Hopeless: A High School Bully Romance (Playa Del Mar Book 1) Page 13

  That bastard.

  “I didn’t cheat,” I say.

  “You were sleeping with someone else before you and Ben broke up,” Emily snaps. “What the fuck do you call that?”

  “I wasn’t,” I say weakly, because I can’t tell her the truth. I can’t tell Ben’s secret.

  Belle glares at me. “But that is seriously fucked up.”

  “Who told you?” I ask. I want to know if it was Hayden.

  But Emily misinterprets my question.

  “I did,” she says. “I told them both all about your long-distance thing when I heard about you and Hayden. Ben didn’t date anyone for years because of you.” Her eyes shoot daggers at me. “And then you sleep with the first hot guy who looks your way? What the fuck, Sydney?”

  Tears sting my eyes and trickle down my cheeks. “It’s not what you think.”

  “No? Then tell us what it is,” Emily demands.

  I open my mouth, but no words come out.

  Because I can’t tell them.

  I think of the scars crisscrossing Ben’s stomach, of the tears and the anguish he experienced when he told me he was gay. As much as I feel betrayed right now, I can’t betray his trust. It wouldn’t just wreck him; it might actually kill him.

  So I just shake my head and repeat the words I just spoke. “It’s not what you think.”

  “Oh, it’s exactly what we think,” Emily says with a snort of disgust. “I can’t believe I thought you were a good person. Someone I wanted to be friends with.”

  Belle and Willow both nod.

  I just stand there and stare at them. My throat is dry but tears still flow. I don’t brush them away.

  Something flickers in Belle’s eyes but it’s gone as soon as it appears.

  “I can’t say it was nice knowing you,” she tells me.

  “Do us a favor,” Willow says. “Stay the fuck away from us. There are plenty of bitches at this school who your kind will fit right in with.”

  Emily nods. “Start with Charity. You’ll be in good company.” She pauses. “If she'll even have you.”

  She opens her car door and the other two do the same. Seconds later, Emily backs out of her parking spot and peels out of the lot.

  I watch them leave.

  Chapter 36

  I almost laugh when I walk through the door and my mom asks me how my day was.

  She’s sitting at the table, a mess of papers spread out in front of her, but she looks up from them and smiles at me. I know what it is: an invitation to sit down with her and get her caught up to speed with what’s going on with me. She’s done it for as long as I can remember.

  But there’s literally nothing I can tell her.

  I can’t tell her about Ben and his deep, dark secret.

  I can’t tell her about the lie he told about us.

  I can’t tell her that my newfound friends have suddenly ditched me.

  I can’t tell her that the bitchiest girl at school is out to get me and is spreading lies about me.

  And I definitely can’t tell her about Hayden. How much I liked him, what he meant to me, what I’ve done with him.

  And how he believed lies about me instead of asking me for the truth.

  I know why he did. I had a long time to think about it while I sat through my afternoon classes. The story of his mom leaving popped into my head as soon as I sat down in my first class after lunch. I remembered the hurt and anger in his voice when he told me she cheated on his dad and then left him.

  But just because she did that doesn’t mean I would. And he didn’t even give me a chance to explain.

  “You want something to eat?” my mom asks. “I went to the store this morning. There’s ice cream in the fridge.”

  I shake my head. I haven’t had anything since breakfast but my stomach is still too tangled in knots for me to even think about eating.

  Her brow puckers with a frown. “Is everything okay?” She pats the chair next to her. “Here, come sit down. Talk to me.”

  Reluctantly, I drop my backpack to the floor and shuffle over to the empty chair.

  “You seem upset.” Her eyes search mine. “What’s wrong?”

  I hate that the tears pop almost immediately, and I scramble to find a reason for them. “I think I bombed a surprise quiz in calculus today.”

