Secret Bay High Secrets (Secret Bay High #2) Read online

  We headed for Abby’s room, and I felt a sense of relief when she closed the door. There was something about shutting out the rest of the world that just felt good, even if her parents weren’t home or were in another part of the house.

  Abby had been the one person in my life who had kept me sane over the past couple weeks, and I still relied heavily on her support. Even though Susan had started me in counseling, I didn’t feel the same sense of connection when I spoke with the therapist as I did when I talked to my best friend.

  She might be helping me get through the tough time rationally, but I wanted the emotional connection I had with Abby.

  “I saw you and Molly in the hallway earlier,” she said as I sat on her bed. “I was hoping she’d have the brains to leave you alone.”

  “It was more of an icy standoff than anything,” I said with a shrug. “I’m sure she doesn’t want to get punched in the face again.”

  “Not that she doesn’t deserve it,” Abby said with a grin. “I’m sure you aren’t the only girl in school who’s wanted to do that.”

  “I just wish the rumors would stop,” I sighed. I was glad that I stood up to Molly, too, but that seemed so small and insignificant now. With the entire school talking about the fact I had nearly killed myself in sixth grade, I felt like it was the only thing that defined my life.

  It didn’t matter if Damon wanted to help me through it or not. The fact that it was a thing at all really upset me, and I just wanted it all to go away.

  “They will,” Abby tried to assure me. “You know how it is in high school. Everyone talks about something like it’s the greatest news ever, but it flickers and burns out quickly.”

  I nodded. “But when they’re talking about something that happened to you in middle school – something they weren’t there for or part of, it makes me feel like I’m nothing, you know?”

  “They just need someone to talk about is all. Once someone else does something or something else comes up, that’s going to be all anyone talks about until we are all so sick of hearing about that we want to die,” Abby laughed, and while I smiled, it was hard for me to join in.

  Since they were talking about my attempted suicide, talking about wanting to die hit a little close to home, even if she was using it as an exaggerated example. I didn’t like being the talk of the school. I had dealt with so much before, it made me feel uncomfortable to think about what people were saying, or what was going on inside their heads.

  The fact that kids I’d never even spoken to were avoiding me in the bathroom and in the cafeteria made me feel like I was some sort of freak. Like they were afraid to talk to me out of fear I might go crazy on them or something.

  Of course, I wouldn’t. I was a perfectly sane individual, and I tried to keep to myself as much as possible, but whoever was spreading this rumor about me clearly had the rest of the school afraid of me, and I didn’t like it. I had a feeling it was tied to Molly in some way, but I didn’t know how she would have managed to get a note in my locker.

  I didn’t tell anyone the combination to my lock, not even Damon. I was the only one who would know about it, I had no doubt in my mind about that. But yet, there it was.

  And I still wanted to know what secret this person was referring to. Not just mine, but Damon’s? What did he have to do with it? They had tied us both together in the same note, making me think that they had to consider our secret shared in some way, but I still couldn’t figure out what it possibly could mean.

  “You told me awhile back that you were counting down the days until graduation,” Abby said, cutting into my thoughts. “Just focus on that. Then you can move on with your life and forget about all these people. You’ll never have to see any of them again if you don’t want to.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “But with everyone talking about my past, and with me and Damon living together, it doesn’t seem like I’m ever going to get out of the sixth grade. I mean, I thought Damon was someone I’d never see again, and he ended up being the person I gave my v-card to.”

  “Yeah,” Abby said. “But that’s not that big of a deal if you really think about it. I mean, Peter and I aren’t each other’s first, and that doesn’t matter.”

  “But you and Peter were clearly meant to be together,” I argued. “You get along so well, you act so natural. It’s not forced. There’s not that history that’s always haunting you.”

  “Well,” Abby let her voice hang in the air, and I gave her a look. “Things aren’t great between me and Peter. I mean, they’ve sort of gotten weird.”

  I gave her another look, this time more questioning than anything. Though it had only been a few weeks, the two of them were practically joined at the hip. This was the first time in a long time I’d been able to hang out with Abby without him about to come over or just leaving, in fact.

  He had become such a constant in the house, I had come to accept he was going to know a lot of my secrets as well, even secrets I didn’t want to share with anyone but my best friend.

  “What do you mean?” I asked. I didn’t want to pry, but knowing that her romantic relationship might not be all that it was made out to be was intriguing.

  Then again, she hadn’t really said that it was going anywhere, just that the two of them got along really well. It could have been a whirlwind romance, but it still seemed strange to me that it would only last a couple weeks. Peter really seemed to be into her, just as much as Damon was into me.

  And I had broken up with Damon, but he still wasn’t giving up.

  But, Abby just shook her head, clearly not wanting to get into the details of what was going on. I wanted to press, but I knew how it felt to not want to open up about something private, so I let it go.

  “Well, I’m sure the two of you are going to work things out,” I said with a shrug, trying to minimize the fact I was so curious about what was going on.

