Dirty Fraud Page 9

  I can’t see. I can’t even register what’s happening. One moment I am drowning and dying and the next I’m being pulled from the water. I feel solid ground beneath me, but somehow, I’m still drowning.

  A mouth closes over mine and forces oxygen into me, and then something heavy presses down in repetition on my chest, and I choke out all the water that was in me. It pours out like a fountain, leaving my body burning from the inside out. I gasp in air and try to open my eyes, but as I do that, I am crushed against the solid wall of a chest, and wrapped in strong, warm arms.

  It takes me a moment to realize that the arms and chest are trembling; shaking just a bit, and I push my head back so that I can see who is holding me. I look up into stormy-blue eyes framed by long blonde waves of hair.

  “Wills …?” I ask in a whisper. I can’t believe it’s him. Maybe I died and went to a new world after all. It seems an awful lot like the one I was in, except for the boy holding me so tightly to me and weeping. He’s weeping?

  “You’re crying!” I blink in wonder and lift my fingers to his face to wipe at the tears mingling with droplets of pool water. He shakes his head and I can see so much pain and misery pouring from him.

  “What is it with you trying to die at that stupid Halloween party every year?” he smarts off to me, but I can hear the earnest compassion and care in his voice, and I am dumbfounded.

  “What are you doing here?”

  He reaches a hand to my face and gently pushes my wet hair away.

  Wills searches my eyes with his for a moment before speaking. “I just couldn’t take it anymore. What Victoria did to you tonight is even more unforgiveable than her trying to get you drunk last year. Last year it was unintentional. This year … she was hell bent on destroying you. And she almost did.”

  Now I’m sure that I’m dreaming. I stare at him as he tells me the truth about what he’s really been thinking and feeling, and I never would have guessed a single word of it.

  “As soon as she sent you outside, I knew I had to do something. I’ve hated pretending all this time that I don’t like you, that I don’t miss you, and that I don’t want to be with you. It’s been so hard for me to live up to Astor’s expectations and ignore you and push you aside like you don’t matter. You do matter. You matter so much to me. You have since you sunk the boat on the lake on the first day of school last year. I knew it all along. I’m just so damn stupid and slow.”

  There are tears rolling out of his eyes, and I can see that he is bleeding out everything he has been holding back for so long. It’s so unbelievable to me, but I know that he means every single word of it, and I can feel a soft, warm glow growing inside of me as he shares so much of himself with me.

  He rolls his eyes a little as he looks up, and then back to me again. “And then you joined the swim team and it was torture for me, seeing you here so often, looking so beautiful in your suit, so close to me and so, so far away. It drove me crazy.”

  “I drive you crazy?”

  He guffaws. “You have no idea.” He takes a second and just looks down at me, his face all a mingle of strange, conflicting emotions. “And then tonight … thank god I came after you. I almost … we almost …” he’s choking something back, and though he can’t finish his sentence, I know what he means.

  I can’t do anything but stare at him as hot tears roll down my cheeks too. Everything he’s saying to me sounds like a dream, but it’s real. I know it’s real. I can feel his warm body against me, his strong arms around me, and his wet tears that I’ve swept from his face on my fingers.

  “Why in the world would you try and drown yourself?” He shakes his head as he tries to let go of all the pain he’s been carrying.

  “It was an accident,” I say, but as soon as I do … I know it’s a lie. I promised myself no more lies, so I force myself to tell the truth. “I didn’t see an end to it all,” I admit. “It all just kept going and going … getting worse … and for a moment, it just seemed like it was the only way.

  He crumbles in my arms. He pulls me close to him once more, and my cheek is against his chest.

  “Don’t ever try to do that again. I couldn’t bear it if I lost you for good. I lost you once. I’m not going to lose you again.”

  I can hear his heart race and his breath catch in him. He looks down at me and I can see that he’s the one drowning now.

