(IMPORTANT AUTHORS NOTE AT THE END
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BETH'S POV
The dinner is awkward. The only people who are talking are the other three seated with me. I feel extremely embarrassed, feeling the need to cry at the table knowing that someone other than me has seen the picture.
This girl resembles the one I have seen at the coffee shop but the way she looks right now. her hair tightly put into hair wrap that leads into a bun in the back, her dangled long earrings swing around when she shifts her head and the makeup free face of hers all differences the girl I've seen at the shop. At the shop, her makeup was darker, eyeliner on both top and bottom. Her jeans were tight and she only wore a black tabletop with it. Her shoes weren't the pricy ones she has on now but they were flip flops. She looked like a regular teenager who would be walking around the streets with her friends.
But she isn't.
Yet she is here, sitting with a supposedly "elegant" family which actually, both me and her don't want. I'm guessing she's like me. She dressed differently around her father and the way she wants when he isn't around.
I stab my fork into the green leaves on my plate. After the many nights of not being home, I have never missed the meals from mom. The healthy, usually not tasty foods every night have not been on the list of 'why I should go back home'.
"Harry," I hear someone say. My head shoots up to the person I heard say it.
It was Nathan. How would he possibly know harry?
Before I could speak he finishes what he was saying. "So that's all that matters," he brings his hand to his daughters and squeezes. "I do whatever it takes to make her happy."
Happy. He said happy, not Harry.
I smile a little at the mans thoughtfulness of his daughter but it fades when I think back to Harry. Everything always reminds me of him, the slightest things and it's sort of weird at times.
I know he is angry at me, I got that message loud and clear. I don't want him to be and I didn't mean to make him feel this way. I was hoping he wouldn't get angry at me for having him leave, my hopes were high on hoping that he'd understand where I was coming from.
I don't want to argue anymore. I don't want anymore fights and never ending argents with my mother to continue. She needs to just understand how I feel, she needs to realize how I want to live my life. But if she knew that Harry was here before I had even gotten the chance to speak to her, she would just blow up at me again. And just as I said to harry, I'm not going to fuel the flames to the fire anymore. I'm doing everything in my being to die it out, splash water on it, anything..anything just to get my life to normal.
"Now this chicken," Nathan points to the barbecue chicken on his plate using his fork. "Is just absolutely delicious." He compliments my mother and starts to cut another piece.
"Thank you," my mom says. She continues to tell him the ingredients and how she marinated it over night.
"Well one day I must test it out and invite both you over?" He says as a question as he makes eye contact with me.
My lack of speaking at the table I'm sure made him feel distant from me making it seem Like I don't like him or anything but that's not it at all. He seems nice, I'm just not ready for this. Everything is moving too fast and I feel like I'm on a treadmill; running the full speed, but in the same place I'm getting nowhere.
I give him a small smile and nod. He smiles back and I go back to eating my food.
The dressing on my salad is dried out and the lettuce tastes old due to the fact I've just been playing around with it rather than eating it.
My mother clears her throat and wipes the corners of her mouth with the white silk napkin. "So Bethany, Jalissa is new to the town. Would you like to show her around sometime."
New to the town? How is she new to the town and already ha a group of friends that seem to be already very close to her?
"Oh, no that's alright. I wouldn't want to intrude." She says.
My silence probably gave her the wrong intention. "I don't mind," I smile at her.
"Are you sure?" She asks.
"Yes," I laugh. I'm trying to seem as friendly as possible and I'm praying that this will do the trick. "How about we go upstairs and pick out an outfit so we can go tomorrow?" I offer her. She looks at her father for permission and he nods in agreement.
Before I can leave the table my other puts her hand on mine. It's been a while since I have even had physical contact with her.
"Honey, you should eat first." The look in her face is demanding and the tone of her voice is fake. I pull my hand away from hers and smile back at her fake one.
"I had a late lunch, not that hungry. We will be back!" I tell them both, half lying as I leave the table.
Jalissa follows behind me up the steps.
We walk down the long hallway until we reach my door. This is my chance to explain to her that the pictures aren't real.
She shuts the door behind her and stands in front of it with her arms over he chest. "Thanks for pulling me out of there." She breaths out a laugh and begins to walk over to my bed and picks the magazine that sat on the nightstand.
"Those dinners are always boring." She continues to speak.
"Yeah, I guess so." I agree.
I walk over to my closet and open it up. "You can check these out if you want." I wave my hand towards the opened door and give her permission to look.
"Oh, thanks but I have some clothes already." She says as she flicks through another page.
"Oh."
"Most of that looks too proper looking. You aren't going to where any of that, are you?" She pulls a disgusted look and I shake my head quickly.
I point inside the closet and she looks over to see what I'm pointing at. "See those drawers over there?" I ask and she nods. "The two large ones at the bottom are filled with the things I actually like to wear." I say and shut the doors again.
