Empire High Betrayal(65)

But it wasn’t just the nudity that was upsetting. It was the words written on every single one of them. They were advertisements for my prostitution services. My phone number was on each one. Some even had those little tearable tabs at the bottom so you could easily take it and give me a call later.

I grabbed one of those and tore it from the wall. I grabbed another and another. I heard laughter and turned around.

Cupcake was standing there with a stack of more printouts in his hands.

Matt was going to freak out when he saw these. I could feel tears blinding my eyes as I tore down another picture. And another. I tried to grab some of the printouts off the floor but there were too many.

“Cupcake, what the hell?!” I yelled.

He laughed and threw his hands up into the air, sending hundreds more flyers fluttering down onto the ground. “What? I didn’t do anything. You’re selling your services, Brooklyn. Pretty sure you’re the only one that looks guilty here.”

I looked down at one of the printouts in my hand. For a good night, contact Brooklyn Sanders. She’s been entertaining all the boys of Empire High and comes highly recommended for a very affordable price. I looked up and Cupcake was gone.

What the actual fuck?!

Oh God. I do look guilty. It didn’t matter that the pictures were all of me in my underwear. Isabella had made it look like I was trying to sell my body. No one was going to believe me over her. I ripped off another picture from a locker as the tears burned my eyes. I tore down handfuls of them. But there were too many.

The bell rang, signaling the end of lunch.

Screw me.





Chapter 26


Monday

The first thing I heard was the laughter as I tried to pull more pictures off the lockers. I grabbed more printouts, but it was no use. There were too many of them.

“She’s such a whore,” Isabella said from somewhere behind me. “I can’t believe she’s sleeping with James and Matt. And now she wants to take on even more clients?” She laughed. “Oh my, it even says she’s affordable. I bet her going rate is a dollar.”

All her minions laughed.

I tried to ignore them as I got down on my hands and knees to pick up some of the printouts from the floor.

“Slut,” someone said.

“I knew she was a prostitute.”

“One of the cheap ones too.” More laughter spread through the hall.

“She’s even on her knees right now.”

My tears burned my eyes as I crawled around on the Empire High floor.

“Baby?” Matt’s voice in the hall made my tears run even faster down my cheeks.

I tried to pull more of the pictures into a pile on the floor. Not that it mattered. He’d seen them. He’d seen me in my underwear holding James’ hand. And even though I’d told him about what happened that night, seeing it was a million times worse. “I’m sorry,” I choked.

“Come with me,” Matt said. He grabbed my hand to pull me to my feet.

“I’m so sorry…”

He pulled me toward the closest bathroom. I tried to ignore the rude words being thrown our way. Matt seemed to be handling it better than I was. I thought he’d be pissed, but he was so calm.

“Look, she’s holding someone else’s hand now,” some guy said.

Matt ignored him, sidestepping to pull us closer to the bathroom.

But then the guy added, “I wonder how much her escorting services go for?”

And it was like Matt snapped. He let go of my hand so fast that I didn’t know how he had time to wrap it around the guy’s neck. “Say another word about my girl and you won’t be able to recognize yourself in the mirror.” Matt shoved the guy backward, slamming him against a locker.

I swallowed hard. I guess he wasn’t as calm as I thought.

“Show’s over!” Mason said from somewhere behind us.

I turned to see him hit his fist against a locker a few times to get everyone’s attention.

“I said show’s over!” he yelled. “Everyone get to class.”

Matt pulled me into the closest bathroom and locked the door behind us.

I could still hear the laughter in the hall. I thought Matt would be pissed. I thought he would have screamed at Isabella and started to pull the pictures down too. But he had been eerily composed until that guy had basically called me a prostitute. He seemed calm again now as he pulled me into his arms.

“Are you okay?” he asked. “Can you breathe?”

His words just made me cry harder. He was angry. But he was more concerned about whether or not I was having a panic attack.

“Baby, look at me.” He grabbed both sides of my face. “Are you okay?”

“Of course I’m not okay. Isabella is trying to freaking ruin my life. She wants you to leave me. She said she was going to turn everyone against me. I can’t handle being on edge all the time. I feel like I’m about to lose my mind.”

“Isabella can do whatever the fuck she wants. But she’ll never tear us apart. And she’ll never break you down. Do you hear me?”

I nodded. I wanted to believe him. But Isabella was hellbent on ruining us. On ruining me. And it wasn’t a fair game. Instead of fighting fire with fire, I’d stopped fighting altogether. I swallowed hard.