Ten Years Ago
HELP BROKE UP WITH DEAN, and for the first time in months, I felt like I could breathe again. My reaction to their relationship was irrational, immature, and completely out of line, but still…if I couldn’t have her, no one else could. Especially not one of my friends.
Dean seemed a little bummed, but not crushed, and every time he glanced her way at school, Trent or Jaime were fast to slap his back and remind him that this was for the best. And it was. If Help were in love with him, she wouldn’t have broken up with him. But she wasn’t. She said she didn’t want to lead him on and that he was a good guy. Said that the situation was too complicated and that the last thing she wanted to do was tear the HotHoles apart.
Too. Fucking. Late. Sweetheart.
For the most part, though, it was a good month. Trent’s cast was off, so he was working on rehabbing his leg. A new Gears of War game came out. My dad and Jo were abroad—Austria? Australia?—I didn’t give a shit as long as they were gone. Emilia was lonely and solemn again. And Dean was back to acting like the funny stoner everyone learned to love because they had no fucking choice. I thought it meant that he had gotten over her ass and moved on to someone else.
I was wrong.
I found out just how wrong I was at a football training session at four o’clock on a Tuesday after school. At All Saints, the team trained year-round. We were seniors, graduating in a few months, but somebody had to whip next year’s squad into shape. I was doing static stretches on a foam roller with a dozen groaning, bulked-up freshman as I silently watched him approach.
We’d barely talked to each other since that party. I’d told him I kissed Help. Of course I did. But I left out the fact that she didn’t kiss me back, because it didn’t mean shit.
Yeah, she didn’t kiss me back, but she’d wanted to. Still did. The way her thighs clenched, the way her body poured heat into mine, the way she parted her lips and a little moan escaped from between them. The way her soft tits crushed against my hard chest.
She was a terrible liar, and she wanted me.
She was going to have me. Soon.
Dean grabbed a black foam roller and plopped down on the grass beside me, mimicking my stretch, a stupid grin plastered on his face. I ignored him. I didn’t like that he’d joined my group. Recently, we’d only felt comfortable in each other’s presence if Trent or Jaime were around.
“Hola, Mr. Douchebag. What’s shaking?” He beamed like the stupid clown he was. We all smoked, but Dean was the only one who actually looked like a Woody Harrelson-movie dropout, with his chill smile and messy bun.
I answered with a glare and a shrug.
“Think the team’ll be any good next year without us?” His elbow poked my ribs harder than it should have.
“Is this fucking small talk? ’Cause I don’t do that shit.” I squinted at the horizon and plucked a few blades of grass, feeling restless.
Make it stop.
I shifted on the roller, deepening my stretch. It was obvious that he had something to tell me, and it was becoming even more obvious that he was gloating. Whatever it was, he was going to have fun breaking it to me.
“You’re right, dude,” he said, “we should probably get to the point. So I dropped at your house yesterday. Trent wanted me to give you back your football gear.”
I’d lent Trent some gear months ago before he got injured. I’d forgotten all about it. It wasn’t like I’d need it again. I wasn’t a football star, off to play in college, and thanks to his fucked-up leg, unless a miracle happened, Trent wouldn’t be either.
“You weren’t home,” Dean continued, “so I figured I’d leave the gear by the garage. But then I bumped into Millie. She was trying to fix her bike outside the servants’ apartment. She said hi. I said hi back. I may have been a little high. I may have told her she was a bitch for kissing you at that party…”
My jaw clenched, and I felt my teeth grinding against each other. Emilia broke up with him before I’d told him we kissed. He’d never confronted her about it because by the time he knew, she’d already dumped him.
Dean flashed me a victorious smile and patted my shoulder, pretending to clean off some grass. I shook him off.
“Dude, I’m a little embarrassed for you. Millie never kissed you back, did she? She broke up with me to pacify you, you giant, pussy baby—”
That was it.
He didn’t get the chance to complete his sentence because I was all over him in a second, throwing fist after fist straight to his face. Fury blinded me, rage consumed me, and my body rippled with fire. I didn’t want to hear the rest.
