Secret Bay High Issues (Secret Bay High - Book #5) Page 6
She winked at me and I laughed again. I knew they were up to something, but it was still rather surprising to me that was the first time they’d actually gone all the way. Either way, I was still happy for her. I knew things were rather rocky for her and Peter with the upcoming move, and I hoped that they would find a way to stay together.
“So have you and Damon?” she asked, bringing my thoughts back to the moment. “I mean, I know you did before, but since you got together for real again, have you been?”
“Yes,” I giggled. “We’ve been sleeping together for a while. Even when we weren’t technically dating, I guess there’s just some things you can’t stop from happening when the time is right.”
“Ooooo!” Abby squealed, making me blush slightly. I thought I’d told her that he and I were sleeping together again, but perhaps I had kept that entirely to myself. Either way, I was happy for her, and I wasn’t at all afraid to share with her some of the things Damon and I had been doing with each other. Though sleeping together had been rather basic at first, I had to admit, he and I were getting a lot more adventurous in the bedroom.
We were eager to try all kinds of new things. All of it was new to me, and there were a lot of things Damon himself had never done before that he was also eager to do.
Abby listened to it all with wide eyes and a bright smile, making me feel like I really knew what I was talking about.
“I’m going to have to take notes,” Abby said with a smirk. “I’m getting some pretty good ideas.”
I laughed, and we continued our conversation long through lunch. But, as always, the bell rang too soon, and we had to get back to class. Abby gave me a quick hug before she headed off to biology, once more lamenting that we were running out of time to hang out together.
“It’s okay,” I told her. “We’ve still got to the end of the year. Let’s just think about that and forget about what’s going to happen after.”
I hadn’t yet told her about Harvard, though I had a feeling she was going to be supportive of me going. Of course, it meant that I was going to be leaving for Massachusetts regardless of where she was going, but some things in life we couldn’t control, and I knew she just wanted me to be happy no matter what.
“I hope so,” she said with a sigh. “My mom found a house, and she put in an offer. If we get it, I might be moving sooner rather than later.”
“I thought your mom wanted you to be able to graduate before she moved?” I asked.
“She does, but she’s not in total control over what’s going to happen,” Abby said with a sad shake of her head. “For as much as she wants me to be able to walk down the aisle with everyone and throw my cap with the class and everything, we aren’t sure if we’re going to last that long.”
I gave her another tight hug. “We’re going to figure this out. I promise.”
“I hope so,” Abby said again. She turned to head to class, and I couldn’t help but watch her go. I really hoped so, too. Abby and Damon were my only two friends in school, and I hated to think that she wasn’t going to be able to graduate with me.
She had been there for me from the beginning. And, from what she had told me, she had been coming to Secret Bay her entire life. She’d gone to the elementary school here, and then the high school when she was old enough. I wanted, for her sake, for her to be able to graduate with the class she’d been with her entire life.
But, like she said, there were things that were out of our control. Her mother couldn’t fix it, I couldn’t fix it, Abby herself couldn’t fix it. We had to just make the best of the situation and see what happened.
I just hoped fate would be good to us. God knew we both had been through hell already, didn’t we deserve a break of some kind?
I turned to head back to my own class, I suddenly froze. There, bandaged and still looking rather haggard, stood Chad. He had been suspended for the same amount of time as Damon, so I didn’t expect him to be in school yet. But, there he was, and he was staring right at me.
Immediately, a thrill of fear ran down my spine, and I wanted to turn and run. He was just about the last person I wanted to see, but he started my way. There was no avoiding this, I’d have to talk to him.
I braced myself, ready for the next verbal argument. As always, I wasn’t going to back down. I could mask my fear, and I intended to. He didn’t deserve to know how he made me feel, and I knew Damon would have my back if anything happened.
So, I stood my ground, folding my arms and waiting for him to speak.
Chapter 8
Sutton
Chad looked me over from head to toe, giving me that searching gaze I absolutely hated. It made me feel like I was nothing more than a meal to him. An object that he thought he could use for his own pleasure, and one he blamed for the downfall of his status not only with Damon, but in the school.
He didn’t take any responsibility for what he had done to me, and I hated him all the more for it. If he hadn’t forced himself on me in my room all those nights ago, he wouldn’t have lost his friendship with Damon or Peter over it. It was his fault, not mine, and I hated that he couldn’t see it.
Of course, like so many people in life, I couldn’t see him taking responsibility for what he had done to me. That just wasn’t the way people did things, and it was frustrating. I couldn’t control it, and that was really all there was to it. But, I could control how I reacted to him, and I certainly didn’t intend to be friendly in any way.
And he clearly knew it.
“Relax,” he said when he stopped right in front of me. “I’m not here to see you.”
“I don’t know why you’re here at all,” I shot back. “I could get a teacher and get you sent home.”
“I’m here to talk to teachers, and get my homework, so save your breath,” he announced with a smirk. “I’m over you, Sutton. Molly was right, you just aren’t worth the trouble. I should have listened to her from the beginning. Oh well.”
