MADDIE
Heart thumping, I gulped. “Do you think there are more videos?”
“I’m not sure,” he said honestly, jaw clenching. “There could be.”
“Do you think … Sandra did it?”
“Sandra?” he asked, brows raised. “Sandra’s a bitch, but she didn’t do this.”
“How do you know?”
“Because,” Alec said tensely, “she didn’t.”
I sat back and furrowed my brow at him, reading him like a damn book. He was hiding something from me, something about his ex-girlfriend that he didn’t want me to know about, something damn important.
“Why are you lying to me?”
“I’m not lying to you.”
“Then, what aren’t you telling me?”
My chest tightened, and I was afraid of his answer. I feared that all those remarks from Sandra—that I wasn’t suited for Alec—hadn’t just come out of anywhere. She still liked him, and what if he liked her too?
“How do you know she didn’t do this?” I asked, scrambling off his lap.
He went to hold my hips down against his, but I pushed myself away and sat in the passenger seat. Anger and fury rushed through me, and I wanted so desperately to cry my eyes out. This wasn’t fair. My day had already been fucked up. I didn’t want this to make it worse, but deep down, I knew that it would.
Alec rubbed his hand over his face. “It’s not my place to tell you.”
“I’m your girlfriend,” I said between gritted teeth as I crossed my arms over my chest in an attempt to hold myself together. “Or at least … that’s what you told me you wanted me to be to you. I deserve to know.”
“Because, Maddie …” he said after a long sigh.
“Because why?”
“Because she was at my house by the time we left the locker room. I got a notification from our security system. My house is thirty minutes from the school. She never would’ve made it there.”
I gritted my teeth, hurt rushing through me. “And why the fuck was she at your house?”
“Because she’s crazy,” he said. “My mom threw her out.”
Deciding that I couldn’t go batshit crazy on him right now, I sat back in my seat and stared through the windshield, taking deep breaths before I blew up at him. While I desperately wanted to see the best in Alec and think the best of this situation, my day had gone to shit hours ago. Nothing positive could come out of this.
“Please, don’t be angry. I didn’t want to tell you because I didn’t want you to get angry—”
Unable to listen to another damn second of this, I slammed open the car door and stepped onto the icy road. I didn’t give a fuck about how chillingly bitter it was outside. I refused to sit here and be talked at. This was how it had been with Spencer.
I wanted some silence.
As I stormed down the street, Alec got out of the car and followed after me. “Maddie, wait, please.” He ran toward me, but I picked up my pace. “Please, let me continue. If you would just listen—”
“Don’t take me for a fool, Alec.”
Maybe I was a fool, but I was a mess too right now. I needed time to myself, which was why I had been at home, cuddled up in my blankets, crying my eyes out. Now, I was walking back home in the freezing cold and wishing I had never opened up that door.
He snatched my wrist and pulled me back in the middle of the damn street. I stopped, but refused to look over my shoulder at him or turn around. Tears were already streaming down my face, and I felt like shit.
Maybe Oliver was right all those years ago. Don’t trust any boys, especially those on the hockey team.
“I don’t think you’re a fool,” he said softly from behind me.
He went to move around me, and I stood my ground and stared at him through the tears.
“Nothing has happened between Sandra and me since we broke up a year ago,” he said, no trace of hesitation or lie in his voice. “I swear to God on my parents’ lives, I haven’t done shit with her.”
“She’s always fucking hanging around you, and then she shows up at your house while we’re together, and you don’t even tell me?!” I cried out, bile rising in my throat at the memories of me screaming at Spencer for the same thing.
And while I knew that Alec wasn’t Spencer, that Alec was different, I couldn’t help it.
I was broken.
“I swear, Maddie,” he said, running a hand through his hair. “Listen, I’m not supposed to tell you this, but when I dated her, she realized that she …” He blew out a breath. “That she doesn’t like guys as much as she likes girls, but she is nervous to come out.”
I rolled my teary eyes. “Alec, she’s all over you all the time.”
“She’s faking it,” he said. “And I’m the only person she’s told.”
“Still, Alec, if she was into girls only, why does she dance all over you at every party my brother has thrown? It’s not like she’s making out with girls or even flirting with them. She’s obsessed with you.”
He shook his head. “I don’t know, Maddie. All she tells me is that it’s hard to express herself, especially with her parents and their conservative views. But you have to believe me. I would never fucking do the shit that Spencer did to you. I haven’t even talked to her since we started dating.”
“Then, why didn’t you tell me?” I asked, crossing my arms.
“Because I knew you wouldn’t believe me.”
My stomach twisted and turned. I wiped my tears away from my cheeks with the back of my hand and stared emptily at him. I wanted to believe him so badly, but after what Spencer had done to me and the lies he had told me, it was so hard.
“You don’t believe me,” he said.
“Do you expect me to?”
“Yes. I haven’t done anything to make you distrust me, have I?”
“This is pretty sketchy, Alec.”
After staring at me for a couple of moments, Alec pulled out his phone and scrolled to his messages with Sandra. He went through the texts from a couple of weeks ago—the night of the party—and handed me the phone, letting me see what he and Sandra really talked about.
The more I scrolled through the messages, the harder and harder they became to read. I stared at the screen with so much pain inside me because this was exactly how I felt about Redwood Academy. So many people judged others here for the stupidest things. It wasn’t fair.
But Sandra was one of the people who had made it worse for me.
Bully so you don’t get bullied must have been her motto.
“Do you believe me now?” Alec said, watching me with hopeful eyes. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. That wasn’t fair to you, but I haven’t been with her since we stopped dating. You can ask her yourself if you want confirmation.”
I handed him back the phone and frowned. I didn’t know if I was stupid for freaking out or stupid for actually sorta, kinda feeling bad for Sandra now. Still, what if this was all some scheme to get closer to him? Someone had sent those texts to me and hacked his accounts.
Since they had dated, she might’ve known his passwords.
Headlights shone on us from a distance. Alec took my hand and led me to the side of the road and back toward his car. My body was trembling from the frigid air, the tearstains left on my face frozen.
After sitting down in the car, I rested my head on his shoulder and stared through the window at the raging sea. This town was fucked up, so fucked up that I couldn’t even trust the one guy who had been nothing but honest with me this entire time.
“I believe you,” I whispered. “I’m just hurt.”
Alec pulled me back into his arms and gently rocked me from side to side. “I know.”
Again, headlights shone in the rearview mirror, blinding me. The car pulled up beside Alec’s car on the side of the road. I glanced over at it with Alec and frowned. Someone rolled down the window, and Imani Abara and Allie Hall looked over at us.
What are they doing here?
I rolled down the window.
“Sorry for interrupting,” Imani shouted. “We’ve been texting you all night. I even got Kai to find your street address. We knocked on your front door, but nobody answered, so we decided to come and find you.”
They’re worried about me?
Alec tightened his grasp on me. “You gonna answer them?”
“Thank you,” I whispered, voice hoarse. “I’m good.”
“Redwood is shit,” Imani said. “If you ever need anything, we’re here.”
“Actually,” I said, sitting up straighter, “there is something you can help with. We need a favor from Kai Koh.”