NOT SO Innocent (Bay Falls High Book 4) Read online

  NOT SO Innocent

  a bay falls high novel

  Jaxson Kidman

  Contents

  Welcome to

  NOT SO Innocent

  prologue

  one

  two

  three

  four

  five

  six

  seven

  eight

  nine

  ten

  eleven

  twelve

  thirteen

  fourteen

  fifteen

  sixteen

  seventeen

  eighteen

  nineteen

  twenty

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  More from Jaxson

  Welcome to

  He lowered his lips down to my ear. “What I see, I can’t whisper, from the window, the stars, I can’t reach. They dance in silence, when they collide, we all know, but I’m left here, alone, just trying to whisper. Once.”

  My knees buckled.

  He studied the fucking page in the notebook for ten seconds and memorized what I wrote?

  “See you tonight, doll,” he whispered.

  Written by Jaxson Kidman

  NOT SO Innocent

  First they choose you.

  Then they use you.

  Next they lose you...

  My name is Belle.

  But I'm not beautiful.

  I'm the b*tch.

  I'm the beast.

  And nothing gets to me.

  Except "Them" ...

  That's what they are.

  Them.

  They're not that other place with the fancy and cool bad boy name.

  Here, it's Them.

  I may have met my match with Them.

  But so have they.

  Now it's my turn...

  I'm going to choose Them.

  I'm going to use Them.

  And I'm going to lose Them.

  And they will never forget me.

  prologue

  (everything I know…)

  what you said,

  what did you mean?

  what you showed me,

  was it to be seen?

  how the fuck am I,

  supposed to escape you…

  when’s there’s more than one that I want?

  Make sure you know everything before you make this fucking stupid choice.

  Like I needed to be told it was a fucking stupid choice.

  No shit, bitch.

  I rolled my eyes and took a pause behind the wheel of a car that was worth more than anything in my life. And I mean anything I had ever seen, owned, lived in, touched, tasted… all added together.

  I still wasn’t used to any of it.

  There was no use in crying about it though.

  I was now some rich bitch princess and there wasn’t much I could do about it.

  My new reputation was something else too.

  I took a deep breath and sat in the blood red glow of the lights inside the car as I reached across the seat for a cigarette.

  It was such a bitchy thing to do.

  To smoke inside a car like this.

  Oh well.

  I cracked the window an inch or two and smoked.

  Everything that was wrong with it made me want it even more.

  Just. Like. Them.

  What I knew drove me crazy.

  What I didn’t know drove me insane.

  Trust me, bitch, there’s a difference.

  I wasn’t even sure if I enjoyed the cigarette because my head and heart jumped to the dashboard and played a game of hopscotch.

  Remember those days, B? Listening to stupid teachers talk about stupid stuff, counting down the minutes until recess. Running through the door, screaming, knowing you only had a little bit of time to do everything. The monkey bars. The jungle gym. The slide that made everything staticky and then touching the metal handles of the steps and getting zapped. Running to the stupid basketball hoops where the stupid boys played and playing hopscotch until you needed a drink of water.

  I let out a long sigh that tasted like a sense of nostalgia that I was supposed to be too damn young to feel.

  But there it was, with my heart and head…

  I put the window down the rest of the way and flicked my cigarette to the road. It jumped three times and then stopped, smoke dancing up into the air.

  If I was going to do this shit, then it was now or never.

  My lies were told.

  They were spread thick where needed and thin where needed too.

  The words… they just…

  Please, B, please. You have to know… ah, fuck, okay. Listen to me. I have a plan. But you have to do it. Not me. Okay?

  “Okay,” I said.

  I rolled up the window and peeled out onto the road.

  I grinned at the sudden speed of the car.

  It was a dark bitch just like me.

  I pulled into the parking lot and had to be very careful of the cameras.

  On top of that, I made sure to have a hoodie with me.

  It wasn’t my hoodie.

  It certainly wasn’t my size either.

  It was something like a decoy, but whatever.

  Either this worked or it didn’t.

  There was no turning back.

  Not when I left the car and took the baseball bat that also wasn’t mine.

  They certainly love their baseball team, huh?

  I snorted under my breath as I ran toward the building.

  I knew right where I needed to be.

  And I knew what I needed to do.

  I stretched my neck and lifted the bat into the night’s sky.

  “Batter up, motherfucker,” I whispered.

  I swung the bat against the window.

  one

  “You totally made out with Anthony last night.”

  “I did not.”

  “Yes. You. Did. You were tongue fucking him and you know it.”

  “Shut the fuck up.”

