Chapter 14 Asch
ASCH
There’s another missed call from my mother.
I glare down at my phone, then stuff it into my pocket and heft my backpack so I can shuffle out of the classroom with everybody else.
I have no idea where to go now. Normally I’d be grabbing lunch with Blaze, but that’s obviously out of the question. I don’t know where River is, and I don’t know what we’d even talk about even if we did meet up for lunch.
“Oh my god, did he really say that?” a woman says nearby. “The piss thing?”
The guy with her nods. “Yep. And he wet his pants too. Fucking embarrassing.”
My eyes narrow when I realize he’s an older Kappa Alpha brother. “Should you be talking about that?” I snap at him. “He’s still one of us, asshole.” For how much longer, I don’t know, but we shouldn’t be spreading gossip about our own brothers. “You gossip like a teenager.”
Nathan rolls his eyes at me. “Everybody’s heard it by now. Somebody even shared a vid on the Dyschord U socials. Maybe Tate should’ve kept his mouth shut about his watersports fantasies.”
But he hadn’t had a choice, and this fuckhead should know that.
That was something he’d said during our hazing night, secrets to be shared only with our brothers, proof of our trust and commitment to the fraternity. I’d heard it, that night we’d all slept in the basement in hopes of becoming successful pledges.
I wonder what other secrets are being leaked now.
I wonder if mine is next.
I haven’t heard from Blaze since the day with Pandora, and I’m not sure what he’s going to do. He wouldn’t tell anyone; that would mean admitting he’d been overpowered. But that doesn’t mean he can’t make my life a living hell.
The fact that he hasn’t done more than glare at me from across the room is troubling, and the fact that I haven’t heard from Pandora since the party is even more so.
I shrug. “I guess someone having access to Tate’s secret doesn’t bother you since you don’t have any of your own,” I tell him. I can’t exactly come out and remind him that the frat has a secret from everyone.
When it comes down to it, brotherhood really is a crock of shit — and he’s forgotten all about mutually assured destruction.
I haven’t.
I can’t. Not when Pandora knows what I’ve done.
Nathan’s eyes widen and his lips part. He swallows, casts a glance at his friend, then shrugs like he didn’t realize the implication.
“Yeah, well. It’s out there. And if he’s into drinking piss… I don’t kink-shame, man.” Nathan puts his arm around the woman. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
I watch him as he walks away, shaking my head. How many other idiots out there think that their secrets are safe? They obviously don’t realize that they’ve all been compromised, but I’m not going to go out of my way to remind every single one of them.
If they want things to burn down, they can go up in flames just like the frat house had.
My phone buzzes again, and I don’t have to check to know it’s from my mother. After five ignored calls, she’s probably worried about me. I would be worried about her, too, and guilt gnaws at me.
The guilt almost immediately turns into something more as I think about how much she’s kept from me over the years.
I have felt so many things about my mother before: guilt, shame, concern, frustration. But I don’t think I’ve ever been angry at her. At least not like I am now, and I don’t know what to do with all of those emotions.
This isn’t the time or place to have a conversation with her, but I know I can’t keep ignoring her. I start to text her to tell her that I’m in class, but I realize I’m like a volcano ready to erupt at any given moment.
I duck into an empty classroom, closing the door behind me.
I grip my phone more tightly, looking down at the missed calls and ignored texts. I never go more than a day without talking to her, and it’s been three now.
I suck in a deep breath, then stare at the screen of my battered phone.
Blaze is always trying to get me to let him replace it. It’s one more way to make me beholden to his family, I guess, even though he has no intention of letting me be a part of the business I’ve been counting on joining for as long as I’ve known him.
Of course, that’s all gotten complicated.
It’s one thing to know that the Bouchards profit off of sex clubs. It’s another to have it in my head that it might be something more, something worse. It shouldn’t surprise me, but it had taken me off guard.
Maybe I don’t want anything to do with them after all.
Maybe it is time to call it quits.
That’s a stupid thought. I’ve already called it quits. Our friendship is already over… and so is my future.
I look at my emails, even though I know I’m stalling. There are no emails or calls from any of the places I’ve applied for jobs at yet, and the noose feels like it’s tightening around my throat.
I growl, then tap the screen until I get to my mother’s number.