  Wills touches my cheek gently with his fingertip, and then leans close and kisses me soft and slow. My lips part, and as our tongues meet, heat flows into me from him and all through me. Our kiss deepens, and I slide my arms around his neck, holding him to me.

  “I missed this so much. I missed you so much,” he tells me in a husky whisper as his mouth leaves mine and trails down my neck.

  We grow breathless and I realize that I’m laying nude in his arms. He draws his hand down my arm and his eyes drop to my bare chest, and he leans close to me, resting his forehead against mine as he speaks in a hush.

  “I wanted something romantic for you; something perfect.”

  My own breath catches, and I find I’m surprisingly sober. “I think we’re past that now,” I say, and I kiss him again. I know he feels the need in me, the willingness, the desire.

  He takes my hand and weaves his fingers through mine as he kisses me softly again. When he breaks away, he’s looking into my eyes like it’s the first time he’s ever really seen me.

  “I won’t do it if you don’t want to,” he says quietly.

  I keep my gaze fixed to him as I bring his hand to my breast. He gasps and kisses me again, and I start to peel his wet, white cotton pirate shirt off of his sculpted form.

  “Trust me,” I say. “I want to. I want … you.”

  Wills has a tender touch, slow and almost methodical. It’s like he wants to take his sweet time getting to know every inch of me, and not miss any of it in a heated rush. The more he touches me and kisses me, the hotter my blood rushes through my body until I need him so desperately that call out his name, pleading with him to be one with me, and he does.

  He makes love with me the same way he touches me; savoring every moment of it, holding me and kissing me, and with every touch he heals the deep hurts in me. It’s like a miracle, and it’s precious and perfect.

  We hold tight to each other for a long while, and when we are finally laying peacefully in each other’s arms, he traces the lines and curves on my face and looks at me seriously.

  I must be betraying some of the emotions I’m feeling, because he sits up suddenly and asks me what’s wrong.

  “Nothing,” I say, reaching to pull him back to down to me. “I just,” and here I have to look away. “I’m afraid you’re going to just forget me again. I can’t go back to the way things were.”

  He holds me even tighter and doesn’t look away.

  “I promise you, Teddy, that I’m not going anywhere ever again. I don’t care what anyone else thinks. It’s you and me, and no one is getting in the way of that again.”

  Chapter 12

  When I go back to my room much later, Dana is sitting in bed with a book, waiting for me.

  “Oh God, there you are, I was so worried!” She pauses in her tirade for a moment and her eyes move over my face. “You are okay, aren’t you?”

  I’m wearing a spare pair of sweats and a tee-shirt that Wills kept in his swim locker, but my arms and feet have scrapes on them from the earlier exposed run. I see from the way she’s looking at me that she’s more than a little curious. Dana takes my arms in her hands and looks over them carefully and then raises her eyes to meet mine again.

  “Where have you been? What happened to you?” she presses insistently.

  I know that there’s no getting out of it. Not when she’s going to see the obvious change first thing in the morning, when Wills comes to walk me to class as he promised. That sort of change isn’t going to go unnoticed—and I don’t want it to.

  “First I have to tell you that I’m sorry,” I begin as I sit on the s
ide of her bed beside her.

  She narrows her eyes a little. “Why?”

  “Because I wasn’t totally honest with you and I should have been, right from the start.” I feel a little guilty about it, but sneaking out to a party is definitely not as big a fib as pretending to be a dead girl. Perspective is important.

  “Okay. So what weren’t you honest about with me?”

  “I tried to get over the boys, I promise.”

  She’s looking more and more pensive. “There’s a ‘but’ coming, isn’t there?”

  “But … nothing worked. So, I went to Victoria’s Halloween party tonight, to try and talk to them outside of school.” I shake my head now. “Something about this school, I swear, it brings out the worst in people.”

  Dana’s eyes, now growing wide, stare at me. “Don’t try to change the subject,” she says. “And please, please tell me you didn’t actually go.”

