Beautiful (13 page)

“Shit,” I whispered. I turned back to Jenny. “You planned that, didn’t you?”

She tried to appear stunned. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I saw the way you were looking at me, Wyatt. You want it as much as I do,” she said with a wink.

“You’re sick and twisted, you know that?” I shook my head and stood.

I felt sick to my stomach as I made my way outside to Skylar. “Skylar!” I shouted.

She started to run to her car.

“Son of a bitch! Sky, please! It’s not what you think.”

When I made it to her car, she tried to shut the door, but I grabbed it before she could.

“Leave me alone, Wyatt. I should have known you were only after one thing from me, like all of them.”

My eyes widened in shock. “What? You know damn well, that’s not true, Skylar.”

She looked up at me, tears streaming from her eyes. My legs felt like they were going to buckle out from underneath me.

“Please let go of my door, Wyatt.”

“Skylar, she kissed me, and I wasn’t expecting her to.”

Wiping her tears away, she asked, “And Cara? What was she doing? From where I was standing, she looked like she was feeling you up.”

“Did you also see me push her and her hand away from me? They set it all up, Skylar, I swear to you.”

Her chin trembled. “You kissed her, Wyatt. You didn’t even try to pull away at first.”

I closed my eyes. I couldn’t argue with her on that one. I hadn’t reacted fast enough.

“Please let me go, Wyatt. Please.”

My eyes snapped open. I was still holding the door open, not letting her shut it. I could see the fear in her eyes. Letting it go, I took a step back, and she shut the door. Starting her car, she quickly drove off, leaving me standing there.

As I watched her taillights drive off in the distance, my heart felt as if it was physically aching. Closing my eyes, I whispered, “Skylar…”

Skylar

Tears streamed down my face as I pulled my car into the driveway. Dragging in a deep breath, I tried to calm myself down before I walked into the house.

What did I just see?
Did Jenny set it all up?

Wyatt had seemed pissed after he’d come to his senses and pulled away from her. Yet…it had taken him a few moments to snap out of it. One girl had felt him up while another had kissed him. If I hadn’t known better, I’d have thought he was into it.

Burying my face in my hands, I screamed, “How stupid am I?”

What in the world did I think was going to happen? Maybe I shouldn’t have done what I did last night. Wyatt didn’t act like he wanted anything more, but maybe he did.

My head dropped back to the seat while I tried to focus on my breathing.

My phone started ringing. Glancing over, I saw Wyatt’s name lighting up the screen. Reaching over, I hit Ignore.

Finally getting the nerve to go in, I quickly headed into the house.

“Hey, I thought you had a study date with Wyatt,” my mother called out after I’d walked in the door.

“Wyatt had other plans,” I replied while I made my way up to my room as fast as I could. Slamming my door shut, I covered my mouth to hold my sobs in.

The small knock at the door caused me to jump.

“Are you okay, sweetheart?” my mother asked on the other side of the door.

“I’m fine, Mom. Really…it’s okay. I have a lot of studying to do.”

My phone started to ring again. It was Wyatt. I hit Ignore again. Making my way to the bed, I opened up my calculus notes and stared at them. My Instagram notification went off on my phone.

When I opened up Instagram and went to the picture I had been tagged in, I threw my hands up to my mouth and instantly cried.

Someone had taken a picture of me standing outside the coffee shop, looking at Wyatt kissing Jenny. The caption read,
Looks like Wyatt is sending the whore a message!

I quickly closed the app and walked back over to my bed. I grabbed my pillow and cried into it, so my mother wouldn’t hear me.

Hearing a knock on the door, I moaned. “Mom, I’m fine! Please just leave me alone.”

“Sky…let me in,” Mitch said.

I got up and took a few deep breaths before I opened the door.

He carefully looked me over, walked into my room, and shut the door. “Wyatt called me, and he’s really upset.”

Looking at him with a stunned expression, I replied, “He’s upset? I don’t really give a shit if he’s upset.”

“He saw the picture, and he is beyond pissed. He said Jenny reached over and kissed him. She’d set the whole thing up because she knew you were meeting Wyatt there.”

“Well…he sure looked like he was enjoying it, so—”

Mitch let out a frustrated sigh. “Don’t push him away. He really cares about you, and he doesn’t believe all the bullshit everyone has been feeding him.”

Sitting on my bed, I let a single tear roll down my face. “I’ve been getting notes in my locker again.”

Mitch closed his eyes and shook his head. “Sky…you’ve got to tell someone. This has to stop. You’re not going to be able to take much more of this before you break.”

“I know,” I whispered back.

“Do they say the same things as the others?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “Pretty much, except they keep saying Wyatt is using me to try to get sex…that I’m only good for sex…that sort of stuff.”

“You have to know that’s bullshit. Wyatt is not after you for that. I mean, he really cares about you. He’s a nice guy.”

