Total pages in book: 108
Estimated words: 101348 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 507(@200wpm)___ 405(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101348 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 507(@200wpm)___ 405(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
“Promise.” I nudge her pinky with mine.
I guess I’m a liar now.
6
Landon
The thumping subs at my place vibrate across the lawn, rattling the windows of Kail’s pool house like an earthquake. Piercing screams of drunken girls split my ears open and make them bleed. The after-party is in full swing, and everyone is already well past lit. I’ll have to pay the cleaning crew double tomorrow morning.
Audrey’s been blowing up my phone, demanding to know where I am. I read all her messages and ignore them because that pisses her off more than anything. Carson’s been asking where I’m at too, and I don’t know why he even cares.
I feel a hundred years old.
High school was supposed to be my chance at the life I never had. For some reason, I thought it would be more interesting than this. I wanted to know what normalcy felt like, but the constant loop of teenage problems at BMA has plunged me into ice-cold clarity. I grew up a long fucking time ago.
The parties, the pills, the booze. More noise. It’s what’s expected of me. And sometimes I wonder if coming back to Black Mountain was the dumbest thing I could have done. Even here, I can’t escape the expectations. The teachers pressuring me to apply for colleges. My teammates wondering why I don’t try harder to go pro. Am I going back to acting? What’s next? But surely you have a plan?
The truth is, I can’t find a single fuck to give about any of it. I’ve been working since I was four years old, and I’m fucking exhausted. I don’t know what I want to do with my life, but it isn’t this. The constant chatter, keeping up with the rich prick beside you. This treadmill might satiate these assholes, but it sure as hell isn’t going to be my life forever. In a matter of hours, my face will be splashed across another online tabloid, courtesy of one of my so-called friends. Someone at the party will swear they have the latest juicy gossip, and it won’t matter if it’s true or not. Not to them.
I suppose that’s how I ended up here again, back in her pool house. Touching her things. Smelling her clothes. Remembering the way she tried to hold back her emotions tonight in front of everyone after she’d been humiliated. Admittedly, I wanted a front-row seat for that show. Kail might be a liar and a fake, but her tears were real. Gavin’s were too when I pounded the hell out of his face.
I’m not going to analyze the reasons I did it. I just know when I found him lurking behind the school, trying to peel himself out of the costume, it had to be done. It wasn’t for Kail. It was because I felt like it.
I flop onto her bed and focus on the ceiling she stares at every night before she goes to sleep. Her sheets smell like her too. The fading notes of Skylar Salt Air haunt me. Sea and sky. That’s what her name means. It should come as no surprise that she’s a walking olfactory wet dream too. Why did she have to turn out to be another fucking liar?
My phone chimes again. It’s Audrey.
Psycho Parasite: WTF KILLIAN???????!!!!!!!
I reply with six middle finger emojis and toss the phone aside, closing my eyes as I bathe in my enemy’s scent. I guess it’s true what they say about forbidden fruit. Kailani is the sweetest poison. I’ll never taste her again. Not after she pieced together her own narrative after waking up at that party. She had to go and make me the villain. But I suppose we all have our own narratives of what happened that night. Mine is one of betrayal, and Carson’s is one of drunken stupidity.
Kail can spin her web of lies as long as she wants. If hating me gets her off, let her have it. My hate for her keeps me warm at night. It keeps my dick hard, and my thoughts loud. So loud, sometimes the only thing to do is give in.
I tug down the zipper of my jeans and drag my cock out. There isn’t anything to pass for lube within reach, so I wrap her sheet around my flesh, using it as a silky sleeve. Fuck, that’s soft. But Kail would be softer. Warmer. My head sinks into her pillow as I recall the way her tits threatened to spill over the edges of that dance uniform tonight. That shit should be prohibited around a bunch of hormonal fucks like me.
By the time I got back to the locker room, someone had already scribbled an ode to Kail’s tits on the wall. Someone who clearly didn’t know there would be a price on their head if I got wind of their name. I blacked out the message with a Sharpie and replaced it with a note to the artist to get fucked.