,” he said.
“Excuse me?”
He looked at me again. “Your mother. My Shelly. It wasn’t her fault.”
“Meaning what?”
“I’m sure you have strong feelings toward her,” Werthwood said. “I can’t blame you for that. I’ve heard stories throughout the years. And it’s pained me over and over. Pained me because you were stuck in it. And because it was all my fault. I was the one who ruined it all. I let the opinions, thoughts and pressure get to me.”
<
br /> “Rich boy, poor girl,” I said.
“Exactly. We were a family but it was never… it was never complete. I could never make it complete. She was hurt. She was going to keep getting hurt. And then I hurt her the most.”
“So is this your way of telling me to be friends with my mother? Are you really going to do that to me?”
“No,” Werthwood said. “You’re too smart for that, Belle. But you want the truth. And it’s all here.”
“You know what then? Fuck you. For everything.” I walked out of the office but then backtracked a few steps. I pointed at Werthwood again. “And leave Ash alone.”
I ran out of the office and down the hallway to the main doors.
Outside, I had even more decisions to make.
Where to go next.
What to do next.
But I was really looking for Ash.
He was getting kicked out of BFH for me.
Fuck… does that mean he loves me?
seventeen
So, Werthwood isn’t my father, but he did break my mother’s heart, setting her off on her self-destructive journey called life. Ash takes the fall for the broken window and is now possibly kicked out of BFH, and may be going to some place called Brooks Crest?
I nodded at those two thoughts.
Then another joined the frame.
Oh, and Lizzy knew about the letters and pictures and set me up to find them… convincing me I was going to find out some dirt on Them. Knowing my emotions were so twisted and fucked up that I would believe her.
I stopped nodding at that thought.
My phone started to ring and my mother’s picture appeared on the dashboard computer screen thing.
I pressed a button on the steering wheel to answer the call.
And I pulled the car to the side of the road.
“Mom.”
“Belle. Are you there?”
“I’m here. I answered.”
“Belle…”
I counted the classic three seconds and then boom there were tears.
My mother knew how to perfectly cry through the phone.
I swallowed hard.
It was her turn to take the lead on this.
“This is crazy,” she said. “I was worried about this. I didn’t know what else to do. I called Jo that day and told her she needed to get you. I wasn’t sure if I was going to make it… or I wanted to make it. I thought maybe if you went with Jo you’d be happier. Better off. That you’d find Hagan and something would happen.”
“Yet you never told me,” I said.
“I didn’t know how, Belle. Hagan was the closest thing you had to a father. And I never talk about your father… because what I’ve said is true. It doesn’t sit well with me that I don’t know who your father is. What does that make me? What does that make you?”
“How about I don’t care about it?” I asked. “But knowing someone was there… I remember some of the stories, Mom. But he’s not in them. You retold them to me to take him out.”
“I didn’t want you hurt,” she said. “And before you say it, I know. All I’ve ever done is hurt people. You. Myself. Everyone around me.”
I shut my eyes. “What do you want me to say right now then?”
“Anything you want,” she said. “Give it to me, Belle. Tell me you hate me. Tell me I’m a horrible mother. Tell me I’m a horrible person. I know it all. I live it every single day.”
“Then keep living it. Is Chester with you?”
“He’s away on business.”
“And by business… does that mean…”
“I don’t know,” she said.
“So you’re home alone. Crawling out of your own mind.”
“Yes,” she admitted. “And now this. I didn’t expect Jo to call me with that.”
“I didn’t expect to find what I did.”
“You went looking.”
“I just wanted answers,” I said.
“You got your answers, Belle. He was a part of our lives. A big part? No. I won’t give him that much credit.”
“At the very least, tell me what happened.”
My mother sighed. “It just didn’t work. We were too different. The summer we met, it was the same thing, Belle. Only later we were adults. We thought we had more control than we actually did. His life was moving in a direction I couldn’t go. Couldn’t handle. A direction I didn’t want for us. We started to push each other away. That’s the truth. We both hated the idea of you being in the middle. So he left. And I made him promise he wouldn’t do anything to confuse you. Ever. He sent me letters. The letters stopped. I realized later that he took the pictures. That… that broke me, Belle. I called him and wanted to do it again. But he had moved on. It wasn’t the right time again.”
I wiped tears from my cheeks. “Shit.”
“Shit,” my mother said. “Bad timing. Stupid decisions. And either saying too much or nothing at all. That’s my story, Belle.”
“How are you feeling?”
“A little less like I was in an accident,” she said with a laugh. “I’m working. Nice to live where you work. Quick commute. They work with me too. As long everything is done, it’s good.”
