The Wrong Path_Smashwords (11 page)

At the house, Annabelle retrieved Claire’s house key from her purse and unlocked the door while Will opened all of the doors to the SUV, her friends practically falling out in their inebriated state. She cringed at the sight and the smell of alcohol as she rejoined Will at the car. Together they began carrying her friends into the house, some of them rousing at being jostled, others never doing more than breathe.

Annabelle lightly touched Trevor’s cheek as he lay peacefully in one of Claire’s guest beds, sighing. She wished she could be as oblivious to the night’s events as he was. She turned off the light and shut the door behind her as she exited the room, joining Will down at the front door.

“What about Parker?” Annabelle couldn’t resist asking as she followed Will out of the house. She locked the door behind them with Claire’s key and then slid it back under the door, as they always did.

“What about him?” Will asked flatly, leading the way back to the car. He unlocked the passenger door and pulled it open, leaving it open for her as he crossed to the driver’s side.

She climbed in, shutting the door behind her as he slid into the driver’s seat. “Well… We can’t really just leave him there, can we?”

His hand, which had been about to put the key in the ignition, fell onto his leg. She looked over at him, startled, and was taken aback by the look of pure disbelief and disgust on Will’s face.

“Are you serious?” he finally asked. “He tried to rape you at the party last week. He tried to rape you while you were on the phone with me. And you still want to give him a ride home?”

She flushed and tugged on the short skirt, trying to pull it down. Suddenly, the car felt too empty, and she felt too exposed. “I-I just…” she trailed off, not sure how to answer. “Well… We came together. I feel bad just abandoning him…”

Will roughly stuck the key in the engine and gunned it. “You mean that you don’t want your friends to be mad that you left one of their pack behind,” he corrected flatly.

She looked up at him, horrified and embarrassed. “N-no!”

He shot her a dirty look. “You can do whatever you want when I’m not around. But you called, and I’m not going to sit idly by or passed out in a passenger seat while you get attacked. So you’ll have to keep up appearances on your own time.”

She scowled. “Trevor drank too much—everyone did. It’s not their fault—“

“Open your eyes, Belle!” Will snapped. “They’re not just drunk. No drunk person is that bad off. Get me?”

She fell back against the seat, stunned as his words sunk in. Her mind spun. “It… it must have been an accident…”

“An accident?” he repeated in disbelief, glancing over at her as he finished pulling out of a curve. “All of them except you?”

“Well… Your brother would never—“

“Don’t,” Will warned coldly. “I know the signs.”

She frowned in confusion, shaking her head. They couldn’t be talking about the same person, could they? Trevor would never do drugs. It wasn’t like him. He wasn’t a big partier. Will had to be mistaken. “No. You’re wrong. He has a two-drink limit usually, and he just went overboard tonight. Everyone did.”

Will gaped at her, then suddenly laughed and shook his head. As he pulled up to a red light he threw the stick shift into the proper gear with a practiced ease and fell back against the seat, still smiling and shaking his head. “Unbelievable. You really are unbelievable.”

She pressed her lips together unhappily. “I’m not naïve. I-I know that some of my friends do drugs sometimes. It’s just, I don’t think Trevor, of all people, would do them.”

Will let out a soft laugh and shook his head again, fluidly moving the shift into the correct position as the light turned green and he accelerated. He said nothing else, though, and while she was grateful that he had stopped talking bad about Trevor, she wished he would say something. Anything. She just wanted to talk to him.

But he didn’t. And she didn’t know what to say to him. Even with the heavy silence between them, when he pulled the car up to the street between their houses, she climbed out slowly, a bit reluctant to leave his company.

“I’ll wait,” he said, leaning against the side of the hood closest to her house. He crossed his arms over his chest and nodded at her house. “Go on.”

She paused in front of him, hesitantly meeting his dark eyes. “Thank you, Will. I-I can’t tell you how much I appreciated you… being there.” She lightly squeezed his arm in a gesture of thanks, but he didn’t move. She smiled up at him, but the expression broke and she turned away, her shoulders slumping as she headed up to her front door.

