2. Juliet
2
JULIET
3 years later…
I know that ass. Well, sort of. Usually, I’m on the opposite end of that ass with his dick five inches deep in me. I used to think five inches was pretty good, but now, as I watch him use it on my best friend—scratch that, after this, she’s definitely my ex- best friend—I think I’m realizing it’s just … mediocre. I guess catching your boyfriend and ex-bestie fucking on your eighteenth birthday puts things into perspective like that.
Bran’s ass bobs up and down a few more times and beyond him, I hear Avery moan. It pisses me off even more when it comes out sounding completely forced. I know her well enough to know what she sounds like when she’s faking it. She’s fucked nearly every football player on the team in one way or another and then dished the details to me for years, telling me all the ways they either rocked or sucked in bed and how to get through it, a girl has to sometimes just … fake an orgasm so they’ll finish and be done.
The only player left is—or rather was—Brandon. My boyfriend. My ex- boyfriend.
Bran doesn’t even seem to notice the high-pitched falsetto of her moan. He pumps his hips harder, cursing as he gets closer to climax. Neither one of them even realizes I’m here, standing in the doorway with my eighteenth birthday party still going hard behind me—a party they threw.
Lights flash. Music thumps. People pass by in the hall. It’d been a surprise party, and well, I suppose it's now a double whammy of fucking surprises. Literally .
Grayson Rowe stops behind me, the drink in his hand sloshing over the rim of a crystal glass—no red solo cups for the elite soon-to-be senior class of Silverwood Prep. He gapes into the room that I just walked into. Without thinking, I snatch the glass from his grip and tip it back, downing the mixture of rum and something carbonated fast, half-hoping that if I’m drunk enough this whole scene will change.
It doesn’t.
“Holy shit!” Grayson yells. “Is that?—”
“Move.” I cut him off, shoving the now empty crystal glass against his chest as more people stop to see what all the drama is about.
“Oh, my God!” Avery’s shriek fills my ears, but I’m already halfway down the hall.
Anger burns in my gut, churning around and around as bile builds up in my throat. I move quickly into the living room of Avery’s parents’ lake house where half of Silverwood Prep is currently grinding to the music blaring from the surround sound speakers.
“Hey, birthday girl!”
“Happy birthday, Jules!”
“Yo, Juliet!”
Feeling like I’m walking through another one of my nightmares, I ignore those calling out for me and make a beeline straight for the hallway between the kitchen and the four-car garage. Hardly anyone knows about the bathroom back there and it’ll give me a chance to calm down and think rationally.
I slam into the semi-secret bathroom and quickly shut and lock the door behind me. My heart pounds against my chest, beating against my ribcage to the nearly same rhythmic thumping of the music on the other side of the door. My head pounds in time with the music and my pulse, a consistent maddening beat. My hands curl into fists at my sides, nails digging into my palm until pain spears through me and I have to force them to relax.
My hip hits the bathroom counter which runs the length of the wall, jerking me to a stop. I slap my palms against the rim of the porcelain surface and latch on with my fingers, clamping down on either side of the sink as I look up. Dark winged eyeliner. The perfect contour to both highlight my best features and hide my flaws. I turn my head from side to side and watch the reflection follow the movement, hoping to catch a hint that this is a dream. No such luck. Every movement is exact. Yet still, the woman in the mirror doesn’t feel like me.
The phone I stuck between my bra and breast earlier in the evening lights up, illuminating a patch of my skin in the reflection. I take it out and seeing the face above the name that pops up in the center of the screen makes me want to throw the damn thing. I am living in a nightmare, only this one is real and no amount of drugs or therapy can make it end. I slam my phone down on the counter and stare at Avery’s laughing squinty face and name until the phone stops ringing. It feels like an eternity.
A moment passes and then it starts up again. To my surprise, it’s not Avery again. This time, it’s my mom. No way in hell am I answering her call. The phone goes black and then trills a third time as another call comes through. My dad’s name and face come across the screen. I’m not stupid. My dad never calls. It’s Mom.
My racing heartbeat, the sound of the music pounding on the other side of the wall, my sweaty hands, the building rage squeezing the air from my lungs—it all combines into one massive lump that takes over my throat and chokes me.