The next thing I felt was Jaime’s arms as he yanked me from Dean, but it was too late. Dean already had a split lip and forehead, and his nose looked like it needed to be put back in place. I launched at him again, even with Jaime and the second-string quarterback, Matt, trying to pin me down to the grass. I grabbed Dean by his shirt and pressed my nose to his.
“You back with her?” I demanded, seething.
He smiled through the pain, wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand and nodded. “Surprisingly, she wasn’t happy about you lying to me, telling me she was the one who kissed you. So here’s the deal, Vicious…” He spat blood on the grass and got up, but didn’t make a move to hit me back. “Millie’s my girlfriend. You better come to terms with that. You had your chance when she first moved here, and all you did was be a fucking dick to her.
“What the hell did you think was going to happen? She’s hot. She’s nice. She’s fucking kind. Of course guys noticed. I noticed too. I knew you were gonna go bat-shit crazy on me, and I let you, because you’re a friend. Hope you got that out of your system.” He winked. “Because my nose will be fine tomorrow, but you’ll be a fucking mess every time you see us making out in the halls.”
I charged at him for the third time on autopilot.
“What the fuck, Dean!” Jaime pried me off of him and dragged me toward the blue bleachers overlooking the field.
This time I didn’t resist. There was no point. Dean had won and I’d lost.
“Get the hell out of here before I finish Vicious’s job,” Jaime roared, and I heard Dean laugh behind us.
That weekend, I had another balls-out party at my house. Dean didn’t dare show his face, and I assumed Help was with him. When I showed up at the pool with my sleeves rolled up, a sophomore guy looking to impress one of Georgia’s cheerleading crew accepted the challenge and met me on the tennis court.
Defy was fair.
Defy was brutal.
But this time, Defy did nothing to dull the pain.
From then on, everything changed between the four of us. Dean and I weren’t on speaking terms. At all.
I toyed with the idea of banning him from my estate altogether—it was completely doable—but decided that I didn’t want to look like a total fucktard in Eli Cole’s eyes. Besides, if Dean didn’t come to Help, Help would go to him, which was just as bad if not worse. The servants’ apartment was a lot smaller than Dean’s mansion, and Emilia’s parents were always around. They had fewer chances to fuck each other if they were here.
But they were steady again, and I saw them every-fucking-where. I saw them at school, parks, at the mall my dad owned, and sometimes even outside the servants’ apartment. To be fair to Help, she never made out with him in public. Not even a kiss. They sometimes held hands, and that alone made me want to go on a killing spree. I didn’t understand the burning hatred that flared every time I saw Dean. How it had transferred from her to him all of a sudden.
Trent and Jaime were desperate to keep us all together. We were the Four HotHoles. We ruled the fucking school. Together, we were invincible. Individually, we were each just another big-headed jock. I saw where they were coming from, I really did, so we still all hung out together. We sat together in the cafeteria. We nodded hello in the hallway. But we didn’t talk to each other much, and the subject of Emilia LeBlanc was tacitly taboo. She was like Voldemort. No one was to mention her name, and Dean pretended like she didn’t exist when he was around me. I tried to pretend she didn’t exist too, but of course I couldn’t.
Because she was fucking everywhere.
I thought about her even when technically I didn’t think about her. I thought about her when I worked out and when I hung out with my non-friends and when I played video games. When I studied and when I fucked girls—Jesus Christ, especially when I fucked girls—until at some point, I stopped fucking girls altogether because it reminded me that one day, one day soon, if it hadn’t already happened, Help was going to fuck that douchebag Dean.
I couldn’t let that happen. It didn’t make sense even to me, but I just couldn’t. She was mine. It sounded irrational, but that didn’t make it any less true. I didn’t have to slap my name on her ass when she walked into class that very first day. The way I teased her, taunted her. I was normally too busy with the shit that was going on in my life to bully people. Everybody knew that the new girl belonged to me.
