Bitter Kisses (It's Just High School Book 3) Read online

  “I doubt it, Sean,” Shane says as he comes to sit on the other side of the springy, old bed. “She doesn’t feel pain. Or feelings in general, isn’t that right?”

  “Youuuu,” I stutter, my teeth rattling my entire body, “How…”

  “How, what? How are you here?” he questions, the mockery in his sweet voice sparking fear in me. I have no idea what he sees on my face, but he tsks, “Don’t you remember, baby?”

  I’m trying to think about it, but the pounding of my head is like a persistent throbbing that drags me back to the hazy moments that had me fooled in that parking lot.

  Wait, I’m remembering now. That’s good.

  Before this when I woke up in the freezer, there wasn’t much I could recall, but now glimpses and pieces are coming back to me, most of it doesn’t make any sense but there’s only one constant.

  Julian.

  I close my eyes, it’s his green eyes that I see. Where is he? Does he even know that I’m missing? But the question burning a hole in my stomach is whether or not he cares enough to come for me?

  “Whyyy arrre you ddddoing this to me?” I stutter, my words slow. When I look at Sean, the bastard is staring at something on my lower body. Bile rises up my throat when I notice the look in his eyes. Hot liquid fury stirs in me, coursing down my veins until the helplessness and pain gives way to violent trembling. “Get-ttt away frrr-rom me.”

  That makes him laugh as he reaches down for me. “As far as I see it, you’re in no position to stop me, are you?” It’s only then that I notice his state of undress and my mind starts racing.

  He was sitting there. Undressed. Like I am. Why?

  “Oh God,” I cry, tabling the pain in my lower body now. Did he…

  “Is she praying?”

  “Hmm, or maybe she’s remembering our fun time from this morning.”

  “When she punched the hell out of you?” Shane says laughing, his shirt off.

  “Yeah well, I gave as good as I got, just hope she doesn’t bleed to fucking death before that prick, Fitzgerald, shows up.

  This morning…

  What happened this morning?

  I close my eyes, trying to escape my reality, fighting to conjure up as many recollections of the past as I can to determine how I’m here but all I see are flashes of me being snatched from my car on my way to school!

  I see Nicky and Courtney.

  I see myself fighting and screaming.

  My eyes snap open as it comes back to me.

  The Matthews assholes cornered me, blocking the road with a big black, unmarked SUV.

  Someone beat me over the head with something hard.

  They threw me in the back.

  They tore my uniform of me.

  I can hear the leers and the way they laughed.

  Someone touched me down there.

  I fought and someone beat me up.

  They knocked me out and threw me in the freezer.

  And now, they put me on this bed.

  They arranged me like a rag doll, placing me the way they want.

  And even though half my body is frozen and I can’t feel my leges—or any other part of me for that matter—a scream bubbles up from the pit of my stomach as shame, fear and horror rise up in me at what has happened.

  I’ve not only been kidnapped, I’ve been assaulted and degraded in the wirst way possible.

  My scream is long, it’s jarring to my own ears. It’s a cry of a soul that’s shattered. It’s something born of extreme anguish.

  “Shut her up!”

  “Why isn’t the drug working?”

  I don’t stop screaming even when I hear them shouting, but before I can hope that someone out there might hear me, before I can even dream of rescue, someone hits me again and darkness, sweet darkness, falls over me.

  And I, broken and devasted, fall into its loving arms, hoping not to wake up again.

  5

  Mia

  That morning…

  Something’s going to go terribly wrong today.

  It’s the first day of senior year and I’m a mess in more ways than anyone can handle. Everything is murky, dark and makes zero sense but the feeling of dread in my bones? It doesn’t seem to be lifting anytime soon.

  Maybe it’s because the past couple of weeks have been shit, or maybe because there’s so much riding on this day, but I don’t feel so good.

  It’s been two weeks.

  Two weeks since he held me in his warm embrace on that beach in Europe and declared his love for me that I felt in my soul, warming all my frozen parts and pieces of my heart that I thought would be forever lost.