He pushed past me and stalked up the hall, once more leaving me with a bad taste in my mouth. It didn’t come as a surprise to me that Molly would say something like that, and I could see it happening from the beginning, even before everything went down with him and me in my room that night.
Molly had been a bully from grade school, so it really wasn’t surprising to know she had been up to the same old tricks in high school. And, if he felt that I wasn’t worth the trouble, then I should be happy about it. After all, that had to mean that he didn’t have anything else to say to me, which might mean that he would leave both me and Damon alone from now on.
Still, I stayed in the hall and watched him until he rounded the corner into one of the classrooms. I had to get to class myself, but I didn’t trust him not to sneak up on me or do something else stupid when he thought I wasn’t looking. It wasn’t until I knew I was out of his sight that I turned to head back to class myself.
That was one thing I certainly wasn’t going to miss about school, and it only added to my desire to get out of Secret Bay entirely. I didn’t want to be around these people after graduation. Most of them only made me want to turn and run. But, I had to get through the rest of the year first, and I had to work hard if I was going to get into the school I wanted when I did.
That meant I had to get through the remaining months with all of these difficult people, like or not, they were all part of the class, and they were going to be there right up until the end.
At least, Damon was going to be back in school soon, and perhaps seeing him would keep some of my antagonizing bullies at bay. They saw what he could do to Chad, after all, and I didn’t think Damon would hold back on putting anyone in their place if it came down to it.
He and Abby were both fiercely loyal to me, and they weren’t afraid to show it. It felt good knowing that they both had my back, and I felt better about the interaction I’d just had with Chad. Let him and Molly talk about me behind my back for all I cared. I had my friends.
They could gripe about me all
they wanted. It didn’t hold me back. I would still make it to college, and I would still make something of my life. They didn’t get to decide what I did with myself. And I would prove to them their bullying didn’t hold me back one bit.
In fact, one day they might both work for me. I might be the one not only calling the shots, but also signing the paychecks. Of course, there was no way for me to know if that would ever really happen, but the thought alone was enough to give me motivation to push through and rise above what they said and did.
I was better than that, and I would prove it to them all one day. Let them sit back and watch my success from below. They were bottom feeders, after all, and bottom feeders always stayed where they got the most food.
At the bottom.
Although I didn’t take the long way getting home anymore, I still took my time walking back to the house. I figured Damon would be down at the board shop, but after the interaction I’d had with Dean the day before, I decided against going to see.
I didn’t want to talk to Dean any more than I had to, and I could see him doing something like being at the board shop just for the sake of making it so I had to talk to him. He was just that kind of person, I just knew it. And I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction.
So, I headed straight home after my last class of the day. I would have walked with Abby back to her place first, but when I spotted her through the crowd of kids leaving school for the day, she was already with Peter, hanging off his arm and staring up into his face with her wide eyes.
I was happy they were getting closer to each other. Though, I was still surprised to hear that that was the first time they’d slept together entirely. Perhaps it was just what their relationship needed to last through the move. I’d not asked her where the house was her mother had found, or how far it was from Secret bay.
I didn’t know Peter well enough to know if he was going to try to get into college, though I had a feeling he wasn’t going to be looking at anything too expensive considering what happened to his family. I felt sorry for him and all that he had gone through, that was for sure, but at the same time, now that Abby had fallen on financial hardship as well, it might help them stay together.
That would be one good thing that came out of what her father had done. Sure, they might’ve made it work in the long term if they had stayed rich. But now they would know what it was like to lean on each other through hardship.
I pulled out the brochure from the pocket of my backpack. I’d thought about talking to some of the teachers at school about it, but I didn’t get the chance over lunch after talking to Abby. I didn’t want to follow Chad to any of the classrooms, so I decided I would just put it off for another day or two.
There wasn’t any real rush, after all. I still had a lot to figure out if I was going to manage to get into Harvard – it wasn’t just financial or academic challenges that could stand in my way. I knew I would have to be prepared to go through with this even if Damon didn’t want to go with me.
We’d not really talked about what was going to happen after we graduated, and though we did tell each other that we wanted to stay together, I didn’t know how realistic that was with my goals and his goals in life. Just like Abby was going to have to face the fact that she and Peter might break up – even if they were doing so well now – I knew I had to be ready for the same thing in my own life.
I sighed, kicking a rock out of the way with my foot as I continued to read over the brochure. So much about the campus and the courses that were offered were so appealing to me. But, even more than the fact that it was my dream school it was the distance that really called to me, too.
But is that really a good thing? It’s the distance that might mean you and Damon are going to have to break up. On the other hand, you’re going to get to start over. Massachusetts isn’t confined to this little square you’ve been living in for your whole life.
There’s more than just fifteen or twenty miles to go before you get to Harvard, so no one is going to know you. There, you aren’t going to be the girl who was bullied, or the girl whose parents were murdered, or the girl who nearly committed suicide when she was in the sixth grade.