I never in a million years would have dated her or even taken her out. She wasn’t worth the trouble. No girl was, and especially not her. Still, she was mine to play with. Case in point, from the very first time her eyes landed on me, she looked at me like she was already mine.
Swallow. Blink. Sigh. Blush. Look away. That was her routine every time I passed by her, even now.
But Dean didn’t care.
The fucker just. Didn’t. Care.
Maybe that’s why I did what I did toward the end of the school year. Help was going to celebrate her eighteenth birthday in a week, and even though Douchebag Dean (the name had real ring to it) never talked about her in front of me, I knew he was going to take her to a spa weekend somewhere fancy along the coast. It was all so stupid. Help wasn’t a spa girl. He should’ve known that.
If I were her boyfriend, I would have taken her to watch the cherry trees bloom. Or give her new painting supplies because the girl wanted to be a real artist and open a gallery or some shit. Not that I was her stalker or anything, like Jaime was with Ms. Greene before he started banging her. Emilia wore her weird personality like a billboard, proud and loud. From the way she dressed to how she was always covered in paint and doodled cherry blossoms everywhere.
Dean, he just liked the idea of her. Pure and innocent, with her sweet Southern accent, pretty dimples, and boho style.
But I knew her best.
I was in the weight room when Dean and I had our second conversation about her. It had been weeks since I’d planted my fist in his face, but my fingers still itched whenever he was close. This time we were in gym—an advanced weight-training class only open to seniors. We had to bench press together because we were both late and all the other machines were taken. I was spotting him while he pressed a set at one eighty. He was lifting more than his usual, and I could’ve sworn he looked a little juiced up.
He grunted like a beast with every push of the weights. My fingers floated below the bar, in case his body failed him. I wondered if he knew Help wasn’t the type of girl who was into veiny, muscled-bound knuckleheads.
“So you’re taking her to a spa,” I said. Straight to the point. I didn’t have time for fucking chitchat.
He rolled his eyes, his face sweaty and red, and let out a sigh. “It’s her birthday. Would you rather I ignored it?”
“I’d rather you break up with her,” I answered flatly, my stare blank. There was no point in sugarcoating this shit. He knew I hated their relationship. And despite them being together for months, I knew it wasn’t love. I saw the way she looked at him. She liked him, but there was no fire.
Her eyes burned for me. Only for me.
“Be reasonable,” Dean muttered. He wasn’t so focused on lifting anymore. He still looked red, but his arms shook now, and I felt the strain of the weight and our conversation affecting his body.
I shoved my hands inside the pockets of my light gray sweatpants. “It’s not in my nature to be reasonable. Break this shit off, Dean. You’re going to college in New York. She’s staying here. Do it now, before…” I trailed off.
Before you take her fucking virginity. It had nothing to do with me wanting to mark her first. I mean, I did. Of course I wanted that. But I would’ve taken Help even if she’d slept with every single guy at All Saints High. It was her I was worried about. I knew she would regret it.
Okay, fine. I wasn’t worried about her. I was worried about me.
What the fuck was wrong with me? I was on the fast track to losing my mind. Her pussy seemed to own me, and I hadn’t even tasted it yet. All I knew was that I wanted it for myself. Too bad it was attached to that annoying little fool.
“Before what?” He grunted, and his arms shook harder. “Before I sleep with her? How the fuck do you know I already haven’t?”
His hands turned white, but his snicker grated on my nerves, sending a rush of annoyance down my spine. He tried to press the bar all the way up and put it back in the handles. Sweat dotted his forehead. He was losing the battle.
That’s why we needed people to spot us.
Only I wasn’t spotting for him anymore.
Instead, I grabbed the bar and pressed it down toward his throat ever so gently. His eyes widened.
“I wouldn’t mess with me, Cole,” I warned in a low voice. My gaze was lazy, but my jaw was tense. I couldn’t help it. “They call me Vicious for a reason.”
“I’m going to school wherever she does, fucktard. I’ll stay here with her if I have to. She’s mine.”
I pressed harder. What the fuck was he talking about, staying here? He couldn’t stay here. But then I wasn’t in a position to make him leave either, was I?