  Two weeks since I started to feel like everything was going to be all right and now, two weeks later here we are.

  Him, believing I sided with my father to set him up and destroy his future and me, broken over the fact that he so easily believed that and not me.

  I begged him to stop and listen, with tears running down my face and still in the two weeks since that fateful day, I haven’t forgotten the look on his handsome, perfectly chiseled, god-like face the moment he decided to dismiss me and hate me all over again.

  I’ve been trying to piece everything that happened from the day my fractured family moved into the Fitzgerald mansion, but nothing makes sense. Not in the freaking slightest. All I know is, I was playing in a high-stakes game with players so cunning, so ruthless they don’t mind sacrificing their own children—and I didn’t even know it!

  I yank my perfectly ironed Clintwood senior long-sleeved shirt from the hanger with hostility I can’t restrained and put it on, covering the shame covering my arms and wrists.

  I feel empty. I feel crashed and hopeless and still, I have to go on like nothing happened, like the world isn’t currently attacking me.

  But the thing about my current dilemma since everything blew up with Julian, Cole and Liam the day we came back from Europe is it’s gone from worse to freaking catastrophe in a span of days.

  And in all that shit, I’m livid, but I can’t show that to anyone but myself because of the deal I made.

  A deal that can go sideways if I so much as make a move wrong.

  But that doesn’t lessen the chaos in my heart and in my mind.

  I’m fucking hurt and heartbroken over the overwhelming and crushing fact that both Fitz brothers didn’t believe me when everything went to shit.

  Over the fact that my father is the worst villain and enemy in this latest chapter of an unending nightmare. Not only that, Nathan has managed to successfully weave this elaborate, fucked up plan where he has efficiently painted me as the villain.

  But most of all, I hate that I’m all alone in this. But to be fair, what the fuck did I expect?

  “Knock, knock,” my previous aunt—who’s actually my biological mother and trying desperately to assume the role now that Nancy is six-feet under—says as she taps the door to my walk-in closet, an uncertain look in her eyes. “May I come in?”

  I see her shifting on her feet nervously through the large floor-ceiling length mirrors that adorn my old closet, the one I grew up playing dress up, hiding as part of a game with Nancy and reading pretty steamy novel I was too young for under my hanging dresses.

  Yes, we’re back in my childhood home. A lot has happened in two weeks.

  “Sure,” I murmur, watching her with flat eyes. I’m not comfortable with her seeing the depth of the agony in me or the sadness that has shredded my soul to nothing.

  “So, did you sleep well?” she asks. “How are you today?”

  “I’m fine,” I mutter, pulling my hair into a high ponytail. For the first time ever, I’m grateful that my school has us wear these gaudy, drab uniforms. It means I don’t have to actually go in today looking like a professional homeless junkie.

  “Will you be joining any clubs?”

  “No.”

  “Okay.”

  Silence.

  “Will you be going back for cheer?” she asks with enthusiasm.
/>   “No.”

  A heavier silence this time.

  “So, what exactly will you be doing this year? It’s senior year! So exciting!”

  “Learning,” I murmur, my voice hoarse.

  She deadpans, placing her mug of coffee softly down on the counter. “You’ll be learning huh?”

  “Yup. It’s senior year, pretty hard stuff. Gotta focus and all that bullshit.”

  She stares at me, the concern in her eyes intensifying. Then she glanced down at my wrists. A sharp pang sears through my heart, making me uncomfortable as flashbacks come to mind. God…

  “Oh Mia,” she whispers, concern dripping in each word. Suddenly, I’m uncomfortable again, wanting the earth to open up and swallow me. I can’t take her concern right now. “Talk to me.”

  “There’s really nothing to talk about,” I snap, quickly doing up my wrists, not giving her another glance.

  “Maybe but are you sure you’re all right, sweetheart?” Nicky says softly, stepping closer to her.