  I grimace. “I wish I didn’t,” I say, and then I stop and add. “Well … maybe not exactly.” I go on, telling her the events of the rest of the evening. I get all the way up until I ran into Astor before she interrupts me to ask about the costume I borrowed.

  She raises her eyebrows in interest. “Was it the blue Marie Antoinette looking one?”

  I smile a little and nod. “Yeah. I thought with the mask, no one would recognize me.”

  She looks a little star struck. “I bet you looked incredible in it.”

  I sigh. “Well, I did until Victoria discovered me.”

  Dana is appropriately furious when I tell her the inevitable turn of events. She gasps at all the right moments, cries out in shock and disgust, and ultimately is left red-faced and shaking at the tale of my ultimate retreat back to the school in shame.

  “Oh my God.” I can see the fury raging in her. “Oh my poor Teddy! I’m so sorry!”

  Even as she says it, I see her eyes dropping down to the clothes I’m wearing—and she knows the story isn’t over yet. I wonder for a moment if I should tell her the whole truth of how I ended up there in that pool house, and then I decide not to. Wills has already promised me that he won’t say a word about it to anyone. I don’t want her to worry about whether or not I may or may not have tried to drown myself.

  “Then Wills came in,” and though I try to make it sound sinister and dramatic, I feel my face crack. I’m smiling, and I can’t hide it. If anything, it just makes her more confused.

  Dana is stunned. “Wills did?”

  I nod, and then I can’t keep it in any longer. I bury my face in my hands and let out a little squeal.

  “I can’t explain it. It’s over, all that bad blood between us—at least, me and Wills.”

  She’s still shell-shocked. “I don’t understand.”

  “We made up,” I say. “And please … don’t judge me. He rescued me. I can’t tell you how, but he did. And I know he’s sorry.”

  I hold my breath, waiting for her reaction. I know I’ve been through too much—put her through too much—for her to just accept it, but I don’t think I could handle it if she’s against it entirely.

  She’s hesitant, but I don’t blame her. After a long moment, she takes one of my hands.

  “Are you sure about this? I can’t see you hurt again.”

  Relief floods through me, and I grab her other hand too and squeeze them, hard. “Absolutely. I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.”

  A smile breaks across Dana’s face, and she squeezes me back. “Then … how are we going to celebrate?”

  “I don’t even care,” I say, a little breathless. “And that isn’t the whole of it.” I bite my lower lip a little bit. “Well, we more than made up …” I hint to her, and her eyes get big again.

  “Did you …” She trails off. I nod and grin.

  “Yeah, we did. It was incredible. He’s so sweet and so tender.” I blush a little in the glow of remembrance.

  “A tender jock. I never would have guessed it,” she muses thoughtfully as she smiles at me. “I’m so happy for you! Really.”

  Dana lets go of me and flops back on her bed to soak it all in. I get it. I’m just as shell-shocked as her.

  I mean, I joined swim team to try and get Wills … but I was sure it hadn’t worked.

  “Well, that’s a hell of a night for you,” she says. “I can’t fricking get Victoria. What’s wrong with her?”

  “Let’s not talk about that,” I say. It’s more than the fact that I really just want to forget all that nastiness; it’s for Dana’s benefit too. We’ve established that her crush on the cruel queen of the school can’t be helped … and as much as that bitch might deserve it, I’m not going to bad-mouth her any more than I have to in front of my best friend. “You know what they say. Kind of ‘they won the battle and you won the war’ sort of thing.”

  “And the others?” Dana asks. “How are they going to take it? I mean … you’ve finally picked one of them right? I bet they aren’t going to be happy.”

  “Well, we’ll see about that,” I say. I wouldn’t say I’ve ‘picked’ anyone … but there’s no need to try and explain that to Dana. She might be understanding, but some things are a bit much to try and explain.

  The fact that, somehow, Wills has always been a sort of package deal alongside the other two is one of those things.