"I'm taking it that you aren't what your mother wants you to be?" She guesses and I nod.
"You're right."
"Me neither. I'm sure you already know that though. I mean, earlier at the shop..I didn't quite look like this." She runs her hand over her pale dress.
"Your secret is safe with me." I assure her.
"Hey!" She gasps. "I just saw that bracelet." She points to my wrist before she frantically flips back through the pages she previously looked at. "Ah, here it is." She shows me and I look at the different colored bracelets. My eye catches the one that matches on my wrist.
"It says the purple one is love." She continues to read before looking back up at me. "If a guy gave you that then I am extremely beyond jealous." She grabs my wrist and examines it like it's an engagement ring or something.
I laugh quietly as she stares at the black heart stone, she slips it from side to side to make is sparkle. "Yeah,"
"Is your boyfriend the guy in the picture?" She mentions and I almost feel sick to my stomach.
"What? Oh no." I catch my breath. "God no."
"Woah, okay sorry." She puts her hand on my back and rubs kindly.
"Does your boyfriend not know about you and that guy or-"
"No-" I cut her off. "I mean no it isn't-" I stop myself again to try to think of the right thing to say.
"Thats kind of what I need to talk to you about."
"Okay" she says dragging out the word. She closes the magazine and puts it back in its place of the nightstand.
"It's not what it looks like." I say and she waits for me to continue. I'm stuck with words, I don't want her to know the full on story since I've sort of just met her. "It looks completely opposite than what actually happened." I try to swallow the tears , I hate talking about the subject; it just brings back more and more of the memory.
"Are you being bullied or something?"
"Not exactly." I say right after she asks. "I guess, I don't know." I rub my forehead. The headache I've had since hours ago is still constantly throbbing.
"I'm sorry," she grabs my hand and holds it in hers. Her manicure is neat while my finger nails are chipped from the constant peeling I have a habit of. "At the shop, when I was laughing..I stopped when I looked at you because you looked so lost. As soon as I saw the look in your eye I knew you look devastated." If only she knew I didn't even know about the picture until she left. I looked lost and devastated because I'm tired from the crying and lack of sleep I've been going through.
"It's fine, thank you for being so kind right now," I smile and she looks at my with pity. I don't need her to feel sorry for me; this is all my fault anyway.
"Does your boyfriend know about this?" She let's go of my hand and places her own into her own lap.
"He knows about the picture. But he doesn't know it's online, he doesn't need to know. I'll be fine." I'll be fine. I keep telling myself this even though I'm not sure of my own words.
"You don't think he's going to find out?"
"I don't know," I say in frustration. I rub my forehead again start to feel a little dizzy.
"Are you alright?"
I don't answer her. My vision goes white again and my sight almost seems gone. I put my hand up to have her give me a minute to recover. This has happened many times before and I know that the only way to get rid of it for now is to shut my eyes for a couple more seconds. My ears are ringing and after about five seconds of my eyes closed the piercing sound does down and my vision comes together again.
"I have a huge headache." I tell her and she leaves my room and walks into the bathroom that is in my bedroom. I hear her rummaging around the cabinet and she comes out with a pill bottle in her hand.
"Take two of these." She holds out my hand and places two into my palm. I swallow the pills with the warm bottle of water that must have been sitting in my room for over a week.
"I'll see you tomorrow, okay? You need to sleep." She smiles at me before she walks out of my room and I hear her heels clicking down the stairs. I couldn't respond back to her as I was still trying to catch my breath. My heart is beating so fast that I can hear it drumming in my ears.
My phone rings on my bedside table and I try to squint to see the caller ID but it's impossible.
I reach over to grab it and Abby's name is written over the top.
Before I could speak into the phone a loud smashing in the background is heard along with people screaming.
"Bethany," she calls out.
"Abby what's wrong? Are you okay?" I stand from my bed and start to worry.
"Harry is- harry stop it!" She screams at him.
"Abby what's wrong?" I try to scream through the phone without being too loud.
"Come to the house where the party was before! Harry's going to lose it." I hang up the phone and immediately grab my keys off of my dresser and climb down the side of my house.
**
Harry's POV
I don't even know why I'm at this fucking party anyway. It's filled with a bunch of assholes and sluts and the smell of alcohol burns my damn nose. The foggy living room smells like skunk from all of the damn potheads sitting in a circle passing around a joint.
What the fuck am I doing? There's absolutely no fucking reason why I need to be here. I walk into the bathroom and I'm surprised that there isn't puke all over the damn tile floors yet.
I lean my hands on the side of the sink and look at myself in the mirror. I look like complete shit as the side of my hair stick to my forehead from my sweat. I've been passing back and fucking forth everywhere to try to clear my head. Occasionally needing to punch something just to get the anger out.