  “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “Mia, it’s okay to admit that you can’t take on everything that’s hurled at you. You’re allowed to take time out and regroup.”

  “I said I’m fine,” I growl. “Please accept that and let it be.”

  “I know the past couple of weeks have been a nightmare. What with the shitty media coverage you’ve been getting and all, I know you wanted to see Ju…”

  I hiss.

  The sound is so abrupt, so vicious and so out of place, we both freeze.

  Almost immediately, mortification colors my cheeks and again, I feel like I’m dying painfully. Shocked by the sound I just made, tears sting my eyes and I turn away, hiding my face with my hair.

  What I just did was wrong, but I’m even more horrified by the reason why I hissed to begin with and it has nothing to do with her.

  Hearing his name spoken out loud feels like a major violation that I can’t handle, and yet, I whisper his name like a litany in the dead of night when I’m crying my eyes out at his betrayal. His name is constantly on my mind and yet still, I can’t handle hearing it spoken.

  It’s almost like he’s everywhere except where I want him to be. With me.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I didn’t mean to…” I trail off, looking down at the floor. Silence falls between us. Tense and pulsing. Hot and freaking uncertain. “I’m sorry. Please don’t say his name.”

  “I understand,” she whispers after a moment. “So, are you looking forward to your senior year of learning then?”

  I cringe internally, hating the awkwardness that has formed between us.

  I don’t know what to think or how to feel about Nicky right now and she obviously doesn’t know what to do with my silence bordering on depression. She doesn’t know what to do with me entirely is the truth.

  “Yeah.”

  Silence.

  From the corner of my eye, I see her opening her mouth to say something but closes it and the motion goes on three more times, making her look like a fish out of water.

  “That’s good my love,” she says softly.

  I want to turn around and let lose a litany of curses and the damn of sobs I’m holding back, but I barely manage to hold on as I tuck in my shirt in my senior skirt. Seniors at my school, Clintwood Academy, have a different, more sparkly, attractive uniform. Just another way to show we’re the best and I was at the topic of a blazing scandal.

  “Good,” I whisper.

  Nicky sighs, tired of my one-worded responses.

  “Come on, Mia sweetheart,” she says sadly. “You really don’t have to go if you don’t want—”

  “I’m going,” I grit out harshly. “We’ve already been over this already.”

  And we have. In great detail. Over and fucking over again.

  “I know we did but Mia, in the midst of everything that’s going on, with the…” she trails off awkwardly and I shoot her a look through the mirror.

  “You can say it, you know,” I murmur. It’s not like it will change anything. It happened. I was thrust in a circle of hell and the one person I thought would hold my hand through it, trust me enough to believe the truth, failed me and broke my heart after we confessed out love for each other. “Go on, Nicky, Say it.”

  “I don’t want to tell you…”

  “You don’t want to tell me that maybe I shouldn’t go to school today because everyone in town will be looking at me with dirty glances, cursing my name to hell and back over how I’m a slutty whore who lied and put all the blame on Palos Verdes’, hell, California’s, sexy god and football star, putting him in jail and now going through the trial of the fucking century?” I blink at her, a fake sad and jagged smile on my face. “Is that what you wanted to say, Nicky?”

  She flinches, looking away.

  I find that it hurts her when I say her name but really, I don’t think I’m ready to call her mom or even mother. Especially after Nancy died in front of me, and Jesus, let’s not forget how I caused that.

  Nicky clears her throat, tugging down her peach cashmere sweater. I’m not sure about her current relationship or fucked up engagement status between her and John, Julian’s father, but she seems to still be living the high life.

  “Well, I only want to make sure that you’re, uh, as comfortable as possible and ready to face the storm,” Nicky says, looking anywhere but at me.

  I’m not. Not even close but I can’t tell her that.

  I can’t tell her how after two weeks of trying to get in touch with Julian, calling him, texting him, trying see him at every chance—when he was in jail and then released on bail—but the static silence and cold brush off was so obvious, a blind man could see I was not wanted anymore. And God knows I can’t tell her how I basically broke down because of that.