I don’t think twice; I pick up the phone and smash it into the counter—once, twice, three times. A long vertical crack forms across the ‘crack-resistant’ glass. Crack resistant, but not pissed off Juliet resistant. When the screen goes dark again, I turn and drop it into the toilet next to the bathroom counter. Then, as if I just have to make sure no one else can call me on it ever again, I reach up and press down on the handle of the toilet, flushing the phone.
It won’t go down. It’ll probably get stuck in the mouth and wedged deep where all of the crappy water can seep into the cracks I created, but that’s not the goal. I don’t care if it gets stuck. I just want to make sure I don’t do anything even more stupid … like try to answer it.
I stand there as the sound of the rushing water from the toilet slowly fades and then cuts off entirely and the silence of the small bathroom seems to wrap its arms around me. The walls grow closer, leaning into each other as if the tops are peering down at me, curious to see what I’ll do next.
I feel watched.
Judged.
I can’t fucking breathe.
When someone finally comes to knock on the door, the loud banging jolts me back into my body as the nasally sound of Lindsey Crawford’s voice filters through the door. “Hey!” she yells, thumping against the wood again. “If you’re done in there, some of us have to pee, too, you know.”
I close my eyes and wrap my arms around myself as I sink back against the elegant floral wallpaper. The room closes in on me, the flat walls bending to cage me in. I have to go. I can’t stay here. Where can I go, though? Home? Home, where my mom’s probably drunk and annoyed because dad isn’t there? Because he left his phone behind like he always does so she can’t track him like she tries to with me.
Lindsey bangs on the outside of the door again. “Hurry up!” she shrieks.
With a groan, I move away from the counter. My ankle rolls as my heel catches on one of the black and white tiles, and I barely catch myself against the counter in time. Frustration pours through me.
“Oh, fuck this,” I mutter, reaching down and removing the heels. Without a second thought, I turn and chuck them into the shower stall. The heels slam into the opposite glass wall, and a crack forms, but I couldn’t give less of a shit if I tried. Not my house, not my best friend, not my boyfriend, not my fucking problem anymore.
When I turn to reach for the door handle, I feel my eyes begin to burn and I suck in a sharp breath. Crying won’t do shit. It won’t take back the last hour. It won’t erase the image of my best friend faking an orgasm while my boyfriend fucked her. Ugh. What was the point if it wasn’t even good for her? Why would she even bother?
The more I move, the less I seem to feel. The heels are gone but not the negative emotions. They swirl inside me like a massive tidal wave about to burst forth. I unlock the door and yank it open to Lindsey’s waiting scowl.
“Finally,” she snaps, stepping into the doorway as if she means to shove her way past me. “What were you doing in—” Then she gets a good look at my face. “Oh, it’s you.” I don’t know why Avery even invited her; Lindsey has never liked me. Maybe none of my so-called friends have. “What’s wrong, birthday girl?” She sounds almost amused.
I stare back at her, and I don’t know why, but all of the pseudo-politeness I force myself to spew at Silverwood Prep just disappears. The need to always be perfect and maintain my composure disappears. I just don’t. fucking. care. anymore.
“What’s wrong with me?” I repeat, leaning into her as I grasp the frame of the bathroom door. Lindsey seems to sense the rising tide of my rage, something no one has ever really seen, not even me. How long have I kept it all bottled up? Had I already known about Bran and Avery and just pretended? There’s no way this should shock me. I should’ve seen the signs … right? I shove away the swirl of questions that plague my mind and focus on the Barbie-wannabe in front of me. “What’s wrong is that I’ve spent the last three fucking years letting you talk shit about me behind my back without a goddamn word, Lindsey. ” My voice is low, but my tone is biting. “What’s wrong is that pathetic excuse for a nose job that your daddy bought you so that you’d break up with Joseph Meyer.”
To her, Joseph had been little more than a rebellion against her parents. Maybe he had good dick. Maybe he was one of the few people in our world who was actually real with her for two seconds instead of blowing smoke up her and her trust fund parents’ asses. Why that poor kid from Silverwood Public had been so in love with her, I’ll never know, but he never deserved the write-off she’d given him when her daddy demanded she stop going out with a boy whose only chances of getting out of Silverwood were "the military or the grave," in Mr. Crawford’s words.
Lindsey’s artificially plumped lips part in shock. “What the fuck are you?—”
“Get out of my fucking face,” I snap, cutting her off as I shove her to the side and step into the back hall. “You smell like knock-off Chanel and desperation.”
