WARNING:
This chapter contains a sensitive scene that may be triggering to some.
ON ANY GIVEN day, being surrounded by this many people in such close proximity would have me running for the nearest exit.
But tonight, I couldn't seem to give a shit. Whether it was my meds that claimed responsibility for my newfound freedom, or more likely the red cup in my hand that most definitely was not filled with punch, I didn't particularly care. I was more than glad to have a night with the voices in my head silenced and unable to remind me what a horrible person I was.
The house was filled with dozens of Summer Grove students, most of whom were wearing some form of red or black to celebrate. Every now and then, a lacrosse player could be seen sporting their jersey, a clean one thankfully, and the odd dance team member was still wearing her crop top paired with a normal skirt.
Once a fair amount of people had arrived, Aimee, Meghan, Violet, Aurora and I took to dancing around the living room while music from Meghan's playlist pounded from the speakers. I found that with each drink I had, I was enjoying the music more and more, until the point where I was almost singing along.
Eventually, Aurora was pulled away by her boyfriend, Tyler, and I couldn't help but feel sickened just looking at him.
On the other hand, Meghan was overjoyed when Mason pulled her away to dance. Aimee, Violet and I gave her discreet grins of encouragement. I'd long since figured out Meghan had a huge crush on him, even though she never talked about it, and I was truly happy for her tonight, despite our recent falling out.
Which left the three of us girls dancing together.
Up until then, I could admit that I was enjoying myself. It felt good to have adrenaline pumping through my veins for a good reason, to have a smile curving my painted lips because I was actually happy and not because I needed to pretend. I had managed to forget how fucked up my life was at the moment. I wasn't the girl who betrayed her best friend, who lied every day for the benefit of others, whose parents had lied to her from the day she was born. I was just Scarlett, an ordinary teenage girl celebrating a high school lacrosse game with a bunch of other teenagers.
And then my phone buzzed in my hand.
Based purely on the fact that the last text message I had received was a threat, accompanied by a photograph taken entirely for blackmail purposes, it was safe to say I was slightly terrified to open my messages. My state of intoxication was not helping matter either, and my lips curved down into a worried frown.
But that worry was not warranted, and when I looked down at the dimmed screen of my cell phone, I let out an audible sigh of relief.
Instinctively, I looked up. Sure enough, just over Violet's shoulder was Noah, looking just as impossibly attractive as ever in his lacrosse jersey and artfully worn blue jeans.
I looked down quickly as a small smile tugged at my lips, despite my efforts to keep my cool.
Just as I was about to tuck my phone away, it buzzed in my hand once again and I swiftly opened the newest message.
I couldn't fight the blush as a rush of blood warmed my cheeks, or the drunken, girlish giggle that erupted from my lips.
Dipping my head forward so that my once again tangled mess hair concealed my face from Violet and Aimee as they danced nearby, and I typed out a quick reply.
I cringed the second I saw his words on the screen. Letting my eyes drift upwards I noticed that Noah was still leaning against the wall where he had been before, his soft gaze meeting mine pointedly, and his lips tugged into his familiar smirk.
The vague memory of the last party is been to, one where I'd noticed him in quite a similar position, twinged at the edge of my mind.
The promise I'd made earlier rung in my head like an annoying alarm. I'll explain everything to you then, I promise.
Silently, I cursed myself for uttering the words. Texting him while dancing with my friends was one thing. But having a full on conversation with him, without any of our classmates seeing us, was surely going to prove difficult.
I sighed, my face screwed up in thought.
Looking around the room, I raked my brain to remember what Aurora had mentioned when she had shown me around the massive house earlier that night. Sadly, I had hardly paid attention and the Everclear-spiked punch I'd had more than two cups of wasn't helping matters any.
Suddenly, a conversation I had overheard Aurora having with a security guard came to mind and I had an idea.
His response was almost instantaneous.
I rolled my eyes at that stupid winking face. I knew if I looked up I would be greeted by a similar look on his too-pretty face, and so I resisted the urge to as I tapped Aimee on the shoulder.
"I'm going to go find the washroom! Be back in a bit!" I called out over the music.
I wasn't sure if she'd actually heard me, but nonetheless she bobbed her head up and down. "Okay!" She slurred out and resumed dancing with Violet and a newly appeared group of guys I'd never met before.
Rolling eyes yet again, I turned precariously in my heels and proceeded to elbowed my way through the crowded room in the direction of the spiral staircase, making my best efforts to not land flat on my face.