  “Maybe, maybe not,” she said with another shrug. “I mean, you never can tell what’s going on behind closed doors, and not everyone’s lives are what they seem to be on the outside.”

  I gave her another questioning look, but once again I had the feeling asking about it wasn’t going to get me anywhere. I didn’t understand what she meant. Abby’s life seemed perfect. She had her parents, the perfect room, so many things that I couldn’t imagine owning myself, and the looks.

  Wealth and beauty and two parents in her life – to me, it seemed almost as though she didn’t know how well she really had it. But, there was something off about Abby. I could feel it in her tone. Maybe she was bothered by what was going on with Peter, maybe there was something else going on she didn’t want to share.

  I’d told her nearly all of my deep dark secrets, so there was a part of me that was a little annoyed she didn’t just open up to me in the same way, but at the same time, Abby wasn’t me.

  She might want more privacy in her life than I had in mine.

  Shoot, after all I had been through – after learning my secrets were shared with the entire world – I knew there wasn’t much left to hide. So, why not share it with someone I knew actually cared about me?

  When I was talking to Abby, I didn’t feel like she judged me, or like I was any sort of spectacle in her life. I felt more like she was someone I could confide in, someone I could be open with and the advice she would offer would be what she genuinely thought would help.

  She didn’t want to fix me like my therapist. She didn’t want to tell me what she thought was right and wrong based on her own bias like Susan, and she didn’t want to just gossip about me like the rest of the kids at school.

  She was someone I could really be myself around.

  But, she was also private, and she didn’t share with me as much as I shared with her. She didn’t tell me everything. I had to accept that.

  “Well, if there’s ever anything you want to talk about, you know I’m here,” I told her.

  “Thanks,” she said with a smile. “You’ve got so much going on already, I
don’t need to dump my drama on you, too.”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “Really.”

  “I’ll keep it in mind,” she gave me another smile, but then nodded toward the tv. “Want to watch something on Netflix? I hear they’ve put on a lot of new stuff since the last time we hung out.”

  I was jealous of the fact Abby had a tv in her room, but I was glad for the relief from the intensity of our conversation. For as close as we were, I could sense when there were times things were a little tense.

  Putting on the tv would at least ease some of that and give us something else to focus on instead of the drama that was unfolding in both of our lives. But, that didn’t change the curiosity I felt when I thought about what could be going on between her and Peter and what she meant when she said things weren’t always as they seemed.

  My standoff with Molly had been so public, and now the deep, dark secrets that I carried around with me for years were common knowledge. For as torturous as it was, and as many times as I wanted to die because of it, the knowledge I might not be the only person going through a tough time made me feel a little better.

  After all, everyone now knew how messed up I was. They knew the bad stuff I’d gone through, and what I’d try to do to myself because of it. They might think I was crazy, they might feel sorry for me, but regardless of their reaction, the bottom line was that they knew.

  I was the girl whose parents were murdered. I was the girl who had been bullied in middle school. I was the girl who had tried to commit suicide. I was the girl who had punched Molly in the face and had been suspended for two weeks because of it.

  Shoot, I was the girl the whole school had seen naked in all those photos Molly hung in the halls. No matter what the hot gossip of the day was, more than likely I was the girl in the story. There was no denying it, even if I wanted to bury my head in the sand and pretend that it wasn’t a big deal.

  The facts were the facts. They knew practically everything about me.

  But what was Abby hiding?

  Chapter 3

  Sutton

  I flipped through the algebra book, trying to focus on the lesson rather than how hot Damon looked sitting in the chair near me. All day, I’d been thinking about the conversation I’d had with Abby the night before, and I couldn’t shake what she’d said from my brain.

  Though I knew everyone had their problems, the fact she was admitting things were getting weird between her and Peter was somehow comforting. As was the fact I knew that the two of them were still hanging out, at least a little.

  They sat together at lunch in school, and I saw them leaving school together. So, whatever it was, I knew she was still seeing him at least to an extent.

  And that made me wonder what I was doing with Damon.

  It was hard for me to be at home and avoid him, but it was even harder for me to not think about him, too. Despite what he did to me in the sixth grade, there was no denying the fact that I had fallen for him, and, though I’d expressed uncertainty about that decision to Abby, the fact of the matter was that I had no regrets.

  I was glad that I’d given him my virginity, and I had fallen for him. Even if we couldn’t be together, the feelings were there, and nothing was going to change that.

  It didn’t help that he was doing his best to be there for me through the crap I was dealing with at school now, as well as the fact that I had to still tutor him. Sure, he had tried to use it as an excuse to have sex with me again the last time he asked for my help, but, this time, there was no denying that he really did need it.

  The report cards had been handed out, and while there was some improvement in his grade compared to last time, he still needed to bring it up further and that meant that I had to be the one to step in and help him.

  After all, there was no real reason for me to decline, except for the fact I didn’t trust myself around him.

  That lack of trust was becoming all the more evident as the two of us sat alone in his room. Alone in the house, really. Susan wasn’t there, and I wasn’t sure when she would be back.

