Off The Cards: Faking it #2 Page 2

  Yeah, not a proud moment for me.

  Oh god, I didn’t want to be in this house anymore.

  Everything felt icky and wrong and I couldn’t bear to be around when my mother walked through that door again.

  I hated her. With every fiber of my being, I hated the woman who had borne me. Regardless of my feelings for Nathan, how could she go there? How could she have sex with him?

  How could he have sex with her?

  I gave it all to him. My heart, my trust, my virginity. This was the biggest slap in the face I'd ever experienced. The web of love I'd been tangled up in had turned out to be a web of lies and I was infected, poisoned without an antidote.

  Even though I felt zero loyalty to my mother, I knew I wouldn’t tell Jackson what I had just learned.

  I couldn’t.

  It was the worst thing I'd ever heard and if I could spare him from this disgusting truth, then I would.

  Blindly and numb, I wobbled over to the shower and switched it on before stepping inside. I remained inside the shower until the sound of Nate's pleading stopped and the door knocking ceased.

  I cleaned my skin, scrubbing myself raw in my pathetic attempt to rid my body of his touch. He'd been with my mom. His penis had been inside of my mother.

  Ugh.

  Crying loudly, I scrubbed myself until my skin turned pink and began to sting.

  Even then, when my skin was red raw and cleansed thoroughly, I sank to the floor of the shower and wrapped my arms around my knees, making my body as small as physically possible.

  A continuous flow of scalding hot water cascaded over my body, but I couldn’t feel it. My skin was prickled red, but I felt frozen inside, like nothing could ever warm me up again.

  ****

  Chapter Two

  Three weeks later

  THE REST OF HOMECOMING WEEKEND passed by in a horrible blur. Ever since that night, my skin was a permanent shade of crimson red, and in the days that passed, I experienced several unwelcome emotions.

  Shame, anger, betrayal, jealousy, denial…

  I remained in my bedroom, unable to bear the stares and looks of disgust from my brother.

  Jackson hated me now.

  He flat out ignored me all weekend. When I walked into a room, he walked out, and when I opened my mouth to speak, he shut me down with one meaningful glare.

  I had broken his trust.

  And now I was on the outside like mom and dad.

  Needless to say, I didn’t go to the dance and because of me, Ivy didn’t get to go either.

  Jackson wasn’t speaking to Ivy since he found out she had known about me and Nate, which meant that Ivy was now mad at me, too.

  The whole situation was made worse because not only had I lost my brother and my best friend, but I'd lost my trust in humanity. It had been replaced with paranoia and deep seeded insecurities – insecurities I'd never known I had.

  I had royally screwed up my relationship with him, and for what?

  A boy who slept with my mom before taking my virginity.

  I felt so stupid.

  Worst of all was the fact that I had to face Dallas at school.

  She'd seen me naked.

  She knew about me and Nate.

  She also knew about Nathan and my mom.

  I wanted to pretend that I was shocked at my father's discrepancies, but I wasn’t. Nothing surprised me when it came to that man. I was fairly sure I was the only girl in Spring Hill my father hadn't slept with. The thought alone made me queasy.

  My only saving grace was that my parents were still out of town. I wasn’t sure for how long, but I would take whatever slither of time I could to figure this out.

  Figure it out and pack.

  Yeah, I was going away.

  Once my dad got home and found out about this, I was as good as exiled from the family.

  When Monday morning rolled around, I wasn't proud to say that for the first time in my life, I prayed to the Lord and thanked him for cursing me with diabetes.

  My crazy blood sugars were all that protected me from the outside world. For three whole weeks I managed to milk the cow that was my illness, and protect myself from the repercussions of my careless actions.

  Locked in my bedroom, I played my music, drowning in my pain, feeling the lyrics of every song down to my core. The singers healed me with their tales of woe and in one of those three minute songs, I felt like I could relate. Like someone else on this planet was feeling the same way as me.

  He was everything to me. And he broke me. Into a bazillion pieces. I wondered if he cared. I felt colorblind. Like every drop of light and vibrancy had depleted from my life.

  I felt so horrible yesterday that I reached out to my favorite author. Humiliating as it seemed, I stalked her website for an email address and wrote Hope Carter what had to be a ten-page message.

  I poured my heart out in that email, telling her everything I could never say aloud, praying that this woman who had this profound gift with words would somehow get me; that she could somehow understand the pain I was drowning in. It was obvious in the way she described pain that she felt those words in the depths of her soul. I didn’t get a response right away, and my phone was powered off now so I couldn’t check. I'd given up charging my phone weeks ago.

  I was tired of Nathan filling up my inbox...

  To: Andi

  From: Nate

  Time: 10:43

  9-23-2016

  Message: Answer your phone, Andi! I know you're mad, but I can explain this, baby, please. Give me a chance to make this right. I meant what I said the other night.

  To: Andi

  From: Nate

  Time: 17:36

  9-25-2016

  Message: You're not coming to school and your brother won't tell me shit. I'm losing my goddamn mind here. Tell me you're okay… Fucking one text. PLEASE!