No, when you go to Harvard, you get another chance at everything in life. You can build your reputation to be the girl you want to be no matter what. No one’s going to associate you with the crazy things you’ve been through in life. You’ll be free to do or be whoever you want.
And you can make friends who don’t feel sorry for you, you can work hard to accomplish more than anyone ever thought you could. You could actually be someone, and you don’t have to even think about what you went through to get there.
Not that anything would be worth losing Damon over, but if it comes down to it, don’t you really want to start over in life with the free pass of being able to be yourself and not have to worry about what other people already know about you?
What would your parents have wanted for you? Shoot, what do you want for yourself? It’s about time you stop worrying about what everyone else is pushing you to do and start living your life the way you want to live it.
So, what do you want to do? How do you want the rest of the world to treat you? How do you want people to think of you? All of this is going to come down to the choices you make starting now. Where are you going to go to college? How are you going to pay for it? What do you need to do to get in?
The questions seemed to outweigh anything else in my mind as I headed down the last block to my house. I wanted to go to Harvard, there wasn’t any debating that in my mind. But, I knew that was going to come at a cost. Both financial and emotional.
And I had to be prepared to deal with whatever cost there was. I hated the thought of losing Damon or Abby, but I also hated so much of my life in Secret Bay as it currently was. Something was going to have to change. I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life like this.
The only person who could change it, was me. And, the brochure in my hand offered the exact change I was looking for. I just had to reach out and do it.
With a sigh, I knew I had to go through with at least exploring the option, just to see if it was really what I wanted to do. And, the first step to going anywhere in this direction was to figure out how I was going to handle it financially.
I didn’t have much money, and I didn’t have a job, either. Sure, there were student loans and scholarships, but where were those going to get me? I wanted to find something that was a little less risky, and something that might be a lot more available to me in the situation I was in.
And the only person I could think to talk to about that was Susan. I wasn’t sure if she would help me, or what she would say when I told her what I was thinking about doing, but I knew one thing was for sure:
It didn’t hurt to ask.
Chapter 9
Sutton
For perhaps one of the only times since I’d moved in with Susan and Damon, I was glad to find Susan in the kitchen when I walked through the door. Even more than finding her already there, I was even happier to see she was alone. I had a feeling Damon was going to be at work, but I had no idea where Dean would be.
The whole reason I hadn’t gone down to the shop to see Damon was because Dean might be down there, too, and when I saw that his truck wasn’t in front of the house as I walked up, I felt that I had made the right decision.
“Hey,” Susan said with a smile as I walked through the door. “How was your day?”
“There’s something I wanted to talk to you about,” I told her. “But it was good.”
“Oh?” Susan asked, clearly interested. It was rare for me to share anything with her beyond the most generic information. More often than not, I would share with her the bare minimum in direct response to what she asked me. I didn’t offer extra information, and I didn’t go into any great details about anything.
She turned off the water in the sink and walked over to the counter, leaning forward on her forearms as she smiled at me. “W
hat is it?”
“Well,” I said after I took a deep breath. “I’ve been thinking a lot about college lately.”
“Oh!” she said with the enthusiasm shining through her tone. “And what have you been thinking?”
“I really want to go somewhere in particular, and, well, it’s expensive,” I didn’t quite know what to say to her though I’d thought about it most of the trip home. Harvard was very expensive, and I had to ask her for her help. But, that seemed so forward, and I wasn’t sure if she would even want to.
“Where do you want to go?” Susan asked, the smile still on her face.
“Harvard,” I blurted. Susan looked at me in surprise, and I set the brochure on the table in front of her. “I got this in the mail yesterday, and I’ve been looking over it a lot. And I checked them out online, and they’ve always been the school I’ve thought would be pretty great.”
Susan looked through the brochure, and it was hard for me to read the smile that was on her face. It had changed slightly when I announced that I wanted to go to Harvard, but she didn’t seem to be too taken aback by it. In fact, the look on her face told me she was in support of the idea. At least, I hoped she was.
“They’ve got some pretty steep requirements to get in,” she said. “I know your grades are high, but are they this high?”
I nodded. “I’ve got the GPA, and if I really set my mind to it, I can pull them up even higher with extra credit. I mean, I really want to go, it’s just with the cost of all of it, I’m not sure if it’s even possible.”
“Don’t you worry about that,” Susan said excitedly. “We’re going to look into financial aid, and I can help you out a lot. Trust me.”
“Really?” I asked with a smile. It was what I was hoping for, but it felt good to have her say it out loud.”
“Really,” she said with a bright grin. “Sutton, you have no idea how happy this makes me. To think! My daughter is going to Harvard! You’re going to do so well there, and think about all the opportunities that are going to be opened up to you when you graduate. Not only will you have an awesome diploma from Secret Bay, but you’re also going to be a Harvard graduate! I knew you were unstoppable before, but this is a whole new level!”