  The perfect chance for us to take advantage of the being together unsupervised – a chance Damon was more than happy to take.

  “So, we haven’t really talked about it for a while, but are you doing okay?” he asked.

  “What do you mean?” I replied rather shortly.

  He gave me a look. “You know, with everything?”

  “How do you think I’m doing?” I snapped. I knew it was rude for me to be so short with him, but he also knew that I blamed him for much of what was going on. Though I’d never been in the popular crowd, it wasn’t until he had done what he did to me in middle school that I was actively bullied.

  Until then, it had been just me and Molly, a couple of rather chubby girls who spent our time together on the outside looking in. That was before, of course. Before she had lost weight and got hot. Before I had developed into the beautiful young woman I am today.

  “You know I’m just trying to help,” he said with a sigh. He got up off the chair and walked over to me, sitting down on the bed next to me and putting his hand on my thigh. “I care about you, Sutton. I’m sorry for all the stuff you’re going through, and I’m doing my best to put an end to it.”

  “I don’t even know what you think you can do,” I said with a shrug. “They’re all talking about what happened, and there’s no taking that back.”

  “But, you don’t really have to sit back and take it, either,” he said. I thought about how he rearranged my sentence, but he continued. “Just like I told you with Molly. You don’t have to put up with it.”

  “I can’t go around punching everyone who talks about me,” I shook my head.

  “You don’t have to let it bother you, either,” he said. I gave him a look and he raised his hands defensively. “Of course it’s going to, but you know what I mean.”

  “I know that no one cares about me,” I said. “They just want to talk about what I’m going to do next. What I did. You know.”

  He ran his hand up my thigh then moved it to the small of my back before sliding closer to me on the bed. Taking his other hand, Damon turned my face to look into his. “I care about you.”

  The words hung in the air. I felt a lump form in my throat. I wasn’t sure how to even respond to what he was saying. I knew that he cared, but was it enough? If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t have been in this mess in the first place.

  Then again, he was one of the only people who I could consider to be a friend, difficult as it was for me to think such things. I opened my mouth to respond, but then I closed it again and tried to turn away, but he wasn’t going to let me. Closing his eyes, he leaned forward for a kiss, and I didn’t pull back as he did.

  I closed my eyes, too, our lips softly colliding before we started to kiss each other with a growing need. It was soft at first, but knowing that we were alone in the house, and feeling as lonely as I was, and knowing how I felt about Damon, I couldn’t stop myself.

  I started kissing him harder as he ran his hands over me, goosebumps rising everywhere his fingers touched. There were shivers running through me, and I felt nervous and cold, but there was a heat inside me as well.

  My body was filled with need. I had to have him again. We had only slept together the one time, but now I had to have him more than ever.

  We quickly started pulling our clothes off, no one to interrupt or stop us as each piece fell to the floor. My tits were out in a second, then I was slipping out of my panties. His hard dick was pressed against his jeans, just begging to be freed.

  And, in an instant, it was. Damon pushed me back gently on the bed, and I allowed myself to fall, my legs spread as he ran his hand over my soft pussy, a smile on his face mixed with the need I could see in his eyes.

  He was over the top of me, his cock grazing my leg as he eased himself down. I wasn’t nearly as nervous as I had been the first time he and I had slept together. Now that I knew what to expect and what was coming,
I just knew that I had to have him inside me.

  I was relaxed, my wet pussy tight with anticipation. His rock hard dick ready to be inside me. Then, he took himself in his hand and pushed himself against the slit of my pussy, pressing until his cock disappeared deep within me.

  I let out a soft moan, spreading my legs further and taking him as he pumped in and out of me, his cock sliding fast and easy with how wet I was. There was no denying how much he turned me on, and knowing that he was one of the few people who was there for me only made me want to sleep with him all the more.

  Our bodies slid together perfectly, his chest grazing my tits with each thrust of his cock. I closed my eyes, wrapping my arms around him and pulling him down into me as he rocked back and forth, his cock sliding in and out of me.

  I moaned, holding him tight and kissing him, letting each new thrust take me further and further from the drama in my life and push me to cum. The orgasms he gave me were so much stronger than any I’d ever been able to give myself, and I knew this was going to be something that I’d been needing for a while.

  There was a part of me that knew this was a mistake. I knew that I wasn’t supposed to be doing this with him, and I knew Susan would be upset if she found out, but I didn’t care. There was another part of me that knew he was right.

  Susan didn’t get to pick everything about our lives, and with her keeping so much from me, I felt it was only fair that there were also things that I kept from her. She didn’t have to know everything I did, that was for sure, and if that included Damon, then so be it.

  I didn’t know if this would be the last time he and I were together or not, but I did know this was just what I needed right now, and I was going to do what felt good. I was going to let loose and let my body feel him, let the stress be pushed out with each thrust of him inside me.

  The tension that had been growing in me since he entered me was getting stronger, and I could feel in his body how close he was to finishing. I moaned, kissing his shoulder as he wrapped his hands around my ass, holding me higher on the bed so he could get deeper than before.