NOT SO Special: a bay falls high novel Read online

  NOT SO Special

  a bay falls high novel

  Jaxson Kidman

  Contents

  Welcome to

  NOT SO Special

  Prologue

  one

  two

  three

  four

  five

  six

  seven

  eight

  nine

  ten

  eleven

  twelve

  thirteen

  fourteen

  fifteen

  sixteen

  seventeen

  eighteen

  nineteen

  twenty

  Epilogue

  #bfh… #hch… and now #bc

  More from Jaxson

  Welcome to

  He deserved it.

  Fuck, everyone deserved whatever they got at this point.

  Including me.

  * * *

  Written by Jaxson Kidman

  NOT SO Special

  First they choose you.

  Then they use you.

  Next they lose you...

  My name is Belle.

  AND THIS IS THE END.

  Prologue

  (everything I know…)

  we let it all go

  into the endless version

  of

  i don’t know

  where words spelled backwards

  makes more sense

  than talking

  tracing the letters

  fingertips

  oh, I know what that can do

  sometimes I forget

  to remind myself

  of who you really are

  and who I really am

  and then I laugh

  into the night

  flipping it to day

  the pendulum knocks me

  left to right

  i’m on my ass

  still laughing

  like I ever really had

  a

  fucking choice

  Something totally cliché ran through my mind as I stood at the end of the long pier. The waves crashed really hard against the old legs of the pier. I swore I felt the pier moving when the waves punched it, but that was just my mind making things up.

  Like it always did.

  But the cliché thing…

  Well, here’s the end of the line.

  I wondered how many people have stood where I was and said that.

  Some stupid joke to say because after the pier was the ocean.

  I wasn’t sure if a person could jump off the pier and swim to shore safely.

  The answer was probably, but only if the conditions were right.

  The fall alone wouldn’t feel all that great. And then, if a wave grabbed you and tossed you into the pier, that would hurt. And then if the ocean was a little pissed off, it could just take you out and do it again and again.

  But I wasn’t on some pier to jump off into the ocean.

  The only thing cliché was that stupid thought I had.

  Well, here’s the end of the line.

  I gave the middle finger to that line.

  This wasn’t the end of the line.

  There was no line.

  That was the craziest part of everything.

  There. Was. No. Line.

  I wanted to tell myself the line was gone, but I wasn’t even really sure there was one to begin with.

  BFH had been appealing because of the idea that maybe there was no line to ever cross. And I had been appealing to Them because they all knew I’d cross the line if there was one.

  And now I was left with…

  “You,” I said as I turned my head to the right.

  I took a deep breath and finished my cigarette.

  I reached down for the baseball bat and squeezed it tight in my hand.

  “You,” I said again.

  I could have returned the bat.

  Not sure any of the guys would have wanted it back though.

  And even if they did… they’d have to swim for it.

  I laughed to myself as I tossed the bat over the pier.

  It was dark out, so I really didn’t get a good look at the bat smacking the water. I pictured a wave picking up the bat and slamming it against the pier, snapping it in half like a thin stick.

  But who the fuck knows what happened to the bat.

  Maybe it would wash to the shore.

  And then one of the douchebags like Max or Ryan would find it and think it was a lucky bat.

  Or maybe it would just be sucked out to sea. And in ten years it would show up on some island or something.

  Or just deteriorate into nothing.

  So many possibilities.

  I put my hands to the pier and I pushed myself back.

  I waved my middle fingers to the ocean and spun around.

  Someone was waiting for me.

  It wasn’t a surprise though.

  He drove me to the pier.

  And now he was going to take me away.

  From everything.

  The way it should have been from…

  “Whatever,” I whispered to myself.

  It didn’t matter what happened.

  It only mattered what was going to happen.

  I started to run down the pier toward him.

  I knew he was going to catch me.

  I knew he’d never drop me.

  And in a really bad cliché way…

  I knew I had loved him the entire time.

  one

  The logical thing to do was to pick up Lizzy and throw her into the pool.

  And I meant that literally.

  Danica had her by the arms and I had her by her ankles.

  We swung Lizzy three times and let her go.

  She smacked the water, screamed, and just like that, she was awake.

  Danica snapped her fingers and pointed at me. “We should have used cold water. Like cold, shower water.”

  “Don’t think this will work?” I asked.

  Danica nodded to the pool.

  Lizzy floated on her back, in the clothes she wore to bed, sunglasses on her face, a grin on her face to match.

  “Dammit,” I said. “She’s still half asleep.”

  “Half drunk too,” Danica said.

  “Should I go get ice?”

  Danica laughed. “You’re going to need a lot of ice to cool this pool down.”

  “Should we drag her out and put her in the shower?”

