17. Anna
ANNA
LAST OCTOBER
“ I ’ m sorry, what?”
Am I going deaf? I have to be, because there’s no way I’m hearing this correctly.
But the Dean of Students, Mr. Albright, repeats himself.
“Three students have come forward, confirming the claim. Academic dishonesty is also in violation of the clause for your scholarship. They’ve officially revoked any further funding, and even if you wish to remain at the school, I can’t say your educational future looks too bright.
This will be in your permanent record, and the board is reviewing your status at the school.
Expulsion is very likely, if not certain—”
“This is bullshit!” I’m practically yelling, but I don’t care. “ Who made these claims?”
“I’m not at liberty to say—”
I lunge over the desk and snatch the file out of his hands.
“Miss Carson!” He tries to reclaim the paperwork from me, but it’s too late. I see the names listed on the deposition.
Vincent Hobbs
Katrina Wright
Anthony Speck
What the actual fuck?
I throw the file back at him and storm out of the office before he can say anything else. Everything passes by me in a blur as I run across campus, my legs nearly numb from the shock. The only reason I know I’m still alive is the pulse pounding in my ears, raging in my chest as my heart thunders.
I fling open the door to the weightlifting room so hard that it slams against the wall, earning everyone’s attention. Still, I don’t care.
All I care about is confronting the asshole in front of the pull-up bar who freezes at the sight of me. Vince may be a football player and easily outweighs me by a hundred pounds, but like the coward he is, he staggers back, ready to bolt for the side exit.
“ What the fuck?” I’m not just yelling anymore. I’m all-out screaming. One of his friends cuts into my path, telling me to leave. When I try to move around him, he shoves me back, getting a chorus of “Ooooh”s in response. And that’s not the only thing he gets.
I reward his effort by thrusting the heel of my hand up into his nose.
Now, I’m not the only one cursing. The jock falls to his knees, blood pouring from his face like a geyser.
And like the dickless cretin he’s proven to be, Vince actually tries to run for the side door, but he’s not the only one. Given his size, he’s not the most agile, so the chase ends rather quickly as I grab the back of his shirt, pulling on the collar with enough force that he rears backward.
“I saved your ass from being thrown off the team, and this is how you repay me?”
Vince twists around, stumbling over to the wall to steady himself and prevent me from further choking him. He holds up his hands like I might give him the same treatment as his buddy over there, and I’m seriously considering it.
Nobody watching is close enough to overhear, and it’s probably the only reason he feels comfortable whispering, “I’m sorry, Anna. Really, I am, but I didn’t have a choice.”
“You didn’t have a choice about what ?” I seethe. “ Lying about how I offered to give you the answers to Professor Ellis ’ s final?”
He winces, choking out the second half of the sentence as he admits, “Bash has some…compromising pictures of me.”
Bash.
Sebastian.
Of course. Because that’s how my ex always gets his way. If he can’t buy what he wants, his go-to move is flattery and, if that doesn’t get him anywhere, intimidation.
“I’m sorry, but it’s the kind of thing that would get me kicked off the team, and I’m here on an athletic scholarship. If I lose that, I lose everything.”
Is he fucking kidding?
I guffaw. “Oh, but it’s okay if I do?”
“No,” he’s too quick to say, as if he can actually justify his actions. “It’s just…it wouldn’t have made a difference whether I testified. Bash told me Tony and Kat had already agreed to make the accusation. My testimony was just to strengthen the case, and I couldn’t risk pissing off Sebastian.”
“Do you know what kind of dirt he has on them?”
Vince is close with both since Tony is his teammate and Kat is dating one of his friends. The thing I don’t understand is why Kat would get involved. Everyone I’ve ever tutored is connected with an athletics program. I had never even had a session with her.
“I don’t know about Kat, but Tony just needed the money. And it sounds like he’ll keep getting more if he keeps up his end.”
My phone buzzes with an incoming text message, and I pull it out, already knowing I won’t like what I see.
Sebastian:
What are you going to do now?
Motherfucker.
My fingers tighten around the cell up until the point that it might crack.
I wanted to block Sebastian as soon as I broke up with him, but my roommate convinced me not to.
A guy like him has connections and ways of making people miserable, but you can’t argue your way out of proof when it comes to the police.
And since he couldn’t stop texting me, she said it was a good way to document his harassment.
But therein lies the rub. He’s smart enough not to write anything incriminating. It’s always just things like:
Why are you doing this?
It doesn’t have to be like this.
Please stop.
What do you want from me?
Of course, he would never apologize for anything he did wrong. Every text message makes it sound like I’m hurting him by simply ignoring his attempts to reach out. But for someone like Sebastian, this is the closest I’d get to an “I’m sorry.” And I know it drives him crazy that I never respond.
But “ What are you going to do now?”
It’s clearly a taunt and the closest thing he’s texted to something hinting towards antagonistic. He’s egging me on to play his sick little game.
Because he’s finally got the message.
I want nothing to do with him.
But “ A Chadwick always gets what he wants,” as Sebastian would say. And if the anomaly arises when he can’t…
He gets even.
When it’s clear Vince can’t give me any more information, I have no choice but to return to my dorm.
I busted my ass for how many years to earn my scholarship, and this motherfucker took it from me with the snap of his fingers and his daddy’s purse strings.
I want to scream until my vocal cords give out! If not for the fact that I’m in the middle of a crowded dormitory, I would. Anyone paying attention can clearly see how pissed I am, because they give me a wide berth as I battle my way past the other hapless idiots.
By the time I get to my dorm room, I’m prepared to throw myself on the bed and scream into my pillow just to exorcise some modicum of my anger, but I draw up short as I push the door open.
Are you fucking kidding me?
A tornado may as well have swept through half the room, because Francesca’s side is completely untouched while mine is in complete tatters.
Everything in my drawers and on my shelves has been dumped out onto the floor, the paper from all of my notebooks has been shredded, red paint has been dumped all over my bed, and—
No.
No, no, no, no.
I drop to my knees in front of my nightstand, cradling the shattered remains of my mother’s music box. She would play it every night as I fell asleep when I was little. Now, it’s nothing more than splintered wood and broken mechanisms.
And all I can see are Sebastian’s words.
“ What are you going to do now?”
I release what I’ve been holding in for the last hour.
I scream.