Page 1 of Loved By The Bad Boy

One

BEN

I missed Gracie’s calls.I missed her mother’s calls, even her brother’s. The only one who didn’t call was her dad. Unsolicited images of my phone with their names on the screen spring up in my mind. They must think I’m an asshole. But I’ll rather be called that than given an ultimatum.

Olivia pinches me. I fake a groan, and she chuckles. She is much better, but I’m still a bit wary.

We stop in front of the art room. I spare a glance at the hallway as if expecting someone to walk up to us and draw me into a much-needed hug. I’m barely surviving. Gracie should be in school today, but I haven’t seen her or her car. Not that I was looking. It will be easier to carry on if she is present. She has been the topic for a while. Olivia stares at me for a second, then enters the class.

“Why do you look so sad?” Olivia says once seated. I shrug in reply. I’m not sad. I’m just there. She pulls out a stool for me to sit while she sets her equipment on the table. “You look like your puppy died.”

“I don’t have a puppy.” I’m not too fond of animals.

“Just call her already.” I slide my phone into my front pocket. I don’t recall bringing it out, but I’m not calling anyone. Why does Olivia care now? Why haven’t I changed my lockscreen picture? I must hate myself. It wouldn’t matter if I picked Gracie over Olivia. She would always question herself. The issue is with her and her low self-esteem, not me or my relationship with Olivia. “You keep zoning out. Call your girlfriend already. You know you want to, Benjamin.”

Anger simmers under the polite smile I offer Olivia. She is getting on my last nerve, but I chose this, right? I picked her. As soon as the investigations are over, I’ll take a long break from this friendship and everything related to girls. They are exhausting. Boys don’t think too much about unnecessary things or put as much thought into relationships like girls do. Noah has never once complained that I don’t hang out with them as much as I did before I started dating Gracie.

I settle down beside Olivia when she brings out a new canvas. This one is for me.

“Who do you think did it?” Olivia asks when I don’t provide an answer to her former questions. The video might be down, but the murmurs have not stopped. I’m not sure they ever will unless something new happens. Something newer and bigger. “I think it’s someone we all know, Ben.”

Maybe. Maybe not.

“I don’t know,” I reply. I don’t know anything anymore. I don’t know if I did the right thing by walking away from my love. Olivia offers me a paintbrush, and I dip it into the bowl of red paint. The principal set up a committee to find the culprit, but no one is forthcoming. “How are you?”

I have no idea what I’m drawing or painting, but I keep making strokes on the canvas.

“Good,” she replies with a smile. The sincerity coating her voice makes me drop my brush. I’ve known her long enough to identify her fake and real smiles. “Mrs. Mower came to the house.”

Gracie’s mother. I close my eyes to stop that image of Gracie’s heartbroken face when I called her Tessa. I didn’t mean to. But when she hugged me so tight, and I couldn’t get away from her, it reminded me of Tessa. I felt trapped again. The room became claustrophobic, and I panicked.

“What did she say?”

None of us have spoken about the incident that happened the last time I was at her house. If my outburst had an effect, I don’t know, and I don’t ask because I don’t know how to. She made me promise not to tell anyone. She doesn’t know I told my girlfriend her deepest, darkest secrets.

“I don’t know,” Olivia murmurs. She switches my canvas with hers to rectify the damage I did on mine. “But there was a lot of shouting between them. It was a lot,” she says with a giggle. I’m annoyed at her for making light of the situation, but also glad she sounds closer to her true self. The one that can be nicer to people. “But it was okay, I guess, since we spoke to the police later.”

“The police?” I ask, and she nods. I didn’t know this. “What about?”

“Stuff.”

“About him?” Him, the bastard her mother is sleeping with. Another nod from her. “What did they say?”

Olivia shifts in her seat. Her brush is dry, but she keeps stroking the canvas. I want to pry it from her, but I stay still. “That he can be… arrested? I have to give a statement. Talk to some people. Take some tests and a lot of other things. They might need witnesses, too.” The brush falls from her hand, but she doesn’t notice. “They asked a lot of questions. I don’t like the police, Ben.”

The police make it more real. If Mom had acted, would she have met the same fate? Is it too late to have her arrested? I would love to see her behind bars for the rest of her life, or at least half of it.

This moment is about Olivia, so my gaze returns to her. “Do you have to go to the station all—”

“Everyone keeps looking at me with pity. I don’t like it. One cop, Mom says we will sue him, he asked what I was wearing,” she whispers. Her lips are red from biting into them too hard, but she doesn’t stop. She clenches her fists until her knuckles turn white. “It’s not my fault, you know?”

“It’s not,” I whisper.

It won’t matter if she wrapped herself like a burrito. He’s a sick man. Tessa is a sick woman. I nudge her with my shoulder, and her lips crack in a half-smile. At least one of us got some form of justice. That’s okay.

“I like Mrs. Mower,” she mutters. She’s back to painting. Her tone is lighter, and she shakes her head like she is reliving that moment. “I think she threatened my mom. You cannot tell anybody.”

“You cannot bully anybody,” I say instead.

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