Chapter 23 Summer of Seventeen #3
“Yeah,” I said, smiling brightly, hoping that they were reaching out in an attempt to patch things up.
“Cute,” Carmen said, drawing out the word. She and Lacey exchanged a glance, stifling laughter.
Dread knotted in my stomach. I wanted to ask what was happening, but I knew.
I’d seen it before, had even smiled in sympathy at the girls on the other end of it.
But I’d never imagined myself in their shoes, never knew how it felt.
I gritted my teeth and turned away, meaning to walk off and leave them to their petty, fake drama.
But I froze in place, unable to move my feet or even breathe.
The Darlings were walking toward us. They all looked like they’d gained some muscle and worked on their tans over the summer.
My eyes fell on Preston, who I hadn’t seen since coming home, despite his best attempts to lure me out.
We texted all the time, but I’d told him I didn’t want to get involved, especially after the salon incident.
Mostly we just shared songs and gifs, sent each other funny videos, and chatted about life stuff like any other friends.
He never brought up our summer hookup after I told him it was a mistake and swore him to secrecy.
I didn’t have to fill in the rest—that I’d never have made that mistake if I weren’t reeling from a breakup, half drunk on wine, and still asleep when he took off my pants and got between my legs.
He’d been contrite and respectful, so I’d let him stay in my life.
Now, I wondered if that had been a terrible idea.
My mind seized on the memory of that thing he’d done with his tongue, how he’d tortured me until I was almost crying before he let me cum, and my nipples hardened painfully.
He’d bulked up in the shoulders, giving his form more definition, and god if he didn’t look painfully masculine now.
His hair was freshly cut but still long enough on top to hold onto, maybe give a little tug… I shook the thought away.
I’d made him swear not to treat me any differently at school, but when our eyes met and the corner of his mouth quirked up like he couldn’t quite hold it back, I wanted to dance and fall to my knees at once.
Despite the extra muscle he’d added for his junior year, he hadn’t lost that signature Darling grace, the one that made them all seem to float toward us like three gods whose feet didn’t quite touch the ground.
I dared a look at Devlin, and the sensations that went through me were altogether different—pain like my heart had been gripped in his fist and squeezed; trembling, desperate, fragile hope that he’d walk up to me and ask me to be his girlfriend again; terror that he’d humiliate me in front of the school or tell everyone to shun me for dumping him.
The Darlings had that power. The founding sons always chose some poor freshman girl to pick on and call a dog, their whipping girl that they’d humiliate just for the fun of it.
Could they choose a senior instead? I didn’t even know if Devlin was mad at me for breaking up with him.
He hadn’t texted me a single time in the three months we’d been apart, even when I sent a few casual texts to ask how he was doing.
Our eyes met when he was about to pass me, but he didn’t show the slightest hint of recognition. I didn’t know I could hurt worse than I had before, but somehow, he made it happen. My mind locked in on Preston. Had he told Devlin? Was that the reason for the icy indifference?
It wasn’t like I expected to be besties with my ex, but Devlin had been my friend since kindergarten.
We’d gone to school dances together, family functions, town events.
We’d held hands through movies and held each other up when we got sick.
I’d gone to all his games, cheered him on, worshipped him like the star he was to me.
I’d given him free and complete access to every part of me, trusted him to love me the way I loved him.
He’d taken my virginity ruthlessly, and I’d forgiven him even though his apology was so lame it was more insulting than if he hadn’t bothered.
He’d cum inside me, taught me to give head, taught me to cum while he was inside me, given me head.
We’d been intimate for years, and now he was treating me like a stranger.
It made me mad. Just because things didn’t go the way he wanted, he acted like it had all been nothing, just like when he pretended our first time never happened.
The Darling boys walked past me but stopped when they saw our other friends.
I turned in time to see Devlin slide an arm around Lacey, and my heart died one more death. All that time, I’d been worried about Lacey, and now I knew that no matter how many times he said she was just another friend, I had been justified.
What would Destiny do?
“So that’s it?” I asked, not caring that people had stopped to see if there would be drama at the first interaction between me and Devlin. “You’re just going to pretend you don’t know me?”
