Ego's Trap | ✔

61 | Summer Seventeen

☆☆☆ Chapter 61 ☆☆☆

Summer Seventeen

*Ane's Point of View (POV)*

When I was fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, I was a whole different person.

I was full of hope for myself, for everyone. I lived my life as a proud social butterfly and gossip queen. Not like I went out of my way to catch everyone's attention, but most of the time I was the scoop for the day. As someone who had been told to have a heart of gold, I used to fight for what was right— literally. I had a nice group of friends with bad luck. Drama would come their way and I would get them out of it. Whether it was a crazy jealous ex or a no-good bully, I had their backs. Fights weren't a problem for me so long as I knew I was on the right side. It would get me in trouble with my parents and the principal but at the end of the day they patted my back. My intentions were always pure.

Everyone knew for a fact that if I was their friend, they were safe, and boy was I glad I had friends. The more the merrier. They would help me in classes, tutor me when needed or pass me cheat-sheets when my brain just couldn't get it. That's how I got by in school.

I had plans for my future to follow my big sister Tess, who was dead-set on becoming a doctor. A security guard at a hospital sounded just right. All I needed was a high school diploma. And if I really wanted to work for it, an EMT sounded pretty good too. I didn't think too hard about it, I made sure to keep my options open. So long as I was by her side I didn't care about what I would end up doing with myself.

My love life? It was alright. I asked three guys out in high school, dated two of them. One for four months, the other for three. We hung out all the time, fooled around a lot. Typical good stuff. And in the times I was single, I would fool around some more. I even had a name going for me. Handsy 'Mani. I was "boy-crazy," as Mom used to say under gritted teeth, but for me it was harmless fun. Nothing bad came out of it.

My life turned upside down right before I turned seventeen.

I was fresh out of my third year of high school, chilling in the heat of the summer season, when I met him. It happened in the parking lot of the mall from the next town over. He had a nice bike, ripped jeans, a leather jacket, the whole bad boy deluxe package. And by everything, I mean everything— from the tattoos down to the cigarette. My girls and I stopped what we were doing and approached him. We weren't shy. I wish we were.

We walked away with the image of his crooked smile burned in our minds, his phone number, and an invite to his next party. In it, in front of everyone, we made out on a whim and I caught him off his guard with my signature moves, the ones that lived up to my name. He said it's always the ones lacking in something that do it best, so I impressed him and that was that. From then on I was his to claim, but he never made it official. Didn't seem to matter.

The signs were there from day one. I overlooked them. I overlooked them all.

I wasn't ready for sex, but a week into our relationship a handjob, a boobjob, any job, wasn't enough anymore. I got drunk off my mind at another party of his and the morning after he told me I did great. With no memory of the details, I bragged about it to my girls. It was the best thing I'd ever made up and they would've believed it had one of them not stepped up to tell me she saw him drag me up the stairs. Apparently I was already half-naked, with scrapes on my knees and elbows. The girls were all alarmed at that, they thought that was strange. They were afraid for me.

When I told him about it, he said that they were strange, and only put up with them for me. He claimed that what he did was normal. So I believed him and his terrifying charm. After all, who knew better than the bad boy who'd done it all?