“Liar,” I said, fuming. Goddamn Dean. “Don’t fucking lie to me, Cole.”
“You watch and see.” His neck was purpling, but it did nothing to calm me down.
I pressed harder and he gagged. People were starting to notice. I didn’t care. I glared at him in warning. “Dean…”
Everybody stopped what they were doing to look at us. Everybody. I saw Jaime and Trent from the corner of my eye, pushing their way to us, and knew I was running out of time.
“Vicious…” Dean dared, smiling up at me.
When Jaime finally got to us, I turned around and walked away, leaving Dean lying there with the bar against his throat. Someone else could help him out.
I was so done with this fucker.
So done.
He took her virginity.
He enjoyed it.
I bet she did, too.
It was during their spa weekend when she turned eighteen. Leave it to Emilia to lose her virginity less than a day before she legally could. There were candles and chocolate and all kinds of fancy shit that meant nothing to her. I heard all the details because I basically forced Jaime to tell me after it happened. Dean told Trent and Jaime on the fucking phone, like a chick, making them swear not to tell me.
But while Dean was BFFs with Rexroth, Jaime was my closest friend.
When I threatened to tell his mother—Principal Followhill—that he was bumping uglies with our Lit teacher unless he spilled, he’d started singing like a fucking canary.
That’s when I made the executive decision that Help could no longer live in Todos Santos. She had to disappear and stay the fuck away from everything and everyone I knew.
I wasn’t stupid. I realized that I was preventing her from being around her sister and her parents. Her boyfriend. I was banishing her from everything she knew.
From a comfortable future.
From money and opportunity.
From family Christmases and blue-eyed kids with Dean, who was oh-so-fucking enchanted with her.
From love.
I was ruining her life.
Because. I. Was. Jealous.
Jealousy was a weakness I didn’t need and wasn’t proud of. But I had to conquer it before it conquered me. That’s why, the day they returned from their little spa vacation, I was already waiting for her in her room. I sat on her bed with my elbows on my knees and tried to ignore the fact everything smelled like her. A weird, heady combination of cinnamon, milky butter, and a singular sweetness that only belonged to her. I wanted it out of my nose, out of my estate, and out of my fucking life.
Yes, she’d driven me mad.
She gasped when she walked into her room and found me there. She didn’t know that I knew everything. That she’d fucked one of my best friends. Emilia didn’t look any different, but she felt different.
She felt out of reach, now more than ever.
“Pink suits you,” she remarked in a dry tone, nodding toward the pink flowery linens on her bed. “Who let you in, Vic, and what the hell are you doing in my room?”
No one let me in. Her parents and Rosie had gone to the farmer’s market or some shit.
She dropped her backpack by the door and walked over to her dresser, pulling out some fresh clothes. I loved how she was wearing a crop top with the name of a band only she knew and another pair of Daisy Dukes. She looked tan, and a golden necklace was glistening against her soft bronzed skin.
I also liked that she’d called me Vic.
But I didn’t like that she didn’t even look at me when she said it.
“You need to leave,” I said.
“I think that’s my line.” She sighed. “I need to take a shower and fix myself a sandwich. Whatever you need will have to wait until I’m done. Or maybe until I start taking orders from you.”
“I don’t mean leave the house. I mean leave this town, this state, this fucking planet.”
Maybe not the planet. I didn’t want her dead. I just wanted her out of my life.
Help slammed a drawer shut with her hip and squatted down to fish her toothbrush from her backpack. “Let me ask you something. Do you know you’re crazy, or do you see yourself as a sane person? I’m genuinely interested in knowing.”
She waved the toothbrush handle at me, then dumped clothes from her backpack into the laundry basket in one messy heap.
“I’ll give you ten thousand dollars to disappear.”
She rolled her eyes. She thought I was joking. “As tempting as the idea of putting a state or two between us is, I have nowhere to go.”
“Twenty thousand dollars,” I fired back, narrowing my eyes at her. I was going to withdraw the sum from my own account. I doubted my dad would even notice, and if he did, it would still be worth it. I was losing my sanity, fast, because of her.