Devlin tipped his chin back and looked at me with such indifference that I almost believed it, that I’d never known him at all. “What do you want me to do?” he asked, his tone as cold as his icy blue eyes.
“Dev-lin,” Lacey said, elbowing him and widening her eyes. “Be nice.”
Carmen covered her mouth with her fingers like she was holding back laughter, her and Becca exchanging meaningful glances before looking at me like I was one of Mr. Harris’s hissing cockroaches.
Devlin sighed. “Hey, Dolly. Good to see you. You look…”
He trailed off, and the girls all started this barely contained snickering that I’d seen them do before, mostly to the Darling Dog girl, but sometimes to scholarship girls or others they wanted to destroy in a discrete, soul-crushing way.
It was this insidious kind of bullying that teachers couldn’t punish because there was no way to prove the malicious intent beneath the fake niceties and pretended interest.
Devlin frowned at them, but I didn’t need to hear what he had to say about me. It didn’t matter if he said I looked nice or like dog shit. The exchange in the hallway told me everything I needed to know. Devlin hadn’t realized he wanted me after all. He’d moved on.
After eleven years of riding the Darlings’ coattails, I was on my own.
I’d been a part of their world for so long, I didn’t even know how to act without them as my friends.
I’d almost made it. One more year, and I would have had every girl’s dream high school experience of popularity with the prom queen title and the football god boyfriend.
Ever since kindergarten, I had been accepted by my peers because of my proximity to Darling blood.
I’d been on the guest list for popularity, with a free backstage pass to every show because I was on Devlin’s arm.
I’d been part of the in-crowd by default my whole life.
I didn’t have what it took to cut it on my own though.
Now, I’d been exposed for the fraud I was.
I wasn’t anything special. I loved Devlin Darling just like every other girl in town.
I fell for Preston’s manipulations and spread my legs for him just like every other girl in town.
And now, just like every other girl, my time had run out. They were done with me.
For eleven grades, I’d been in.
Now, I was out.
*
I was sitting on the bleachers trying to collect my thoughts when I heard footsteps and looked up.
Preston was walking along the metal rows toward me.
I knew he was trying to be nice, but I couldn’t take on one more thing right now, and his sexiness was a distraction that was way too tempting in my current vulnerable state.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“I saw you leave,” he said. “I came to see if you were okay.”
I swore even his voice was sexier this year. How had I never noticed the way his tongue caressed his fine southern accent, the haughty tilt of his head when he sat down and looked at me. It was making me crazy in a way I couldn’t deal with on top of everything else.
“People are going to think we’re hooking up,” I hissed, as if someone might overhear all the way from the school.
He shrugged. “Let them think it. Would it be the worst thing in the world?”
“Yes,” I said, staring at him. How could he not understand this? Did guys just not see it? They gave wedgies and swirlies and knocked people’s books out of their hands. The girls filed away at each other’s self-esteem in a way that was psychologically devastating but nearly invisible.
Preston flinched. “If you were with me, you’d be in our group,” he pointed out. “Otherwise, you know how it works. When people break up, they don’t hang out.”
“You don’t get it,” I said, closing my eyes and willing myself not to cry.
How had I not anticipated this? I had no friends that weren’t in our group, and I was out of the group, which meant I had no friends at all.
Of course they weren’t going to kick Devlin to the curb.
He didn’t want to be around me, and it hurt too much to be around him if we weren’t together.
To know every day that I’d given him my all, and he’d walked away from it without a backwards glance.
Maybe he never would have dumped me, and we’d have gotten married, but I’d have known how he felt.
He didn’t have to say I wasn’t enough. He’d shown me, barely tolerating my love all these years.
I didn’t want to be tolerated anymore—not by him, not by our friends.
I wanted to be wanted for who I was, to be something special without the love of a Darling to tell people I was somebody.
“Tell me,” Preston said earnestly. “Help me understand.”
“I don’t want to be in the group,” I said quietly. “I can’t see him with Lacey.”
“It’s not like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like it was with you,” he said. “They’re just… Casual.”
“How long have you known?” I asked, not looking at him. I didn’t want to see his face when he told me.