  “I’m listening to you,” Lizzy said. “I don’t need a cold, fucking shower right now.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “You were snoring pretty rough there.”

  “That’s my beauty sleep,” Lizzy said.

  “That’s why she sleeps alone,” Danica said. “She snores and they take off.”

  “Please,” Lizzy called out. “I make them leave. Don’t have time for awkward mornings.”

  “In other words, Lizzy has never had the morning after sex,” Danica said.

  I swallowed hard.

  Neither have I…

  “Which is the best kind,” Danica said.

  Lizzy stood up in the pool and lifted her sunglasses. “That’s only because you had or still have feelings for Raza. And you won’t admit it. So you linger around, hoping for another little poke here and there. Bitch.”

  Danica opened her mouth to unleash on Lizzy when Lizzy’s face turned bright white. Ghostly white. She hurried to put her sunglasses back on.

  But I knew what was going to happen next.

  I dove toward the pool and pulled at her left arm.

  “If you throw up in this pool, I will kill you, Lizzy,” I said.


  “Okay,” she said.

  I heard a sound come from her stomach that I never wanted to hear again.

  “I can’t watch,” Danica said.

  Lizzy was halfway out of the pool when she made a gagging, crying sound that made me feel sick too.

  The sound of her vomit hitting the pavement was the same as if I had poured chunky water from a bucket from twenty feet in the air.

  It was fast too.

  Just one… heave… and that was it.

  Lizzy gasped for a breath a few times and then sighed.

  “That actually felt good,” she said.

  She slithered back into the pool, leaving her mess on the ground next to my feet.

  “Is she done?” Danica asked.

  “No,” I said. “She’s going to get her ass out of the pool and clean this up.”

  Lizzy ignored me and floated toward the cove.

  “Get back here,” I said.

  Lizzy just waved a hand.

  Danica let out a groan. “Ohgod… that looks like the breading from chicken tenders soaked in water…”

  My stomach did a flip. “Shut up, Danica. That’s disgusting.”

  “I’m serious. Look at it.”

  I looked at Danica instead. “I hate you both. You shouldn’t have stayed last night.”

  “You offered,” Danica said. “I was just going to bring Drunky the Bitch to yell at you a little and then leave.”

  “Yeah… about that… you really believe what she had to say?”

  Danica nodded. “It makes sense. You keep saying about leaving, but I don’t think you can leave, can you?”

  “I can do anything I want.”

  “Be real, Belle,” Danica said.

  “I am being real. Lizzy’s big plan here is for me to break into Werthwood’s office and steal their files? That sounds insane.”

  “It is insane,” Danica said. “And you know what else is insane? Breaking someone’s jaw. Or beating the hell out of someone for the fun of it. Or stringing you along, thinking something is serious only to have Them corner you and demand you make a decision. A decision for what? Because whoever you choose, it’ll just make the other two act worse. Oh, and let’s not forget the fact that the Rulz already came after you.”

  “So did Werthwood himself,” I said.

  “He was trying to help you.”

  “So what?”

  “Okay, fine,” Danica said. “You break into his office and he gets in trouble too. So everyone wins.”

  “And what kind of secrets are in the folders?” I asked. “What about Them don’t I know yet?”

  “All the questions you keep asking,” Danica said. “And all the little secrets. Their grades. Any time they’ve been in trouble. Family stuff. Everything. Might be worth the risk.”

  “And what do I do with it?” I asked.

  “Anything you want, Belle,” Danica said. “You could throw it all right in their faces. Make Them realize what kind of crazy bitch you really are. And it’ll end it. You get their dirt and they walk away. Or at least you keep Them on a leash, which has never been done before.”

  “If I do that, it’ll ruin Them,” I said.

  “Only if you want to ruin Them,” Danica said. She inched toward me but stopped. We were separated by Lizzy’s vomit. Having such a serious conversation too. “They knew things about you, Belle. What happened. The V. Your locker.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “How did they know?”

  I swallowed hard.

  I’d always wanted to know that.

  Did they have ties to Gray somehow?

  It made no sense…

  “I can’t stay here forever,” I said. “I can’t be in this forever.”

  “But you have to survive right now,” Danica said.

  I saw movement from the corner of my eye.

  Jo was walking into the kitchen inside the house.

  “Fuck,” I whispered. “Danica, get in the pool and go into the cove. Tell Lizzy to keep her mouth shut.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know if you’re supposed to be here or not,” I said. “I don’t want Jo to do something crazy.”

  “Like what?” Danica asked.

  I looked at Danica. “She’s a doctor. She does surgery. She’s got all kinds of ways to do things to people…”

  Danica’s eyes widened.

