Savage Vicious Heir: Part Two: A dark high school bully romance

2. Abigail

ABIGAIL

Tears stream down my face as I drive.

I don’t know where exactly I’m going. All I know is I can’t go back to All Hallows’.

Not yet.

Not after…

God, I’m such an idiot.

A lovesick fool blinded by my own desperation to feel something other than the crippling loneliness I’ve felt every day since my mum died.

I should have known.

I should have realised that someone like Ethan Smith would never really want to be my friend. Just as I should have known that a boy like Elliot Eaton couldn’t be trusted not to hurt me.

He paid Ethan. Paid him to be my friend.

He betrayed me.

Elliot paid Ethan to befriend me, to take pity on me.

I don’t know what hurts more—that Elliot initiated the whole thing or that Ethan accepted.

And to think I finally believed I was more to him than an obligation.

A burden.

When I’m nothing more than a foolish girl tricked by her heart.

His brother was there. The girl he’s been dating.

The girl he told me meant nothing to him.

God, the way she’d looked at me. With utter disdain and disgust. How could I ever hope to compete with her?

Beautiful, confident, poised. Everything I’ll never be.

I’ve been nothing more than a pawn in their savage, vicious games and now everything is ruined again.

I’m ruined.

Another sob claws its way up my throat. So desperate and ragged, it echoes around the car as I physically try and hold myself together.

Why did he do it?

Why pay Ethan to befriend me? To humiliate and hurt me?

The second I arrived at the pub and Scott intercepted me, guiding me over to their table it was obvious Elliot didn’t invite me to be there. That I’d been set up by his evil big brother. But it doesn’t change anything because deep down, I know if tonight had never happened, Elliot wouldn’t have told me about Ethan, about their arrangement, or the fact he’s still dating Lauren.

What was it she called me?

Pathetic.

I sure feel it.

The signs were there—the rumours. The whispers. But I didn’t listen because Elliot is a master of deception. Of navigating his way around a world I’ll never quite belong in.

Who does that?

Who pays somebody to become someone’s friend?

The jaws of humiliation tighten around my heart and I let out another choked sob as I picture their faces.

Scott Eaton and his gorgeous girlfriend.

Ethan.

Elliot.

His date.

His beautiful, perfect date that looked at me like I was nothing more than a speck of dirt.

Completely and utterly beneath her.

Beneath them all.

I felt it too. Felt so insignificant and pathetic as they all looked at me with a mix of pity and amusement.

He warned me.

Elliot warned me.

Time and time again he tried to warn me but I ignored him. I willingly handed him my heart and my body. All because it felt real. I thought he felt it too.

Every second with him, every stolen kiss and desperate touch… It had all felt too real to be a farce.

Another wave of pain splinters through me as the houses and shops begin to give way to the gloomy, dark countryside.

Rain pelts off the car, drowning out the sound of my heart breaking. Shattering in my chest and bleeding out all over my car.

I have no one to call. Nowhere to go.

I have?—

A thought occurs to me and I feel a flicker of relief.

Why didn’t I think of it sooner?

Probably because when I left home and moved into the dorms, I thought I’d never look back.

But I don’t have anywhere else to go.

And regardless of how much it hurts to be there, nothing hurts more than knowing the boy I love betrayed me.

When I finally pull up to my childhood home, I don’t get out of the car.

Instead, I torture myself by reading my last text thread with Elliot. The messages that led to this point.

This utter despair and devastation.

Elliot: Can you meet me?

Abigail: What? Now?

Elliot: Yeah. I can’t come back to All Hallows’ yet, but I want to see you.

Abigail: Where do you want to meet?

Elliot: There’s a bar just outside town. The Black Swan.

Abigail: Are you sure? Isn’t it too soon?

Elliot: It’s fine, I promise. Meet me at seven? Wear something pretty. Just for me.

Abigail: I’ll be there.

Elliot: Such a good girl for me. See you at seven. E

God, I’d been so giddy at the thought that he wanted to be seen with me in public—that he wanted to go on a date.

I was so eager to soak up his attention, the thrill of being his girl, I didn’t question it.

I didn’t even consider that?—

I swallow over the lump in my throat.

Why would I have assumed anything was wrong?

It’s Elliot.

I trusted him.

I trusted him not to hurt me.

Even if he wasn’t the one to send those messages, to set me up, he still showed his true colours tonight when he stood by and did nothing while his brother tore me to shreds in front of their dates and an entire pub full of people.

Frustrated at myself, I shove my phone in my bag and climb out of my car, trudging towards the house.

It looms over me, dark and foreboding, as if to say, ‘We knew you’d be back, we knew you wouldn’t survive out there.’

And I hate it.

I hate that there’s even an ounce of truth to it.

But I can’t go back to All Hallows’ tonight.

I can’t call Tally or the girls or Mr Porter or the dorm aunt.

I just can’t.

So I dig my key out of my purse and slide it into the lock, opening the door.

A film of fusty air greets me as I step inside.

The house feels strange.

Unfamiliar.

Vast and empty.

The silence is deafening, not even the gentle muffle of my sobs drowning out the hollow loneliness I feel.

All because I was tricked by a dangerous boy dressed up in an expensive, pretty package.

Nausea washes through me and I sway on my feet, before darting down the hall and running into the downstairs bathroom.

I drop to my knees and wrench the toilet lid up just in time for my meagre stomach contents to make an appearance.

I purge my soul into the bowl. Wishing I could erase every memory, every touch and kiss.

Wishing I could erase the moment I willingly handed Elliot my fragile heart.

Trusting him not to break it.

After cleaning myself up, I manage to find a lonely glass discarded at the back of one of the kitchen cabinets and pour myself some water.

It’s late and I’m exhausted, so I drag myself upstairs into my old bedroom.

It’s an empty shell now, most of my belongings tucked safely away in my dorm room. But it still holds a sense of familiarity that eases the storm raging inside me a little.

Kicking off my boots, I undress down to my underwear and climb into my bed and pull the covers up high, relieved that Maureen thought to keep the beds dressed for the listing photos.

I never wanted to come back here, but now, in the dead of night, it feels fitting.

My life was irrevocably changed here. First losing my mother, then my father.

And now losing the last shred of hope that I have a place here in Saints Cross, a home.

I thought Elliot could be that for me.

I thought he was the missing piece to my tragic life story.

But he was nothing more than a fantasy.

A beautiful nightmare, and my greatest fears all rolled into one.

The girls warned me.

They told me Elliot was a complicated boy.

But I didn’t listen.

I didn’t want to hear it because I thought I knew him. I thought there was shred of decency inside him.

It was all a lie.

One I’ll never fall for again.