I nearly guffawed out loud at that, but the truth was if ever there was a time for wishful thinking to get me through, it was right now.
CHAPTER 23
EVERYONE WAS LAUGHING. I looked up through my hair and watched them, disgusted.
They were like a pack of hyenas.
And this...
This was my worst nightmare.
Bottom of the rung on the high school social ladder.
Literally—I was currently flat out on my face on the floor of the hallway since someone had stuck a foot out when I was passing.
Day Four in Finn and India’s Now Open to the Public Love Story.
We even had our own hashtag on social media.
#Finndia.
You might have guessed that #Finndia wasn’t going too well for me.
The sick thing was Finn wasn’t getting any crap from anyone.
No. Apparently he was a victim just like Eloise.
I was the cheap hussy who had stolen the prince from the princess.
As I pushed up on my elbows Elle came into sight. She was standing in the middle of the hall staring at me in horror.
Embarrassed, I lowered my eyes and got to my feet. Attempting to ignore everyone, I grabbed my fallen books and walked in the opposite direction of my stepsister.
My knee throbbed like a mother.
For the last three days, Finn and I had eaten lunch at a table by ourselves. We got stared at and sneered at but when we were together the abuse wasn’t so bad. It was when I was alone that the name-calling and spit balling happened. I could now add physical assault to the list.
Home wasn’t any better than school.
Theo acted like I didn’t exist and his attitude pissed off Hayley so much they got into a huge argument, so the newlyweds were no longer talking.
Eloise kept avoiding me so I had no idea what was going on in her head. All I knew was that our friends had turned against me, my stepfather had turned against me, Patrick turned in the opposite direction when he saw me, my entire class hated me and even some of my teachers looked at me with derision.
And Eloise had the power to stop the character assassination.
I needed my friend back.
* * *
Finn was silent the whole time he drove me to his place after school. He was mad.
Not at me.
At everyone else.
Word had gotten back to him about my little “stumble” in the hallway.
I’d tried to tell him I was all right but I don’t think it helped.
“I used to think the brain was the most important organ,” I quipped. “But then I thought, look what’s telling me that.”
A reluctant smile pulled at Finn’s mouth. “What?”
“It’s a joke.”
“It’s a bad joke.” He pulled into his driveway. Rochester was away on business again so we had the house to ourselves.
The tug at Finn’s lips was gone, and he was back to Mr. Brooding as he came around to the passenger’s side, opened the door and helped me out. He held my hand as he led me into the house.
I searched my brain for more material to lighten his mood.
“Where do animals go when their tails fall off?”
Finn glanced back at me with a cool eyebrow raise.
“The retail store.”
“You tell really bad jokes.”
“So bad they’re funny, right?”
He didn’t answer as we walked upstairs to his room.
I decided to persevere. “What kind of shoes do ninjas wear?”
“I don’t know.” Finn sighed as he tugged me into his bedroom and closed the door behind us. “What kind of shoes do ninjas wear?”
“Sneakers.”
He pressed his lips together.
“Aha!” I pointed at him, grinning. “You want to laugh, I can tell.”
“I don’t. I want to cry they’re so bad.”
“How do you make a Kleenex dance?”
“I’m afraid to ask.”
“Put a little boogie in it.”
Finn threw back his head and scrubbed his face with his hands. “Oh, man,” he groaned, but I could hear the laughter in his voice.
I giggled. “What time is it when you have to go to the dentist?”
He dropped his hands from his face and crossed the small distance between us to pull me against him.
“Tooth-hurtie,” I said.
Finn shook his head, staring down at me with so much tenderness my smile fell under its beautiful weight. “I love you,” he whispered. “So much.”
My breath caught, wonder flowing through me in tingling warmth. “Really?”
“Truly.”
I slid my arms up and around his shoulders and pressed deeper into him. I prepared myself to say something I hadn’t said to anyone since I was eight years old.
“India?”
“I love you, too, Finn.”
He kissed me, sweet and tender, seeming to savor every little taste of me.
I pulled back, a little out of breath. My skin was hot, my belly in flutters and my heart was racing so hard. There was no guarantee that I would ever again feel the way I did right then as I stood in Finn’s arms. I didn’t want to waste that feeling.
“I’m ready,” I told him, gazing meaningfully into his eyes.
His grip on me tightened. “Are you sure? This isn’t just because you want to take your mind off all the crap that’s going on at school?”
Butterflies raged to life among the flutters in my stomach. But they were the good kind. The great kind. I kissed him lightly, breathing him in. “It’s got nothing to do with that.” I told the absolute truth. “I want this. With you.”
And that’s how on a day that could have been one of the worst in my teenage life, one of the best and most significant things happened.
I led Finn Rochester to his bed, we undressed each other and I lost my virginity.