  “I’m not going to shut the fuck up. It’s the truth. Own it. Why’s it a big deal? Oh, wait, did he tell you he needs to sneak around? Because of Allie? Seriously? They aren’t technically dating.”

  “I don’t do technically.”

  I finally chimed in. “Technically… you do.”

  “Burn,” Taylor said with a laugh.

  She reached across Grace’s chest to offer me a high five.

  Grace knocked her hand away. “Well, whatever. It’s fun for me.”

  “Fun?” Taylor asked. “Sneaking around like a slut.”

  “You should talk,” Grace said. “You and your math tutor… your grades are supposed to go up, not down.”

  “I don’t care as the grades are the only thing going down,” I said.

  “Oh… shiiiiit,” Grace said.

  “You’re a bitch,” Taylor said to me. “Plus, she can say all she wants. Until she actually experiences it… please.”

  They both looked at me. My face turned red. Bright red. Like it always did when they talked about that stuff.

  But the truth was…

  “Leave her alone,” Grace said. “It’s cool that she’s all intact.”

  “Yeah, thanks for that,” I said.

  There was silence for ten seconds.

  Because I counted the seconds.

  Sarah was waiting for us across the street, leaning against a bank that wasn’t open yet.

  Smoking a cigarette.

  Thankfuckinggod.

  I took the lead and hurried toward her.

  I probably looked like some addict looking for their next high. />
  Which was kind of what it was…

  Sarah gave me a cigarette and I lit it up.

  Another stupid petty thing about myself that was made up… me convincing myself that my mother didn’t know I smoked.

  She knew.

  She knew back when I was fifteen and she caught me and grounded me.

  And now I was able to smoke freely, labeled as an adult, even though I still had to finish up my last year of class to then be sent into the real world. Or college. But for me, it would be the real world.

  “What did I miss?” Sarah asked.

  “Dirty Grace over here,” Taylor said with a head nod.

  “Oh, I like it. What’s the story?”

  “Kissing a taken man,” I said.

  “He’s not taken!” Grace yelled.

  “Oh, is this the story of you and Anthony again? You’re still sneaking around?”

  “Still?” Taylor asked.

  “Drama,” I whispered.

  “You like the thrill of it,” Sarah said to Grace. “It’s cool. And if Allie gets wind of it, she’ll probably cry. She doesn’t throw punches.”

  “If she cries, she can take the tissues out of her bra,” Grace said.

  “Wow,” I said.

  “Not a lie either,” Grace said. “Anthony told me it was true.”

  “Whoa, wait a second,” Taylor said. “Meeting up with Anthony to suck face is one thing…”

  “What else did you suck?” Sarah asked.

  Grace rolled her eyes.

  “I have a point to make here,” Taylor said.

  Grace put her hands up and stepped away. “Give the girl some space to rip me apart some more.”

  “Thank you,” Taylor said. “Now… it’s one thing to meet up with Anthony and play where did my finger disappear to? … but it’s a whole other thing to talk about his girlfriend while you’re doing it.”

  “That’s it?” Sarah asked.

  “Yeah,” Taylor said.

  “First off, he doesn’t have a girlfriend,” Grace said. “And we didn’t talk about Allie. He made a few comments a few times.”

  “To smooth you over,” I said.

  “Like you’ve been smooth anywhere,” Grace said.

  “I’d rather be a virgin than have a flashing neon red OPEN sign between my legs,” Sarah said.

  “It only flashes red one week a month,” Taylor said.

  “Wouldn’t it flash CLOSED?” Sarah asked.

  “Depends on how crazy Grace is,” Taylor said.

  “Grace is right here hearing this!” Grace yelled.

  They all laughed.

  I forced myself to join in.

  Sarah nudged her elbow at me and winked.

  We finally made our way to the set of cracked concrete steps and Sarah and I had to slink back and ditch our cigarettes in the giant bushes out front.

  Taylor and Grace kept walking, giving us the peace sign, calling us bitches.

  Sarah did the same until their backs faced us and then she exchanged the peace sign for a middle finger.

  “I hate them sometimes,” Sarah said. “Half the time I don’t believe a word they say.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said. “They’re neighbors to me. It’s someone to talk to on my walk.”

  “Whatever,” Sarah said. “Ready to hit the prison?”

  “Parole is coming soon,” I said.

  We laughed and walked into the building.

  It was far from prison, obviously, but some parts were just… blah.

  I walked the same path I had walked day after day. So much so that I didn’t need to look where to go. So much so it was like I lost track of myself and time. There were mornings when I could get to my locker, open it, and walk to class and not realize it. The only time that didn’t happen was when I bumped into Grayson.

