Chapter 23

Beau

Dear Beau,

I miss you. I miss your smile. I miss your laugh. I miss the way you look in a pair of jeans. I miss the wicked gleam in your eyes when you’re up to no good. I miss you. Please come home. I think about you all day and night. It’s really messing up my sleep, you know. I laid out on the roof last night and thought about all the nights we’d laid there and looked at those same stars. Back before life got all screwed up. Back before I chose the wrong Vincent boy.

Sawyer will forgive you. I think he’s realizing what he and I had wasn’t love. Not real love. He didn’t know the real me and I’ve found out I didn’t know the real him. The things I loved about him aren’t really holding up anymore. He isn’t you. He never was. But then there can only be one ridiculously sexy bad boy in town. I believe it’s a quota thing. I’m teasing. You’re not bad. You have so many good qualities. I admire you. I wish everyone saw the Beau I see. If they only knew how truly special you are. Please come home. I can’t say it enough. I miss you.

I love you,

Ashton

She misses me. I want to go back and take her away. Snatch her up and run. Facing my uncle now, knowing he’d never once even tried to have any relationship with me, wasn’t something I could do yet. I wanted Ash though. She could hide away with me. If I asked I didn’t doubt she would come. But I’d pulled her into an awful mess already. I couldn’t hurt her anymore. She had the safety of her home. Parents who loved her. She didn’t need to lose that. It was important. It was a gift. One I’d never had and I’d be damned if I ruined it for her. Instead of turning on my phone and seeing the text messages she’d sent me, I tucked the letter against my heart and closed my eyes. For now this would have to be enough. Maybe Mama would have another letter for me tomorrow. I liked knowing Ash was going to see my mother when I wasn’t there. Mama said they’d been talking. She’d decided Ashton wasn’t so bad after all. The admiration in Mama’s voice only made my chest ache more. Ashton Gray was too good for me. But I wanted her anyway. She wasn’t the selfish one. I was.

Ashton

“Don’t drop one. The damn things cost too much,” Honey called from the kitchen.

I stood drying shot glasses and beer mugs before putting them away behind the bar. I’d started coming here after school every day to bring Beau a letter and see if Honey had heard anything from him. My frequent visits had started growing lengthy—so much so that Honey had started putting me to work. I had gladly accepted. This way I could talk about Beau to someone who would listen and not have to go home to my bedroom, alone.

“Tank takes five dollars outta my pay check every time I break a glass. Knowing good and damn well those things didn’t cost no five dollars apiece,” she grumbled, walking back behind the bar from the kitchen carrying another rack of cleaned mugs and glasses.

“I’m being careful,” I assured her as I put the mug into the rack under the counter.

“Good. Now, tell me ’bout this locker business again,” Honey said as she picked up a glass and started drying along beside me.

“They’re just putting sticky notes and ugly letters on my locker, threatening me and stuff. It’s silly. Other than the time I was shoved into the locker and hit in the head I haven’t suffered any injuries.”

“And that sorry sonuvabitch ain’t stopping them from treating you this way?”

I shrugged, thinking of Sawyer watching silently from a distance.

“He’s just like his father. Don’t know why that surprises me. Ain’t gonna help none when Beau comes back. When my boy finds out Sawyer let this happen he’s gonna be spittin’ mad. I was hoping them two’d mend fences once Beau shows back up.”

“I don’t intend to tell Beau about any of this. He won’t know it happened and hopefully once he’s back it’ll have tapered off. That way he won’t have a reason to be mad at Sawyer.”

Honey snorted and slapped the bar in front of me with her towel.

“Girl, you grew up with Beau. You should know better than that. He ain’t a dummy. Besides, someone’ll tell him, and when they do, all hell’s gonna break loose.”

I sighed and picked up the empty rack in front of me to take it back to the kitchen.

“I know he’ll find out but I want them to make amends. I won’t ever forgive myself until they do.”

Honey nodded. “Yes, well, my advice to you is stay away from the boys. I know you think you love my boy but the Vincent boys are trouble. Both of ’em. They got issues you don’t know about and they need time. You’ll just go messing up their heads. Besides, they run when things get tough. Beau’s a prime example right now. Where’s he at while you’re being treated like a damn scarlet letter’s tattooed on your forehead? And Sawyer ain’t no better. He’s letting a girl take the rap for all this and not saying a word. I love my boy but he ain’t the kind of guy you plan a future with. You need to move on, girl. Find someone whose last name ain’t Vincent.”

Since I was persona non grata these days I decided it was in my best interest to bring a pack lunch and go hide in the library and eat. This way I was far enough away from Nicole and her soda to remain nice and dry. No one seemed to notice I was missing or they didn’t care.

With five minutes before the bell I stuck my empty lunch bag into my backpack and headed toward my locker. I tried to avoid going to my locker except first thing in the morning and before going home. I just carried all my books around in my book bag. The bruising on my left shoulder from my book strap was nothing compared to being shoved into a locker face first. The sticky notes hadn’t tapered off any, which was surprising. The hallway was full of people who hated me but my back was aching from the weight of the books so I had to unload some at my locker.