“No,” she chuckled, resolute. “What the hell makes you think I’d do what you’re asking?”
I figured she wouldn’t just leave because I told her to, so I shrugged and picked up my cell phone, staring at her, blasé.
“I’ll fire your parents, and then you’ll all have to move back to some shithole in Virginia, and poor Rosie—poor fucking Rosie—won’t have access to the nice health care plan my dad is paying for. That’s what makes me think you’ll do what I demand.” I smirked.
Her eyes turned to slits and her lips thinned. She hates me. I hated myself too. For the both of us. But I couldn’t fucking take it anymore. It was too much. She was too much. Maybe because of the way she looked exactly like a younger Jo. Maybe because of how I still wanted to fuck her regardless. It made me hate myself.
“You can’t do that,” she whispered, her hands shaking as she gathered her fresh clothes and toothbrush to her chest. She loved her family so much. Especially Rosie. “They work for your parents, not you. They wouldn’t cave to their moody teenage son.” Emilia was trying to convince herself more than she was trying to convince me.
“They wouldn’t?” My eyebrows jumped as I feigned surprise. “When’s the last time they even bothered being here? Let’s test your theory. I’ll call my dad right now.”
To everyone else, it seemed like I’d always had Baron Senior by the balls. Even though he was too busy doing the New York-Cabo-wherever-the-fuck-Jo-wanted-to-sunbathe route to actually be a parent, he rarely denied me.
I assumed it was because of the guilt that plagued him from what he’d done to my mom.
“Hey, Dad, it’s me.” I spoke into the phone, swinging my legs up on her bed and crossing my feet at the ankles. I was still wearing my muddy sneakers. My phone was on speaker.
“What do you want, Baron?” There was no mistaking the impatience in his tone.
Help’s mouth opened slightly.
I popped my minty gum in boredom, sighing. “Just so we’re all on the same page, since you guys are barely at the house anymore, am I correct to assume the staff is under my supervision? Meaning I can hire and fire if someone isn’t meeting my needs?”
I heard the splashes of the waves against my father’s yacht—Marie, after my mom—and ice clink in a glass. Scotch was my guess.
“Yes,” he said. “You assume correctly. Why? What’s wrong? Somebody giving you trouble?”
I nodded with a triumphant smile even though he couldn’t see me. She could, though.
Help’s face whitened beneath her golden tan. Upset. Horrified. I was sending her packing at eighteen, with no prospects and no place to go, and I’d threatened to fire her family if she wouldn’t leave.
“No, everything’s good,” I said, still watching her. “Speak soon, Dad.” I hung up on the fucker—he and Jo and Daryl were going to pay, but they were a problem for a different day. I snapped my gaze to meet hers.
She tilted her chin up. The contempt she held for me was rolling off her rigid posture in waves.
The silence was suffocating and so was the idea that I was essentially ruining her life. I was choosing myself over Emilia, my feelings over hers, and it wasn’t noble or honorable, but it was who I was.
“Can I finish out the school year, at least?” she asked so quietly it took me a few seconds to decipher her request. She was perfectly composed. Proud.
Fuck, she was beautiful when she was strong. I was doing the right thing getting rid of her.
I nodded.
“Leave the week after school ends,” I instructed, getting up from her bed. I already missed it. “And it goes without fucking saying that you and Dean are done. This is the second and last time I’m telling—not asking—you to stop this shit. Tell him you’re leaving because you’ve met someone else online. Insist that he never contact you again. One glitch, Emilia, and I promise you, your family won’t just lose this job. I’ll make sure they don’t find another one.”
She didn’t answer, but I knew she got the message. She wasn’t the kind of girl to puss out when it came to her loved ones. Her family was her everything.
When I walked out of the servants’ apartment for the very last time, I asked myself if there was a chance Emilia would ever forgive me.
I wondered how much groveling I’d need to do if I ever wanted to get back in her life.
No. The price was too high. We were done.
But so were she and Dean.
