Page 62 of Cruel Devotion

At least my dad wouldn’t be able to smack me around or hit me here. Too many cameras were anchored on the wall. Witnesses wouldn’t look good for him.

“You’ve got a lot of nerve screwing up like this,” my mom said.

I shoved my hands in my pockets, hoping I could stick with silence. They’d give up eventually if they saw that talking to me was like lecturing and whining to a brick wall.

“You think you can be a stupid slacker and accomplish anything in your life?” my dad asked, his face contorted in an expression of pure hatred and disappointment. “Huh? You think you can skip classes all day when you’re barely passing and you’ll turn out to be something?”

Wait a second.Something wasn’t adding up. I furrowed my brow and gave up the silent treatment. “You’re mad that I skipped classes?”

“Of course, we are!” my mom hissed. “Why wouldn’t we be furious that you’re slacking off and throwing away your future?”

Ah.They wereonlymad that I hadn’t gone to classes. They must have tracked me all day, seeing that my phone hadn’t left one location, and were so upset about my one and only day of skipping that it prompted them to come here and wait for me to show up.

They didn’t know about the fate of my scholarship likely being revoked yet. They were ignorant of the threat of being expelled for ruining Mr. West’s car.

“You were at that house,” my mom sneered. “The whore’s house.”

I gritted my teeth, livid to hear her say such a thing about the woman I was falling for. Haley wasn’t a whore. She never had been, going so far as to cover herself up to avoid attention. She never would be one, either, too pure-hearted and smart to cheapen herself like that.

And she’smine.

I kept forgetting the mandate that I had to stop thinking of her like that. She wasn’t. She had plans. She was getting out of Marsten. But until then…

What if we got out of here together?

The allure of that idea gave me the strength to wait out my parents bitching me out. While my mom warned me to stay away from her and my dad belittled me for letting a girl interfere with the “few brain cells” I had, I let all their words go in one ear and out the other.

Instead, I counted down the seconds until I could see Haley. Regardless of my parents talking down to me like this, she was the only person I wanted to see and listen to.

Because she cared. She genuinely gave a damn about me, and not just for sex.

As a friend.

I’d thrown away too much time bullying the one sweet girl who was a true friend who would stand by me.

And I prayed that it wasn’t too late to convince her to stick with me until the end of the semester… and much longer afterward.

“I’m…” I shook my head, fed up with my parents’ invading my life with nothing but complaints, criticism, and derogatory insults.

Backing away from them as they told me to stop, I walked away and headed toward the library instead of the cafeteria, desperate to see my girl.

I wanted to be patient with her, I really did.

I was her first everything, and this was all new to her. But I was vulnerable too.

I needed hernow. And I wondered how I could suggest that we team up and think about something more long-term, too.

My life was crashing down. Everything was falling apart around me, but Haley was a rock, an anchor I could cling to, and I would for as long as she might let me.

21

HALEY

News of Eli’s trouble spread fast. Everyone had already talked about that car being damaged from that big party. That was old news, but the excitement about it came back full force with Preston telling everyone—and his dad—that Eli was at fault.

I read the posts and gossip online in countless posts about how Eli’s scholarship would be revoked. Lots of conspiracy stories came with that notion. More popped up with the thoughts that he could be kicked out of school completely and not allowed to graduate. That was how much clout the West family had, not only in Marsten, but at this college.

“I was getting ahead of myself,” Eli said glumly as we sat at a table near the food court. Close by the coffee shop and a wing of the main hall where lots of classrooms and lecture auditoriums were located, we passed the time talking about what he could do to salvage the situation and stay positive. He had a meeting with the dean this afternoon and another meeting with the financial aid department and registrar tomorrow morning. I wasn’t sure what I could actually do, but I listened and gave him my ideas, hoping he knew he wasn’t alone.

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