  I totally just threw Jo under the bus, painting her as some well-known cardiologist by day and serial killer by night.

  But it worked.

  Danica dove head first into the pool, clothes and all, and swam to the cove.

  I wanted to get inside but Jo had already opened the door and stepped outside.

  She wore some kind of silky, thin robe. There wasn’t much of her covered up either. And it was pretty damn obvious the only piece of clothing on her body besides the robe was her panties.

  “Morning, Jo,” I said.

  She wore a giant pair of black sunglasses.

  She lifted them, making sure my eyes met her eyes.

  “Belle, it’s time we have a serious talk.”

  * * *

  “What the fuck is that on the ground?” Jo asked as she pointed to Lizzy’s vomit.

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “That smells like…”

  “Please don’t say chicken tenders,” I said.

  “It’s that and-”

  “Let’s go talk,” I said to Jo.

  I led the way toward the beach.

  Jo came with me.

  Now would have been the logical time for Danica to grab Lizzy and get her the hell out of the house.

  “I was thinking about what I said to you,” Jo said as I planted my feet on the warm sand.

  “Oh?”

  “I meant it. I’m not your mother. Or your friend. Or your caretaker. And you being here…”

  “If you want me to leave, just say it,” I said. “It’s your house. You tell me what to do.”

  “See, that’s the problem, Belle. I can’t bring myself to say those words.”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “Because I can’t picture you going back,” Jo said. “Living in some apartment with your mother. Living the same way you’ve always lived.”

  “You know, that sounds a lot like you caring about me,” I said.

  Jo waved a finger at me. “No, no. That’s not caring. That’s something else. Not sure what though. But it’s something else. I just don’t want you to go back there and fall into a trap. Or something.”

  “You seem flustered, Jo.”

  “Not flustered,” Jo said. “Just… thinking out loud. A lot just happened, Belle. I was not expecting a phone call from Hagan like I got. Telling me he was worried about someone you were associated with.”

  “I can’t help who shows up here.”

  “Yes, you can.”

  “I didn’t do anything wrong. I went for a walk.”

  “Just a walk?”

  “Yeah.”

  “With the beach right here?” Jo asked. “I’m not stupid. I know how it goes.”

  “How what goes?”

  “How to sneak around and get a ride from a cute guy.”

  Um, Hil is not cute. He’s fucking hot. Sexy fucking hot.

  “That’s not what I was doing.”

  “How do I believe that?”

  I took a deep breath. “Okay. Fine. You win, Jo. I was walking. A guy showed up. It wasn’t planned though, okay? I promise. It wasn’t planned. I was walking out front because it reminded me of home. Or what used to be home. Because in case you missed it, I’m sort of homeless. Which sounds stupid considering I’m crashing in a fucking mansion on the beach. But I’m homeless. You say the word and I’m out of here. And if Principal Werthwood says so, then I’m gone. It’s not exactly easy here, Jo. And it’s not your problem. I’ve never made it your problem. I can only say thanks to you for letting me stay here. But this is all temporary for me. So what do I do?”

 
; I felt my throat squeezing and opening.

  Oh, Belle, don’t cry in front of her. She’s a heart doctor but has no heart for that kind of stuff.

  Jo let out a long sigh. “Don’t worry about Hagan. I gave him a piece of my mind. Just… I don’t know. Stay away from him, I guess. He thought he was doing the right thing. Which was done in the worst way. What fucking world exists where following someone with your headlights off is okay?”

  “I’ll pay for the window. I broke it.”

  “I’ll handle that too,” Jo said. “He did call me, Belle To tell me that there were some things happening at Bay Falls High. And he was worried you were involved. Innocently involved.”

  “There’s something about him, Jo. I don’t know what it is… it almost reminds me of Miss Whitaker. Like they look at me and feel bad. Because I’m not rich? I don’t know.”

  “First off, do not compare Hagan to Lake.”

  “You know Miss Whitaker?”

  Jo sighed again. “Let’s just say there was a time and place. I may have dated someone who considered himself to be a poet. And he would take me to this little place where anyone could get behind a microphone. And Lake was there more than once. This was before her time at Bay Falls High.”

  “Wow… so you know all about her… that she worked for Uly… sses’s father and now…”

  “I have more important things to worry about than who does what,” Jo said.

  There was silence for a few seconds.

  Then Jo growled. “I don’t want you to leave, Belle. At least not this way. You leave when you’re ready.”

  “That shows you care,” I said.

  “Maybe I’m just stupid.”

  “Before we get into that, you dated a poet? So the opposites attract thing works even for doctors?”

  Jo glanced at me. “Trust me, it wasn’t the opposites thing that did it. There was one good thing about him. One big thing…”