The night had been a complete and utter disaster.

Chapter Eight

Annabelle clasped her books to her chest as she fought her way through the crowded hallway to her next class. Trevor hadn’t shown up at her classroom to walk her to her next class, so she was trying to make her way by herself, a nearly impossible feat during the first lunch period. Students milled about without a care, clogging up the hallway and leaving barely enough space to let one student go through at a time.

She cried out as she slammed into someone, her books scattering onto the ground with the other person’s. She stared at them in dismay, then hurriedly knelt down to gather them up.

“Sorry,” she apologized quickly, blushing furiously. She picked up one of the books that wasn’t hers and held it out. “Here,” she said, the word dying in her throat as she found herself staring at Will’s friend Ebony.

“Thanks,” Ebony said calmly, her tone daring.

“You got out,” Annabelle breathed, relief flooding through her. Ebony’s eyes widened in surprise, so she went on quickly. “I was with Will when you guys got taken away, and he was really upset about the whole thing, and then when I heard someone from our school had called you guys in after some rumor that you guys brought… that stuff… to the party a couple of weeks ago—“

Ebony suddenly smiled, her face a mixture of confusion and amusement. “I see,” she said, as if she had discovered something.

Startled, Annabelle paused in picking up their books. “What?” she asked.

Ebony handed over one of Annabelle’s books she had picked up. Annabelle placed it on her stack, still confused. “We’ve never really met,” she said, holding out her hand. “Ebony.”

Annabelle felt a surge of happiness go through her as she took the girl’s hand. “Annabelle. And it’s really nice to meet you.”

They finished gathering their things and stood, Ebony still studying her with an almost pleased look. “I like your skirt,” Ebony said, nodding down at the plaid, pleaded skirt Annabelle had paired with a dark blue polo shirt.

She looked down at it automatically, then grinned up at her. “You can borrow it if you’d like,” she offered. She tried to picture Ebony in her skirt, and smiled at the thought. Ebony would probably do something totally crazy and fun with it, like pair it with ripped tights and combat boots or something Annabelle couldn’t dream up. Even now, she could never have thought to put together the ensemble of patterns, ripped clothes, lace-up knee-high boots, and black leather skirt.

Ebony laughed and leaned back, eyeing her appreciatively. “That would be cool. Thanks.”

“Sure! I’ll wash it tonight and bring it in for you tomorrow.” That reminded her… she still hadn’t given Will
his
shirt back.

Ebony grinned. “Cool. Thanks.”

“Anytime!” The warning bell rang, and Annabelle looked up, disappointed. “I’ve gotta go. I’ll see you later.”

Ebony nodded, and the two girls went in opposite directions down the hall. Annabelle felt strangely giddy as she hurried to her classroom. She had made a friend, of her own merit, being herself, and nothing bad had happened.

At least, she thought nothing bad had happened. Later, at lunch, she heard Claudia’s carefully practiced, airy voice say, “So, Annabelle… I heard you got slammed into in the hallway by that disgusting skank Ebony.”

Startled, she looked up from her soda. “What?” she asked, flushing when she noticed the entire table had gone silent waiting for her answer. “No. We bumped into each other because it was crowded. She didn’t slam into me.”

“I heard it was practically an attack,” Claudia went on, shaking her head in a disapproving way that was so clearly fake Annabelle couldn’t believe no one else was picking up on it. “How tacky. Her first day back to school and she’s coming after you. She must think you’re the one who ratted them out. You should be careful, Annabelle. Who knows how they’ll try to get back at you?”

She felt her back go rigid in fear. Was that why Ebony had been so nice to her? Was she just pretending to be nice to lower Annabelle’s defenses so they could retaliate?

No. Ebony had been so nice. It couldn’t be.

Could it?

For the next three periods, everyone who talked to her all warned her about Ebony’s ulterior motives. By the end of the day she was nearly sick with anxiety. She just wanted to go home and get away from all the people who felt the need to weigh in on her life.

