At the top, we stood outside his friend’s room. “Are you sure?” he asked, low and quiet. He was giving me an out. I nodded and fisted his shirt, pulling him closer.
“Yeah, I’m sure. Let do this, okay?”
He smiled, grateful and sweet. “I’m gonna rock your world, baby.” I rolled my eyes and let him lead me in the room, shutting the door on the handful of people on the other side, and gave them the show of a lifetime.
Chapter 2
The weird thing about being the subject to gossip and rumor is that when you’re the actual subject, you always seem to be the last to know.
Justin and I had fake, raunchy, party sex, saved his reputation, and all was right in his world. I left him safe and secure, in Oceanside with a new lease on life and no one in my life even aware it happened.
Whatever worked for him. I planned on business as usual at my own school—thirty miles away and a lifetime away from Oceanside drama. In Allendale I was firmly entrenched in the fairly-unseen part of the student body. Not popular, but not unpopular. I didn’t really like people (okay, my anxiety didn’t like people) and it seemed the feeling was mutual; people didn’t really like me. I was okay with this. No one seemed to notice me much one way or the other.
What I didn’t realize that night when Justin and I emerged sweaty and laughing from the bedroom was that there were some people taking photos at the party. What I also didn’t know at the time was these party-goers went home and immediately sent images out on social media describing our tryst in detail. Not just to Oceanside kids, but to pretty much every student at our school, too.
Oh, and to top it off? The photo with the most likes and shares was a picture of me and my overly (Justin-styled) sexed-up hair emerging from the bedroom.
That was what I didn’t know when I walked down the hallway with a creepy, eerie hush following me.
Maybe, I thought, tugging my bulky sweater down over my wrists, hyperaware of the scars underneath, I was wrong about being able to pull off a post-fake-sex walk. Could they tell what didn’t happen over the weekend?
My first hint was before English when a hand wrapped around my waist. “Hey, Heaven. It’s been a while.”
I spun and looked into the pimpled face of Mark Amerson.
/> I shifted, moving the unwelcomed hand off my hip. “Been a while since what?”
“Since you know, me and you...you wanna go out?”
Curious. We’ve barely ever spoken. “Sorry but...no?”
Where was this coming from?
“Think about it,” he winked. Ew.
I turned and left.
Craig Dickerson found his way next to me in the lunch line. “Hey girl, I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately.”
I picked up a bottle of juice. “Excuse me?”
“You. I’ve been thinking about you and, well, me.”
“You have?” I was no longer curious but downright suspicious.
I paid and moved out of the line. Craig shouted after me, “Can I call you later?”
No.
Alex stopped to talk to me on the way to Spanish. Spencer, with his skeevy long hair and too-thin goatee, waited outside the bathroom. Even Jackson Hall (Jackson. Hall. Best friend of Anderson and one of the Allendale Four) gave me a slight nod and skimmed my body with smoldering eyes while Hayden Pierce raised a smirky eyebrow in my direction before I slipped into Chemistry.
That was hands-down the most acknowledgement either had given me. Ever.
To be honest, a little attention from those two didn’t bother me so much, but it was still bizarre.
But that wasn’t all. If the boys were being suspicious, the girls were just being out-right bitchy. In the hallway Jennifer elbowed me in the ribs, offering a fake, “sorry,” as she stomped away. Mallory muttered “slut” under her breath, which seemed a little pot-meets-kettle but whatever.
By the time I sat down at my desk, I was red-cheeked, flustered, and at a complete loss. Paranoia washed over me. Somehow, some way, they knew.