  She makes a sympathetic face. “I’m sorry, honey. But it’s not the end of the world, you know…”

  My tears are like waterworks now; there’s no turning them off. “I know,” I say, nodding. “But I know how important grades are this semester and it just caught me by surprise, and it’s so much harder than I thought it was going to be.”

  These last two statements have nothing to do with my math class and everything to do with my life.

  “I’m sorry.” My mom pinches the bridge of her nose and sighs. “I knew this move might be hard for you and now…well, now I’m just wondering if this was the right decision. Moving back here.”

  The last thing I want to do is make her feel guilty. I brush the tears off my cheeks. “It’s fine, Mom. I’m probably just hormonal.”

  She gives me a tired smile. “And upset. And feeling like your whole world has been turned upside-down. Because it has.”

  “It was just a stupid math quiz,” I tell her. “I’ll be fine. It’s not worth very much, anyway. It just…surprised me.” The tears threaten again but I look away from her and blink rapidly, willing them to dry up.

  When I glance back up, her eyes are still locked on me. She looks…sad. Worried.

  I plaster a smile on my face and motion to the papers covering the kitchen table. “What’s all that?”

  She picks up the closest sheet of paper. “Just bills and paperwork and stuff.”

  “Bills?”

  “Only a couple,” she tells me quickly. “I’m just paying those, and then I need to look at all of this other stuff. They are all things related to the house and Grandpa’s estate.”

  “Estate? I didn’t know he had an estate.”

  “Well, he doesn’t,” she says with a small laugh. “This is pretty much it. There’s some money in his bank accounts, and some stock that’s worth a little bit of money. But I’m trying to figure out his Medicare and some other outstanding bills, how to cancel his homeowner’s insurance and create my own account. Just boring grown-up stuff.”

  I drum my fingers lightly on the tabletop. “How’s the job search going? Are you still working for the temp agency?”

  She nods. “I’ve picked up a couple of shifts here and there.”

  “Is that enough?”

  She picks up a small stack of papers and starts to leaf through them. “For now, it is. It’s nice to be able to try out different jobs and see what I like, especially since I’ve been out of the workforce for so long.”

  “There’s a job board at school,” I tell her, thinking of the bulletin board tacked to the wall by the cafeteria. “There are a lot of places around here hiring part-time. They’re specifically looking for high school students. I could probably get one as soon as tomorrow.”

  She’s already shaking her head. “No. No job, Sydney.”

  “But I can help.”

  “You can help by focusing on school,” she says. “We’ve already had this conversation. Besides, your dad is supposed to be sending child support. That is your contribution.”

  I want to point out that it isn’t mine, it’s my dad’s, and the measly thousand dollars a month he agreed to send is the least he can do considering he makes over several hundred thousand a year.

  But I see her expression, her narrowed eyes and her mouth set in a firm line, and I drop it.

  I’m not in the mood to argue.

  Not today.

  Not after everything that has happened.

  I don’t admit defeat or acceptance, but I stand up.

  “What are your plans for the rest of the day?” Mom looks toward the kitchen window, which offers a partial view of the beach. “It’s a nice day.�
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  “It’s California, Mom.” I roll my eyes. “Every day is nice.”

  “Not always. It rains here. Sometimes.” She chuckles. “Maybe you should call up that friend of yours and see if she wants to hang out. Emily, right? Get your mind off of school and that dumb math quiz.”

  I know she has good intentions but her words are like a knife to my heart.

  Because it brings everything that happened at school crashing back down on me.

  “Maybe,” I mumble. “I’m gonna go change and get started on my homework.”

  She’s focused back on the papers in front of her and nods absentmindedly. I doubt she heard a word I just said.

  “I’m heading out in a little bit,” she tells me. “Just some errands. I’m not sure if I’ll be home for dinner but I picked up a rotisserie chicken and there’s leftover rice and a bagged salad in the fridge.”

  I just nod.

  I know I won’t be eating.

  And I know I won’t be starting my homework, either.

