Chapter Twenty-Five
Blake
“I don’t really know where to start… I guess it’s easier to go back to the beginning?” I look at Adrian, feeling unsure about opening this wound, but not sure I could stop if I wanted to. He nods once and it fills me with enough courage to go on. “When I was in the sixth grade, I was offered a swim scholarship to the local all-girls private school. I was younger than my brother and our friends, so I didn’t really see why I shouldn’t take it. And my parents were so proud of me, you know?”
Looking back, I didn’t really want to go to Serenity Prep Academy. But—not for the first time either—it felt like everyone close to me was moving on without me. Of Bonnie’s children, Vivi’s the closest to my age, only two years older. From there, the age gaps just continue to grow. It never felt as noticeable when I was younger, except as we all moved into middle school and high school, two years started to feel like decades. And anything more than that, a century.
And when my parents, coach, and I got the news that the prestigious school wanted me, they were all so excited . It felt like, if I wasn’t working toward something greater through swimming, then why was I even doing it?
Part of me felt like I didn’t have the choice to say no, and the other part of me didn’t want to lose the attention I was getting from everyone for once—my brother, the Davies siblings, everyone.
He nods again, giving me the silence, and space, to take this at my own pace.
“Anyway, I started in the second half of the year, and it just was… miserable. From the beginning. And three of those five girls from the gas station? They were the ringleaders.” I shrug helplessly. I wish I understood what I did—why the hell I was so unlikable from the moment I stepped into that school.
“What happened, Blake?” Adrian asks. His voice is rougher, rawer.
“What didn’t happen?” I laugh without humor. “The swim coach arranged a sleepover with one of the girl’s moms. They were just trying to help me in a new school, but Morgan, Marissa, and Becky had much different ideas for that night.” I’m too embarrassed to tell him the details. Like when I woke up to discover they were trying to do the old hand in warm water prank to make me pee myself, only to discover they’d already drawn all over my face with permanent markers. Though all of that’s nothing compared to the rumors they started about me the following week—like how I allegedly did piss myself while I was fully awake and how I ate a moldy slice of cheese, ignoring the fact we were playing truth or dare. Instead they told everyone I was ‘poor and used to it.’
A small, watery smile plays at my lips. “The only good thing to come from it all was Margo and Meera—my best friends.”
Meera has her own torrid history with some of the girls on my team from when they were in elementary school. Margo, on the other hand, moved to Aurora Hills when she was ten. From the stories I’ve heard, she had no interest in being friends with the ‘mean girls,’ and after one school project together, she never let Meera go back to such horrible treatment.
I don’t think they ever questioned whether or not to take me under their wing when the rumors started. The two of them sat down next to me that same day at lunch and never left my side after that.
“Some things got worse, but they made it bearable, making sure I wasn’t ever alone.”
He squeezes my thigh gently. “I like those girls then.”
Chuckling under my breath, I nod in agreement. “Yeah, me too. A lot.”
“I—Blake,” he slowly starts, clearly thinking through his approach. “I don’t want to belittle what they did to you at that sleepover; it was malicious and wrong, and just plain cruel , but what do you mean that it got worse?”
Taking a deep breath, I try to sum it up the best I can. “There were more rumors. Then came taunting—just stupid nicknames like Blake the Flake or Snake or Rake or something stupid along those lines. Then I…” I shrug, awkwardly, hating that I feel so embarrassed about something I have no control over. “I was an early bloomer , if you get what I’m saying. And things bloomed well into high school.
“After that, everything… escalated. Like Morgan ‘accidentally’ hip checking me over the pool’s ledge while walking into practice, or Marissa ‘accidentally’ shoving my phone and goggles through the cracks in the bleacher. And let’s not forget, when Becky thought it’d be funny to try to catfish me as a new boy from the all-boys school.”
“No one did anything?” He sounds affronted, as if he’d go yell at the head mistress even two years later.
“I hid a lot of what was going on from my parents. And the only time they were brave enough to push the boundaries more was whenever Margo wasn’t around.” Meera’s a lover but Margo? She’s a fighter—especially when it’s to protect her friends. I tried arguing and fighting back a few times, but it’s a losing battle when it’s three against one, and a whole team that turns a blind eye in fear of being the next target.