“Asch?” Her voice is full of anxiety and relief, all at once, and I still can’t tell whether my own anger or guilt is stronger. “Are you okay, baby?”
No. No, I’m not okay. “Yeah,” I say shortly.
“What’s going on?” she asks.
I want to say something else, anything else, but I blurt out, “Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you let me think that everything I had was because I earned it?”
“Tell you what?” she asks.
I wish I could believe that she doesn’t know what I’m talking about, but there’s a small hint of trepidation in her voice.
“That the scholarships weren’t real. That everything I thought was true about myself was a lie,” I say bitterly.
There’s a moment of silence on the other line. “You did earn it,” she says. “You always worked so hard, Asch. You deserved better than I could give you.”
I laugh, the sound ugly even to my own ears. “How can you be so grateful that I’m not working for them when they’ve given me everything? Now I owe them everything.”
“No, you don’t,” she retorts. “They owe me. They owe you for taking your father away from you. There are no strings—”
“You aren’t that naive!” I snap at her, hating that I’m taking such a harsh tone with her but unable to stop myself. “There are always strings attached with people like that!”
Except Blaze had tried to insist that there weren’t. He’d tried to make me believe that he wanted me to walk away as soon as I graduated.
He’d humiliated me.
“No,” she repeats. “There aren’t strings attached. It’s because they’re responsible for—”
She cuts herself off, but I already know what she’s trying to say.
“Are they really responsible for Dad’s death?” I ask her, not even sure I want to know the answer. “Or is that another lie?”
“I don’t know the details, Asch,” she replies, her voice unusually sharp. “I don’t want to know the details. All I know is that I’m willing to use them just like they were willing to use him and make sure you get the education you deserve.”
It’s not like her. She’s the one who taught me to respect others, to never use others, but I guess this is different to her. “Did you love him?” I find myself asking, not even sure where the question is coming from.
“What?” She sounds confused. Flustered.
“Dad. Did you love him?” I don’t know why it matters. It doesn’t, in the grand scheme of it all. But it’s easier to focus on this than the betrayal from the two people I care about more than anything. “You didn’t even hesitate to use them.”
“Yes,” she says. “But I’m also practical.”
She’d been more than practical when she’d demanded payment from George Bouchard. She’s taken a huge risk. I could’ve ended up without either parent. Then what?
“I can’t… I can’t do this right now,” I tell her. “I need to get to class.” I don’t have class, but I need to get away from this conversation. I need to get away from her.
“Asch,” she pleads, “please understand that I only did what I thought was best for you.”
“Were you ever going to tell me?” I demand.
Her silence speaks volumes.
She wasn’t going to tell me. Blaze wasn’t going to tell me.
I was going to go through my life thinking I’d actually earned what I’d worked so hard for, and the Bouchards would’ve been laughing at me every step of the way.
The only person willing to tell me had been Pandora.
“I have to go,” I say, and for the first time, I hang up without telling her I love her.
I need something to get my mind off of all of this… and I need to prove, even to myself, that I’m not weak.
Asch
Where are you?
I send the text to Pandora, waiting for her to answer as I pace the length of the classroom.
Pandora
Banging some frat guy. Why?
I grit my teeth.
Asch
Must be a great fuck if you’re answering your texts in the middle of it. Ditch him. I can do better.
I don’t think for a moment that there’s really another guy, but the idea of it makes anger and jealousy twist me up inside.
Pandora
I guess. But I’m so close already. It’d be a waste of a perfectly mediocre cock.
If you get here before I cum, I’ll consider it.
My room.
I shove my phone in my pocket without bothering with a reply, storming out of the classroom. I walk to her dorm in a haze, barely registering the people I nearly bump into along the way. Someone swears at me, but I ignore them in my single-minded determination to get to Pandora.
I need to hurt her.
I need to make all of these feelings swirling inside of me stop.
I know she’s manipulating me, like she’s manipulating Blaze and River, but even that knowledge doesn’t quiet my mind.
I head up the stairs, not bothering to wait for the elevator, and knock hard on her door when I reach it.
Pandora opens the door a few seconds later. She’s wearing a flimsy tank top and shorts, like she just got out of bed. One strap is halfway down her shoulder.
Are her lips swollen? Will I find her pussy reddened and slick with somebody else’s cum?
Pandora smiles at me. “Oh, that was fast. Hopefully you can last longer than it took you to race to my side.”