Troublemaker Read online

  They aren’t sweet.

  There’s no gentleness there.

  “Yes,” I finally whisper. “I’m sorry.”

  Only, I’m not sorry for almost walking into him. I’m sorry for everything else.

  I’m sorry that he’s had a shitty life.

  I’m sorry that his dad sucks.

  I’m sorry that my mother made a horrible choice that shoved me into his life forever.

  I’m sorry for all of it.

  And most of all, I’m sorry that I’m not going to be around to see it all fall apart.

  “Sorry isn’t good enough,” Harrison says.

  Not good enough?

  What is it that he wants from me?

  I wait, not saying anything. I’m certain that Harrison is going to pull my hair or pinch me. Maybe he’ll flick me or grab my nose between his fingers, gripping me so hard that it hurts. He’s done worse to me. I can only imagine what it would be like to be married to him and have him hurting me all of the time. I don’t want that, though. I don’t want any of that.

  I want the nice version of Harrison that I used to know.

  I want the kind-hearted good boy I know is buried deep inside.

  This version of Harrison sucks, and I hate it. I hate him.

  Harrison seems surprised that I’m not arguing back with him. I’m not saying anything. I’m just standing there, blankly staring at him, and he shakes his head.

  “Pathetic,” he says. “You aren’t even going to say anything for yourself? You’re as weak as your mother was. You’re both pathetic.”

  And as though a damn has broken in my mind, I reach out and slap him.

  Hard.

  I can’t tell which of us is more shocked. He stares at me as he reaches for his cheek. He touches it and then looks at his hand, as though he can’t quite believe what I did.

  I can’t believe it, either.

  I’ve never stood up to Harrison O’Conner.

  Ever.

  I’ve never talked back. I’ve never snapped at him. I’ve never done anything that could irritate Frank and I’ve never done anything that might make me seem like the bad guy in our relationship.

  “Call me whatever the fuck you want,” I tell him. “But I am not pathetic, and I never want to hear you say another fucking word about my mom.”

  “Hey, Harrison! Where’d you go?” A shrill voice calls out from one of the side hallways. Dana is looking for him. He puts his hand down and looks at me.

  “Your darling is looking for you,” I tell him.

  Then I turn, and I leave.

  I don’t look back over my shoulder to see if he’s watching. I don’t look to see if he’s still staring at his hand. I don’t care, and I don’t want to know.

  He can do whatever he wants to me, but he’s not going to insult my mother, and he’s not going to insult me by pretending that I haven’t had to sacrifice what I want to appease his psychotic father.

  Hurrying down a hallway and then another, I make my way back to the dormitory so I can be alone, and so I can cry in peace.

  Chapter Two

  Harrison

  “THERE YOU ARE,” DANA’S voice is sickly sweet: not at all like Adalee’s. She gets close to me, invading my space, and she presses her hands to my chest. “I was looking all over for you.”

  It’s a lie.

  So many lies.

  I was only gone from the cafeteria for a couple of minutes. It didn’t take me long to overtake Adalee and to catch her before she escaped from the main building. It took even less time before she put me in my place and ran off.

  To be honest, I didn’t know she had it in her.

  She’s never stood up to me before. She’s never done anything to stave off my bullying or my taunting. Usually, she just sits and takes it. What the fuck changed today? And why does it intrigue me so much? I shouldn’t have been shitty to her. I don’t know why I went off on her today. My dad fucking hates her for some reason and sometimes, that alone makes me want to hate her, too.

  The problem is that I don’t.

  Not really.

  No matter what she thinks about me, I don’t think I could ever hate Adalee.

  Aside from being way too fucking scrawny, Adalee is the hottest girl at Crescent Academy. It’s a shame she doesn’t know just how good-looking she is. Maybe it’s not. If she had any idea just how drop-dead gorgeous she is, she’d have every guy in the damn school chasing her.

  As it is, she hides behind her baggy clothes and her sad eyes, and she focuses on school. Nobody goes after her. Nobody chases her. Nobody does anything to her because Adalee sends off the biggest set of “don’t talk to me” vibes I’ve ever seen in my life.