I'm not necessarily angry at Beth but I'm angry at myself. I'm angry for getting everything too far when all of this could have died down a month and a half ago when it all happened.
I splash cool water on my face before I leave the bathroom.
A familiar laugh is heard down the hall. "I love how everyone assumes it was me." The familiar voice of Tiffy is heard. I can't make out what else she is saying or who she is even talking to. I walk closer to try to get a better listen but someone nudges into me on the way out of the room she is in.
"Sorry, I didn't-" he begins before he lets go of me and steps back. "Is she here?" He looks behind me. Why the fuck would he be looking for her?
I ignore him and just look at him. My jaw is tightened and my fists tighten at my sides as he looks back at me.
"You're a sick fuck., you know that ?" He says to me and before I could even think of punching him in the damn face Tiffy walks out of the room wearing a belt as a skirt.
"Well if it isn't lover boy." She brings her red cups to her lips and look me up and down.
I roll my eyes at her and look back at the dick in front of me.
"How could you do that to her? You have her fooled, don't you? You don't think she's going to find out that you posted it?"
"Posted what?" I yell back at him. The last thing I need right now is for someone to get me pissed the fuck off.
"The picture, asshole." The confusion overrides my thoughts of beating the shit out of him.
"I don't know what the fuck you're talking about."
"You posted the picture of her with that fucking guy all over the internet." What? The internet?
Fuck. Oh no. Shit.
My eyes immediately scan over to Tiffy who holds a fucking smile to her lips.
"Tiffy are you fucking kidding me!?" I scream at her.
She jumps away from my voice and Adam pushes me away. I nudge him off of me.
"Look, I'm not really sure where the fuck this is all coming from but you need to stop blaming shit on me!" I scream in his face.
"You think she's going to put up with your shit forever?" I don't answer.
"What's going on here?" Abby's voice is heard from behind me but I don't move.
"She's so much better than you. You don't deserve someone like her.-" Adam continues
"Shut the fuck up." I warn.
"You're going to destroy her more than she already is. Just leave her alone."
"Adam." Abby steps in. "Cut it out." She warns him but he doesn't even listen to her either.
"Stop." I say. My anger is starting to boil.
"You're an asshole and I hope that when she finds out it was you, she never speaks to you again. I hope you rot in hell. She will never want to speak to you again."
"I said shut the fuck up!" I scream again.
I see Abby pull her phone out and being it to her ear. I know exactly who she is calling and before I can snatch it away from her he continues to speak more. His words stabbing into my chest a million times a word.
"She's going to leave you. Leave you for good, she'll find someone new. Someone better. Someone who can make her happy, someone like me who could actually make her feel good-"
He stops talking as soon as I tackle him to the other side of the hall.. My fist collides to his jaw and the satisfaction already feels amazing.
"Harry stop it!" Abby screams over the other people who are clearing out of the hallway.
It's too late. I can't stop. My mind is telling me to stop before i put this asshole in a coma but I can't. As soon as I begin it become immediately impossible for me to stop.
He pushes me back against the other wall and punches me back.
"This is all you're going to do?!" He yells. "You're just going to fight whoever tells you the truth, harry?!" He yells, this time I tackle him to the ground nod wrap my hands around his neck.
"Stop it!" Abby cries and tugs at my shirt. I ignore her tugging on my shirt and continue to tighten my hands around his neck.
His face is getting red. The color satisfies me and let's me know that I'm winning.
"Stop!" A different voice sounds through my ear. "Harry stop." Abby sounds different. The voices around me all sound different as I can only focus on the sight in front of me.
A tugging is pulled on my short again and this time a elbow whoever the person is back away from me and they fall to the ground.
"Oh my god! Bethany are you alright?" Abby screams.
Beth?
My hands loosen around Adams neck and a stand from around his and run over to where Beth lays holding her head.
"God dammit harry!" Abby screams at me.
"Baby, I'm so sorry I didn't know it was you." I grab her and hold her head up. Her eyes slowly open as she tries to regain her vision. "Fuck, are you okay" I ask and she groans and pushes me away from her as she gets up and stares at me before she look at Adam on the floor.
"Why?" She asks as she rubs her head. "Why did you-" she stops talking as her body falls into my arms.
( hey guys! :) Didn't have time to edit this so please don't mind the mistakes! I will edit tomorrow! :)
I'm sorry for not mentioning when I will be updating at the end of the chapters. Sometimes I forget to do it but for now I will remember!
Okay, so at first I've been getting a lot of feedback in the comments but I feel like it has been lacking for a while now and I'd really love it if you would all comment more!
Also, as you all probably know by now, I've made a new cover photo of this book, please let me know if you guys like it :)
And finally, I would like to thank you all for getting me to over 85 THOUSAND reads! That's incredible and I know some people have so much more than that but i have never thought that temptation would even get passed 100 reads! It really makes me so happy so thank you very much! :)
Next update: March 3rd