While it had only been a couple of hours since I had been in this very hallway, I had already managed to forget which room was indeed the guest room I had been talking about. All of the doors in the upstairs hallway were the same, closed mahogany doors. None of which marked what laid behind them.
After a few minutes of aimlessly wandering back and fourth down the hallway, a door swung open and a nameless girl I shared exactly one class with emerged from the bathroom.
I heaved a sigh of relief, and made my way to the room next to it. While I knew Aurora had instructed this hallway be off limits to party-goers, not a single guard was in sight.
Without another thought, I gripped the doorknob and slipped into the darkened room unnoticed. Blindly, I felt around the wall beside the door in search of a light switch. When I found it, I flicked it on and the room was filled with bright light.
In retrospect, it was entirely stupid of me to think that at a party brimming with hormonal teenagers, I was the only one who would sneak into one of the numerous empty bedrooms.
Obviously, I was not. Instead of finding myself alone in the guest bedroom, I was greeted by the sight of a tangled mess of limbs and strayed clothing. All of which belonged to two people I unfortunately recognized all too well.
"Oh shit," I breathed, wholeheartedly wishing that this was a nightmare that I would wake from any moment. But before I could pinch myself, something in my mind clicked, like the final piece of the puzzle that was my new life was put into place. And everything made sense.
The picture is seen on my phone hours before flashed in my mind, and suddenly I didn't feel so intoxicated anymore.
I took a step closer to the cruel, heartless figures on the bed. "It was you two. You were there in the parking lot that morning. Together."
With a sharp laugh, Kamilah rolled off of the bed and came to stand in front of me, crossing her thin arms over her chest. Being Kamilah, she didn't seem to give a damn that her slinky black dress was strewn awkwardly across her body. "I thought you were supposed to be some sort of genius, Freak Show? Did it seriously take you this long to figure out?" Kamilah crooned with a cruel smirk on her face.
Wearing a eerily similar smirk on his face, Tyler straightened his jeans before coming to join Kamilah. His proximity prompted a chill to crawl up my spine, a sensation that usually preceded moments of my life that plagued my sleep with treacherous nightmares.
"I don't know Kam," he chuckled darkly. "I'm not really all that surprised. I mean, she's probably too busy screwing half the lacrosse team to figure out two plus two."
The blood drained from my face, and a wave of anxiety washed over me. Before me stood the two people who could destroy the precarious life I had built here in Bridgeport. They possessed a picture, while blurry and unfocused, of me and my best friend's ex-boyfriend in a rather compromising position. While that friendship, relationship or whatever the hell it was called would soon be public knowledge, what I feared was the lies these two would spin in order to hurt me. The last thing I wanted was for Aimee to find out about my betrayal from two of the most hateful human beings I had met in my new life.
Two of the most hateful human beings who were apparently sleeping together behind one of my best friends' backs.
"How could you do this to Aurora, Tyler? How could you hurt her like this?" I demanded, motioning between him and Kamilah.
Tyler bit out a humorless laugh. "You're one to talk, Scarlett. You're the one screwing Kennedy. Don't tell me you're stupid enough to not know who he is."
A so-called bad boy, a drug dealer or Aimee's ex-boyfriend?
I flinched, my teeth biting into my lip hard enough to draw blood. I searched for words, anything I could say, but I found nothing. Tyler was right, I was a hypocrite. Could I honestly convince myself I was any better than he was?
No, I never slept with Noah. Not only could I never even fathom of doing that to Aimee, but I physically and mentally could never allow myself to do that. What I had with Noah was more emotional, a connection that I couldn't convince myself against no matter how many times I had tried. And in my twisted mind, that was so much worse. Because I couldn't blame it on a stupid decision, or a drunken haze. Instead it was a sense of security, of trust. But mostly it was a feeling of ease, and the lack of expectations.
"Speechless, bitch? That's a new look on you," Kamilah laughed, easily leaning her body against Tyler.
Deep down, a tiny part of me wished I could appear so relaxed and nonchalant. But I quickly told that part of me to shut up, because practically every nerve ending in my body was twinging with the urge to run from that room before anything terrible could happen. It was a sensation I was all too familiar with, and frankly one I should have learned by now to follow.
If only I had.
