Tell Me Pretty Lies(4)
As if he can hear my heart breaking, Thayer’s eyes lift, meeting mine through the crack in the door. They’re angry but somehow vacant, the crease between his eyebrows deepening. I shake my head, my nose flaring as I attempt to keep my tears at bay.
“Let me help you feel better,” Taylor purrs, tugging at his jeans while Thayer holds my stare.
My stomach rolls, and I turn around, unable to see any more. I quickly cross the hall into my room and slam the door shut behind me before flipping the lock. I don’t bother to get dressed, instead climbing into my bed with my towel still wrapped around me. I curl up on my side, pulling the blanket over my head.
He had to know I’d see them. Why else would he leave his door open like that? He wanted to hurt me. He did it on purpose. And for what? For telling him I loved him? God, I’m stupid. I don’t know what I was thinking. It’s not like I thought this thing with us could actually go anywhere with our parents being engaged. I wasn’t under the illusion that we’d somehow live happily ever after. I just got caught up in the moment, overwhelmed with the intensity of it all.
The truth is, I do love Thayer, and not in the same way I love Holden and Danny. But admitting it out loud was a mistake, because right now, I don’t think it’s possible for things to get any worse.
Shayne
Nine Months Later
I was wrong. Things got worse.
The night of the funeral was just the tip of the iceberg. Like a row of dominos, everything fell apart after that. Thayer ignored me at school, and on the rare occasion he was home, he’d reek of cigarettes and whiskey. Holden pretended nothing happened, burying himself inside anything with a pulse, Grey shut down, freezing me out completely when he went back to college, and the icing on the shit cake? After three weeks, our parents called off their engagement, and five days after that, I was back in Shadow Ridge. By that point, I can’t say I wasn’t a little relieved. Staying at Whittemore felt more uncomfortable and less like home with each passing day, and going to school was my own personal hell. It was as if everyone could sense the shift, and suddenly, I wasn’t one of them anymore.
But leaving Whittemore also meant leaving Thayer, and leaving Thayer was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.
I reconnected with my friends from middle school and finished out my junior year in Shadow Ridge while my mom worked constantly, taking as many flights as possible to make ends meet. She slowed down when she was with August, but she never completely quit, despite his insistence. Now I know why. She didn’t want to be dependent on him. It makes me wonder if deep down, she knew she’d need a safety net one day. I was proud of her for it, but I’d never felt more alone. I didn’t have her, I didn’t have Grey, and I didn’t have Thayer. I still had Valen. Our friendship was solid, and the hour drive did nothing to weaken that. And, of course, I had other friends, but it wasn’t the same.
I spent the summer working at the country club to help make ends meet, even though my mom insisted that we were fine. I thought maybe if I could bring in some extra cash, she wouldn’t have to leave so often. And just when I was finally getting used to my new normal, resigned to the fact that I’d probably never see Thayer again, fate had other plans. My grandmother passed away, and despite their vast differences, she shocked us all by leaving her house on Heartbreak Hill to my mom. It wasn’t until we moved in over the summer and saw the state of things that my mom realized it was my grandmother’s last fuck you. Turns out, Amelia Courtland was a bit of a hoarder in her old age. The downstairs was in decent condition, but upstairs? Upstairs was in shambles. We’re still nowhere near finished, but it’s livable and better than our place in Shadow Ridge. Not to mention paid off.
“It’s going to be fine,” Valen reassures me for the thirty-seventh time in as many minutes as I stand here hesitating before the imposing red-bricked building. Sawyer Point has a reputation for scary, haunted, and historic buildings. But not one of them is as intimidating as the one I stand before, and not for reasons of the paranormal variety. Ghosts have nothing on the rich and beautiful teenagers of Sawyer Point High School. I haven’t faced any of these people in nine months. I know the second I walk through those doors, the whispers will start.
As if that’s anything new.
“I know,” I say, shrugging, aiming for casual when I’m feeling anything but.
“No one’s even talking about you guys anymore since Bryce Anderson knocked up Melissa Matthews over the summer,” Valen says when I still don’t make a move. She produces a lip gloss from the tiny pocket of her equally tiny skirt before she drags the wand across her full lips. Valentina Solorio looks more like an Instagram model than a high school student with her olive skin, the perfect number of freckles across the bridge of her nose, and the dimples in her cheeks. Her thick dark hair is rolled into twin buns on the top of her head, leaving two strands hanging in the front. If I tried to pull off that hairstyle, I’d end up looking like an actual alien. But Valen manages to make everything look hot. Her style is what can only be described as rich-girl grunge. Feminine with a little edge. Meanwhile, I’m looking decidedly less hot in my cut-off black denim shorts, cropped grey sweatshirt, and Chucks. We’re complete opposites, but she’s my best friend, and the only one who stuck around when everyone else turned their backs on me.
I raise my eyebrows, pinning her with a look. Everyone wants to know what happened to make Thayer and Holden drop me. Myself included.