  “Here I am,” I say to Dana, looking back at her.

  She runs her hands down my chest and grabs my cock over my pants. Okay, so Dana isn’t exactly subtle when it comes to letting me know what she wants. That’s not necessarily a good thing. With Dana, there’s no mystery. I know she’d suck my dick in a heartbeat if I let her, and maybe I should. Maybe it would be a good way to stop fucking thinking about Adalee all the damn time.

  She’s no good for me, Adalee.

  Or maybe I’m no good for her.

  “I missed you,” Dana purrs, but my cock isn’t even a little bit hard. It’s not stirring beneath her touch at all because all I can think about is the way Adalee looked when I talked about her mom. All I can think about is the devastated look on her face when I called her pathetic.

  Why the hell did I have to do that?

  I’ve teased her for our entire lives. It’s been a sort of game of cat and mouse between us. At least, that’s how I’ve always thought about it. In my mind, it’s always been a sort of playful banter, but today, I took it too far.

  Today I was a complete prick.

  I’ve got a reputation around here as a bully, and I’m not so dense that I don’t know why. I’m mean to people. I push them away. I’m cruel and callous. At least, that’s the persona I present to other people.

  Why?

  Because of my fucking dad.

  He’s a tough guy to please. Impossible would be a better word. There’s not really anything I can do to make him see the world differently than he does, which is as a cruel, heartless place.

  Now he’s cruel and heartless, and I’m that way toward others, too.

  “What’s wrong?” Dana asks. She’s practically rubbing against me like a cat in heat, but I feel nothing at all for the girl in front of me. No: the woman in front of me. That’s what Dana is. She might come across as a ditzy young bad girl, but she’s not. She’s clever, and she’s shrewd, and I don’t want her to know that I think of Adalee as so much more than a classmate.

  She can never know because Adalee is sweetness and light and Dana would fucking destroy her if she thought that Adalee was standing in her way, which she is.

  Adalee is perfection in a schoolgirl skirt.

  She’s lovely.

  “I just have a lot on my mind,” I lie, and I gently push her away. Dana is rightfully pissed, but I can’t bring myself to care.

  “What’s the matter?” She glares at me, no longer pretending to be interested in me or what I’m doing. I know why, too. She suspects that I was sneaking off to talk to someone, which I absolutely was, but I don’t owe Dana anything.

  We aren’t dating.

  We aren’t even friends.

  We definitely haven’t slept together.

  “I told you,” I say, and now it’s my turn to glare. I turn on my asshole persona: the one that keeps me safe. “Are you fucking deaf?”

  Dana’s eyes narrow.

  “Or are you just an idiot?” I say. “Stupid fucking cheerleaders,” I shake my head, and I walk away from Dana. Even as I leave, I hate myself for the words I’ve just thrown at her. Yeah, maybe I shouldn’t have been so shitty, but what was I going to do?

  I can’t have her thinking I’m a softie. That’s the absolute last thing I need.

 
Lunch is almost over, so I go to my locker, grab my next book, and head to study hall. This is one of the few classes of the day that I actually look forward to because it’s just me and a bunch of nerdy kids hanging out. None of us has to interact very much. We all just focus on our own things.

  Study hall is the one place where I don’t have to play up my shitty personality or pretend to be mean and cruel to everyone around me. Here, I can just sit and read, and nobody thinks twice about it.

  Only, today, something feels different. I can sense a shift in the atmosphere when I walk in, and I’m surprised to see that we have a different teacher than we usually do.

  “Hello,” she says to me, but I don’t reply. I just look from her to the other students and back again. “I’m Miss Amber,” she says.

  “Is that your first name or your last name?” I ask.

  Someone snickers.

  Miss Amber ignores them and holds out her hand.

  “Last name. Nice to meet you. What’s your name?”

  I look at her hand for a moment and then back at her face. This is it. This is where I establish my dominance and let her know that I’m not here to mess around with her. I don’t want to be friends with Miss Amber. I don’t want to talk to her. I don’t want anything except to be left alone for the 55 minutes I get in this classroom.

