Page 100 of Foolish Games

“Yeah, he’ll be fine,” Jerome agrees. He checks Chaz’s pulse as the librarian comes back to tell us she called the nurse.

Chaz groans and finally pushes himself up on his elbows. “I knew that guy was dangerous,” he says, rubbing his head. “I’ve been saying that for years.”

“Then why do you go out of your way to goad him?” I demand.

Krissy gives me a sour look. “Are you saying it’s Chaz’s fault he got assaulted? He’s the victim here, Viv. Not your fake boyfriend.”

“Wait, you and Sebastian were faking the whole thing?” asks Scarlet, one of Keisha’s little minions.

I wince, not wanting that information spread around to more people than the ones who already heard it. Ignoring her, I address Krissy. “Chaz may be the victim, but if he wasn’t lying, trying to provoke Bash, he wouldn’t have gotten punched.”

“You really think you’re in a position to lecture anyone about honesty?” Chaz asks, sitting up fully.

“Yeah,” Krissy says. “It’s not his fault Sebastian is a caveman who only knows how to express himself with violence. And why are you defending him? It’s not like he’s your boyfriend.”

I don’t say anything. Why am I defending him? He chose to leave that party with his friends. He made that choice.

“Oh my god,” Krissy says. “She totally likes him!”

“No,” I say, holding up a hand.

“You do,” Krissy says, staring at me with wide eyes. She chokes with laughter. “Oh, this is priceless.”

“You like him?” Chaz asks, having the audacity to look wounded about that.

“You dated a player and actually believed he could change,” Krissy says. “That’s even more pathetic than just trying to look better after Chaz dumped you.”

“People don’t change,” Scarlet says. “Especially guys like Sebastian Swift. Once a player, always a player.”

“Guess you had to get played to learn that lesson,” Krissy says, tossing her mousy hair back.

“I feel for you,” Scarlet says, giving me a pitying look. “Been there, and it sucks. If you want to talk about it, I’ll take you for ice cream after school. I’m a good listener.”

I have no idea why a cheerleader is offering me ice cream, but since there’s not even an ice cream place in town, I figure it’s an empty offer. She’s probably just fishing for gossip on the captain of the football team.

The nurse arrives then and takes Chaz to her office. Krissy goes back to the announcements, and the rest of us settle in, but no one gets anything done. We’re all too keyed up from what just happened to focus.

The next day, I hear a few people mention something about a fight, and how Sebastian got suspended. We’re in the middle of homeroom when the regular announcements cut off, and suddenly, the whole school is witnessing my brother and Sebastian arguing in the AV room.

“What’s going on?” Mr. Diaz asks, looking up from his gradebook.

Everyone’s too busy watching every detail unfold to answer him. The announcements have never gotten so much attention in the history of school. They’re not boring today. They’re full of drama, fighting, and salacious gossip.

Gossip about me.

I feel myself shrinking in my seat, but I can’t escape the eyes sparkling with excitement at the newly revealed information. I want to shrink until I’m no bigger than an ant, so they can’t even see me, and crawl out of my desk and race out the door. Instead, I sit frozen while my brother and Sebastian unknowingly tell the entire school about my pathetic attempt to not look like a loser when I was dumped. And a thousand times worse, that I was never anything to Sebastian but a bet—one I lost.

I slept with him.

I thought he cared about me, that yesterday, he was there to tell me so. And even in the moments where I told myself he didn’t, I never would have imagined this. At the very least, I thought he was attracted to me. That we were having fun, even if I was just one more hookup to the notorious playboy. At least that I went in knowing what I was getting into—the wild fling my grandmother encouraged, a no-strings attached arrangement that felt so damn good it would be worth the heartbreak when it inevitably ended.

I didn’t know he had to be paid to sleep with me.

That I was nothing to him but a challenge, something to prove to his buddies.

That he could sleep with anyone—even a naïve, inexperienced nerd like me.

And I proved him right. I made it so easy. I even let him fuck me without a condom, cum inside me. I let him go down on me. I let him, and I loved it. And all along, he was laughing at me behind my back. Telling his friends about it, about how easy I was.

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