As I opened my mouth to talk, I saw the pickup truck coming toward me.
Not fast or anything.
Ash wasn’t going to crash his truck into Jo’s car.
But he came across the road and made it so his truck faced my car.
“Are you still there, Belle?” my mother asked.
“I’m still here,” I said. “But I have to go. Someone is here to see me.”
“Hagan?”
“No, Mom. Not Hagan. You should call him. He has more letters for you.”
“Belle…”
“Goodbye,” I said and ended the call.
I climbed out of the car as Ash walked to the front of his truck.
The same dark jeans, black t-shirt as back in Werthwood’s office. The same tattoos, bad boy jaw, amber eyes, and perfect hair.
Everything about him made me want to feel anger.
Yet all I could really feel was love.
My chin quivered as I stepped toward him.
“Why?” I asked. “Nobody is going to believe you did it. Even the video…”
“It just adds to it,” Ash said.
I pointed to his face. “How was your fight?”
“Served its purpose,” he said.
“Who won?”
“Nobody ever wins, angel,” he said. “It’s a matter of making a statement.”
“Right,” I said.
I licked my bottom lip.
It was still swollen.
Ash reached for my lip and I let him slide his thumb across it.
“She got you, huh?”
“I slapped the bitch a couple times too,” I said. “I wasn’t in the mood for a fight.”
“Belle…”
I slapped Ash’s hand away. “Fuck you, Ash. Fuck Them. You set me up. After what happened between us…”
“That was real,” he said. “It still is. The fight was different though.”
“How?”
“It was just something that had to be done. We didn’t want you to go there and look nervous. You needed to be strong. Confident.”
“And I couldn’t do that without being lied to?”
“If I told you we were going to be there to fight the Rulz, what would you have done?” Before I could answer, Ash moved closer to me. “I’ll tell you what you would have done. You would have asked a million questions. You would have demanded answers. We all know that. And it fucking sucked that we did that to you. But I needed to see it, angel. I needed to see the Rulz for myself. Watch them walk toward their girl. Hear what they would say to you.”
“Well, I’m glad you got that out of your system,” I said. I put my hands to Ash’s chest and pushed away. “Win one, lose one, Ash.”
“I’m not going to lose you, Belle,” he said.
“Too late.”
“Uly and Hil are waiting for you,” he said. “You want to hear a song? They’ve got one for you. You want to hear about Penelope? They’ve got that story too.”
I laughed. “So that’s it? Now you’re all going to cave to me? You’re going to take the fall on breaking into Werthwood’s office for me? Uly and Hil are going to play a song for me? Tell me about Penelope? Then what?”
“Whatever you want, Belle,” Ash said. “You want to be done? Then be done. I’ll protect you no matter what. You’ll always be a part of Them. And whether you like it or not, I’m in love with you. And there’s nothing I won’t do for that love.”
I swallowed hard. “I don’t want to hear that right now.”
“Because you love me too, angel,” he said. “I already know it. And I took the fall with Werthwood to see you. We all know the truth. He’s not going to do anything. And all I have to do is make one phone call and it all goes away.”
“What about Brooks Crest?” I asked.
“Trust me, you don’t want to know about it,” he said. “That place changes you. You go there and you might not ever come back. I’m not going there though. Trust me.”
“Then what are you going to do, Ash? Follow me around BFH? Watch to make sure nothing bad happens to me?”
“Sounds about right for me,” he said. “Them… we’ve proved our point. Everyone understands who we are again. And that goes for the Rulz.”
“So you’re stepping back from your life of complete asshole-ness?” I asked.
“Uly and Hil are at a little cafe that we sort of own,” Ash said. “Don’t ask. Long story. And it’s not the cafe where Penelope worked. Don’t start writing stories just yet, angel. I’ll text you the address if you want to show. They’ve been waiting for you since last night.”
“Good for Them,” I said.
Ash took away all the space between us. His hands touched my face.
I was paralyzed with love.
“We set you up,” he said. “And I’m sorry for that. I’ll never do that again to you, Belle. You want to be part of this? Then be a part. I’ll hide nothing. If you do the same.”
“I have nothing to hide, Ash.”
“Except your love for me.”
I pushed him away again. “That’s what this is? You want me to say it that bad to you?”
“No,” I said. “You do what you have to do.” He started to walk back to his truck. He stopped and looked at me. “Lake told me to tell you she still wants those ten pages. And your friend is the one who set you up.”
NOT SO Special: a bay falls high novel Page 17