I had always found that phrase strange—“losing your virginity.” How could you lose something that you willingly gave up, right?
It was like by using the word loss it was really about the idea of losing your innocence.
I’d lost my innocence a long time ago.
I didn’t see the loss of my virginity in that light.
It was more that I lost every part of me in Finn, and he in me.
I never knew being lost could be so beautiful.
CHAPTER 24
ALL MY HAPPY disappeared as soon as I stepped inside the house.
Theo was passing through the hall with a newspaper in his hand. He looked up from it to stare at me.
I was frozen by the weariness I found in his eyes.
He sighed, dropped his gaze and walked away from me.
Even though I understood he was hurting because he believed his daughter was hurting, I was wounded by his refusal to believe in me.
With that feeling digging deep in my chest, the last person I wanted to see waiting for me in my room was Eloise.
My afterglow sex buzz died completely. “What are you doing here?”
“I’ve been avoiding you.”
“Really? I hadn’t noticed.”
She ignored my sarcasm. “I’ve been avoiding you because I knew this would happen. I knew they’d murder you for this, and it’s not exactly easy for me to watch. You are the last person in the world I want to hurt,” she said, her eyes wet. “Please, India. Please. If I could tell them the truth to save you from all of this I would. I’m just so scared. I don’t want to be. I want to be stronger, but wanting it doesn’t make it true. I’m sorry.” She gave me a sad, lonely smile. “I miss my friends.”
I took in the way her ha
nd shook as she raised it to her forehead. She pressed it there as if somehow it would stem the flow of tears but it didn’t.
The last time I’d watched Elle cry was when she told me the truth about her sexuality.
With the memories of that night and the night Finn had told me, when she threw up from too much champagne and too much fear, the hurt I’d felt at her anger began to drain out of me.
“Eloise...argh.” I threw my hands up in exhaustion and aggravation. “I know. Okay. I can deal with the kids at school and with Theo’s dirty looks. I can deal with it. Bigger picture, right?” I gave her a reassuring smile. “But I miss my friend, too.”
“You were angry at me. I saw it today in the hall.”
“I needed you,” I said. “Now you’re here.”
Three seconds later I was rocked back on my heels by the impact of her body hitting mine. Surprised, it took me a moment to return her hug.
I put my arms around her, feeling her tremble against me and wishing I could do something, anything, to make everything okay for her, for us all.
Just as quickly as she’d embraced me, she jerked away from me, straightened her clothes with her usual primness, nodded at me like we’d just finished discussing a bake sale and strolled out of my room.
I shook my head, laughing to myself. I wouldn’t change her for the world.
India: You should call Elle. She misses us.
Finn: I will. But we have bigger problems than Elle right now.
India: What’s going on?
Finn: My father knows about us.
“Well, if it isn’t the traitorous whore.”
I rolled my eyes at Bryce’s greeting as she sidled up to me in the hall the next day at school.
“How can you even show your face around here?”
“Simple, really—it is attached to my head and my head is attached to my body and my body makes these actions called movements and these movements take me places like school.”
Unamused by my sarcasm, Bryce got in my face. “Just because Eloise has stupidly proclaimed you off-limits does not mean you are safe. I will find a way to destroy you, with or without her permission.”
“And why do you care?”
“She’s my best friend. Loyalty actually means something to me.”
I grunted. “I’ll believe that when I see it.”
“Back off, Bryce,” Finn said as he approached. My eyes immediately narrowed on his cut lip.
“If it isn’t the man-whore.” Bryce zeroed in on his lip. “I see someone finally taught you a well-deserved lesson.”
I didn’t even notice her walk away. My blood was too busy boiling as I stared at Finn’s mouth.
He grabbed my hand. “You okay?”
“Am I okay?” I snapped, leaning into him. “He hit you?”
Finn glanced around us quickly. “Not here.”
“Fine. Let’s get out of here.”
“We can’t cut class.”
“Right now, I couldn’t care less about class.”
He grinned and then winced, touching his thumb to the cut.
I seethed. “I’m going to kill him.”
“He’s not worth it.”
“What the hell happened?”
“I’ll tell you at lunch. We’ll go somewhere. Meet me out front.”
* * *
“I got a text from Elle,” Finn said as soon as we got into his car. “She wants to know who hit me.”
“What did you tell her?”
“Nothing yet.”
“Finn, what is going on?”
“Once we park.”
We drove in a thick silence, a silence that only allowed my growing anger to build. I’d been agitated all morning, thinking about Finn’s lip and the son of a bitch that had punched him.
Thirty minutes later we were parked in an isolated spot near a wooded park where people took their dogs for walks. It was dead at night—I knew because Finn had taken me there over the last few months to have some alone time. Now, during lunch hour, there were a few cars parked but we still had privacy.