After all… Will was friends with Ebony, and he wouldn’t let Ebony do anything to her.

Would he?

Of course he wouldn’t, Annabelle assured herself, admonishing herself for even entertaining the thought. Will had been nothing but a good friend to her.

But… what if Will were in on it, too?

She felt her stomach churn even as she approached Trevor’s locker. “Trevor!” she greeted breathlessly, watching as he turned at the sound of his name.

A charming, warm smile gracing his features. “Hey, baby,” he returned. He leaned down and gave her a quick kiss that ordinarily would have made her heart skip, but now only felt… necessary. He paused and leaned back, frowning. “What’s wrong?”

She forced a smile. “Nothing. I just wanted to let you know that I’m going to catch a ride home with Claire. I’m kind of tired.”

He held her shoulders, concern marring his attractive features. “Is everything okay?” he asked, frowning.

She shook back her hair and rolled her eyes, giving him her practiced, teasing smile. “Of course. I’m just a little sleepy so I wanted to go home and take a nap so that when you come over later I’m awake.”

He grinned, and she was a little disappointed at how well he bought her act. “Okay. Well call me if you need anything. I’ll see you after practice.”

She didn’t want to see him, or anyone, tonight, but she nodded. “Definitely.” She reached up and kissed him lightly, then headed down the hall to Claire’s locker.

To her dismay, no one was at Claire’s locker. It was almost unheard of for Claire to leave within twenty or thirty minutes of school ending, and there was always a crowd at her locker. Where was everyone?

And then a new thought struck her, making her knees weak. Was she being singled out for some reason? Had her friends abandoned her because of the Parker thing?

Nausea and fear sent her running for the bathroom, where she desperately tried to catch her breath and recompose. It couldn’t be. Her friends wouldn’t turn against her for that. Parker had acted like nothing was wrong on Monday. He claimed he couldn’t even remember anything after they’d arrived at club. He had even thanked Annabelle for dropping him off at home, which had made her gape in disbelief. But maybe he really did remember. Maybe he had told the others she had ditched him in the parking lot with a split lip and no ride home. But could her friends really be mad at her for leaving him there? They all knew what he was like when he was drunk. She had just been trying to protect herself and Erin. They couldn’t really be mad about it—could they?

When she finally made her way out of the bathroom, the hallway was deserted except for a couple of students making their way to the parking lot. She sighed, closing her eyes against tears, and started to the parking lot herself, hoping to find one of her friends out there.

She rounded the corner and almost collided with someone, stepping back at the last moment. “Sorry,” she apologized quickly. This was not her day. This was really not her day. Why, when everything had been going so well, was everything starting to fall apart?

There was a moment of silence. She lifted her head, startled to find herself looking up into Will’s dark eyes. “Hi,” she breathed. “What are you still doing here?” Will, of all people, was the last person she expected to still see at school. He and his friends were usually out the second the last bell rang, if not sooner.

“Mrs. Littey wanted to talk to me,” he said, naming the sophomore English teacher. “What’s wrong?”

She started to tell him nothing with her fake, practiced smile, but it suddenly broke apart, and there, in the middle of the school hallway, she burst into tears.

He hugged her gently, holding her close, his embrace comforting. From the safety of his arms, she blurted out the whole story, even telling him that people were warning her that Ebony was only being nice to her because she wanted revenge, and that Will might be involved and she didn’t even know if she could trust him for sure. “And I can’t tell Trevor,” she finished with a shaky sob. “He’s already worried enough about me, and he’s got the homecoming game coming up. I don’t want to waste his time on stupid things like this.”

Will moved so that just one arm was wrapped around her shoulders. “Come on,” he said, gently pulling her to the double doors. She let him lead her outside to the empty parking lot, where his lone black convertible sat in the front row with its top down. He took her bag and set it in the back before opening the passenger door. She all-but fell in, trying to wipe away her tears and smeared makeup with her fingertips.