“I know. I’m being selfish. I don’t want to sleep without you.”
“To be fair, we don’t sleep much.” I’m rewarded with his laugh and a playful pinch on my ass. My stomach turns to butterflies.
“Shower. Pack. Let me work this out. We leave in thirty.” Then he presses a soft kiss near my ear and whispers, “Say yes.”
“Yes.” I hop off the bed and rush into the bathroom, closing the door behind me.It is mine.
***
He worked everything out perfectly. I shouldn’t get used to him handling the details of my life for me, but I like it. And it calms me in a way I’d never felt before.Depending on people just sets you up to crash harder if they ever stop.I push that thought from my mind and reach for his hand across the center console of the Jeep. I showered, got ready and packed in twenty-seven minutes. The only reason I think it worked is because Luke Ashley already planned to send his private jet to fly Julian to Southern California for their planning meetings. Money really does make everything easier. Julian would have two full days of meetings, then the last two would be spent filming content, providing they reach a fair agreement.
“You can spend the meeting days exploring and the content days filming with me. If you want . . .”
I’m not so sure about being in the content videos, but I can’t wait to explore LA. I’m also insatiably curious about Luke Ashley. He’s seemingly captivated the two people closest to me, and I need to see why.
What I know so far is that Ashley created ASH (Ashley Strength & Health) and took it to household status, especially in Southern California. With a string of fitness centers, a merch line and a viral YouTube channel of his own, he knows exactly what it takes to be successful in that arena. Allie met him when she attended his three-week training in the spring, and they’d been inseparable ever since. He’s theone who told her the Fit promo videos went viral. He offered to help Allie and Julian capitalize on it. That none of us knew they gained that kind of attention is another story. Sylvie ran the Fit website. She offered to because that had been her profession before getting divorced negated her need to work, so she offered to oversee Fit’s website for a discounted membership, which Allie happily agreed to. Neither she nor Julian liked navigating social media but knew it helped to have it. Sylvie had to know the videos blew up, had to be the one getting paid. Granted, I don’t understand the nuances of social media, influencing and virality, but I know someone gets paid when content gains that level of hype. Hopefully Ashley will show Julian and Allie how to take back control, especially Julian. It’s his image in the videos.
Julian hasn’t confronted Sylvie about the videos yet, if he even plans to. Ashley and Allie advised him to wait until after their discovery and planning meetings. At the very least, going forward she would have to credit him in them. Without a social media presence, there was no one to tag originally. If all went well, after this week there would be. I say well, but the idea of social media constricts my throat and gnaws at my chest. Without realizing it, I take a deep breath, hold it while I count to four and exhale. Julian clasps my hand in his and brings the back of it to his lips. We’re now seated in Ashley’s private jet, cleared for takeoff. I think he assumes I’m nervous about the flight, and I don’t clarify. I don’t want to think about my past experience with social media. The present gives me enough to dwell on.
Sometimes I wish my life began the day I met him. Realistically I wouldn’t give back any of the shitty times because there is good that I wouldn’t trade. Like my sister, Via. Even my mom and dad. They weren’t around like some other parents were, but we never doubtedthey loved us. And we didn’t know the difference. But the town I grew up in my whole life held no sentiment for me anymore. Not my house, not my schools or myfriends. Just Via. My dad died while deployed. My mom almost never came home anymore due to her VIP flight attendant job and preferred it that way. Except for Via, who still lived in our old house with her fiancé, I could erase Oak Valley from my memory and never look back or miss it. Looking back makes my breathing shallow, my skin tingle and my vision go dark around the edges.
Chapter 4
Everly
Seven Months Ago
DO THE PLANET A FAVOR AND LEAVE IT. WE’VE GOT ENOUGH SLUTS, FAKE FRIENDS AND HOMEWRECKERS ALREADY. BYYEEE @its.everly.davis And if you’re just joining us, beware: this bitch will try to steal your man!
