Untouched (Bay Falls High, #1)(31)

When I threw that into the bag, it was like a two ton weight came down on my shoulders. I looked around the quiet, empty hallway and had no problem admitting I didn’t belong there. But I was there.

I saw a door to a bathroom to my right and dove for it.

The bathrooms were cleaner and fancier than my entire old school.

“Fucking rich people,” I whispered.

I ended up in a bathroom stall, sitting there, listening to my breathing bounce off the walls. My breathing led to tears. And I didn’t want to cry. I didn’t want to cry over my mother. I didn’t want to cry over missing Ruby and Amelia. I didn’t want to cry over what happened to Denny. And I definitely didn’t want to cry because of Pres, Barr, and Kip.

But it was too late.

I was already fucking crying.





When I was ten years old a boy named Nicky said he loved me and wanted to marry me. So we made plans to get married at the stop sign down the street. I wore my favorite dress and when he showed up, he had his friends with him and he told me I had frog lips, wart eyes, and I smelled like rotten cheese.

It was all for laughs.

But I was hurt.

That’s when Mom told me it was okay to cry. And it was okay to cry over boys. But I was only allowed to do it for ten minutes. She told me take ten minutes and get it all out. Then I had to stop crying and move forward or else I’d get stuck in the past.

And that stuck with me.

So when my ten minutes were up, I stopped crying in the bathroom stall.

It had been a rough day. That’s all.

I had a crap night of sleep, picturing Pres, Barr, and Kip up at the ditch. All the nuances of BFH making themselves known to me. And of course all my secrets floating around. Which they really weren’t secrets, were they? I wasn’t trying to hide who I was or why I was here. That idea went out the window on day one.

My plan to leave was still intact.

And would remain intact.

I stood up and opened the bathroom stall.

I screamed when I saw Pres sitting on the long, marble sink top.

I froze in place, almost instantly hypnotized by him.

He sat there with a black t-shirt against his body, revealing he was actually bigger than I thought. Making him look more powerful. More evil. And those eyes pointed at me.

I opened my mouth to say something when the bathroom door opened.

A girl let out a gasp when she saw Pres.

She then looked at me.

“What?” I asked.

“I have to pee,” she whispered.

“I don’t mind,” Pres said.

The girl’s cheeks turned red. “I’ll go somewhere else.”

“Better yet,” Pres said. “Stand outside the door. Anyone who comes near you tell them it's out of order.”

The girl rushed out of the bathroom.

“You were crying, sugar,” Pres said as he interlocked his fingers and rubbed up and down.

Why the fuck is that turning me on? What the fuck is wrong with me?

“So you heard,” I said.

“You know, it’s just a trig book,” he said with a grin. “It’s not like you lost it.”

“It’s not about the book,” I said. “You know what it’s about.”

“Right,” Pres said. He jumped off the sink and stood taller than I remembered. “If you don’t follow the Rulz things get bad.”

“So I’ve heard,” I said, trying to be cocky.

In reality, my heart was pounding. My body was trembling, inside and out.

“There was this guy name Zeke,” Pres said. He rubbed his jaw and started to pace the bathroom. “We told him to mind his own business. He just kept pushing though. Working his way into a place he wasn’t supposed to be. So we had no choice.” Pres turned and put his foot up against the wall. “I had no choice. There was no way I was going to let any heat come here. So I told him I wanted to talk about his arrangement. Zeke liked the idea. He liked that I had the power and the money to make it bigger. He was stupid, sugar. Why the fuck would I care about some stolen parts to motorcycles.”

“Stolen parts?” I asked.

“See? Even you realize how stupid it is. I made sure to send my message to Zeke. You saw that message. He was one breath away from…”

Pres didn’t finish the sentence because he didn’t need to.

I was well aware of what could have happened if he held Zeke under the water long enough.

“Nothing personal,” Pres said. “And that’s what I tried to do for you, sugar. Nothing personal. I told you to forget about it. To go away.”

“I haven’t said a word to anyone,” I said. “And I’m already planning on-”

Pres pushed from the wall. “Too late for that. You keep playing it through your head. Wondering how a guy like me could do that. Just like last night.”

“Last night?” I asked.

Pres laughed.

God, it was a perfect laugh too.

And when he laughed… his mouth, teeth…

Tinsley, he’s evil. He’s the enemy. He’s a bad person.

Pres touched my cheek.

My lips quivered.

His thumb stroked next to my eye where tears had been spilling from it.

“Sometimes the truth you don’t know is the hardest to understand,” Pres whispered. “But everything we say and we do has a purpose.”