All the Little Lies (English Prep 1)

Intriguing, yes. Worth me letting her go scot-free and having to deal with seeing her face every day, given what it does to me? No. “I’ll decide after you tell me,” I countered, still towering over her. At least from this angle, I could keep my eyes on her face and not her body. Teenage hormones were a goddamn bitch sometimes. My dick didn’t care that I hated her. In fact, it made her even more tempting.

She thought for a moment and realized she didn’t have another choice.

“Madeline was the one who took my clothes.” Her tongue darted out to lick her lips. She kept her eyes off mine as she spoke. “She said she found out we were in a room alone together at the Wellington Prep party….and…” Hayley swallowed, crossing her arms over her pink bra.

“And what?”

“She said she made up the part about Cole messing with her friend so you’d beat him up.”

I laughed. “You’re lying.”

She shook her head, her dark hair covering her face for a moment before she looked at me. “She said Cole passed her up and she wanted to get back at him, and she knew you’d react if she told you he messed with one of her friends...inappropriately.”

I paused, thought for a moment, and then my blood began to boil even hotter than it did when I saw Hayley a few moments ago.

Before I knew what I was doing, I was ripping the shirt off my back and flinging it toward her. She hesitantly took it with a shaky hand.

“Put it on.”

She didn’t even think twice. After she pulled it over her slender body, moving her hair to the side, I put my hand underneath her chin and brought her gaze up to mine.

“This means nothing.”

She tore her face from my grasp and all but snarled at me.

I left her alone in the stairwell and tried to calm myself before getting back to practice.

I still hated Hayley Smith with all of my might, but maybe even a little more now because I knew what she looked like underneath her school uniform. And let me tell you, it was far better than what my twelve-year-old self conjured up before she left town.

The next day of school came too quickly. After practice last night, I went straight home and holed myself up in my bedroom, even through Ollie’s protests and asking what had happened with Hayley. He tried to get a rise out of me by asking, “Did she look as hot as Kyle said she did?” I gave him a death glare and slammed the door in his face.

I had to dissect my thoughts. I tossed around a stupid kid’s basketball from the hoop I got for my tenth birthday. My room was the same as it was then: a blue comforter, navy walls, the pitiful basketball hoop on the back of my closet door. Nothing in our house had changed since Mom died. Not even her vanity with her expensive jewelry. Dad wasn’t home enough to even care, or maybe that was why he wasn’t home to begin with. Too many reminders. I understood that; I couldn’t even stomach going in their room.

It felt wrong to change anything in the house, and as vast and expansive as it was, it was easy to hide out in my bedroom alone.

I tried to shove away my thoughts of Hayley and focus more on Madeline. What to do, what to do. It didn’t bother me at all that she was fucking with someone else—or attempting to. We weren’t exclusive and were never in an actual relationship, and I hadn’t fucked her in a long, long time. She hadn’t sucked my dick in a while, either. But to lie to me and tell me he fucked with one of her friends so I’d beat his ass so she’d have a way to retaliate? That was crossing a fucking line.

Did he deserve to get his ass beat? After seeing him try to man-handle Hayley, probably. And who knew, maybe he had fucked with a girl against her will a time or two, but it sent me straight to the red at the thought of me plummeting my fist into his face over the fact that he didn’t want Madeline’s pussy. The entire situation made me look like a complete fucking idiot, and that didn’t sit well with me.

It also didn’t sit well with me that I took Hayley’s word right off the bat. I knew she wasn’t lying to me, and the fact that I didn’t feel the need to fact-check her story proved a small part of me trusted her, which went against everything I stood for when it came to her.

I needed her gone, and the one chance I got, I forfeited it.

I looked over at her in class this morning, waiting for the familiar feeling of anger to pop up. I needed that feeling of resentment to seep in so I could bask in the comfort of knowing our up-close-and-personal conversation yesterday meant nothing. Remember, she started the spiral, Christian. She was the start of it all.

The past tried to creep into my head, begging me to remember who she was before everything happened.

She tucked her hair behind her ear, showing off her naturally pink-tinted cheeks and clean face. She reached up and adjusted the little bow tied around her neck, scratching at the material. I hated that she was so mesmerizing. Was it the mysterious vibe she held? Was it because she was a little rough around the edges but also had a sort of silent beauty about her? Or was it because she appeared perfect on the outside, but I knew she was tainted with flaws on the inside?

I wasn’t the only one in the room staring at her. Voorhies was licking his lips while tracing his eyes up and down her body, and Clayton and Zach had their heads huddled together, whispering about her. Annoyance slithered up, and I shoved my book off my desk and onto the floor, causing a loud bang to go throughout the room. All eyes were on me, and I gave each of them a glare. Voorhies rolled his eyes, but Zach and Clayton were oblivious to my nonverbal threat. Quit fucking looking at her, and quit fucking lusting over her, my eyes said. I slowly slid my gaze back over to her, and she was staring at my book on the floor. Her rosy cheeks were replaced with a whiteness that matched her shirt. She let out a shaky breath.

My eyebrows clustered together as I bent down to gather my book. Ollie had a smirk on his face and eyed me suspiciously. I ignored him as I came upright at my desk again.

Class hadn’t even started yet when Ms. Boyd buzzed into the intercom and asked for me, Ollie, and Hayley to come to the office. Hayley’s head snapped over to mine, and I swore, the blue hue of her eyes was replaced with a simmering red. I knew what she thought. She thought I went back on my word, that I told Headmaster Walton about the half-naked debacle from yesterday. Her eyes portrayed just that.

As soon as the three of us were out of the classroom, whispers floating all around us, Hayley jerked in front of me and poked my chest. “I guess I should have listened to you when you said nothing had changed!”

I looked down at her finger on my chest, poking my tie, and then back at her face. I smirked. I had no idea why the three of us were called down to the office, as I didn’t tell Headmaster Walton anything. In fact, no one really knew anything other than Hayley and me, but letting her sweat was fun.