Chapter 22
Beau
Beau,
I’m so sorry. For not calling you. For running off. For Sawyer. I’ve ruined everything for you. I was so selfish. I can’t tell you how sorry I am. Just please forgive me. I can handle anything else if I know you can forgive me. Maybe what we did was wrong. Maybe we should have handled it another way but I can’t make myself regret any moment I spent with you. You gave me memories I’ll always cherish. I won’t make this hard on you. I’ll let you go your own way. Just let me know you don’t hate me.
I love you,
Ashton
I ran my thumb over the words ‘I love you’ as I stared at Ashton’s letter. She loves me. Ashton Gray loves me. I’d left her thinking this was her fault. The panic in her wording was clear. She thought I could hate her? Did she not listen to anything I said? Had my actions not told her enough? I’d sacrificed everything for her. How could she think I hated her? It wasn’t even possible. The permanent ache where my mother had ripped my heart from my chest and basically thrown it at me eased some as I reread the words ‘I love you’.
Right now I needed her arms around me so I could cry. Cry for the man who’d been the only dad I’d ever known and lost at such a young age. Cry for the brother who I’d never realized I had yet loved him anyway. Cry for the only girl I’d ever loved, the only person other than Sawyer I’d ever have died for, and the impossible situation we were in. I loved her so much. I’d chosen her over Sawyer and I’d do it again. But things had changed now. Sawyer was facing the same pain I was. Maybe more so because it was his father, or our father, who’d cheated on his wife, ignored me my entire life, and lied to him. A tear rolled off my chin and I quickly moved the letter away so my tears didn’t smudge the words on the page. I needed to know someone cared. Someone loved me. Folding the note so I could see the words ‘I love you’ and her name, I pressed it against my heart and laid back against the bale of hay. Tonight I wouldn’t get much sleep but I’d have Ash’s words to keep me warm.
Ashton
High school had always been easy for me. Having Sawyer as a boyfriend had protected me from harassment. As I stood in front of my locker and took in the word ‘slut’ painted in red fingernail polish across the pale blue paint that had gone unmarred the past three years, it was a moment of realization. I truly had no idea what high school really felt like. Maybe I was a slut. I wasn’t a virgin anymore and I wasn’t married. Did that make me a slut? No one knew about me and Beau so the fact I was being labeled a slut only meant they were hinting at it.
I sighed and quickly did my combination and opened my locker. I was instantly glad it didn’t have ventilation holes. There is no telling what they would have tried to stick inside. I could hear whispers behind me as I pulled out my books for first period. No one spoke to me or stood up for me. Not that I expected them to. This was day three of Shun Ashton. I couldn’t really blame it on Sawyer because he wasn’t participating. He wasn’t taking up for me either but he wasn’t joining in on the fun. Everyone loved him and wanted to defend him. If ridiculing me made them feel as if they were accomplishing this I could handle it. It was only words.
As if I’d spoken this out loud, I was shoved into my locker from behind. The corner of the locker slammed into the side of my head causing me to go a little fuzzy from the impact. I gripped the side of the door praying I wouldn’t pass out. Laughter of the female variety ensued behind me and I closed my eyes until the pain subsided.
“Oh, for crying out loud. Are you just going to stand there and take this?” I slowly turned my head to see Kayla looking at me with an exasperated expression. She grabbed my arm to steady me.
“I get that you think you deserve this or whatever but there comes a point when enough is enough. You need to stop them or they’ll continue to run over you. Get some teeth, girl.” She took the books from my arms and closed my locker. “Come on, I’m taking you to the nurse because you got a dazed and confused look in your eyes. Once she says it’s okay you can go to class.”
I was dazed and confused. Why was Kayla helping me? She was head cheerleader. I’d have thought she’d be the ringleader in the anti-Ashton posse.
“You really should have thought about this before you decided to cheat on the town prince. Someone like Sawyer has too many loyal subjects. You’ve pissed them all off. They hate you because you had him for so long and they hate you because you hurt him. They feel vindicated in their brutality toward you. So either you get yourself a bodyguard or you get tough. This isn’t going to go away overnight. This could last all freakin’ year.”