  “It’s not a storm, Nicky, it’s a call for my death like some kind of witch hunt,” I sigh, grabbing my necktie and blazer. “And honestly, there’s nothing I can do to change the narrative against me.”

  “You don’t know that they’re against you.”

  I shoot her a get real stare. I’ve been online. I’ve seen the hashtags #IceQueenLiar or #MoneyHungryWhore and my favorite #FitzTrash. And judging by the look on her face, she’s seen it all too.

  “No matter what I do, they’re still going to talk, whether they know the truth or not,” I say, wearing the rest of my uniform with short, wooden movements. “The last thing I need is to hide out like a coward, it will just make things worse.”

  “It’s not hiding out, sweetheart, it’s protecting yourself,” Nicky continues, stepping forward to smooth down my blazer softly, reminding me of Nancy. “I can talk to your principal.”

  “Uh, no thanks,” I say immediately, swiveling away from her reach.

  Our principal is great at her job sure, but everyone knows she’s a terrible gossip.

  I mean how else do the rest of the teaching stuff know about student’s personal issues soon after their miserable rich as fuck parents leave her office?

  Hell, once upon a time, I was that bitch who got information on other students from her after easing her with a box of Golden Crystal Ube doughnuts—the woman has expensive taste in food and a poor fashion sense.

  So now, if Nicky calls her, the news would spread on the grounds of Clintwood Academy like the wildfires of Cali. Uncontrollable and raging.

  Silence is my best course of action.

  Emotions can only be expressed in private, if ever.

  Everything else doesn’t matter. Nothing else matters now.

  “Okay then,” she sighs. Then she’s silent for a while, looking around the walk-in closet like she’s trying to find the words she needs, annoying me even further.

  “Is there something you need?” I finally snap.

  Her face falls in an instant. For a moment, I feel bad for being snarky and short with her but it’s just brief freaking moment.

  She was, after all, the one who helped build my father’s web of deceit
that got Julian thrown in jail and is facing a trial today that will determine his future. And as far as I’ve heard, it looks like it’s going to be a mess.

  “Well, I know you’re not exactly happy with me right now and honestly, I understand that, but Mia, we have to talk.”

  Ah fuck.

  “No, we really don’t.”

  Checking my reflection in the mirror, I grab my book bag and brush past her, completely aware that I’m back into hiding behind a perfect hairdo and flawless makeup, my Ice Queen mask firmly in place like the weeks I spent with Julian didn’t change me and make me feel for the first time.

  “Mia, I’ve been patient with you these past couple of weeks, giving you as much space as you need but come on,” she says, following me back into my room. “Look at this! Look at where we are.”

  “We’re home.”

  “Exactly!” She spreads her arms out. “How are we here? This house, bless its charm and the history in each room, is not ours. Doesn’t it now belong to that snake of a woman, Courtney?”

  Here we go.

  “Technically she does, but she’s not here, is she? And we are currently homeless.”

  “Yes, but not for long, I’ve been out looking for apartments…”

  “Your accounts were frozen and you don’t have any more cash since my after took it all from you,” I say, watching her closely.

  That stuns her into silence. She opens her mouth to say something but snaps it shut, but I keep moving, hoping and praying she won’t prob deeper and ask the questions I don’t want to have to lie about.

  So far, I’ve been as honest as I can, even when it was easy not to be, but after what I learned about my past the day I ran to see Courtney and found her with my father and what ensured after, I’m just trying to do what I can to make sure the people I love survive in this pit of snakes.

  “How… how did you know?” she asks, her voice all but a whisper.

  “Oh, I know.” I more than know. I was shown and warned so hard that I had only one decision to make at the cost of everything and now, I’m beginning to resent her for it. How fucked up am I?

  Nicky takes a deep breath, then she shakes her head and stares at me.