“And I guess you could call it luck that Meera’s two older brothers went to Astoria Academy, the sibling private school, and were stereotypical popular jocks. Not that any of the boys ever really tried, but Jatin and Dev never let any of them fuck with Meera, Margo, or I.”
“But you graduated from an online program. You’ve mentioned that a few times. So… what happened?”
My eyes start to fill with tears as I get to the big incident—the one that almost broke me.
“When I was in the locker room, changing and mentally preparing for our semi-finals, Margo burst in, walked right up to Morgan, and sucker punched her.” I glance up at Adrian and laugh at the shocked wide-eyed expression. It’s overall not a humorous situation, but as I was watching this play out in real time, I felt exactly how Adrian looks.
“I had no idea what was going on. I always turned my phone off leading up to a race or meet, so I didn’t get any of their messages. Even Dev was trying to call me. But as Marissa and Becky tried to pull the two of them apart, Meera came to my side and told me… or I guess I should say she showed me.”
Adrian’s entire body tenses next to mine and I wish I could read his mind. Sometimes it still doesn’t even feel real, like I’m just sharing a horrible story I heard from a friend of a friend or something. We like to tell ourselves that things like this don’t actually happen—but all of this is my real life.
“Morgan must have been bored that day because she decided it’d be funny to snap a few pictures of me changing into my suit. And even funnier to send them to her boyfriend’s friends at Astoria.” I shake my head, looking back down at Benji. It’s one of those situations where, rationally, I know I have no reason to be embarrassed, or ashamed, but my brain doesn’t typically live by rationality.
“What?” Adrian asks after a stunned second. His voice dipping even lower and dripping with unfamiliar anger. It doesn’t scare me though—I recognize his anger as the same protectiveness of Margo and my parents. It feels different coming from Adrian though. It’s stronger, more potent, but it’s also comforting in a different way than anyone else.
“I mean, you couldn’t really see anything. One was just my back and panties—boy shorts that day thankfully.” I lift my hand in a fake hooray. He offers me a small smile and I know it’s more for my benefit than anything. “But the other three… like I said, I was growing well into my teenage years. So, even with all of this”—I gesture to the front of my chest with my hands—”covered, there’s still quite a bit of side boob.
“And no matter how generally nice they were, I can’t exactly blame them for how almost an entire school of teenage boys reacted to a topless photo.” I transferred out of the school only a couple of days after this, so I’m not sure exactly what happened or what was said. And there’s not a single part of me that desires to.
“ Yes , you can,” Adrian quietly seethes next to me.
I shrug, not really wanting to argue about the maturity level of sixteen year olds. “I didn’t swim that day. Neither did Morgan, Marissa or Becky. We spent the entire evening in the office of the headmistress, Mrs. Trainor, with our parents. Margo and Meera’s too.”
Skipping over the details, I tell him about how Mrs. Trainor said all six of us girls have put her in a hard situation—as if my friends and I were as responsible for this as the other three. He looks slightly less disgusted when I tell him how my mom went the fuck off on Mrs. Trainor and the three girls, threatening everything from child neglect to the distribution of child porn. The scowl that doesn’t fit his handsome, normally happy face returns when I get to the part about how Morgan’s dad turned around and threatened my mom for defamation.
That was quickly settled once the police got there and looked through their phones, so her dad shut up very quickly. Regardless, it was a long, horrible night.
“Blake… I—” He trails off, at a loss for words. There really aren’t any in these situations though.
So, I tell him exactly that. “It’s not your responsibility to fix it. And my parents forced me to press charges.”
It’s not that I didn’t want to, necessarily. I was just so fucking tired by that point. I wanted it to be over, and at the time, it felt like another few months of dragging out my misery and humiliation.
“ Good ,” he vehemently declares.
I shrug again, suddenly reminded of the helplessness I spent so long feeling during those months. “The lawyers came to a deal before we had to go to court. They had to pay for emotional damage and got a few hours of community service that summer. Maybe, according to the judicial system, I received justice, but it doesn’t feel like it. I was just so… tired .”
I mean, how can it? They lost a state championship and only a few hours of their summer break after everything they did to me. I feel like I lost years because of them. And the fact that those were supposed to be ‘the best ones of my life’ only pushes the knife in deeper.
