A. Jackson - When We Met

behind her eyes: A. L. Jackson

saving me: Molly McAdams

fouling out: Tiffany King

beneath your layers:Christina Lee

Misha hugged herself around her middle. Chills raced down her spine and crystallized the blood in her veins. She felt sick. So sick. Tears streamed from her eyes fast and hard, dripping from her chin as she bent at the waist and cried toward the ground. As she stood in the front yard of his house, confronting him with the video shed found, her body trembled with a shock of grief. How could you do this to me?

Hunter laughed, a sound of insult as it rumbled up his throat and passed through the smug smile curling his lips. He inclined his head to capture her attention up from her own feet. Like a deer blinded by the light, she froze, locked in the clutches of the blue gaze shed once thought so tender and kind. Now those eyes simmered with derision.

Knew you had it in you, Misha. His voice raked the taunt, cutting her deeper with each biting word. The good girl act . . . I saw right through it. Youre just as easy as the rest of the sluts around here, arent you? His face twisted with morbid satisfaction. Of course that amazing fuck was worth the hundred dollars I had on the line.

A h-h-h-hundred dollars? She stuttered over the question, her tongue thick as she tried to force the words around the shame clogging her throat. Confusion and disbelief spun with the heartbreak. Her knees went weak.

Hunter moved closer, his nose an inch from hers. A h-h-h-hundred dollars? he mocked, pouring salt into her oldest wounds.

Misha sucked in a pained breath and squeezed her eyes shut.

What? Do you think youre worth more than that?

Misha recoiled from the insult.

He might as well have slapped her.

Hed already ruined her life.

Abruptly he straightened and took two steps back. Because youre not. He released a lazy chuckle, casually running a hand through his blond hair like she meant nothing at all. Then he turned and left her there.

The sob she struggled to hold in broke free, and Misha stumbled over the patchy lawn as heartbreak tore through her.

Betrayal and humiliation penetrated all the way to her bones. Horror flamed her heated cheeks, streams of tears flowing like a river of fire scalding her flaming flesh. But this heat was nothing like the blush that kissed her skin with shyness, the way the crimson colored her face when the slightest bit of attention was cast on her.

No.

Because this? This was anguish.

Misha couldnt fathom the viciousness, couldnt comprehend that one person could be so cruel. Shed believed hed cared about her. Loved her. Hed promised her she was everything.

Turned out she was just a pawn in some sick, twisted game.

Misha

Three months later

What am I doing here?

I looked up at the dusty blue two-story housethe house Id shared with three other girls, Indy, Courtney, and Chloe, during my sophomore year. Nostalgia billowed through me on a soft wave. Id loved so much of my time here, learning how to spread my wings, to fly on my own without the shelter of my parents, whod made it their lifelong duty to protect me from the vile dangers of this world.

My head shook with remorse. It hadnt taken me long to be ensnared in its traps, had it?

After Hunters betrayal, Id run straight home to Wisconsin and right into my mothers waiting arms. Completely crushed. Id sworn to never return here, too ashamed to be seen walking the halls of the university Id attended in Ann Arbor, Michigan, since my freshman year of college.

Summer had passed in some kind of blur, my heart searching for a way to mend after it had been shattered beyond recognition. No longer did I fully recognize myself. The endless smile was wiped from my mouth and the naive trust Id held in this world disintegrated into nothing.

But here I was, back in Michigan, standing in the driveway of the house I shared with my roommates. As much as I didnt want to look, I couldnt stop my gaze from wandering, latching warily on to the dingy white house next door.

Nausea pooled in my stomach as my eyes were drawn up the side of the house to the last window on the second floor. Behind that window was the room where Id given Hunter my innocence. My hand fisted at my side, all of me protesting that thought. No. Where Hunter had stolen my innocence. Behind that window was where hed hurt me, humiliated and shamed me.

For all my life Id seen the best in people. My mother had always told me it was what made me who I was, why I glowed and smiled and shed a radiant light on the rest of the world. She said it was what made me good and begged me to never let it go.

Hunter taught me it just made me a fool.

There you are.

Tearing my eyes away, I turned to Indy as she stepped out onto the front porch of the house. Red hair whipped around her face, green eyes watching me where I stood at the end of the walkway.

Its about time you got here. Its Happy Hour and were making drinks. Get your ass inside.

I felt the heat rush to my face, and I chewed at my bottom lip, grabbed the two suitcases Id taken from my car, and began to haul them behind me.

Happy Hour.

Ha.

I hadnt truly been happy since I left this place three months ago.

Junior year started in just three days. I didnt think Id be a part of it, resigning myself to giving up my dreams and transferring to a small school in Wisconsin, never turning back. Indy had convinced me I was wrong. Shed been betrayed, too, her jerk of a boyfriend hurting her, and she needed me back in the house. Just as much as I needed to be here.

Id missed it. Now that I was here, I could admit that I knew I didnt want to run away. By my doing so, all I had accomplished was allowing Hunter to win his nasty game.

Hed stolen something precious from me. I wouldnt let him steal the internship Id worked so hard for, too. Helping the kids there was the most important thing in my life, the one true thing that had called me back to Michigan. I couldnt rid those innocent little faces from swirling through my mind, those little kids being the ones I planned on dedicating my life to.

No, I wouldnt allow him to steal them, too.

The final key had been Indy telling me Hunter had been booted from the house next door, voted out when his three roommates found out he was the one whod been responsible.

My heart warmed in a way I thought was no longer possible. I still couldnt believe theyd taken up my side, supported me after Id been so gullible.

It didnt mean I loved the idea of someone else there, living in that room where I had been played like a cheap, worn-out piano.

Condemned.

That was what I wanted it to be. The room should be taped off and boarded up so no one could enter its repulsive walls. Even better, pummeled into a million tiny pieces by a wrecking ball. Maybe then the memory of what had happened there would be pulverized along with it.

I knew he would still roam the campus, that some people would think me someone I was not, that there would be times when Id bear the brunt of the curse hed cast on me. But I took comfort in knowing I wouldnt have to witness that same smug, self-satisfied expression hed looked at me with when I confronted him, when he laughed and mocked me, tossing me aside like a piece of trash.

Never again would I allow myself to fall prey to a guy like that. Lesson learnedthe hard way.

I ascended the five wooden steps to the covered porch, my suitcases bouncing as I dragged them up behind me. I let them go and hugged Indy.

Im so glad youre here, she whispered near my ear.

I squeezed her tighter, sad the two of us were sharing in some kind of brokenhearted kinship.