Pretty When She Cries - Black Mountain Academy

The sound of chiming phones all over the backyard makes my muscles knot with tension. I watch as, one by one, they start to check them. Slowly, their gazes slip to Jared. He shifts, his entire body tightening, and Carson glances around in confusion before he reaches for his phone too. Whatever happens next is lost on me. There isn’t time to see because someone is heading this way. At the sound of approaching footsteps, I dart behind the gazebo just in time.

“Shh…” Someone purrs as the footsteps stumble into the gazebo. “We don’t need the whole party to see.”

“They didn’t,” the other voice growls.

Curiosity draws me closer, and I know I shouldn’t look, but that first voice sounds so familiar. When I peek through the slotted lattice, the lighting is dim, but I’d recognize that hair anywhere.

Audrey Rothschild.

My stomach lurches violently. The first thought I have is that I don’t want to see her and Landon together. But moving requires coordination, and right now, I seem to have none. Their silhouettes are like a gory movie I can’t look away from.

Audrey wedges her body between a pair of masculine thighs, and his hands wrap around her tiny waist, plucking at the strings holding her flimsy bikini in place. I can’t see his face because she’s grinding her body all over his.

“Get your phone ready,” she orders.

“It is.” He grabs a fistful of her hair as she tries to climb on top of him. “Suck my dick first.”

“Mmm,” she moans. “So bossy.”

“Less talk, more face fucking. Come on. I don’t have all night.”

I try to take a step back before witnessing anything I can’t unsee, but something about the whole scenario feels off. Part of me wants confirmation that it’s Landon so I can hate him even more. But there’s also a nagging sense of hope that it isn’t. A thought I don’t want to examine too closely.

Then an idea strikes me. A terrible, filthy, awful idea. Something straight from the BMA playbook on humiliation. It isn’t difficult to recall how none of them hesitated to take photos of me. How they all shared them around the entire school.

I reach for my phone in a daze, silencing it before I pull up the same texting app. Only this time, instead of photos, I turn on a live stream of the show, inviting the same contacts to watch. Viewers from the party are already flooding in when Audrey sinks to her knees and exposes the guy behind her. My bombastic heart beats wildly as I suck in a sharp breath. It isn’t Landon. That’s Jacob Ellis. Jared’s boyfriend.

Holy shit.

My gasp is audible, but luckily, they don’t hear me over Audrey’s slurping. I want to look away, but the comments are blowing up, and I’m distracted. I’m too frozen by indecision to stop it. Why is she here with him? Is this why Jared was so pissed?

“Hold the phone up, so he can see your face.” Audrey pauses her theatrics to direct Jacob as he snaps photos of her face in his crotch.

Why the hell are they taking photos? I don’t get it. Is this some kind of kinky game him and Jared play? Trying to one-up each other at parties with random people? And what about Landon? How does he fit into all this?

“You aren’t selling it very well,” Jacob remarks dryly as Audrey works his shaft like a possessed demon.

“Screw y—” Her response is abruptly cut off when Jacob grabs the back of her head and starts face fucking her in earnest.

UGH.

I keep the phone up but force myself to look away because… gross. I do not want to see this. And if I’m being honest, the guilt is starting to creep back in. Chances are, Jared has already heard about this. As if the last message I sent wasn’t enough. Somehow, he went from my biggest ally to my biggest casualty in the span of a few minutes.

I was convinced it would be Audrey and Landon getting it on in there. I didn’t think it through, and it’s too late to turn back now. But does it really matter? This is what I wanted. I wanted Audrey to pay for all the terrible things she’s done. One by one, I recall them, fortifying my justification.

She sabotaged my performance. She pretended to be a friend, only to take photos of me in my weakest moment and pass them around. She spearheaded the Destroy Kailani Hale Campaign. She threatened my position on the dance team. And she took Landon for herself. Not that the last one means anything because I sure as hell don’t want him.

These are just a few of her transgressions, and I’m convinced giving her a taste of her own medicine will make me feel better… eventually. But I’m also wondering if maybe my justifications are just a way to distance myself from the responsibility of what I’m doing right now. This video will hurt them all. Landon. Audrey. Jared. Maybe a few others. But did any of them step in to help me at the party? No, they didn’t.