“The princess has fallen pretty low when she goes to hiding during lunch,” Nicole’s amused tone greeted me as I approached my locker. I slowly lifted my eyes to meet her glare. I wasn’t sure why she detested me so thoroughly. Did she not think I had paid enough already for my sin against her? She stood directly between me and my locker. Stepping around her would be stupid. Instead, I waited for her to say whatever it was she had come to say.

“How does it feel to be pond scum, hmm?”

I had to bite my tongue to keep from replying that I wouldn’t know as I wasn’t her. In a fight she would bash my face in. Besides, I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of seeing her words affect me.

“Don’t ignore me,” she sneered, taking a step toward me. I stilled myself. The pure hatred flashing in her eyes was a warning to tread carefully.

“I just want to get to my locker and then I’ll go. I’m not trying to cause trouble.”

Nicole cackled like some deranged witch. “You already caused trouble, bitch.” She reached up and yanked on a strand of my hair, causing tears to sting my eyes from the sudden pain. “You think you’re so pretty and perfect that you can just take whatever you want. Well, I got news for you, chick—you can’t take what’s mine.”

Nicole closed the space between us and in one swift move sent me flying backwards onto my butt with a shove to my chest. Great. I was going to get into a fight in the school hallway and I hadn’t even done anything. Just what I needed. My parents would be furious if I got suspended. Standing up seemed pointless. I kept my head down and waited on something else to happen. It didn’t take long. My book bag was yanked off my shoulders and books came pouring down on my head. I cringed and let out a strangled cry as my head was battered by the heavy text books I’d been forced to carry around all day.

“That’s enough. Move.” Sawyer’s voice silenced the laughter and chatter filling the hallway. “Leave her alone, Nicole. Your beef is with Beau. Not Ashton. I don’t want to see you touch her again. That goes for all of you. Back off. No one here knows what happened and it’s no one’s business. Stop acting like a bunch of jerks and leave her alone.”

Feet shuffled all around me and laughter had turned into hushed whispers as the crowd did exactly as Sawyer had ordered. The reigning prince had spoken. It’d taken him a week but he’d finally ended this. His hand appeared in front of my face and I stared at it a moment before ignoring it and standing up on my own. I didn’t make eye contact with him nor did I thank him. His interference was way past due so my gratitude was expired. I began picking up my scattered books.

“Are you going to at least acknowledge me?” Sawyer asked as he picked up my book bag. I shrugged and barely glanced up at him before shoving my books into the bag he held open.

“You brought this on yourself, you know.”

That was the last straw. I’d been a punching bag for five days too long. I snatched my book bag out of his hands and glared up into those blue eyes I’d once thought were so beautiful. Now they seemed pale and boring.

“No one deserves what I’ve been put through. I might have deserved your anger but I didn’t deserve the entire school’s anger. I did nothing to them. So forgive me if I don’t see where I brought a week’s worth of relentless bullying on myself.”

I spun around and started heading for the door. I was done for the day.

“Ashton, wait.” Sawyer jogged up behind me and reached for my arm. “Please wait. Listen.”

“What?” I snapped, not wanting my escape botched.

“I have something I need to say. Just listen, please.”

I nodded but kept my gaze focused on the doors I so desperately wanted to flee out of.

“I’ve been wrong. Letting them do those things to you all week and saying nothing was horrible. I’m sorry. I really am. In my defense I’m hurting, Ash. I didn’t just lose you, I lost my best friend too. My cousin . . . my brother. Everything came tumbling down at once and I couldn’t deal. I told myself you deserved it that you could fight your own battles. I guess I kept waiting to see the little fireball emerge I remembered from when we were kids. If I could see her then I’d understand more why you turned to Beau. But you kept reacting the way my Ash would react. You never fought back or retaliated. You just took it. And God, that hurt so bad. They were hurting you. The girl I’ve loved all my life. I wanted to jump in and protect you but the image of Beau touching your lips and you gazing at him like you wanted to eat him up flashed in my head and I became furious all over again.”

He let out a sigh and his grip on my arm fell away.

“I love you. I know the real you, too. You think I don’t but how easily you forget I was the one who bailed you out of trouble over and over again as kids. I didn’t ask the perfect Ashton to be my girlfriend when I was fourteen years old. I asked the only Ash I’d ever known. You changed all on your own. I’m not going to lie. I was proud of the girl you had become. My world was complete. I had the perfect family, perfect girl, perfect future. I let myself forget the other girl you once were. Beau didn’t forget her.”

I swallowed against the lump in my throat. This was the conversation we should have had as soon as Sawyer came home this summer. Instead, I’d run from the truth.

“I never wanted to hurt you,” I replied as I stared down at my tennis shoes.

“But you did.”