  “Pleasure,” I say, but I don’t take her hand. I also don’t tell her my name. Instead, I turn my back on her and head to a desk at the back of the room. She looks down a list on her desk and then back up to me.

  “Harrison O’Conner?” She says. My head shoots up as I realize I’ve been caught. So she does know who I am. That’s not good. “Ah,” her eyes soften. “I thought so. Well, Mr. O’Conner, let’s get one thing straight, shall we? Your regular teacher is out all week. It’s just me and you and the rest of the class, and I’m happy to make this week wonderful or horrible, but that decision is yours. Treat me like shit again, and you’ll find out just how awful I can be.”

  She grins sweetly at me, but my mouth feels dry and my tongue feels thick and swollen.

  Shit?

  Did my teacher actually just say shit in class?

  She’s acting like it was nothing at all to say those words. She’s acting like it wasn’t a big deal to throw that out to me. The other students wisely keep their heads down.

  “Understood,” I finally say, and she nods before turning back to her desk. She sits down and grabs a book. Then she starts looking at it. I can’t tell if she’s really reading or if she just doesn’t want to look at me, but one thing is for sure: I don’t need the new sub making my life worse than it already is.

  I definitely don’t need to be pissing anyone off the week before Christmas break.

  Chapter Three

  Adalee

  THE NEXT DAY, I’M SPACING off in math class. I don’t want to go “home” for Christmas. I don’t want to be locked up with Harrison for an entire two weeks. I’m literally counting down the days until the holiday, but it’s not because I’m looking forward to them. To me, this isn’t going to be some normal sort of Christmas break.

  To me, this isn’t going to be a holiday where I’m running around and trying to buy presents for the people I love. Instead, it’s a time when I’m going to be hiding from Frank and pretending that everything is fine in our world. It’s going to be stressful and anxiety-driven, and if I had a choice, I’d find some other place to go.

  The reality is that I have to keep pretending that I’m obeying Frank’s rules. If he suspects that I’m planning to run off after graduation and never look back, well, then there will be hell to pay. Not only will he cut me off entirely, but he’ll make sure I can’t attend any other school in the state. He’s a powerful man, and I have no doubt that he’ll do whatever it takes to make sure that if I break his rules, he’ll break me.

  “Adalee!”

  I look up sharply to see the entire class staring at me.

  “What is it?” I whisper. The teacher looks beyond pissed. Angry doesn’t even come close to describing it.

  “While I’m sure your daydreaming was important,” he coughs. “I’m certain it could wait until after class.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  The teacher’s eyes don’t soften. He looks just as hard and pissed as he did a second ago, and he does not offer me his forgiveness. Instead, he poses a question.

  “Would you like to try answering the question on the board?” He asks.

  I look up to see a jumble of words, phrases, and equations carefully spread across the whiteboard, but none of it makes any sense at all to me. Is it supposed to? Am I supposed to understand what’s up there? Algebra has never exactly been my thing, but I’ve also never felt as lost as I do right now.

  I know that I’m screwing up when a student beside me sighs audibly. Okay, so apparently, I was spacing out more than I thought I was.

  “Miss Adalee, if you can’t answer this question, then how are you expecting to pass your final exams?”

  “I’m sorry,” I shake my head, horrified. “I’ll review the homework after class.”

  “You can review it after class in detention,” the teacher says, and he turns back to the board.

  A murmur of shock and surprise comes through the class.

  Detention?

  For not answering a question?

  But I know I deserve it, and I know there’s no way to argue myself out of this one. I don’t have any way to convince anyone – including myself – that I don’t deserve this. Instead of trying to convince the world that I’m being treated unfairly, I just sink lower into my chair and stare at the board, trying my hardest to actually pay attention.

  Another student shoots me a look of sympathy, but quickly turns back around before Mr. Hedgeworth notices. He’s not exactly a kind of caring teacher, but he’s never been unfair before. Apparently, I pissed him off more than I thought I did. Then again, if I’m honest, today isn’t the first time I’ve been distracted lately.