Pressing my lips together, I looked into my brother’s eyes. “I don’t know anymore, Mitch. I don’t know whom to trust. And you didn’t see him when Jenny and Cara were all over him. He paused…like he was…enjoying it.”

“He was surprised, Sky! Come on, if someone had just kissed you out of the blue and began touching all over ya, don’t you think you would have been stunned for a few moments?”

Wiping my tears away, I nodded. “Maybe it’s best if Wyatt leaves me alone. I just need to finish school, so I can get the hell out of this town. I’m going to suffocate if I have to stay here any longer. I have enough credits to graduate in December. I’m going to talk to Mom and Dad about taking a trip before college starts. Anything to get away from here.”

“Running away is not going to help with anything. What are you going to do? Never come home again? Miss prom?”

I started laughing. “You really think I care about prom, Mitch? Why in the hell would I ever want to go to prom? I’d be the laughingstock of the school.”

“Tell me this…if Wyatt had asked you to go to prom last night or before, what would you have said?”

My chest tightened, and my throat grew thick. “If he had asked me last night, I would have said yes.”

Another knock on my door had me quickly sweeping my tears away.

“Skylar? Mitch?” Mom called from the other side of the door.

Mitch looked at me with pleading eyes. “
Please
tell her what’s going on.”

I shook my head and gave him a stern look. “Come in, Mom.”

When she opened the door, I put on a fake smile, the one I had perfected over the last year and a half.

“Hey, what’s going on in here? Skylar, you rushed up the stairs so fast. Did you have a fight with Wyatt?”

“Everything is fine, Mom. Mitch is trying to talk me out of wanting to graduate early.”

She frowned as she looked between the two of us. “What? Skylar, we talked about this. Your father and I think it would be best for you to finish out your senior year. There is no rush here. Why on earth are you in such a hurry to leave?”

Mitch looked at me.

I forced a smile. “I thought it would be nice to take a trip before I started college—you know, get away for a bit. I’ve always wanted to go to Italy.”

Mom laughed. “Honestly, sweetheart, there is no way in hell that your father and I would ever let you go to Italy alone. We told you, we’ll all go as a family this summer after you and your brother graduate.” Smiling, she leaned down and kissed Mitch and then me on the cheek. “Get some rest, darling. You look so tired.”

And like that, the conversation was over. She turned and walked out the door.

I fell back and sighed. “I’m never going to get out of this damn town—ever.”

“What about Wyatt? He really wants to talk to you.”

Tears stung my eyes. “I think it’s best if Wyatt leaves me alone. I have a feeling that things are going to get worse before they get better, and I don’t want him to be stuck in the middle. People will start spreading rumors about him.”

Mitch shook his head. “I think you need to call him and let him make that decision on his own.”

“No! He kissed Jenny, and it’s been posted for the world to see. I’m done. I need to finish up the school year. I knew I shouldn’t have even talked to him. What was I thinking?”

“Sky, he didn’t post the picture. He didn’t kiss her back.”

“Mitch,
please
. I need to study. Can I please be alone for a bit?”

He turned to go, but he looked back at me with a weak smile. “I don’t know why you’re all of a sudden pushing him away, but I think you’re making a mistake. He knows the truth, and he really does like you, Sky.”

Lifting my chin, I forced myself not to cry. “Yeah…well, I don’t think that’s enough.”

Mitch closed his eyes while he shook his head. Turning, he slowly shut the door behind him.

That Monday, I did everything in my power to ignore Wyatt. The pleading in his voice for me to talk to him about killed me.

Finally, by fifth period, he stopped asking to talk to me. In a way, it broke my heart that he had given up that easily. It was for the best though, especially after the note in my locker this morning. This time, it said that Wyatt was a player, moving from slut to slut.

The more he stayed away, the better.

By Wednesday, I couldn’t take it. Sitting next to Wyatt in English and calculus was proving to be more difficult than I’d thought. The way his eyes looked so sad had me almost breaking down more than one time.

Walking into the school office, I smiled at Mrs. Richardson.

“Hi, Skylar. What can I help you with?”

“I need to change my schedule.”

Pinching her eyebrows, she leaned in closer. “Is someone bothering you, Skylar?”

I loved Mrs. Richardson. She was always so kind to me.

“Um…not really, but I really need to change my English and calculus classes.”

She started typing on her computer. “I can change you without too much interruption in the schedule.”

“Will it change my lunch?”

“No, you’ll have the same lunch.”

I was both relieved and upset. Wyatt had sat at our table on Monday and Tuesday, but I’d ignored him completely. Today, he’d sat with the football team, and it’d about killed me. Mitch had said it was because Wyatt couldn’t stand me ignoring him. According to Mitch, I was destroying Wyatt.

Pushing it from my mind, I thought back to the kiss.

This was for the best—for me and for Wyatt.

At least, in my mind, I thought that.

If only my heart agreed…