  “You’re a strange one, Teddy Price,” she says, looking up at the ceiling. “I like it.”

  I don’t know how I wound up being so lucky with a friend like her. I’ll never take her for granted again.

  Breakfast beside both Dana and Wills is admittedly a little strange. When he first showed up at my door this morning, I still was hardly able to believe it. Part of me was sure I made it all up … but here he is, sitting beside me in front of the whole school, without even a tiny smidgeon of shame.

  In fact, I think he’s still pretty oblivious to the stares directed our way.

  Dana is taking it all in stride. She never really got the chance to get to know him the way I did last year, but she’s wasting no time now. I’m barely able to get a word in edgewise between her barrage of questions.

  Wills answers dutifully, and I find myself learning things even I didn’t know. He and the other boys were accepting of Dana last year, but not completely inclusive with her all the time. Now it feels like Wills genuinely wants to become friends with her too, if just for my sake.

  I’m expecting some sort of scene when the rest of the holy trinity comes in and finds us together, and it’s making it hard to stomach my eggs. Breakfast is almost over, and I’m about to chalk it up to a near miss when suddenly, there they are.

  Astor and Blair pause in the doorway to the dining hall for a moment. I know they see us, but Astor just keeps that blank look on his face and passes by to the serving line. Victoria, always at his heels, gives us a cold, hard glare that shows no remorse for her actions the night before.

  Then again, why would she? It’s all thanks to her that Wills is sitting here across from me, shoveling a mountain of egg-whites into his face.

  Wills just raises his eyebrows up at me, and goes back to eating an ungodly amount of food.

  I can’t let it go, however.

  I lean in and drop my voice. “Did you tell them already, then?”

  “Why wouldn’t I?” he asks, looking back up at me. It’s so straightforward and honest. I’m not used to it.

  “I guess—”

  I’m cut off as a pair of arms encircles me from behind, catching me completely off guard. I know the smell of him before I recognize the arms trying to embrace me.

  “Blair!” I say, my voice closer to a screech than any other acceptable human noises. I’m frozen, unmoving, as he tries to give me a good squeeze. “What are you doing?”

  His arms go rigid, and he takes a sudden awkward step away to the side so I can see him.

  His eyes shift from me to Wills, and then back to me again. “Well … things are … things have changed a bit, haven’t they? I’m just really g
lad.”

  It’s my turn to look between the boys. “And?” I ask coolly. “I still don’t get what you’re doing.”

  Blair’s grin falters as he realizes I’m not entirely thrilled to have him standing there beside me. “We don’t have to hide anymore. I thought … after Wills here … that was obvious.”

  “I don’t see anything obvious about it,” I say, wiping my face on a napkin and pushing my uneaten breakfast away from myself. I look up at Wills, and he’s looking back. “Wills is the one who stood up for me last night. I didn’t see you standing up to Victoria … or am I wrong?”

  Blair looks like he can’t register what I’m trying to say. He just stares back with a blank expression.

  “I don’t get it,” he says. “The only reason we couldn’t be together before was because of Astor and Wills. You know that.”

  I’ve been trying to keep my rage under control, but this is too much. I stand up suddenly, the chair behind me knocking over to the floor. I know I’m drawing attention to us, so I drop my voice … though that doesn’t cut out any of the venom.

  “All I ‘get’ is that you weren’t man enough to stand up to them when it mattered. Now you’ve come crawling back since you think it’s safe.”

  I can see that my words are cutting at him, and I don’t care. He’s hurt me and used me and now he’s going to hear about it. I notice that behind him, Victoria and Astor aren’t even trying to hide the fact that they’re listening in. Both of them have turned in their chairs and they’re watching us.

  I plant my hands on my hips and glare at him. Blair just stands as still as a statue.

  “Wills had the guts to stand up to Astor and Victoria, knowing what it would cost him. And now you think that you can just ride in on his tailcoats and start right back up where we left off?”