  I’ll just be sitting on my bed, staring out the window and wondering how my life fell to complete and utter shit after moving back to Playa Del Mar.

  Chapter 37

  The sound of the doorbell surprises me.

  It’s after six o’clock and my mom still isn’t back.

  She left shortly after I hurried off to my room, which was about two hours ago.

  I debate not answering the door but the bell sounds again. Whoever is there is certainly persistent.

  Maybe it’s a delivery person.

  I push myself out of bed and pad down the hallway.

  I open the door and Ben is standing there, his hands behind his back.

  “Hi,” he says quietly.

  I lean against the edge of the door. “Hi.”

  “Are you busy?” He looks over me and into the house. “Can I come in?”

  I don’t have any reason to tell him no.

  I take a step back, indicating he should come inside.

  He crosses the threshold and hands me a box of Lucky Charms.

  “What’s this?”

  He rolls his eyes. “Your favorite cereal. Duh. Although now that you’re back in the States, I guess it isn’t as special.”

  Ben plops down on the couch and I settle on the loveseat. I’m still holding the box of cereal and I set it down on the table.

  “I told Emily,” he says.

  “I know.”

  He smiles, his expression one of hopefulness. “So everything is cool, right? We’re still friends, and she doesn’t think we’re boyfriend and girlfriend.”

  I don’t respond.

  “What?” he asks, his smile shrinking, his eyes clouding.

  The weight of the day feels like a boulder on my chest and I know I need to tell someone.

  And the only person I can talk to is sitting right across from me.

  I shake my head. “No. Everything isn’t cool.”

  He frowns. “What do you mean?”

  I don’t want to—god knows I don’t want to—but I need to tell him everything.

  So I do.

  I tell him about Charity and the pictures she had of us.

  And I tell him about Hayden.

  I leave out the sex part—I’m not sharing that with anyone, despite the fact that rumors are already making their way around school—but I tell him about going out with him. Liking him. And then being dumped by him because he thought I was cheating on him.

  “What an asshole,” Ben mutters when I finish telling him. “I can’t believe he was such a dick to you. Well, yeah I can, but you know what I mean.”

  I nod. The words Hayden spoke to me, the look of contempt in his eyes, are as painful and raw as a memory as they were in person earlier this afternoon. But the anger is there, too, that he jumped to the wrong conclusions and that he believed the worst in me without even hearing my side of the story.

  A part of me wants to tell him. Not because I want to get back together with him—I don’t think I could forgive him for what he said to me—but just so I can shove the truth in his face and make him feel at least a little shitty for how he treated me.

  Ben clears his throat and I realize we’ve been sitting in silence for a while. “You’re not…you’re not going to say anything, right?”

  I know what he’s asking.

  “I don’t know,” I tell him.

  His eyes go wide. “But you promised. You said you’d keep it a secret.”

  “Well, I didn’t know that people were going to be spreading rumors about me,” I say bitterly.

  “You can’t.” Ben’s voice pitches high.

  I bristle. “Don't tell me what to do.”

  “Look, I know this is bad for you,” he says. “But it’s going to be way worse for me if you tell people our relationship was fake. If you tell people why you were really kissing me.”

  I look down at my hands.

  “You don’t know what it’s like to be me,” Ben whispers. “To have to hide everything about yourself. To be an outsider.”

  “I’ve been an outsider my whole life.”

  He shakes his head. “Not by choice. I have to be, Sydney, because letting people get close means they might find out my secrets.”

  “This isn’t the 80s, Ben. A lot of people come out as gay. Jesus, don’t you watch YouTube? Half the channels I watch are from gay people.”

  “That isn’t real life,” he snaps. “You wanna know what real life is? Going to this small-ass school where no one has come out as gay. Going to church where I’m literally told I’ll go to hell if I’m ‘one of those’ people. Having parents who are so deep in the church that they will disown me if they find out I’m not the hetero child they always dreamed of.”