I don’t have to look back at her to know that her face is red. “Y-you’re a fucking bitch, Juliet!” she stutters out her insult.
“Yeah,” I agree in monotone. “I am.”
I walk away before I hear Lindsey’s reply and find my keys on the counter next to the empty row of shots I’d been downing not thirty minutes before. I didn’t finish them all, despite my gut churning like I had. Turning away from the messy kitchen decorated with various expensive liquor bottles and a shattered glass in the sink, I head for the foyer and run into the two people I’d hoped not to see before I left.
Avery and Bran are dressed this time, Avery in her skin-tight cocktail dress and Bran in a polo and pair of faded jeans with carefully placed patches to make the fabric seem old and worn when it’s practically right from a catalog. My entire body goes hot where I was cold not ten seconds before.
“Jules!” Avery’s voice is higher than average as she practically jumps away from Bran even as he reaches for her. “We’ve been looking for you.”
I arch a brow at her and cross my arms over my chest. My bare toes curl against the tiled floor of the front hallway as I glare down at her. I’m by no means tall, but compared to Avery’s four-foot-eleven height, everyone looks down at her—I wonder if that’s why she feels the need to fuck every guy she meets. Does it make her feel powerful?
Avery’s face pinches and she laughs as she reaches out, patting my arm. “Did you hear? Someone was fucking in one of the rooms and got caught, people apparently thought it was Bran and me.” She rolls her eyes in a practiced move. “My parents are gonna be so pissed if they didn’t clean up after?—”
“Stop.” I close my eyes as Bran comes up behind her and take a deep breath before reopening my eyes. “Just fucking stop.” Avery might excel at playing the pretty dumb girl, but this is too pathetic even for me. Does she think I’m an idiot?
I mean she was fucking your boyfriend at your own birthday party, a snide inner voice reminds me. My hands curl inward and the metal teeth of my keys dig into my palm.
“What?” Avery blinks up at me, her fake lashes fluttering rapidly—a sure sign of her anxiety. “You don’t think it was real, do you?” She forces a scoff. “Jules, I’d never?—”
“Lie to me?” I cut her off before raising my eyes to Bran’s over her shoulder. He, at the very least, doesn’t look as confident about getting out of this mess they’ve made. His brows are creased and the square cut of his jaw jumps nervously as he clenches and unclenches his teeth.
“Juliet…” He starts, but I don’t let him finish as I step out of Avery’s reach and circle them.
“Fuck off, Avery.” I toss the words over my shoulder as I march to the front of the house. “You can have Bran for all I care—it’s not like you actually came anyway. God knows I never did.”
“Juliet!” Bran’s shocked tone, full of outrage and a hint of irritation slides over my skin like sandpaper, but I don’t turn around. Instead, the second I hit the door, I take off running.
Thanking God I ditched the heels, I sprint across the wide-open lawn down to the edge of the driveway where I parked my car earlier in the night. My feet slap the wet grass underfoot right before tiny rocks from the paved driveway dig into my soles. I can hardly feel them, though, as I unlock the BMW and quickly jump inside.
I don’t bother with a seatbelt as my head screams at me to just get out! The engine purrs to life and my headlights flash over a Porsche in front of me as I turn and back out, nearly clipping the SUV behind me as I swivel the wheel at the last second. The car jerks and gears grind together, the wheels spinning as the back ones slip into the grass and dirt. I freeze as my gaze connects with a pair of semi-familiar cloudy gray eyes before swapping to those of the man sitting in the passenger seat.
Fuck me. As if my humiliation wouldn’t be complete without them here. The fucking gangsters from Silverwood Public. The Scorpion Kings, or at least two of them. My upper lip curls back as I ease up on the gas and then press back down. Traction catches and I manage to get the car back onto the actual pavement.
Ignore them , I tell myself, ripping my attention away from their gazes. No doubt they’re only here to do business—sell their drugs, fuck rich girls who think poor boys have bigger dicks, and generally make a nuisance of themselves with their judgmental looks. It’s not my problem anymore. It’s not my party anymore.
Hell, maybe after tonight, I won’t ever see them again. It’s not like I’ll ever go to another Silverwood Prep party again. In fact, the second I get home, I plan to convince my parents to let me transfer schools. A nice boarding school in the Swiss Alps sounds fucking fantastic right about now.