Instead, I stood there like a deer in the headlights of a Mack truck, doomed to be run down any time I found a sliver of happiness in my life. I was paralyzed, my feet rooted to the floor in my too-high heels as my chest tightened to the point it was if there was no oxygen left in the room to breathe and my eyes fluttered closed. As I rode out the wave of my panic attack, a gradual feeling of realization crept up my spine and sunk its way into my mind.
I had walked into that room with everything to lose, and I would walk out with nothing.
After what felt like hours, I felt a wash of stale air fill my lungs and I allowed myself to open my eyes, only to quickly regret it. Because while I was suffocating in the fear of something terrible happening to me yet again, Kamilah had excused herself from the room.
Leaving me alone, with Tyler. A boy who reminded me far too much of someone I felt I had finally left in my past, with his sickening grin and disregard for the feelings of others.
"Kami thought it'd be best if she went downstairs for now and kept your friends busy. You and I need to have a little chat, Scarlett," he chided, like a parent scolds a child for doing something wrong.
"A-- About what?" I stuttered, silently cursing myself as my old habit made an inconvenient appearance. "What do you want from me?"
He leaned back, casually resting his shoulder against one of the wooden posts on the bed and stuffing his hands in the pockets of his jeans. His shirt remained strewn on the floor, drawing my attention to his imposing looking stance. I quickly looked up, however, as I felt the sensation of bile rising in my throat.
"Well, how I see it, we both know something about each other," he explained. "Something we don't necessarily want each other knowing."
I gulped in a breath of air before letting it out slowly, hoping to magically expel my anxieties. My brow furrowed with his words. "Why would you care if I talked? You don't even care about Aurora. It's not like you would care if she got hurt."
His dull brown eyes narrowed, and I noticed a muscle in his jaw ticked. "My reasons don't matter. Because you're not going to talk."
A humorless laugh bubbled up between my lips. "Why do you think I would even agree? I'm sure Kamilah has already told half of the student body downstairs. So I have nothing to lose, do I? Now, if you'll excuse me Tyler, I'm going to go down there too, and tell my friend Aurora what a horrific, cheating ass she's dating."
Whatever irrational fear had kept me paralyzed before evaporated and my legs finally moved. I turned quickly to head for the door, but the next moment passed in a blur. In reality, Tyler took a step toward me and removed whatever space there was left between us. But in my mind, a dam had broken and He was baring down on me as I huddled in the corner of my old army cot.
And I fumbled on my stupid heels.
My ankle twisted awkwardly, and I stumbled forward. I attempted to reach for the door handle, to remove the thick barrier between us and the rest of the party. Instead, I found myself propelled foreword, thrust firmly against the dark wood of that very door.
Before I had the chance to push myself off, a weight fell flush against my back and forced me to remain restrained up against the door.
Tyler.
"I told you, you are not going to breathe a word of this to Aurora," he stated, annunciating each word carefully. His body was pressed so close to mine that his hot breath fanned over my ear as he spoke, sending a shiver of fear down my spine and a smattering of goosebumps across my bare arms and legs.
I feebly tried to push him off, but the quarterback was easily twice my weight and size. I was no match physically, and that thought pierced through my mind and passed my wall, where memories of thoughts much like it were hidden away.
Helplessly, I sunk forward. Slowly, I nodded my head in acknowledgment. "I won't. Just let me go."
If I thought hearing the way my voice broke in defeat would make him ease up, I was mistaken. Instead, I felt another grin slide onto his lips where they rested against my ear.
"Now that wasn't so hard, was it?" He laughed, but made no move to release me.
To my dismay, I felt a tear slide down my cheek where it was pressed up against the door. I hated what it represented, that I was weak once again, that I was so easily controlled. So, I gritted my teeth and blinked back anymore salty tears, willing myself to stop.
"I agree. I promise I won't say a word. Please, Tyler. Please let me go," I breathed. I refused to speak any louder, for fear my voice would betray me again.
He considered my words for a moment, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, before cocking his head to the side and forcing me to meet his hateful gaze. "I don't know Scarlett, I wouldn't mind staying here for a little while," he taunted, gripping his hands firmly locked to the wood on either side of my head. "Just you, and me, and nobody looking for you."
Whatever blood was in my face drained as fast as he said those words. My breath hitched, and I could taste the salty tears that had begun pouring from my eyes soundlessly.
But at that moment, I heard something over the erratic pounding of my heart thrashing against my ribcage. I heard footsteps walking down the hall, and stopping just on the other side of the door.
A glimmer of hope sparked in me, like a match striking against a surface. Because Tyler was wrong, someone knew very well where I was.
