Pretty Reckless (All Saints High, #1)

by L.J. Shen

“That’s how things have gone for the past three years. And for the most part, everything ran smoothly. When I hooked up with girls like Blythe, Adriana turned a blind eye. And I hooked up with girls all the time since I wouldn’t touch Adriana. But t...

“I’m so sorry for Adriana.” Daria squeezes my shoulder. “She is crazy about Harper now,...

Everyone’s a fucking traitor. The only person who hasn’t betrayed me so far is, ironically, Daria herself.

“Oh,” she says, wincing. “And I told Dad about the entire thing and so, by default, spilled the secret that we were sort of together for a second.”

“If you care about me at all, win the game.” “Why?”

Kudos to her for doing the right thing, but fuck, this is extreme, even for Mother Teresa.

“Because I’m boarding a plane next Saturday and finishing my senior year somewhere else.”

“Everything I touch is tainted, Penn. Everything I want turns to ash. I spent the entire semester trying to be yours, but you’ve never once claimed my heart. I’m sending you to Adriana’s arms, not because I don’t care, but because I do. So much. Maybe too much. Because I screwed up so many relationships, the only way for us to heal is if I take myself out of the equation.”

You are the fucking equation, I want to yell in her face. The riddle and the answer and the numbers within it. You’re math. You make sense.

“Don’t go,” I croak. I sound like a wuss. I don’t even recognize this voice. I want a refund o...

I can be your anything. Fucking try me.

The thing about nightmares is that you never know which one your worst is until you live through it.

“You were never a drizzle, Penn Scully. When I fell for you, you came beating down, and I felt you everywhere. You were hail.”

Why didn’t you tell me we were in love? Why did you wait for me to find out When you broke my heart?

Jaime: You can’t avoid this forever.

Jaime: You realize I’ll see you at the game, right, Einstein?

Jaime: Daria’s been asking about you.

You BS-ing me, sir? Jaime: Yes. But you need to come home if you want to see her before she gets on that plane.

I’m still at the don’t-go negotiation stage although I should probably try to focus on getting her to tell me where she is going.

“Are we going to address the fact you shoved your tongue into my daughter’s mouth?” Among other places, sir.

“Look, I know you warned me, and I know I ignored it, but for what it’s worth, it meant something. To me, anyway. Can’t speak for your daughter, who is currently packing her bags and moving away.”

He should cut me some slack; it was his spawn who made me this way.

“Boys will be boys.”

It’ll be a pretty shit move to lose to save Daria’s skin, but I will fuck over the entire world to protect her.

Heavy is the fist that belongs to a father who just learned his precious daughter has been mentally abused since age fourteen by her school principal.

Heavier is the fist of a man who learned about it after his daughter has been through hell and back this year.

When I aim—it’s for the kill.

“You wait here.” “No fucking way. He hurt her,”

He can’t keep himself out of this. Good. I wouldn’t let an asshole who can sit by and let something like this happen to Daria touch her.

“Say a few Hail Marys, you sick son of a bitch. Maybe it’ll slow down your perverted ass on its way to hell.”

I think about everything my daughter has been through these past six months.

About her mother, whom I love more than life itself, who insists on saving everything that’s broken, and in doing so, had a hand in breaking our daughter.

I think about how I can’t stand to look at the eighteen-year-old girl who lives with me becaus...

I think about her twin brother, who is too in love with my daughter to give her up, w...

“Thank your lucky stars that I’m not alone because if we were, you’d be dead by now,”

“Make sure you protect that pretty face of yours, Scully. Cheekbones like that, you can knock your rich girl up and live off her parents’ money.”

I’m a taco. A crisp, empty shell.

Remember when Knight drew a rocket on your forehead when you were kids, and I almost murdered him thinking it was something else?

Remember when Vaughn walked around on the beach with a live jellyfish in his hand and declared it as his new pet?

Remember when Luna thought you were a princess beca...

“Penn Scully, if you’re half the man I know you are, you will show up on this field,” I scream.

I smile, free-falling into being someone different. Someone imperfect. Someone real. Unchaining myself from what people think of me, of how they see me, of what they will say after the game.

“I want you to bury these assholes in the ground.”

“Touch my daughter against her will one more time, and I will bury you with legal shit until your retirement day.”

“Can you do something for me?” I scream at Penn. My legs are not moving, but I’m laughing manically. Penn nods. “Make them eat dirt!”

“My crazy, out-of-this-world daughter. And you thought you were anything less than fierce.”

Protecting Via was a duty. Protecting Daria is an honor.

I don’t care what Daria wants, and I don’t care that she won’t be there on Monday to see the pages of her journal plastered on every locker and square inch of the school. She doesn’t deserve this shit.

You think she’s gonna stick around after the jock glory wears off? When y’all go to college? You think she’s worth your future? Your team’s future? My future?” Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. And yes.

Loving you is like Listening to a song For the first time And somehow knowing all the lyrics