  To: Andi

  From: Nate

  Time: 11:27

  9-29-2016

  Message: In case you didn’t hear the banging. It's me. I'm at your door. Let me in, Andi.

  To: Andi

  From: Nate

  Time: 11:35

  9-29-2016

  Message: Open. The. Door. Adriana.

  To: Andi

  From: Nate

  Time: 11:45

  9-29-2016

  Message: Can you call an ambulance? I think I broke my ass trying to scale your house. FYI: Don’t ever scale the side of your house. It's fucking lethal.

  To: Andi

  From: Nate

  Time: 02:32

  10-01-2016

  Message: I'm going crazy here. Can't fucking deal with this, Andi. I can't.

  To: Andi

  From: Nate

  Time: 14:50

  10-04-2016

  Message: I'm sorry.

  To: Andi

  From: Nate

  Time: 10:43

  10-06-2016

  Message: It's me again. I'm outside – again. Let me in. Please, baby…

  The worst part of it all was that I still wanted him.

  I still craved him.

  Even though he betrayed me in the worst possible way.

  How sick and twisted was that?

  I still loved him.

  The sound of a horn honking startled me from my thoughts and I jumped to my feet before grabbing my bag off the bed.

  The day I had spent the last three weeks praying not to arrive was here.

  It was time to face the music.

  I couldn’t afford to miss anymore school.

  Perfect grades or not, I needed to keep up my attendance.

  Inhaling a deep calming breath, I descended the steps of our staircase and made my way out to the front to where my brother was sitting, stony faced, in his black range rover.

  When I climbed inside, he didn’t say a word.

  He didn’t look at me or even grunt.

  He simply threw the truck into gear and tore off, almost viciously.

 
; Fastening my seatbelt, I placed my hands in my lap and closed my eyes.

  This was going to be a long day.

  ****

  I HAD HOPED THAT my three-week absence from school would have been enough time for people to forget about the horrible incident that night.

  I had been wrong.

  The jokes and taunting started the moment I stepped out of my brother's truck and away from the protection his presence unintentionally gave me. Jackson stalked off, leaving me alone in the student parking lot, and that's when it started.

  "That's her."

  "Slut."

  "Woof-woof."

  "Yeah, her brother caught Nate taking her from behind."

  "Ew…gross!"

  "Never knew you were that kind of girl, Adriana."

  "She's an easy lay."

  "Wait until her daddy hears…"

  Their jeers and taunts assured me that Dallas had spread her words around the school.

  I hadn't expected anything less from her. I'd been perfectly aware that when I got with Nathan that I would eventually face her wrath. I just hadn't counted on facing said wrath on my own.

  Before, the boys at school were afraid to look in my direction.

  Now, they leered at me like a piece of meat.

  It was also very apparent that I was getting the blame for Alternative Kiss's ongoing sabbatical. The band was a pretty big deal around this neck of the woods, and the students at Springhill High weren't shy about letting me know who they thought was to blame for the lead singer and guitarist's infamous bust up.

  Embarrassed and ashamed, I kept my head down and rushed to my first class, forcing myself to pretend I couldn’t hear them, but I could and it hurt.

  Every detail of my love life was out there for the entire school to scrutinize – and they were certainly making the most of scrutinizing me.

  Every time Dallas smirked at me in the hallway another piece of me died inside. Shame was the color of my skin, flushed red and mortified.

  I ate my lunch alone on the bleachers, too afraid to approach my brother who was purposefully vilifying me for falling for the wrong boy.

  He wasn’t in school either.

  I hadn't seen a trace of Nate all day.

  Our school was big, but no so big that we wouldn’t have bumped into each other at least two or three times throughout the day. I wasn’t sure how that made me feel.

  Awful, I thought to myself.

  To make it worse, Ivy wasn’t at school. I knew she was mad at me, but there was no way she would have left me on my own like this.

  Unlike me, Ivy had balls of steel, but in my defense, I'd never had to stick up for myself before. I'd spent all my life under the protection of my surname and my brother and Nate's watchful eyes.

  Now, Jackson wouldn’t look at me, and I hadn't seen Nate in over three weeks.

  It seemed the only person willing to give me the time of day was Brad Lakewood – and I meant that in the literal sense –who had stopped to answer my request.

  To give Brad credit, he didn’t ignore me or laugh in my face like most of the school seemed to have done. In fact, he had looked at me with an almost sympathetic gaze.

  I wasn’t sure if that was worse. Knowing I was pitied. And when he offered walk with me to History class with me, I almost cried in gratitude.

  And then I spent the rest of the day dreaming about Nathan bursting into class like he had before and pulling me to safety, but then I thought about what he'd done and I clamped down on those unattainable dreams. Because whether I liked it or not, that's what Nathan Cole was now.

  Unattainable.

  I couldn’t be with him. Not now. Not ever again.

  And that knowledge all but broke my heart.

  ****

  Chapter Three

  BY THE TIME LUNCH rolled around on Thursday, I had lost count of the number of times I'd been barked at in the hallway between classes.

  I thought it would wear down after an hour or so.

  I was wrong.

  I'd endured four days of living hell in these hallways.

  Four days of constant loneliness.