But as soon as that hope flared up, Tyler put it out with a flick of his hand as he reached for the doorknob and flicked the lock into place. Not a moment later, the handle clicked as the person on the other side tried to open the door.
"Scar?" Noah called out softly, confusion lacing his voice.
Before even a whimper could escape my lips, Tyler's hand covered my mouth. "Shh."
We stayed like that for a very long few minutes. All the while, Tyler kept his hand firmly in place as I pictured Noah just on the other side of the door, waiting for some kind of acknowledgment from inside of the room.
When none came, I listened as the shuffling of feet and retreating of footsteps signalled that he had gone back downstairs. Spent of energy and hope, I collapsed limply only to find myself supported by Tyler's arms around me.
Finally, he dropped his hand from my mouth. "Have I made my point, Scarlett?"
My head was spinning, either from the stress of the past ten minutes or from the quantity of alcohol I had consumed earlier that evening, or from both. I had nothing left to fight with, no witty comments or smart remarks. I felt empty and drained, and I just wanted to be alone. And so I gave up, nodding my head weakly. "I won't tell Aurora anything," I said quietly, my voice monotone, void of emotions.
"And we won't say anything to Aimee," he stated in return. "Now that wasn't so hard, was it?"
Satisfied with our encounter, Tyler pushed himself away from the door. This left nothing supporting my weight and I allowed myself to collapse to the floor, not caring that my ankle was throbbing, or my dress was hiked up near my hips.
Tyler didn't show much interest either as he retrieved his shirt from the floor and made his way towards a door at the side of the room I'd never even noticed. A door I was certain lead to the adjoining bathroom. As he reached for the handle, he turned back towards me where I was huddled on the floor. "I don't know what they see in you, really. You talk a big game, Scarlett Grey, but really you're just so... broken," he chuckled, and with one hand he reaches up the rub his jaw while he grinned. "Kami was right. You're just a stupid girl."
I couldn't see him leave the room through the tears brimming over in my eyes, but I heard the bathroom door click shut behind him.
I waited a while, listening to make sure he wasn't coming back, but the only thing I heard was the faint thrum of the music playing below. Once I was sure, I managed to move away from the door until I was leaning against the footboard of the bed.
And then I allowed myself cry.
I didn't know how long I huddled there on the floor of one of Aurora's many guest rooms. Eventually, I ran out of tears to cry and sobs ceased to rip their way through my chest, turning into hiccups and then to ragged breaths. After that, I just laid their on the floor feeling broken and empty.
It wasn't until the bathroom door creaked open that I moved, jerking into a sitting position and turning to face whoever had entered the room. My muscles were clenched, prepared to make a break for it, and a scream was bubbling in my chest.
But when I was met by a familiar ocean blue gaze, I found myself releasing the breath from my lungs and falling back into the footboard of the bed to stay upright.
It was over now.
Noah took a moment to take in my appearance. I knew what he was seeing; my tired body crumpled on the floor, my dress scrunched up around my hips, my makeup streaked across my red puffy face, my bloodshot eyes.
But he didn't say a word as he closed the door behind him and crossed the room in a few long strides. Silently, he sunk down to the floor beside me and gently put an arm around my small shoulders, giving me a moment when I flinched away from him.
Slowly he drew me towards him so that I was leaning into him rather than the bed frame. One of his arms wrapped around me, his hand coming to rest on my waist. His other hand carefully rested against the side of my neck, his thumb laying gently where my pulse raced unsteadily.
Noah held me like that, silent and strong, until my heart slowed, my breathing became shallow and even, and I finally let myself slip into a comfortable darkness.
Because this was where I felt safe.
Hey guys. So that was rough. I apologize to those who feel that the scene above was excessive or too harsh or just unnecessary.
I'll be honest, I hated writing it. It hurt me to see a character I've brought to life go through something like this, but this is a book that covers a lot of real issues faced by teenagers, and sadly this is one of them that occurs more than it should. Going out and having fun with friends is well and good, but please stay safe ❤️
In light of this darker chapter, here are some happy gifs of some of our wonderful angels in this chapter 🙌🏼
Much better. Now if you're ready to see what happens next, leave a vote and comment letting me know:
Who are you shipping at this point in the game? 😉
Get it? Game? Hahahaha 😂
Yes. I wanted an excuse to insert a Matthew Daddario gif.
No. I feel no shame.
Lots of love 🖤