  “You can’t live a lie forever. You’re gonna have to tell people. And people are going to figure it out.”

  He gets to his feet. “Yeah, well, I want to do it on my terms.” His eyes are blazing. “Mine! Not yours, not anyone else’s. Got it?”

  “Yeah, I got it.” I glare at him. “I know exactly what you’re saying.”

  He’s breathing hard, his chest rising and falling.

  “You care about you,” I say. “Not me. You.”

  “That isn’t it, Syd—”

  I cut him off. “Yeah, it is. Well, maybe I have to look out for me. Maybe I’m tired of being the outsider and here’s my chance to do something about it. Because I had friends, Ben. I had a goddamn boyfriend. And now all that is gone. Because of you and what you did.”

  His face goes ashen. “What are you saying?” His voice hitches. “What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know,” I tell him. “But I do know one thing.”

  He stares at me, frozen.

  “I want you to leave.”

  Chapter 38

  A school of more than a thousand kids should not be a lonely place.

  But it is.

  I force myself out of bed Wednesday morning and swallow down a half a piece of toast. The box of Lucky Charms sits unopened on the kitchen counter. I’m tempted to throw it away, but even though I’m upset and angry, I still don’t want to trash a perfectly good box of cereal…especially since I remember how impossible it was to get in New Zealand.

  I see Emily and Willow and Belle on my way onto campus. They glance my direction but keep walking. Ben sees me and immediately turns and heads in the opposite direction.

  The day’s suckage continues when Blumenthal hands back our quizzes and I see the red number scrawled across the top of the paper, and then in English when we start our discussion of the first three chapters of The Scarlet Letter…and I swear every head in class swivels in my direction.

  I’m dreading lunch and decide to head back to math class to talk to Blumenthal rather than face dirty looks and hushed conversations about me. He mentioned extra credit options to bring up our grades, as basically everyone did poorly on the quiz.

  His class is two doors away when I see Lucas and his
friends heading toward me. They don’t see me, and I briefly contemplate spinning around and heading the other direction. But maybe if I hurry, I can make it to Blumenthal’s classroom before our paths cross.

  That turns out to be wishful thinking.

  “Well, well, well.” Lucas nudges his buddy. “What do we have here?”

  I dart to the left, trying to skirt past him, but his one buddy, Blake, shifts so he’s standing next to Lucas, effectively blocking my path. He folds his arms, his biceps straining against the fabric of his t-shirt, and his chest looks like he’s wearing one of those fake muscle bodysuits.

  “Move,” I tell them.

  Blake snickers and Lucas grins.

  “Or what?” Lucas asks.

  “We’re just standing here,” Blake adds.

  I sigh and move to the right.

  They shift with me.

  “What do you want?” I snap.

  Lucas gives me an innocent look. “You don’t know?”

  I just stare at him.

  “Show her,” he tells Blake.

  Blake pulls his phone from his shorts pocket.

  I already know what he’s going to show me.

  I’m not wrong.

  He flips the phone and shows me the screen, the picture of me and Ben kissing.

  Lucas leans close and I don’t know whether to be surprised or not that I smell alcohol on his breath, despite the fact it’s only noon on a school day.

  “You get around, don’t you, sweetheart?” he breathes into my ear.

  “Fuck off.”

  Lucas looks at Blake, his eyes wide. They both laugh.

  “Fuck?” His green eyes rake over me. “Is that what you want?”

  “With you? Not fucking ever.” I’m trying so hard to keep my cool.

  Lucas elbows Blake. “That’s what she says now but I bet it’s a different story later.” He gives me another once over, his gaze settling on my crotch. “Although I gotta say, I’m not so sure I’d hit that now.”

  “Probably need a haz mat suit,” Blake says, and laughs again.

  I yank his phone out of his hand.

  “What the fuck?”

  He’s bigger than me, but I’m faster. I dart past him, out toward the open sidewalk, and launch his phone into the air, toward the tree line that borders the school property.