  Ivy was back, but she was avoiding me. She tried to make it seem like she wasn’t, but I wasn’t dumb. Every time Jackson walked past us in the hallways, Ivy took a solid step away from me.

  It hurt, but I wasn’t surprised. It was exactly what I had feared would happen if she got involved with my brother.

  Sickened to my stomach from the derogatory comments and sleazy pickup lines thrown my way, I made it through school in a blurry haze. I wished I had enough courage to fight back, but I didn’t. I was upset and emotional, and no match for these people.

  My iPod was my saving grace and at lunch time, I blasted Sia's Elastic Heart through my ears as I walked into the cafeteria with my head held high. I was feeling anything but proud, but I refused to let these people see how much I loathed myself.

  Slipping my hand into my pocket, I increased the volume on my iPod to the maximum and stared straight ahead, not daring to make eye contact with a soul.

  I paid for my lunch and walked over to the table I had sat at since freshman year.

  I'd never been very good at making friends, I was shy and reserved and had always depended too much on my brother. I was feeling it now, especially since I didn’t have a clique or group of friends I could blend in with. For the last three days, I'd chosen to eat alone outside, but it was getting cooler and I was growing lonely.

  My whole life revolved around the table Jackson headed, and the look on his face when I approached him told me I wasn’t a welcome guest.

  The whole cafeteria went abnormally quiet as I stood like a fool, with my lunch tray in my hands, waiting on my brother to take pity on me.

  Without Jackson's support, I didn’t have a hope at this school.

  He and Nate ran this place.

  Their word was law, and if Jackson was mad at me, I was in for a rough time.

  No one upset the Spring Hill Bobcat's star player and got away with it.

  Jackson cast a warning glare in my direction and shook his head once before resuming his conversation with his teammates.

  And just like that, I was dismissed.

  My eyes landed on Ivy who was sitting beside Jackson, obviously having patched things up with him. She cringed sympathetically, but kept quiet.

  Jackson had drawn a line in the sand and I was unequivocally on the outside of that line. Ivy was clearly on the inside and wanted to stay on the inside.

  "So it's like that?" I heard myself say to my brother, when in truth I was thinking it about the both of them.

  No answer.

  "Jackson!"

  Again, he didn’t reply; instead he spoke loudly to his friends, purposefully hazing me out.

  I could feel several pairs of eyes on me. People were laughing too – at me, I noted, and my cheeks flushed bright red.

  This was cruel.

  I knew he was mad at me, but this wasn’t okay.

  And it wasn’t okay that my best friend was sitting back and saying nothing.

  "You're really going to do this to me?" I whispered, hurt, eyes locked on my brother. The same brother I'd adored my whole life. "You're not being fair, Jackson."

  "Fair?" It was the first word he had said to me since Friday night, and his tone of voice was laden down with sarcasm and barely restrained anger. "You wanna talk about what's fair?" Dropping his feet from where they'd been perched on the table, Jackson folded his arms across his chest and glared at me. "Fine. Tell me what was fair about you screwing around with my best goddamn friend, Andi?"

  Jackson's voice was loud and hard, and nothing like the way he usually spoke to me. "What was fair about you two lying to my face, and sneaking around behind my back?"

  Mortified, I looked around and saw that everyone within a ten-foot radius was staring at us. "Let's not do this here," I whispered, imploring my brother to have some slither of respect for me.

  "How long?"
was my brother's next question. "You want fairness, then tell me how motherfucking long you two have been lying to me?"

  "You're taking this the wrong way," I muttered.

  "No, girl," Jackson snarled. "Only one taking it the wrong way is you."

  Laughter erupted around me and I cringed in shame.

  "Jackson," Ivy snapped, shoving him in the arm. "That is not okay!"

  "It's true," my brother shot back angrily.

  Tears filled my eyes. "I can't believe you just said that."

  "Get out of my face, Adriana," Jackson shot back heatedly. "Or I'm gonna lose my shit on you and say a helluva lot worse."

  "I never thought you could be such a jerk," Ivy hissed then.

  "And I never thought she would be so easy," Jackson shot back coldly, eyes still locked on my face. "But hey, looks like everyone can be wrong once in a while."

  "Asshole." Shoving her chair back, Ivy stood up. "You are out of order here, Jackson." She made to walk towards me but stopped mid-stride. Suddenly the laughs coming from the tables around me turned to hushed whispers and Jackson's face transitioned from disgusted to mutinous.

  I took a step backwards in actual fear and inadvertently brushed up against something hard and warm.

  "You think it's okay to talk to her like this?" a familiar voice demanded. "You think she doesn’t get enough of that shit at home?"

  The minute I heard his voice, I dropped my lunch tray in a mixture of shock and horror before swinging around to face him.

  "Nate," I whispered as I stared up at his face.

  I hadn't seen him in almost a month.

  His eyes landed on mine and the air evaporated from my lungs, leaving me feeling weak and dizzy.

  He looked beautiful and that made me sad.

  Really sad.

  His dark eyes roamed over my face and my heart twisted and somersaulted around in my chest.

  A huge chunk of me wanted to throw myself into his arms.

  I inadvertently moved closer to him; the need to be in his arms overwhelming and dominating.