Kayla led me down the hall toward the nurse’s office.
“I know. I figured I’d just let them get their anger out and maybe it would blow over sooner,” I explained.
Kayla snorted. “Not gonna happen. Either Sawyer stops them or you do. Where’s Beau? If he’d get his tail back here he could stop all of this.”
I wanted Beau. I missed him. I reached down and touched my pocket to make sure the note I’d written him last night was still there. I’d decided to take it to Honey this afternoon. Just in case she was able to get notes to him. I wanted to make sure he knew how I felt. I didn’t want him to be alone.
“Did you really do it? I mean, cheat on Sawyer with Beau? I find it hard to believe Beau would do something like that to Sawyer. But Sawyer isn’t talking and Beau is MIA.”
I wasn’t going to lie anymore. Sawyer knew the truth. I didn’t have his feelings to spare. Lying would be denying Beau. I couldn’t deny him.
“Yes I did.”
Kayla paused and I thought she was going to throw my books down or some other dramatic reaction but she let out a low whistle instead.
“You admit it. Wow.”
I shrugged. “Everyone knows. I broke it off with Sawyer. No reason to lie.”
Kayla raised her eyebrows. “I can think of one reason to lie. The bunch of crazies who think they need to defend Sawyer by making you their punching bag.”
“Maybe, but I’m not going to lie about Beau and me. He doesn’t deserve that. I have nothing to be ashamed of except ruining their relationship.”
Kayla opened the door to the nurse’s office. “You really are unique. No wonder you got the Vincent boys fighting over you.”
Other than an ugly welt on the side of my head there was no other damage. However, I was beginning to wish I’d at least needed stitches so I’d had an excuse to leave today. By lunchtime I’d had my books knocked out of my hands so many times I’d lost count. Kayla had stopped once to help me pick them up, saying again how I needed a bodyguard. The janitor had cleaned my locker and the entire school body had been threatened with school suspension if caught defacing school property. So they had gone to sticky notes with cruel comments being stuck on my locker instead. I stopped reading them once I realized they were just another form of punishment.
Sawyer had watched quietly as people had knocked my books to the floor all day. When our eyes met after I cleaned off my locker from the latest onslaught of messages and he said nothing but walked away, I decided I might hate him a little. He wasn’t the perfect guy I’d thought he was. Maybe I’d put him on a pedestal too. The Sawyer I’d known wouldn’t have stood by while someone was bullied like this. My eyes had been opened to another side of him. One that was real but one I didn’t like very much.
I was looking forward to getting a tray and heading outside to eat alone and enjoy some peace and quiet. Walking up to the lunch line, I ignored everyone around me. It had become my mantra to not make eye contact. That seemed to make them all worse. So instead I practised tunnel vision. Which was why I probably didn’t see the Coke before it was poured over my head. I squealed as ice ran down my face and Coke burned my eyes. It trickled down my shirt and my hair was plastered to my head. The lunchroom erupted into laughter. Nicole stood in front of me with her empty glass and a smirk on her face.
“Oops,” she said, loud enough for her audience to hear before spinning around on her heels and strutting toward her adoring crowd.
I stood there debating on how to handle this. Kayla said I needed to get tough but the fight was gone out of me. I just wanted Beau to come home. I reached up and wiped away the Coke in my eyes and smoothed my saturated hair back out of my face. Then, without giving anyone the satisfaction of a reaction, I headed back to the double doors leading into the hallway. I could go home now. This was a good enough excuse.
The doors opened before I reached them and I was face to face with Sawyer. His blue eyes I’d once loved widened in shock as he took in my appearance. It wasn’t his fault. Not really.
“Excuse me,” I said as politely as I could, stepped around him and headed down the hall toward the office. I didn’t look back even though I could feel his eyes on me. Maybe this would be a final straw for him. Then again, maybe not.