Just as I hit the main road, I glance up and over the rusted roof of Alexio Medicci’s old SUV. He and the other Scorpion King with him watch me through the windows, but I focus on the open door of Avery’s parents’ lake house. Avery and Bran stand on the porch, staring after me as several others from our school pour out of the house after them, likely having been called by the drama as they watch me speed off into the night.
Fresh tears well up and I swipe them away with the back of my hand. “Stop it,” I order myself through a thick voice as the tears start to fall anyway.
My chest aches, winding tighter and tighter as everything inside threatens to shatter into pieces. Silverwood isn’t far from the lake and black pavement disappears beneath my wheels as I drive back. The interior of the car is silent and I almost forget why—that is, until I remember what I’d done with my phone. That's fine with me. I don’t need any more noise than what is already in my head.
Halfway home, I roll down the window. Hot summer air pours into the car, partially relieving the headache I have pounding against the inside of my skull. My stomach churns with bile and pain.
Forty-five minutes later, I turn into the gated community of my parents’ home, and as I slow to a stop on my street, I look up and spot several police cruisers outside the three-story house I’ve lived in since before I can remember. The BMW idles at a stop sign as I gape at the scene before me.
The door to my house opens and my father is walked out with two officers at his back. His hands are cuffed and just as I’m sure I’ve fallen into some striking dream or alternate reality, a white van with a news logo painted on its side speeds past me and shrieks to a stop at the curb. That, more than anything else, has me taking my foot off the brake and easing forward until I’m close enough to park.
I turn the car off and get out as my mom runs out of the house after my dad and the police. “You’re making a mistake!” she screams at one of the officers.
Several people pile out of the van. Some with cameras already in hand and another with a microphone and a haphazard suit thrown on—like they were rushed here last minute. I reach for my phone only to realize, again, that I’d tossed it in a toilet. Still, even without looking at it, I know that it’s well past midnight.
“What the hell…” I move closer, stumbling up the pristine lawn of my house.
“Oh, thank God!” The second she spots me, my mother whirls around and hurries towards me. To say I’m shocked that she seems happy to see me is an understatement. A moment later though, she bypasses me and runs straight to someone else.
Turning, I spot my father’s best friend and business partner, Morpheus Calloway standing on the sidewalk. He, too, looks like he was just pulled from bed in a soft pair of gray sweat pants and a white t-shirt. His face is lean, almost haggard, and a far cry from the normally immaculate man I’m used to seeing.
Pressured by the chaos around me, I turn and start walking towards them.
“Morpheus!” my mother calls out. “Do something! They’re taking him away. They say he did something terrible!”
My mother practically collapses in Morpheus’ arms. Her loud, open sobbing ramps up. Something cold fills my chest. He did something? What did he do?
Almost as if he can hear me, Morpheus’ face lifts and the look he gives me is one full of sadness and pity. I don’t understand that. They couldn’t have known why I was home already. Why would he be looking at me with pity?
“I’m sorry, Denise,” Morpheus says, his voice low and gravelly. “It’s true.”
“ No !” my mother wails. “No, it can’t be!”
I stop in front of them and Morpheus’ gaze lifts away from my mother, settling on me. His attention crawls over me, a visceral thing that feels alive the longer he stares. My insides churn and all of the alcohol I drank earlier in the night threatens to make me heave. Where he looked at her with tightness, he seems almost gentle with me. That gentleness is a lie. “ Juliet .”
It’s not the sound of police sirens or the news crew chattering animatedly that breaks that final shred of sanity inside me. It’s not even my mother’s sobbing or the click of the cruiser door as my father is ducked inside the backseat. It’s my name, spoken in that quiet, broken whisper.
I thought nothing could make this night worse.
I was wrong.
As Morpheus opens his mouth again, all of the emotions I’d been feeling crash towards me at once. The hurt. The regret. The pain. The loss. The confusion. The anger. They hit me and that’s it. I step away from him and my mother. My heartbeat slows down until it’s a slug squeezing through my arteries. A distant ringing echoes against my eardrum, growing louder and softer … louder and softer. Tingles race up my arms and down my legs as goosebumps rise up on my skin. It’s gone. All of it. The money. The protection. I cut my gaze to Morpheus and then my mother before they slide back to the blue and red flashing lights of the cop cars situated outside of my family’s home.
It’s the end of May. It should be warm. Yet, all I taste is the burn of ice on the back of my tongue.
Suddenly, I don’t feel anything anymore. I don’t want to. Not a goddamn thing.