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“I’m heading home.” He started to walk off and she felt like the world’s shittiest friend.
“Sean, please. I know you’re angry.”
He suddenly stopped and turned toward her. “Yeah, I’m angry. When he’s around, why do you have to stay and fight? This could be you, Pru. You ever think about that? He could hurt you.”
“I don’t ask for any of this.”
“Dammit, I know. I’m tired of his shit.” He bunched his eyebrows, staring off as if he was trying to figure something out.
Without waiting for him to reject her, she walked right up to him and wrapped her arms around him. “One day, he’ll move on. He’ll get bored of all this, and we’ll never hear from him again.”
She kept on waiting to see if Sean forgave her.
He didn’t put his arms around her at first. Seconds ticked by, and just as she was about to give up, he finally held her. “I shouldn’t have shouted.”
“I forgive you.”
“I would have pounded his face,” he said.
She smiled. “I know.”
“Friends.”
“Forever.”
Taking hold of his hand, they walked out of the gates and toward his home. Sean’s mother was shocked by his injuries. When she heard who did it, she didn’t tell them to go and deal with them. No, she placed Sean on a chair and attended to his cuts and bruises.
Drake and anyone he was friends with were always protected.
One day, he wouldn’t have all this power anymore, and she wouldn’t have to be afraid.
Chapter One
One more year to go
“Come on, you guys. Don’t be total losers,” Ree Addie said.
Sean was already rolling his eyes.
Ree had joined their twosome three years ago when she moved to Mountain Peak Valley from New York. It had been a huge adjustment for her as she was used to city life, and they were all small-town peeps.
“We’re not total losers just because we don’t want to party,” Sean said.
“Whose party is it?” Prudence asked.
Ree pressed her lips together and neither she nor Sean needed any other clues as to whose it was. Drake Connor’s party.
“Hell, no,” Sean said. “What the hell do you see in him?”
“Nothing.”
Prudence didn’t say anything because Ree had confided in her that Drake didn’t give her the time of day. She personally didn’t get the infatuation her friend had with Drake, but then, she’d rather avoid the kind of attention she still got from him. Ree though was a bit of a flake. She and Sean were no fools. If Ree was given a better offer of friendship, they wouldn’t hear from her. Still, Prudence didn’t have it in her to break off the friendship. The last thing she would want was to see Ree eating alone.
“You’ve got to see something, otherwise, you wouldn’t come to us asking to go to his party.”
“I just thought it would be cool. You know? Next year we’re seniors and we’re out for the summer. Come on, it could be good.”
Sean slammed his locker closed. “No. I’m not going.”
“Me neither,” Prudence said.
“Why not?”
“Are you, like, blind to all the shit he pulls on Prudence?” Sean asked, stopping in the middle of the hallway.
While Prudence’s growth spurt stopped in sixth grade, Sean had continued to grow. He was one of the tallest guys in school. If he’d been athletically inclined, she had no doubt the basketball team would have loved to have him. Only, Sean screamed at balls flying toward him, and loathed any kind of sport, so it was a no-go.
“If she didn’t goad him, it wouldn’t be a problem!” Ree sighed, looking all around the corridor.
Prudence chuckled as Sean looked ready to vomit. “She really does have a crush on that slimeball, doesn’t she?” he asked.
“I’m afraid so. It looks like she won’t listen to reason.” Prudence shrugged. Ree was a good friend … most of the time. Her infatuation with Drake made her kind of suck though. Again, Pru wouldn’t stop talking to her even though she really wanted to date the guy who made her life a misery. She and Drake had never gotten along and she doubted they ever would.
It wasn’t doubt, it was a fact. She couldn’t stand the prick. He truly believed he was something special, and she hated how he assumed everyone would do whatever the hell he wanted just because he said so.
Not this girl.
No matter how many times he pushed her into a locker, or hit her, or whatever his new torment was. She’d opened her locker to spiders crawling out. There had been a putrid and acrid liquid poured all over her stuff, or he simply threw it at her on the way out of school.
Teachers looked the other way and well, she stopped retaliating. She didn’t know when it happened, possibly not long after she had gotten her first period, but she just grew up. Where Drake was an asshole who would make her curse, scream, and do anything to get one up on him. He no longer registered on her radar. She didn’t walk around school fearing for her life. She simply ignored all the bullshit. She either cleaned up the mess he caused or dealt with each problem as it came to her. Each time not showing him it bothered her. She didn’t know if that was what bothered him more, her complete lack of giving a shit.
