sakura
The next morning, I woke up ten minutes before I usually left for school and scrambled through my bedroom, running a brush through my hair and skipping a shower altogether. I really wished that I could’ve skipped today, too, because I didn’t know what I would say to Callan.
After checking my phone to see no messages from him, I hurried downstairs, grabbed a couple of pieces of toast, and slipped into my car.
He had really brought Gunther to the hospital for me. After everything.
Once I made it to school, I spotted Callan’s car parked in its usual spot and trudged into Redwood Academy. I didn’t have his class until a couple of periods from now, so I had between now and then to really figure this all out.
What could I say to him? Should I apologize? Ask him if he really meant the other parts of his confession about the sex trafficking ring? Possibly see if the mob had anything to do with it? Because if they did, then that meant Callan did too.
When I stepped into Redwood, the entire student body chatted loudly and laughed at their phones. I glanced around nervously, hoping that they weren’t gossiping about me, and walked to my locker.
I took out my books for the first few periods and checked my phone for any messages from Callan, only to find my messages dry. A couple of notifications popped up from Instagram and Redwood’s social media. When I tapped on one—because I needed a distraction right now—an image of someone’s Google Docs popped up.
My eyes glanced down at the story on the page, heat warming my cheeks.
God, this is raunchy.
When I finally read it all, I glanced at the caption to see Vera’s name and a trending hashtag in the comments section. I swallowed hard, a terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach, and closed my locker.
As much as I’d hated Vera yesterday—for potentially sleeping with my … my fling—I pitied her now, especially if what Callan had said was true and he had no interest in her. This story was so intimate, and I highly doubted that she had released this herself.
Just as I slipped my phone into my pocket, Vera and Blaise Harleen walked into the school through the main entrance. Vera glanced around nervously, cheeks flushed from the cold and brows drawn together.
They walked by me toward Vera’s locker down the hall, where her two best friends stood.
“What’s going on?” she said softly, voice traveling, even beyond Redwood’s loudmouthed students.
I frowned and clutched my backpack straps, eyeing them. I didn’t want her to feel bad. I wasn’t staring because I liked this drama, like the rest of Redwood did, but I didn’t know how to go talk to her. I was terrible with people—cough, cough—especially with Callan.
After gazing down at the phone, she widened her eyes and stepped back into Blaise, her hand trembling. Blaise glanced over her shoulder and froze too.
She shook her head. “My writing …” she whispered. “Someone found my writing and released it to all of Redwood Academy.”
Blaise seized the phone from her and scrolled through it.
Vera took another step back against his chest and wrapped her arms around her body, shaking her head and mumbling, “What am I going to do? What am I going to do? I’ve tried so hard to keep this a secret.”
“It’s okay,” her friend said, gently rubbing Vera’s shoulder.
“Don’t worry about it,” Maddie, her best friend, reassured. “We’ll take care of it.”
“How are you guys going to take care of it?” Vera asked, tensing. “The entire school—even the teachers—has already seen it. They’ve been snickering at me all morning since I stepped out of Blaise’s car.”
“We’ll get someone to take it down,” Maddie said. “Hopefully.”
“That won’t do anything,” Vera whispered, glancing up at Blaise with fearful eyes. “Are you—”
“I didn’t do it, Vera,” Blaise said. “I fucking promise, I didn’t do this.”
“I know you didn’t. I just …” She glanced down at her feet and shrugged, a single tear falling down her cheek. “I don’t even know what I was going to ask you. I don’t know what I can do. I hate it here.”
So do I, girl. So do freaking I.
“They’re going to make fun of me,” she whispered, resting her forehead against his chest. “I don’t want them to make fun of me, Blaise. All I wanted was to be invisible this year. Redwood Academy is so cruel—so fucking cruel.”
“They’re not going to tease you, Vera,” Maddie reassured.
But Vera was right. Redwood would taunt her over this.
“It’s not Vera’s,” Blaise suddenly declared to the students in the hallway, capturing everyone’s attention. “The writing is mine. Vera is writing an amazing romance story in her free time, and she asked me to write a sex scene for her because she couldn’t write it herself.”
The murmurs slowly faded to complete quietness.
“Come on,” Blaise continued. “You guys think Vera could write something that fucking filthy?”
“You wrote that?” someone—who obviously wanted his ass kicked—said through the silence. “I’d believe the good girl wrote that before you. You can barely pass English class without your parents’ money.”
Blaise gritted his teeth and glared at the student.
“Blaise,” Vera whispered, tugging on his shirt, “it’s okay. Don’t do this.”
“So fucking what if I can pass English or not? I wanted something to jerk off to,” Blaise said, rolling his eyes and picking up his skateboard. “The fuck do you guys care? Half of you think that I murdered one of our own classmates already anyway.”
“Blaise,” Vera whispered again, her voice even quieter.
“Isn’t that right, Sunshine?” Blaise asked. “You needed some help.”
Vera softened her eyes, her entire persona suddenly shifting. She parted her lips and stared up at Blaise.
He watched her for a moment, then asked, “Isn’t that right, Vera?”
“Vera …” Maddie nudged her.
“No.” Vera grabbed Blaise’s wrist and stepped forward. “Blaise didn’t write that scene.”
They began bickering back and forth quietly, and I glanced around at all the curious students. And in the crowd, I spotted Callan Avery staring at me with sadness in his eyes, like I had done something that he never thought I would do.
I sucked in a sharp breath, my stomach twisting into knots, and glanced down at my phone to see if he had messaged me. But still, I had no texts from him. And when I looked back up at him, he was gone.