Adrian lifts his hand from my thigh, slips out of my hold, wraps that arm around my shoulder, and pulls me in close. The gesture brings fresh tears, but I don’t try to hold them back. It doesn’t feel necessary when I’m in Adrian’s presence.
Truthfully, I didn’t really question it when Adrian said I was safe with him. As scary as it is to trust someone new, he’s proven, more than once, that he deserves it—the last twenty-four hours only confirming that for me.
It probably started around the first time we ran into each other at the gym, but slowly I’ve started to let myself accept that he’s showing obvious interest in me. It’s more than friendship he wants, but it’s not only a physical attraction either.
“I know I’m not at fault,” he quietly tells me as he turns my chin up to him, using his other hand, “but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t care. And I do—because they hurt you and that really pisses me off. You’re right though, I’m not going to apologize on their behalf.”
I nod once, relieved. A large reason why I shy away from talking about this is because of the fake niceties people respond with. It doesn’t ever do anything for me, and I think it’s more to make the other person feel better. Like apologizing on behalf of my bullies cements the fact that they themselves are a good, caring person.
It doesn’t and at this point, I’m just too tired to fight about it.
Still holding eye contact, he leans his forehead against mine. “I won’t hurt you. I promise you, Blake. If you give me a chance, I’ll do everything in my power to make sure you only know happiness from here on out.”
The hand that’s been restlessly petting a sleeping Benji tentatively grabs onto his scrub top when I turn further into his embrace. His free hand drops down to my thigh, except this time he pulls my bent knees toward him. I’m as close to being in his lap as I can be without lifting my butt off the floor.
With only a couple of inches between our lips, I quietly murmur into the space, “You… you could start now.”
His brows furrow and the hold he has on the back of my neck tightens. It isn’t painful, but the gesture itself is possessive. “What do you need right now? Just tell me, pretty girl, I’ll make it happen.”
“You,” I breathe, surprised by my own courage. After the baggage I threw at him, and the way he willfully took off some of the weight, I feel like I can do anything if he’s with me. “I just… I need to know you mean it.”
He pulls away just enough to look at me. It’s an assessing gaze, and I get the feeling he’s looking for something. I don’t know what exactly, but I find myself nodding anyway. It’s a silent acknowledgment that I trust him, and permission for him to do whatever it is he’s thinking about.
It honestly feels a little bit like a quiet plea too. Because I just need something. I need to feel anything other than this sickly familiar burn in my chest. But more than that, I want to feel him.
As if he read my mind, he lets out a soft sigh before pulling me to him by the nape of my neck. It starts tentative, with just a few brushes of his full lips against mine.
When he moves to pull away, I grab on tighter to his shirt and tug forward. There’s no hesitation on his part this time. He slips his hand further up my neck, tangling into the long strands that are free from a hair tie, for once. His grip is tight, as he holds me where he needs to take the kiss deeper.
He bites on my bottom lip but I’m already opening for him. The anticipation of his tongue tangling with mine makes me feel a lightheaded sense of euphoria but it’s nothing compared to the actuality of it.
The kiss is slow as we explore each other in this new way. It’s not tender by any means though. It’s sensual and rawer than anything I’ve experienced. Some of that may be due to the heaviness of the last few days, but it mostly has to do with the way he continues to savor the taste of me, pulling me further out of my own head the longer he kisses me.
We don’t take it any further than this, not wanting to rush it either. I get lost in his affection for what feels like hours. Even after that, another half hour passes before he stands and reaches a hand out to me.
Taking in the gesture for a second, I tentatively place mine in his—this is also a first for me.
I’ve never been walked to my car and held a guy’s hand in public like this.
And I realize that for the first time, I feel possessive of someone. Even though it’s almost ten o’clock at night and everyone else has left, I like the idea of holding onto Adrian in such a simple but claiming way.
And I’d probably like it even more during the day, when all those freaking Aurora Hills moms are around to see it.
Following in stride with Adrian, I can’t help but look up and softly smile at him.
There’s a heaviness in my heart that I haven’t felt in months, but there’s a new light in my soul that’s never been there before.