Pretty Reckless (All Saints High, #1)

by L.J. Shen

Entry number one hundred twenty-two chronicles how one time, when I went into his office and he wasn’t there, I rubbed myself against his executive chair. When he arrived, he made me lick the traces of myself from said chair. It’s the most sexual thing we’ve ever done, and it did not involve touching each other, but it’s enough to bring both of us down.

My principal, my priest, the man who held all my secrets, who I thought I could trust, just whipped my ass with a ruler against my will. Not once. Not twice. About a dozen times in a frenzy I’ve never seen before.

He touched me against my will. He hit me against my will. I played with fire and got so burned, it left a mark. Dozens of them.

But this boy is in love with another girl—the mother of his child.

“Principal Prichard hit me.”

“Daddy?” “Yes, the love of my life?” The love of his life. I know he means it. Jaime would die just to put a smile on his mini-me’s face.

By falling in love with a person I had no right to fall in love with.”

“I’m a lot of things, but a hypocrite is not one of them. I fell in love with my high school teacher. And guess what? We still made it work. Don’t let people tell you who to fall in love with, and don’t think just because the past few years have been shit, the rest of your life will follow suit. Look at your old man. I got my happy ending. You will, too.”

My relationship with my daughter may be beyond repair, but no one can hurt her like this and get away with it, regardless of the fact she may not fully accept me ever again.

“I’m referring to the fact that today, I spent twenty minutes trying to figure out what the sticky, persistent stain on my daughter’s pajamas was before realizing that it was aloe. Aloe she put on her butt to ease the pain of you ruthlessly beating her with a ruler.”

I’m done letting her down.

“Mrs. Followhill, please do not patronize me in that department. You were in my position. These kids,” he says, referring to my husband as a kid, “are of legal age, with raging hormones and wicked plans. You, of all people, know lines get blurred.”

I don’t want to drag my daughter through court.

There can’t be a trial. This can’t go public. Daria has suffered enough.

I want to be your everything Other than one thing Your past

“Adriana tries to forget you exist. She hates you like the rest of us.” “Nah. The one you actually give a shit about.”

Is he Harper’s dad? Gus?

“This thing’ll blow up the school when it comes out. Spanked and humiliated by her principal in his office like in a bad porn flick, dicked by you in a forest, and basically shitting all over your sister’s and her mom’s dreams. Daria’s been good at being a bad girl these past four years.”

Principal Prichard spanked her? The words burn on my skin, and all I see is red. He touched her. No, worse—he hurt her. Under my fucking watch.

Daria’s chunk is bigger. I care about her more.

Nobody protects Daria.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” She punches the water, shrieking. I throw my head back and laugh. “Dropping the F-bomb now, are we? Took you long enough to take off that cheap-ass mask of yours, Sylvia, but now that you have, I’ll give you one thing. I can see your real face now, and it’s pretty ugly.”

“So I’m Sylvia now, huh?” “Feel lucky that you are anything at all. I told you not to touch her. We had a deal. A blood oath.”

Smug fucker that I was, it never occurred to me that I’d be breaking mine, too.

A hole that had been shrinking for weeks, but has now become bigger than ever since Via came back. I ripped my shirts the day I broke things off with Daria, cutting the holes so big, you can now see half my chest.

I saw you falling in love with her before you even realized what your stupid ass was doing. And she was the enemy. You fell for my downfall.”

“I’m with him because I need someone. I need an ally,” she admits.

“Who do you think was my ally, Sylvia?” “Daria is my enemy,” she moans. “Gus is mine,” I retort.

“My only regret is trying to pacify your sorry ass and breaking things off with Daria. I loved you when no one else did. I grieved for you. I thought you were dead and tortured myself, blamed myself. But my actions never intended to hurt you. I made a mistake. You did all this on purpose. So now I’m leaving you, just as you left me. Only I’m four years too late.”

A real man would barge in and hoist her up over his shoulder.

Since when do I use question marks?

Gus has your journal. He asked me to throw the game unless I want it printed out.

Gus is a coward. And good luck to that idiot trying to work a copier.

One sacrifices herself for me, the other sacrificing me for herself.

Can I turn around? She answers. I don’t know if it’s a good idea. Breathe, motherfucker. Breathe.

I need to see your face when I type th...

And I’m stupid because I let her go, but maybe I’m smart, too, because I realized my mistake.

I’m throwing the game and retrieving your diary. I’m sorry it took me so long to get my head out of my ass. It was dark back there. Hard to see right from wrong. I was my sister’s keeper for so long, I never once wondered if she was worth keeping.

Via made me choose between you two. Said she’d run away back to Mississippi if I made the wrong choice.

The tin man didn’t ask for a heart—but got one anyway.

I love you, Daria Followhill, and I think you love me, too. In fact, I think we fell at the same time. You, like rain, in drizzles, over the weeks. Me, like the fucking sky above my head, all at once, crashing without the faintest chance of stopping.

“It’s too late.”

Rushing toward her, I fall to my knees, wrapping her waist in my arms and burying my head in her thighs. She doesn’t move.

“Skull Eyes?” “Don’t lose the game. The journal will eventually get out. It’s already out of our control. You shouldn’t deprive yourself and your teammates of this win.” ...

What about the fact I just ripped my fucking heart out and dumped it at your feet, waiting for you to pick it up, and yo...

“If this is how you love…” She shakes her head. “Then I don’t want your love, Penn Scully.”

“Besides, you have Adriana and Harper to take care of.” “Adriana and Harper are complicated.” I rear my head back about to spit out some real shit.

“I’ve known Adriana ever since I was a kid. Adriana developed a crush on me, but I never reciprocated. I was stuck in the girls-are-disgusting stage when she started noticing boys. That didn’t stop her from frequenting my house almost every day. I warned her so many times not to, especially as the years passed and things got worse at home. Mom was out of it, and Rhett became more violent. One day, just before sophomore year, she came over w...

“She got out of there, shocked and ashamed. She didn’t want anyone to know. Three months later, she found out she was pregnant. It was too late to do anything about it.” I clear my throat.

So Addy and I made up a story to protect both her and Harper, and gave Harper a semi-legitimate background. We told everyone I was the dad because I didn’t have a good reputation to lose—I already came from an impressive lineage of fuckups. I didn’t mind telling people that Addy was my girlfriend. It kept the teenyboppers at arm’s length.

Plus, I never really wanted to date anyone.” Until you.