  Class finally ends and as I’m trailing out of the class, he calls to me.

  “Adalee, can I see you?”

  “Good luck,” Jared, one of the guys in my class, whispers to me as he heads out of the room.

  “Of course,” I manage to say. The truth is that I have to swallow my fear and most of my pride and force myself to turn around and go back over to the teacher. I definitely don’t want to be talking to him right now – about anything.

  I don’t want to talk to anyone.

  All of my energy is being directed toward Christmas break, and I’m not pleased with that or with myself. I have a lot of things I need to worry about, and getting in trouble shouldn’t be one of them.

  The rest of the class empties out, and as soon as we’re alone, Mr. Hedgeworth crosses his arms over his chest and looks at me.

  “What’s going on, Adalee?”

  I gulp.

  “What do you mean?” I whisper. My voice comes out quiet and faint. It comes out so weak that it almost sounds ghostly.

  Mr. Hedgeworth looks at me for a long time, and then he finally speaks.

  “Adalee, I’ve been your teacher for a long time.”

  It’s true.

  Mr. Hedgeworth has had me in his classes for four years. That’s four years to watch me fade away. Four years to watch how horribly I’ve dealt with the stress and anxiety that comes from being indebted to Frank O’Conner. He’s seen me fail and he’s seen me stumble. Mr. Hedgeworth has seen a lot of things.

  He’s not exactly a young man. He’s no spring chicken when it comes to dealing with students. Yeah, I probably should have figured that he’d know something was up. When has this guy ever let anyone off the hook?

  For anything?

  “Okay,” I whisper.

  “And during that time, I’ve seen you blossom from a shy girl who is scared to talk to anyone into a strong, responsible woman. What I’ve seen from you the last two weeks, however, has been you reverting back to that fre
shman girl I met four years ago.”

  Harsh, much?

  Okay.

  I still don’t say anything. Instead, I wait quietly and hope he hurries up and gets to his point.

  “I don’t know what you’re going through, Adalee, but I’d love to help you. Any of your teachers would. We’re all here for you. If there’s something that you need to talk about, or if there’s something happening in your personal life that you need help with, I’d love to offer you advice and support. I really don’t want to give you detention just for having a hard time. That’s not really what detention is for, Adalee. So if you can talk to me, or if you can promise that you’ll talk to someone, I’d be more than happy to cancel your detention for this afternoon.”

  He looks at me hopefully, and I know what he wants.

  He wants me to pour my royal heart out and tell him exactly what’s wrong.

  I can’t, though.

  I can’t tell anyone.

  And that’s the beauty of Frank’s plan.

  Nobody in their rightful mind would believe that Frank O’Conner paid a woman for her child, raised it as his own, and then told that child she would have to marry his son.

  No one.

  It sounds ridiculous, even to me.

  My mouth is dry. Again. It’s always dry these days. I’m full of nervousness and anxiety, and while I understand what he’s trying to do – offer me a way out – there’s no way I can take it.

  “I’m fine,” I say, shrugging. I offer a little giggle, too, just for good measure. I know that he sees right through me, and he sighs.

  “If you change your mind,” he says.

  “I won’t.”

  I should thank him for reaching out. Really, I should. I should thank him for caring enough to talk with me instead of just sending me to detention without thinking it through, but I can’t. I deserve this. This, and so much worse.

  So I turn, and I go. I have two more classes to sit through and then I’ll go to detention and take my punishment like a big girl.

  I’m used to it.

  CRESCENT ACADEMY IS a beautiful school, and its study hall is no exception. The room is big and lovely and even though the desks are plain and ordinary, the walls have floor-to-ceiling bookshelves that I just want to lose myself in. The shelves are filled with every kind of book imaginable. Sometimes it’s hard to remember that this isn’t even the campus library. The library this school has is truly unbeatable. Today, though, I’m not visiting study hall to look at the books or to lose myself in an adventure.