  Gray.

  But that was just recent.

  Well, that and today.

  “Holy shit,” Sarah said, breaking me out of my post cigarette, early morning trance.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “Uh… shit. Your locker…”

  I turned my head.

  Then my entire body turned.

  And I began to step backwards.

  Until my back hit the wall.

  I covered my mouth.

  I felt my face burning red hot.

  I felt everyone staring.

  Stopping and staring.

  Then came the applause.

  Then came the chatter.

  I looked at Sarah and she had an eek face going that made everything twice as worse.

  On my locker was bright red V.

  I heard whispers.

  Finally.

  About time for her.

  You realize how old she is, right?

  I could never wait that long…

  “Hey, Belle, it’s okay,” Sarah said. “Let’s get out of here.”

  She slipped an arm around me.

  I felt nothing.

  But I saw everything.

  Grayson appeared, casually walking by my locker.

  He reached with his left pointer finger and swiped across the red paint of the V.

  He then showed me his finger and winked.

  He was the one who…

  I covered my mouth. “I’m going to be sick.”

  “I’m here with you,” Sarah whispered. “But you have to tell me what the hell happened…”

  Grayson walked away whistling.

  Showing himself as the guy he swore he’d never be.

  And I was stupid enough to fall for it.

  So he could get what he wanted.

  But the worst part?

  That wasn’t the craziest part of my day.

  two

  They want to talk.

  That was my cue to get the hell out of there.

  I didn’t want to talk to anyone.

  Because the questions they asked… there were no real answers. And there were no real actions. The screws would be twisted deeper and tighter. And it would end up being my fault. Or they’d end up calling my mother, which would only set off another chain reaction of hell right at home, which I did not need at all.

  Somewhere in my brain there was a mental countdown.

  Sarah and I had joked about getting an apartment together. Living where we did, it wasn’t all that expensive. If we both pulled off some extra hours at a couple part-time jobs, we could do it. But Sarah had been casually hinting about getting out of town after graduation.

  Which she needed to do.

  Which we all needed to do.

  There was no reason to talk about the painted red V on my locker. Everyone who saw it, knew what it meant. And the fact that Grayson did it… all things considered… just proved that everyone in some kind of fucked up way was worried about what kind of business was being conducted between my legs.

  That in itself made me feel gross and that’s why I had to get out of there.

  I knew Sarah wasn’t going to let me go easily.

  She was right on my tail - or my ass - and she slipped her hand into mine.

  “Come with me,” she said.

  She started to jog and I had to follow.

  I hated to jog. I hated to run. When it came to being forced into running the mile, I would walk. Anyone who dared to question me would get a lecture about the discarding of the lining of the uterus, which included tissue and blood… also known as Shark Week.

  That always shut them up.

  Sarah took me to the other side of what used to be the swimming pool. A time when the town had money and the pool had water. Now it was empty, stained, and there were enough scary stories about what happened there going around for all of October. Which happened every year.

  Without a word, Sarah gave me a cigarette.

  “Thank you,” I said. “I left mine at home. It was a morning…”

  “Seems that way,” she said.

  “Just my mother and Joff.”

  “Joff,”
Sarah said. “Are you positive it’s not supposed to be Jeff?”

  “Maybe, but he says it’s Joff,” I said. “He even writes it with an o.”

  “Maybe his handwriting is sloppy…”

  “Does it really matter?”

  Sarah shrugged her shoulders. “Your step daddy is named Joff.”

  “Save that,” I said. “He is not my stepfather. You know how my mother is with guys. It’s… whatever. I need to go home. They should be gone by now. I just need the day.”

  “I’ll come with you,” Sarah said. “We’ll order food on my credit card and then watch something dirty so your mother gets pissed when the cable bill comes.”

  I laughed. “No more cable, Sarah. Or internet.”

  “Shit. Really?”

  “No money, no ‘net,” I said with a snort.

  “Oh well. We’ll still have fun.”

  “Sarah, you’re not coming with me.”

  “Why not?”

  “You can’t skip,” I said. “You’re on your last strike. And it’s serious. You spent all that time with Glen.”

  “Glen,” Sarah said. “The name should have been warning enough.”

  “Point is… I’m fine. I just want to go home and be alone. I need a second to get mad at myself over Gray. How I could have been so stupid to fall for that charm.”

  “If he painted that on your locker, then he’s a bigger fuckhead than I ever thought,” Sarah said. “And I will find a way to make his life a living hell.”

  “Let him have his moment.”

  “I know what he wrote is…”

  A ding! ding! sound echoed and I nodded. “You have to go.”

  “Are you sure about this?”