It was almost like falling out of a tree.
Shock hit Everly hard, the impact of the situation making her head spin. Her lungs squeezed painfully for air, ripping a horrified gasp from her mouth.
Lavender whipped around, detaching her lips from Zach's. Her eyebrow quirked up evilly and her thin lips curled into a smug smirk. The world felt like it was swooping underneath Everly's feet.
Zach's eyes flew open and he stared from Everly to Lavender in silence. Then, through Everly's haze of tears, she saw him practically shove Lavender off of him.
Everybody has a flight or fight instinct. You either attack, or flee the situation. In Everly's case, she wanted to do both. She wanted to stomp right up to Zach, scream at him in anger and slap him around the face, maybe even knee him in the balls.
Eventually, she decided on the latter. She whipped around and fled, hot tears spilling out of her eyes and obscuring her vision. She could hear Zach yelling her name behind her, and footsteps chasing after her, but she kept sprinting.
She kept running until she couldn't anymore, and she collapsed on the ground next to the patch of tulips. Her shoulders were racked with dry sobs and she gasped for breath, wishing for the ache in her chest to go away.
All she could think about was that Ariana and Isabel were right. They were so right about him. He did just use girls for fun, going through them like they were socks. He made them feel appreciated and like he loved them, but really, he was sneaking around with other girls behind their backs. He really was that type of guy. A manipulative asshole who disregarded girl's' feelings and bodies for his own entertainment.
Why hadn't she listened? If she had listened to them, she wouldn't have gotten into this mess. She would have still had someone to hold onto, someone for support. Now, she had poured her heart out to Zach and trusted him with things she had never told any other person before, and he turned out to be an untrustworthy dickhead.
God, why am I so fucking stupid? Everly thought, tears of despondency cascading down her face, leaving her weak and frail. She hated all of this. Why did she ever trust Zach? All she wanted to do was forget him, erase him from her memories. I wish I never met you, I wish I never met you, she repeated in her mind.
Suddenly, she felt someone gently touch her shoulder. That touch sent her blood boiling and she pulled away sharply. "Don't fucking touch me!" She shrieked, looking up to face the person who had touched her shoulder.
Zach looked down at her. His eyes were wide and sad and his cheeks were flushed. He tried to reach for her hand. "Everly, please—"
"I told you not to fucking touch me!"
Zach ran his fingers through his hair. "Everly please listen to me," He pleaded.
Everly shook her head, teardrops dripping down her cheeks. "I'm not going to listen to you. I don't want anything to do with you, Zach Herron!" She screamed, her fists clenched into balls.
"Everly, it wasn't what it looked like!" He cried out.
"Bullshit! Fucking bullshit! I saw you kissing her! I saw it with my own two eyes, of course it's what it looked like!" She bellowed with as much ferocity as she could muster, but her lower lip was trembling, a sign she was going to break again.
"Just listen, Everly. Please! I have to explain everything to you. Everly, please!" Zach's tone was laced with urgency now, his eyes glassed over with tears. "Please," he whispered, staring right into Everly's eyes.
Everly shook her head lightly, averting her gaze. How good could his explanation possibly be? She would just listen to his cock and bull story and just carry on the rest of her life without him. What more did she have to lose?
"Fine."
______________________________
"I wasn't always like this. This player who would just use girls for fun and all that shit. I wasn't like that at all. It just happened in freshman year. Young, I know."
"There was this girl I dated, and her name was Brittany. I loved her. At least, I thought I did. She was my world, and I wanted to do everything for her. But things happen and I soon found out that she was using me for clout. To get popularity and fame. That's what she dated me for. She didn't truly love me like I loved her."
"So I was upset. Obviously. I felt ruined and so damn stupid. So clearly I told my friends about her because I had no idea what to do. Eventually, word about her using me was starting to spread, and she wasn't happy about it. So she decided to spread rumours about me instead."
"She lied. About everything. She said I broke her heart and used her just to get in her pants and she told the whole school that. And of course everybody believed her because she had the reputation of an angel. So that's how I got the reputation that I have today. At first I tried to tell people that that wasn't the person I was, and everything was fake, but no one believed or listened to me. No one cared about what I had to say."
"So I had no choice but to just lean into it. I pretended to be the person she accused me of being. And like the saying says, fake it till you make it and I became that person. Of course I didn't want to be him, but there was a small part of me that did."
"You know why? Because my parents didn't care about me. They didn't give a shit about me. They loved my siblings, sure, but me? I was a mistake. They hated me, and they would grudgingly take care of me. They didn't want to, but they just didn't want to get in trouble with the law. They neglected me, and I didn't feel what love felt like. The only person that truly cared about me in my family was Reese. But even she wasn't enough for me."
"So I started dating girls, so many of them, because I needed love. I needed somebody to want me, and make me feel loved and appreciated so that's what I did. I started jumping from girl to girl, and I know that wasn't right of me, but at that point, I didn't care. I didn't fucking care. All I wanted was love, and I confused emotional attraction with physical attraction."
Everly listened in awe. Her jaw was unhinged and glued to the floor and her heart felt like it was in a million pieces. She had no idea. She was shocked into silence and she just kept staring at Zach.
"Oh, and about your question at the ice cream shop the other day," Zach continued.
"Why do Ariana and Isabel hate me so much? Well, Brittany, the girl I dated, happened to be Isabel's older sister. So of course Isabel had a special place of hatred in her heart for me, and Ariana and Isabel being best friends, obviously Ariana would hate me too."
Everly swallowed her shock and stared defiantly at Zach. "Well, that still doesn't explain why you asked me to meet you here so you could purposely let me catch you kissing Lavender," She said coldly.
Zach wore a look of genuine confusion on his face. "Huh? What? When—?" He questioned, looking nonplussed.
"Are you acting stupid or do you really not know what I'm talking about?"
Zach shook his head slowly.
Everly dug around in her bag and pulled out the red rose and the card that she had found in her locker. She was expecting Zach's eyes to light up with recognition but they remained on the rose and the card with bewilderment. "I didn't put that in your locker..."
And oddly enough, Everly believed him.
She let the card and flower drop on her lap and cradled her head in her hands. A lightbulb went off in her head and realisation dawned on her. "Of course...it was Lavender," She whispered.
Zach nodded. "She asked me to meet her here. God knows how she knows about this place. She told me it was an emergency and I just wanted to see if she was okay. Then when I came here, she seemed alright and then she just pushed me onto the bench and just pounced on me. She started kissing me and I had no idea what was happening. I wanted to push her off of me but she was too strong."
Everly stared blankly at him, her lips parted in shock. "Everly, please believe me. Please. I would never do that to you," He said softly, reaching over to touch her hand.
She drew a deep shaky breath. "I...I believe you."
"Good. Because I have something else to tell you."
"What?"
"I'm Tyler."