Page 62 of Ramsay

“No matter. I know about your past, love, and if you don’t want the entire student body of Sterling High to know you’re a crack whore, you’ll stop with your games and fade quietly into the background.”

“Wh-what?” His cruel words are like a dagger to my heart. Yes, I’ve done things I’m not proud of, but for him to throw them in my face is pure cruelty.

Isn’t my recovery protected fucking information?

“Don’t play dumb. We both know you did treatment. Shall I list off your diagnoses? It’s quite the list of shit rolling around in that head,” he says, raising a brow.

“Fuck you!” I snarl, curling my fingers into my palms. I’d rather rake them down his face, but I have to be cautious because with Ramsay, I’m always walking into the unknown.

“Don’t worry. I will. Now, heed my warning. I don’t want to air all your dirty little secrets, love, but I will, hm,” he murmurs before turning away. “I’ve arranged a driver for you.”

I should be relieved, but I can’t see past the pounding in my heart that says, once again, I’ve become invisible. He’s erasing me.

I’m nothing as Oliver said.

With a rigid smile, I follow his arm to the door and out to the waiting car, climbing inside on trembling limbs. When I turn at the last minute, he’s already gone, as we pass out of sight.

∞∞∞

The following week I trudge back to school with a grim outlook. Ramsay has effectively silenced me, or so he thinks. Yes, I’m desperate to keep the information he has, or I think he has, from being exposed but not because I care what these assholes think.

No, I shared the darkness inside of me in an environment where I thought it was safe, exposing the insidious pain and ugliness that lurks beneath the surface and if revealed, my truths will be there for all the world to see.

I can't have that. I can't have people see the real me beneath the fake exterior, for it's not pretty and it's for me only. I survived that shit. Nobody else gets to use it for their gain.

The problem is I refuse to allow the fucker to dictate what I do and to blackmail me at that, but I have no clue how to proceed beyond knowing if it comes down to it, I’ll take the blow, but I will not bend.

Thankfully, I have no classes with the jerks, so I’m allowed to breathe as much as I can with Sabrina on my ass and her little lemmings skulking around the halls. Somehow, she’s managed to escape her little expose, probably through sheer force of ugly will and her bitches are too scared to fight back, afraid of the backlash.

Although I’m tired of the fucking game, finding a message written to me in red paint in the bathroom mirror ratchets my rage.

Willow’s a whore just like her dead sister

The sheer brutality of the message sucks the air from my lungs but after I’ve calmed enough to see straight, I concede, it’s time to move on to the next plan. Unfortunately, it will be harder to accomplish but not impossible. Problem is, I can't pay for the information anymore, and I refuse to owe dickhead a thing, besides he needs to think he’s cowed me.

I can play head games too, just hide and watch.

I seek out my new crew over lunch, who are hiding under the bleachers and smoking a joint. Despite the instant need flowing through my veins, I decline the offer of a hit and slump down beside Dixie.

She gives me a blank stare and giggles, her pupils blown, and with a sigh, I resign myself to once again being the only sober bitch. Shit gets old.

“Did you see bitch’s face when the audio cut out?”

Maeve sitting beside Matt grimaces, and I hide my frown behind my hair. I’m not sure I can trust her which makes her presence a liability at the least and I’m relieved when she pushes to her feet and walks away.

“Mhmm,” I lie because I’ve no interest in explaining where I was should she ask, and seeing the video was almost the same thing, anyway.

“Epic! What’s next? You got a beef against Jaxon, too?” she asks, her spacy eyes oddly intense.

“Jaxon?”

“Yeah,” she says, looking away as she smooths a hair back from her face. “He’s a dick.”

“He is that,” I mutter. “What did he do to you?”

Avoiding my eyes, she shrugs, a pretty flush staining her cheeks. What…no?

Eyeing her, I ask with a curl to my lip, “Um, you don’t like him, do you?”

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