She presses her lips together before taking another drink from her mug. She taps the sides of the cup before speaking. “I really needed someone, and when you weren’t around and I couldn’t get ahold of you, I had to move on. You understand, don’t you?”

I nod because I do understand. I don’t like it, but I get it. “I’m sorry,” I repeat.

“I’m sorry, too.” Her hand dips into the pocket of her flour-dusted apron. “Here, call me if you need anything.”

Anything but a job, I think. “Thanks,” I say, pocketing the card.

“Don’t be a stranger, Ella,” she says kindly as she gets to her feet. “If I have another opening, maybe we can try again.”

“Thanks.” My vocabulary is reduced to two words: thanks and sorry.

Lucy takes another gulp of her coffee and leaves for her kitchen while I’m left to contemplate how poorly I handled my departure. I’m not used to being the unreliable one, and even though there’s a sick feeling in my stomach for having let her down, there’s also a small part of me that’s happy she cared. That anyone cared.

12

I hear the whispers the moment I step onto campus the next morning. I got a few smirks and stares when I was parking my car in the student lot, but it’s much worse inside. A deafening hush, then an endless murmur of voices and smug laughter that follows me down the hall.

At my locker, I study my reflection in the little mirror on the door, wondering if there’s a piece of hair sticking up or a booger in my nose. But I look fine. Just another cookie-cutter Astor Park student in my white uniform shirt and navy skirt and blazer.

My legs are bare because it’s still nice enough out to not have to wear tights, but almost every girl in the hall also has bare legs, so I don’t think it’s my appearance that everyone is whispering about.

I don’t like this. It’s way too similar to my first day at Astor, when nobody said a word to me because they were waiting to see which way Reed and his brothers would swing. Hate Ella or welcome her. In the end, the student body settled for something in between. Most of the kids never really warmed up to me, but that’s probably because I was purposely antisocial and hung out only with Val.

Today, almost everyone I pass eyes me with contempt. As I make my way to my first class, I can’t stop fidgeting. I feel self-conscious and I hate it.

I’m jostled violently when a dark-haired girl shoves me to the side instead of walking around me. She saunters forward a few feet, then stops to look at me.

“Welcome back, Ella. How was the abortion? Did it hurt?” She smiles innocently.

My jaw opens just slightly before I force it shut. The girl in front of me is Claire something-or-other. She used to hook up with Easton before he got bored of her.

“Screw you,” I mutter before brushing past her.

I reach chem class at the same time as Easton. He takes one look at my face and frowns deeply. “You okay, little sis?”

“Fine,” I answer through gritted teeth.

I don’t think he believes me, but he doesn’t say a word as he follows me into the classroom. We settle at the table we’ve shared since the semester started, and I notice several smirks aimed our way.

“Nice. The Royal sex doll is back, huh, Easton?” a guy drawls from the back of the room. “Bet you and Reed are thrilled.”

Easton twists around in his chair. I can’t see his face, but whatever his expression is, it silences the heckler in a heartbeat.

There’s a cough followed by sounds of notebooks opening and clothes rustling.

“Ignore ’em,” Easton advises.

Easier said than done.

My morning only gets worse. Easton’s in most of my classes and he plants his ass beside me in each one. My cheeks burn as I overhear two girls whispering about how I’m sleeping with two of my stepbrothers.

“She’s definitely doing Gid, too,” one of them says, not even bothering to lower her voice anymore. “It was probably his baby she got vacuumed out.”

Easton does his turn-around-and-glare-bloody-murder thing again, but although it quiets the catty bitches, it doesn’t silence the uneasy voice in my head.

Val warned me there were rumors floating around about me, but is this what people actually think? That I was gone because I was having an abortion? That I slept with Reed, Easton, and Gideon?

I’m no stranger to embarrassment—stripping at the age of fifteen taught me a huge lesson about humiliation—but knowing that everyone at school is saying all this horrible stuff about me has me blinking back tears.

I have Val, I remind myself, and she’s the only person in Astor Park whose opinion matters. And Easton, I guess. He’s barely left my side since I got back to Bayview, so I think I have no choice but to consider him a friend. Even if I do despise his brother.

After class, I head back to my locker to exchange textbooks because they don’t all fit in my bag. Easton disappears down the hall, but not before squeezing my arm when we encounter yet another flurry of nasty whispers.

“So today’s Easton’s day?”

I tense up at the sound of Jordan Carrington’s voice. I was wondering how long it would take for that bitch to roll out the unwelcome mat.

Rather than answer, I grab my World History text off the top shelf and replace it with my chem book.

“That’s the arrangement, right? You alternate between Reed and Easton? Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, you do Reed. Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, you do East.” Jordan cocks her head. “What about Sundays? Is that reserved for one or both of the twins?”

I slam the locker door and turn to smile at her. “Nah, on Sundays I bone your boyfriend. Except for the times he’s busy—then I do your dad.”

Her eyes flash with anger. “Watch your mouth, bitch.”

Keeping my smile in place becomes a strain. “Watch yours, Jordan. Unless you want me to smack you again?” I prompt, reminding her of the beatdown I gave her in the gym last month.

She releases a throaty laugh. “Go ahead and try. Let’s see how far you get when you don’t have Reed to protect you.”

I take a step closer, but she doesn’t even flinch. “I don’t need Reed’s protection. I never did.”

“Oh, really?”