“Start from the beginning,” I said as soon as he switched the engine off.
He exhaled heavily. “When I got home from dropping you off last night, my dad was home and he was waiting for me. His company attorney knows Theo and somehow he found out about everything and mentioned it to my father yesterday at work. Obviously my dad was surprised to hear I’m now dating you.”
“I can see he didn’t take the news too well.”
Finn smirked bitterly. “It seems he didn’t like me walking away from him while he was talking.”
“Did you...” I was almost afraid to ask. “Hit him back?”
“And become like him?” he said gruffly. “No. Like I said, he isn’t worth it.”
“What did he say to you?”
His grip on my hand tightened until it was almost painful. “He’s going to ruin my future if I don’t break up with you.”
I wrenched my hand away from him. “What does that mean? And why does he still care? Technically I’m a Fairweather now.”
“Because he’s messed up in the head, India. It’s got nothing to do with you. It’s about him and me, and him controlling my life, it having to be the perfect image he has in his head. He respects Theo and he wants me to be with his daughter. Not his stepdaughter. He basically wants to live my life for me. You aren’t his choice. That’s all that matters to him. This is about him proving he has control over me.
“So if I don’t break up with you, he’s going to make sure I don’t get into college. Not even Harvard. Without his money I couldn’t afford to go, anyway.”
“He’ll cut you off?” I cried. “That piece of—that son of—that hateful piece of shit!”
“India.” He reached for me. “It doesn’t matter. None of that matters. I have you. That matters.”
“No.” I shook my head adamantly. “Your future matters, Finn. He’s not taking that away from you and you’re not going to let him because of me. He can’t stop you from getting into college!”
“He might not be able to pull the strings he says he can...but, India, I can’t afford to go if he cuts me off.”
“Scholarships,” I reminded him.
He shook his head. “I will never get financial aid. My father makes too much money. And art schools tend not to have crew teams.”
“Your grandparents, then.”
“They’re retired. They live comfortably, but they would stop living comfortably if they had to pay college tuition. But I could move out, get a job...”
“No.” I scowled at him. “That is not how this ends. You will go home and tell your dad you broke up with me.”
Hurt flared in his eyes. “Are you kidding me?”
“We’re not breaking up,” I promised. “But right now he needs to think we are until we can figure something else out.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Let me think.”
“And while you’re thinking you’ll start to feel terrible again about being my—what was it you called it? My dirty little secret.”
I saw his deep-seated worry about that. “No. This is temporary, very temporary.”
Finn contemplated me a second, seemed to believe I meant what I said and then reached for me. He gently hauled me over the center console until I was sitting in his lap. I touched his lower lip, my thumb just a breath from the cut. Gently, so gently, I pressed a kiss to his mouth. “I love you,” I murmured.
“I love you, too,” he breathed. “India, I swear...that’s all that matters to me.”
And as much as I believed him, as much as it lit me up inside, I knew better. Love, our love, was great and all, but there was something else just as im
portant, and I wouldn’t stop until I found a way to get it for this boy.
* * *
Theo sat in his office chair staring out of the window with this unfocused look in his eyes. I wondered what he was thinking about. It certainly didn’t look like work.
Okay, here goes nothing.
“May I come in?”
He startled out of his daze, his lids lowering over his eyes when he saw it was me that had interrupted his daydreaming. “I’m a little busy.”
“Make time.” I stepped inside and closed the door behind me.
Theo sighed and gestured to the seat in front of his desk.
Once I was sitting I searched his face, seeing more than an angry, hurt father figure. I saw confusion in his eyes, too, and wondered if Hayley’s avowals of my innocence were starting to get to him. “I realized something last night.”
“And what was that?” His tone wasn’t warm with tell-me-mores but he wasn’t throwing me out, either.
“When Hayley told me she’d met you and that we were moving here, I started having nightmares.”
He frowned. “About what?”
“They were memories, really. Of the things my dad did to me.”
Concern flashed in his eyes and right then I knew I was doing the right thing.
“I’m sure Hayley has told you that he would punish me by starving me...among other things.”
“Yes,” he whispered, clearly horrified by the thought.
“I started dreaming about those days again and I hadn’t in years. All because Hayley was dragging me across the country to live with a man I didn’t know. I didn’t know what kind of man you were, or if she was dragging me into another nightmare.”
“India.” He scrubbed his hands over his face. “I didn’t know that.”
“I know. But that’s why I wasn’t very warm with you, because...I don’t trust easily. For God’s sake, I’m just learning to trust Hayley. For the first few months here I had those nightmares, those memories, every now and then. And last night I realized that they’d stopped a while ago. They stopped, and I didn’t even notice.”
He looked torn for some reason, but I understood when he said, “Are you going to tell me they stopped because you met Finn?”