Pretty Reckless (All Saints High, #1)

by L.J. Shen

Knight passes Colin the joint he just meticulously rolled using my mascara wand.

Now I have my own admission. The truth is clogging my throat, and the alcohol begs for me to let it loose. It’s a confession. A difficult one. But one that would make her let go of her inhibitions and guilt, and maybe start building a strong bridge to cross that gulf.

friends.” I bite off a callus from my palm and spit the dead skin on the ground.

I peek behind the pool house and watch him boomerang a loaded ashtray into the pool.

I use my thumb to wipe my blood along her lower lip. She licks it without hesitation, her eyes on me.

I can’t bear her vulnerability because it seems real, and I can’t think of her as real. Even if she is genuine, this can never work out. Even if I don’t give a damn about what Jaime and Mel think, Daria does although she would die denying it. And her parents will never be okay with us being together. Not to mention the hell Via is going to give me. But before all of this can even materialize, there is also the Adriana and Principal Prichard mess to sort out, and nothing promises me that Daria won’t get cold feet about telling her precious rich friends she’s dating the token charity case.

Something that gives my tin man, half-functioning heart a reason to break. She didn’t come back for me.

Now watch as I hitchhike back to Mississippi. Just pray I won’t be raped and beaten to death this time around. And before you ask if I mean it—please remember, I did it four years ago, when I was much younger and even more helpless.”

But that’s the old Daria. The one who pretends she doesn’t care about losing things. The new Daria? She doesn’t want to lose him.

But I am hopelessly, tragically in love with Penn Scully.

I initiate a conversation for the first time in months. It seems like a big deal to me because I’ve been so reluctant to talk to her. I’ve been avoiding it like the plague for what seems like months. “Hey, Melody,” I holler at them as they run the length of the hallway toward the elevators, trying to catch one that’s sliding closed. “You—” “Not now, Daria!” She shares a laugh with the girls, disappearing between the closing doors of the elevator. Daria. She is Melody, and I am Daria. Mom and Lovebug are officially dead.

Everything I have is crumbling. Everything I’ve worked for is perishing.

Over the years, he barked at me to rearrange the shelves in his office, clean his carpets, shine his shoes, and more recently, after Penn entered the picture, he’d strike the inside of my hands with a ruler.

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.

“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.”

There can’t be a trial. This can’t go public.

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.

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’m with him because I need someone. I need an ally,” she admits. I laugh because it doesn’t matter anymore. I kick off her arms, which are hugging my shins. “Who do you think was my ally, Sylvia?” “Daria is my enemy,” she moans. “Gus is mine,” I retort.

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

Since when do I use question marks?

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

“I’m so sorry for Adriana.” Daria squeezes my shoulder. “She is crazy about Harper now, so don’t worry about it.”

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

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

“Boys will be boys.”

I’m a take-no-prisoners type of man. When I aim—it’s for the kill.

“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.

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.

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 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

My mother can hole her up in the ballet studio fifteen hours a day, but youth shapes art, and she’s been artless for so long, her craft has wilted.

And I’m officially done with people who don’t choose me or see me.

Gus is bright red now, and despite everything, I feel sorry for him. For me. For all of us, really. Vanity cost us every single thing we achieved for ourselves. Our athletic career. Friends. Family. Our love interests.

At any rate, Ioanna cast a spell on me. She said my heart will be broken until I find the one. That I’m going to walk around with holes in my shirts to symbolize what I don’t have until I experience true love. But until then, I will be miserable. Naturally, I thought it to be bullshit. But then weird things started happening to me every time I didn’t wear the holed shirt. One time, I almost got run over. The other, the money I stole from my mom mysteriously disappeared from my pocket. A dog bit me, my bikes got stolen…so I started cutting holes in all my shirts as a safety measure. I had no choice. I got a lot of mouthfuls from my dad about it, obviously, but it worked.”

“I’ve loved you in secret, and I’ve loved you openly in front of both our worlds, and if you think I’ll stop loving you if you put an ocean between us, you’re dead wrong.”

I laugh as he starts moving inside me without a condom or a care in the world. I’m on the pill, but he doesn’t know that. I’m having crazy thoughts. Like maybe he is doing this on purpose. Like maybe he wants to chain me down to this place. Like maybe I should stay. And it makes my heart laugh through the tears because it’s too late.

“A concrete wall?” the doctor asks. Is he a wallanitarian or something? Why does he give a fuck about the wall?

Good, Skull Eyes. Fucking perfect. Watch me rip out all my shirts and walk around shirtless for the remainder of my life.

After all, I have a hole in my shirt the size of Penn’s heart.

I see now, with a clarity I’ve never had before, the Melody Followhill that I wished to meet my entire childhood. The one who is not only an accomplished ballerina, an amazing teacher, and the talk of the town, but a simple girl—maybe even like me—struggling to do the right thing by her family.

“You called me Mom.” “I did.” I choke on the words. “I did. You are. You are my mom.”

Everyone’s got a story, and we all have chapters we’d rather not read aloud.

I took off the blood cape, and now she can clearly see my black shirt, and the hole inside it, and how not okay I am.

kissing my cheeks, my nose, my forehead, then finally, my chin.

Only Jaime Followhill wasn’t just a pupil. He was also a sex god.

Even though I had a good eight years on him, I knew who he was. One of The Four Hotholes. A ruthless, privileged criminal who ruled this town.