Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 90564 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 453(@200wpm)___ 362(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90564 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 453(@200wpm)___ 362(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
But the thing he didn’t realize, everything I had done had one purpose. To protect him. And it had backfired.
One minute I was in Dayton, and the next, the state dragged Gracie and me into foster care. There was no room for goodbye, and even if there had been, after the lies I allowed him to believe, I wouldn’t have known how to say it.
I fought past the lump in my throat. “You were everything to me, Hendrix.”
His arms dropped to his side with a cynical laugh. “Everything, huh?” He took a step back, his gaze sweeping over me with disgust. “But you fucked another guy. And you didn’t even know who that baby belonged to.”
It took everything in me not to flinch at his words. Not to sink into the memories I’d spent years trying to forget. His pain burrowed beneath my skin like a parasite, igniting my own.
There was nothing I could say. No lie that could soothe the ache. “It was complicated,” I whispered.
“I fucking loved you, Lola.” Silent seconds ticked by before he inhaled a heavy breath. Then he turned and launched his fist into the dirty mirror, sending pieces of shattered glass scattering the sink and floor. “Goddamn it! I fucking loved you, and you shit all over everything.” He went to the door, and with one final, hate-filled glance over his shoulder, he shoved it open. “You stay the fuck away from me!”
Tears broke free as the door swung closed behind him, and I slid down the wall. I had loved that boy with my entire being. I still did, and that was the only reason I allowed him to think I’d betrayed him.
The truth would destroy him as much as it had destroyed me. Maybe more…
Chapter 3
HENDRIX
I stormed out of the restroom and stopped when I caught sight of Kyle waiting around the corner. If I had to guess, for Lola. He ducked back on a gasp before he took off in the direction of Principal Brown’s office.
“Yeah, you better run, Chewbacca.” I swiped a hand over my face, trying to rein in the irrational anger eating away at my insides like battery acid. But damn, did I hate that Lola was back in Dayton—back in my school. I didn’t need her anywhere near me.
Her shit excuse played over and over in my head as I shouldered through students. It was complicated. She had to be kidding. She ripped my heart clean out of my chest and couldn’t even manage, “I’m sorry.” No, I just got, It was complicated. Two years after she screwed some other guy, got knocked up, and told me I wasn’t the father.
Well, fuck you, Lola Stevens.
She made it complicated. She made my entire life complicated… I slammed a palm against a locker, leaving a dent in the metal.
“Hey, Hendrix.” Jessica’s annoying, make-my-dick-shrivel-into-my-body banshee of a voice came from behind me. I was not in the mood for simpering bitches today, not after that encounter with my soul-sucking ex. The soul-sucking ex she’d ratted out.
“Fuck off.” I kept going, but of course, she followed me.
I’d slept with her once, months after Lola left, hoping it would serve as a distraction, possibly serve as some kind of sick revenge, but it hadn’t. That maybe she’d tell me who Lola cheated on me with. All it did was make me feel like a complete piece of shit and take a little bit of Lola away. So had every girl since then. Then again, getting over her was the whole point...
“There’s a party at Rabbit Hill this weekend,” she said, still right behind me.
I stopped outside of Smith’s classroom, glaring over my shoulder at her overdone face. “I don’t care.”
“We’re going skinny-dipping.”
“Jesus Christ. What do you not understand about fuck off?” I ducked into the room full of students.
Miss Smith looked up from her desk, swatting away a blond strand of hair. “Why, Lord Jesus, why have you put the second Mr. Hunt in my class?” Her annoyed expression deepened into a scowl. “I go to church every Sunday, and I tithe ten percent of my crappy paycheck to keep your place spik and span.”
“Come on, Miss Smith. Wolf told me you wanted a piece of this, too.”
An “oooooh” bounced around the room.
Smith glared at me, snatching the Thermos everyone knew was filled with vodka from the desk. By the end of the day, she reeked of it. “Mr. Wolf ain’t nobody you need to be listening to.”
Of course, he wasn’t. He let her suck his dick.
I went down the aisle, swatting Isaac Isacc’s ballcap off his stupid head before I sank into an empty seat at the back of the class.
The last of the reprobates filed in just as the tardy bell rang.
Smith cleared her throat, rising from her rolling chair with a creak of hinges. “First, I ain’t got no time for excuses today, or any day for that matter. And I sure as diddley ain’t got no time for humping and bumping in the back of my class. Don’t ask me questions. You got questions this semester, you ask Mr. Google-dot-com.” She snatched the roster from underneath a stack of books. “I’m gonna call your name. You say here. Don’t be tagging on with none of that ‘has gotta big dick’ or ‘is a nasty hoe’ on the end of people’s names today? It’s not nice, and Jesus is watching every one of you.”