Page 16 of Caught Up

“Yeah, well, karma’s a bitch,” I said. “He got in a car accident not long after and wound up in the hospital with more broken bones than you could count.”

Taylor frowned. “So how does Junior come back into play?”

I sighed. “He denied that we ever hooked up.”

Rage swept over her face. “Are you fucking serious?”

I nodded. “As a heart attack. I looked like the stalker Kelly had accused me of being, and she was quick to blab all over school about how she had seen it coming because I secretly wrote fan fiction under a pen name—because apparently my humiliation wasn’t complete enough before.”

And that was why it was so hard for me to trust people. The bonfire of my social and school life only exacerbated my unresolved feelings about being abandoned by my parents. It was the darkest time in my life. Nowadays, I lived by that Maya Angelou quote: “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” It had become my mantra because I had learned the hard way that if you give people second chances, they’ll only use them to hurt you more.

I dropped my gaze back to Walter, scratching him between the ears. “People thought I was crazy. The bullying got so bad that my nonna pulled me from the last few weeks of the year, and I did all my homework and testing from home. I spent that summer so isolated and depressed that she even let me change schools in the fall.”

Ryan pulled me into aone-armedside hug. “Where she met me and began her healing journey.”

I smiled up at them. They might have been teasing, but it was the truth. I would be forever grateful for Ryan’s empathy, because they’d taken one look at brokenseventeen-year-oldme and known that I needed someone by my side. They’d also sensed that I was skittish, so being the introverted genius that they were, they didn’t try too hard to befriend me or get me to open up. Instead, Ryan was just...there. Quietly beside me at the lunch table, loitering near my locker in between classes. Eventually, I started coming out of my shell, started talking more, and our tentative friendship was born. A decade later, Ryan was no longer my friend; they were family.

“So what happened with Kelly?” Taylor asked. “Did she ever apologize?”

I shook my head.

Taylor set her drink aside and started to stand. “We ride at dawn.”

Ryan yanked her back to her seat. “Calm down, weirdo. Karma got her, too.”

“How?” Taylor asked. “I’ll need details to determine whether it was enough punishment.”

I grinned and shook my head. God, I loved her. Even in the middle of recanting the worst story of my life, she found a way to make me smile.

“Kelly got busted for having drugs at school,” I said. “She was actually top of our class, headed like five extracurricular groups, and had already beenpre-acceptedto her college of choice. Then she got caught with, like, half a pound of pot in her locker, and it all went to shit.” I frowned, thinking back. “It was so weird. She seemed as straitlaced as they came. Kelly swore the drugs weren’t hers, but when the cops searched her bedroom at home, they found more, so there wasn’t really a way to keep claiming innocence after that. In the end, I think she had to take a plea deal to avoid going to juvie.”

Taylor shrugged. “Just goes to show that sometimes you don’t know people as well as you think.”

“Maybe,” I said. “But even now, after everything, it’s still hard to believe she hid a drug operation that large from me. Everyone else was shocked, too.”

“So what happened today?” Taylor asked. “Did you get an apology from Junior?”

I huffed a humorless snort. “Hardly.”

She started to stand again. “At dawn.”

It was my turn to tug her back down, laughing. “He’s not worth it.”

Ryan didn’t share my amusement, instead, studying my face. “He did something to you, didn’t he?”

“Um...” I broke eye contact and tucked my hair behind my ears, a nervous tell I was sure they picked up on. “He might have cornered me in a back hall, and—” God, how did I even explain what happened between us?

“And what?” Ryan said.

I grimaced, knowing there was no way to get around this. “Let’s just say that one look at him turned me back into teenage Lauren.”

Ryan choked.

Taylor let out a whoop.

Walter barked, and maybe it was because I had regrets about earlier, but it sounded judgy.

“Details. Now,” Taylor demanded.

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