COLE

Ten years ago

“Watch where you’re going, fart-brain,” a taunting voice rang out behind me.

One second, I was laughing at something my best friend, Ashlee, had said, and the next, a forceful shove struck my back, sending me sprawling to the ground. The books I’d been carrying flew across the floor, scattering around me.

The aggressive move shouldn’t have surprised me. As one of the few Black kids at Rosewood Pines High, I’d had more than my fair share of bullying. From being thrown into lockers, to chairs being pulled out from under me, to having my clothes stolen from the locker room after gym; it happened almost every week.

And Evan Chambers was the worst bully of them all.

“What the fuck, Evan!” Ashlee cried. “Leave him alone, you dumbass.”

She moved toward me, but Evan’s friend Ryker stepped in front of her, blocking her way. Gritting my teeth, I tried to get up, but a foot in my back pinned me to the ground.

Laughter echoed around me.

“Look at this whale.” Evan laughed, pressing his foot harder into my back. “Swim, whale! Swim! It’s the only way you’re getting up.”

I placed my fists on the ground and tried to stand, but he was stronger than me. I could barely lift my torso an inch off the ground.

“Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?” another kid shouted, but no one stepped forward to help. I knew they wouldn’t. I didn’t blame them either.

The Madds Around the Bend ran this school, and they got away with everything. When they banded together, no one was a match for them. If someone retaliated, they got jumped.

It was easier to take the ten minutes of torment than to look over my shoulder constantly. But today of all days, I wished I could punch Evan in his smug face.

“What’s this?”

Black combat boots stopped in my line of vision. Boots I knew only too well. If I looked hard enough, I saw a speckle of cum from where I’d made him come just a mere hour ago.

Relief flooded me, and I could breathe easier. Surely, he would do something. These were his friends. When they heckled me before, he’d said nothing, but this was different. They’d never laid hands on me. He had to speak up.

“We hooked ourselves a nerd,” Evan said. “He wouldn’t help Cato with his assignment.”

Except Cato hadn’t asked for help. Had he done that, I would never have said no. Instead, the prick had told me to do his paper. All the bullying in the world wouldn’t make me do that douchebag’s assignment for him.

“Is that so?” Maxwell Cadwell asked. “Get off him.”

“But he—”

“I’ll handle this. Get off him.”

Evan applied a little pressure that made me wince, but then removed his foot. Finally, Maxwell got my point that his little crew was getting out of hand. He couldn’t stand by anymore and not do anything while they tortured me. I didn’t care what he said. This wasn’t horsing around, and his advice to stay out of their way didn’t work. Not when we were in some of the same classes.

I picked myself up from the floor and brushed off my dirty shirt. When I raised my head, I met Maxwell’s blue eyes. Those same blue eyes had rolled over for me when I made him come, but now they were icy. He never showed me any affection, which I was mostly okay with, but this animosity radiating off him was new.

I took a step back but not fast enough. Maxwell grabbed me by the collar of my shirt. “Do you know what happens to people who cross us? They get screwed.”

Except it was the reverse with us. Maxwell Cadwell might be every girl’s heartthrob at this school, but he didn’t want anything to do with them. He was as gay as they came and a bit of a demanding bottom too. We had sex as often as we did because he always found a way for us to meet up in private. Not that I was complaining. I’d crushed on him so hard since middle school.

“You can’t be serious,” I whispered.

He wouldn’t dare to—

My face slammed into the nearest locker too fast for me to raise my hands in time to lessen the impact. Pain flared up in my cheekbone, and my glasses slid down my nose. I grabbed them, but it was useless. One of the lenses was broken, and the bridge had snapped. I no longer had a pair of glasses. I had two halves.

I peered at Maxwell’s unclear features, my mouth parted in shock. What the fuck? Those hands that had thrust me into the locker were the same ones that had grabbed my face earlier when he kissed me. How could a tender touch turn so cruel?

“The next time we ask you to do something, you freak,” he said, “you do it, or we won’t be so nice. Don’t let us catch you alone.”

Another shove in my chest had me banging into the metal, but the physical pain was nothing compared to the way my heart hurt. Maxwell and his crew walked off, but not before he kicked my books farther away from me. I flinched. He might as well have kicked me. It sure felt like he had. Right in the gut.

“Cole, you okay?” Ashlee ran up to me. “Of course not. Let me take you to the nurse. No, we’ll go to the principal’s office first so he can see exactly what they’ve done. Someone needs to teach those assholes a lesson.”

I shook my head, averting my gaze so she didn’t see the tears stinging my eyes. “It’s fine.”

“No, it’s not fine. They need to pay.”

But tattling to the principal wouldn’t change the most important thing: Maxwell had deceived me. All this time, he had been using me for sex. He didn’t care about me. I’d convinced myself he kept our relationship secret because he was in the closet still, but that wasn’t the reason. He didn’t care about me at all. I’d known it all along but always made excuses for his behavior.

Today, he’d done the unforgivable.