The post included my yearbook picture with devil horns added to it, demon eyes in place of mine and flames in the background. It hadn’t gone viral by internet standards, but everyone in my school, town and pretty much everyone I’d ever met had seen it. I slam my laptop closed and shove it into my backpack. I swallow the lump in my throat and blink back the tears. Fuck them and fuck this place. I stand up from the tree I found to sit under at lunch—alone because that’s my new MO. I dust off my jean shorts and head to the parking lot. I don’t care if I get cooked for cutting class. I’m not going back inthere today.
As soon as my car comes into view in the student lot, I notice the dangling side mirror first. The flat tires next. The two I can see are completely deflated. Walking closer, I can’t stop the tears or the heaving breaths when I see the word slut carved into the hood and the deep scratches in the sides that stretch from bumper to bumper. I decide right then that I’m leaving. The school for sure. The town, probably. The planet? Not even a little bit. Fuck these small-town bullies. My mind is brave, but I’m just tired. I turn around and aim straight for my locker. I’m taking all my shit and never coming back.
Hopefully the damage to my car is repairable. I call for the roadside assistance my mom insisted both Via and I have in case we get stranded and request a tow to my house, which would also get me a ride there. I take it as a sign of good karma that I’m not, in fact, the devil the bullies claim I am when the tow truck driver shows up within twenty minutes and I can get the fuck out of there before classes let out. Besides my brief encounter with Dr. Franklin, he’s the only other person I’ve run into. Thankfully. It’s just me and him in the parking lot while he hooks up my car and hauls us both home. I can tell he wants to ask me about the vandalism, but I do my best impression of the doctored yearbook photo and give just enough super bitch energy that he doesn’t.
When he pulls up to my house, I ask him to back my car into an area on the side of the garage designed for RV parking and hidden behind a wooden gate. I sign the receipt, and he leaves. I stand in the front yard staring at the closed gate that hides my car and the evidence of the nightmare I’ve been living since the night of Kendall and Chase’s party. Or more accurately, the morning after.
As I look up the slant of the driveway at the house I grew up in, the only home I’ve ever known, I’m resolved. It doesn’t feel like my homeanymore. If I let myself dwell on it too much, it will break me. I don’t have a home. I’m barely eighteen years old and I don’t have a home. I give myself a minute, then square my shoulders and take a deep breath and tuck the sorrow and anger away the way I saw my dad do when I was young. Military training taught him how to compartmentalize, although I didn’t know that’s what it was called back then. But I observed the restraint it took for him to exist in civilian life. I assumed it’s why he preferred to be deployed, off fighting for some cause to being here witha bunch of privileged people who don’t recognize the price of their freedom.
My back pocket buzzed with a text from Via.
Saw the post. Checked your location. OMW.
Her text has pressure building behind my eyes again. This time I let the tears fall unchecked and walk up the front path into the house. Ten minutes later, Via finds me face down on my bed, no longer crying, but the evidence is unmistakable. I feel her weight dip the edge of my mattress.
“I called Allie.”
I roll over and sit up, dragging my fists down my cheeks. “What’d she say?” I don’t ask her why. I know why. We’re out of options. If she hadn’t done it, I would’ve.
“She’s excited to see you,” Via says, sans emotion. We both learned it from our dad. My mom’s MO is the opposite. She overhypes everything. Different execution of the same tactic. Squash it. Tuck it. Ignore it.
“I’m fucking up my plan. Senior year. College. Everything.”
“This is bullshit, Evvie. I know you didn’t do what they’re saying. Ryan knows it too. He even argued with Chase about it, but he won’tgive me any details. He just said he didn’t realize what a pussy his best friend is.” She turns her head to look me in the eyes, and I see hers shimmering with unshed tears. Her knuckles turn white as she clenches the edge of the mattress. She’s pissed, not sad.
That creates a warm glow in my chest. My eyes well up too.
Knowing Via is on my side, believes me, and Ryan too, is all I care about. Not really, but they are the most important. I don’t want to care that basically the whole town thinks I’m a slut. But I do. The bigger part is that all this has derailed years of planning. I have no idea what I’ll do with my future now. Not that I’ve decided on a college or a major yet. I just knew I was going and I couldn’t wait to get there. Now, I don’t even know what the rest of senior year looks like, much less college. “It is what it is. I’m not going to stay here and take it anymore. I can’t.”
