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“I don’t think so.” Someone knocked on my door and I forced myself out of bed. “Natalie’s here with pizza, Mom. I’ll call you later. Love you.”
“Love you, too, Ella Rae. Keep your head up.”
I opened the door for Natalie and was about to close it when I spotted movement in the hallway. I nearly screamed when I realized it was a person and that they were coming towards me. I had the door halfway shut when I recognized them. I slammed it the rest of the way shut and locked it.
“Did you show Vaughn where I live, Natalie?”
She frowned. “No. Why the hell would I do that?”
“He’s out there right now.” I was whispering at her, hand still on the door, too scared to face Vaughn to tell him to get lost.
Natalie wasn’t. She pushed me away from the door and yanked it open. On the other side, fist raised to knock, was Vaughn. “Did you follow me?”
“No.” He cleared his throat when Natalie gave him nothing but silence. “Yes. But for a good reason. I need to see Ella.”
“That’s not a good enough reason to act like a creep!” Natalie lowered her voice. “And I watched you and your buddies at practice yesterday. You all look like shit. If you fuck up this season and don’t bring home a championship, I’m going to find a way to shit in your mailbox every day for the rest of my life.”
I was behind the door, hidden, and I made a face at her. What the hell was she talking about? Why was that her threat of choice?
“Yeah, sure. Great. I deserve it. I just need to see Ella. Please.” Vaughn’s deep voice was as serious as I’d ever heard it. “I know she doesn’t want to see me, but this is important.”
Natalie rolled her eyes. “Sure it is, step bro. It’s always important with you guys.”
“Fuck this. I didn’t follow you across campus on a wild goose chase as you walked around in circles and stopped to pick up leaves for a fucking hour just to stand here, talking to you.” He stopped and I could hear him take a deep breath. “Sorry. I’m sure if I hadn’t been so ready to talk to Ella that the walk would’ve been great. I’m going to move past you now. Excuse me.”
I grabbed the door and pulled it open, desperate to stop him from coming into my new home. Nothing in my new space smelled like him or reminded me of him. Nothing except for my own body. I couldn’t get rid of that, though. “Stop. I’ll talk to you, just not in here.”
“Are you sure?” Natalie looked like she was ready to murder Vaughn. “Say the word and I’ll get rid of him.”
I held up my hand and squeezed past Vaughn to step into the hallway. I was very careful not to touch him. “I’ll be right in, Nat.”
Vaughn shook his head as she shot him more death stares before shutting the door and leaving us alone in the hallway. He lifted his eyes to mine and looked unsure of himself. He didn’t say anything but just stared at me.
I crossed my arms over my chest and looked over his shoulder. “What do you want, Vaughn?”
He took a step closer to me and I saw that he had a bag behind his back. “I need to tell you something. Give me five minutes?”
I let out a humorless laugh. “That’s the same thing Billy asked for. I feel like I’m in a cycle of men just needing five minutes of my time.”
He winced. “I deserve that. I was an asshole. Worse than an asshole. I’m sorry, Ella. I fucked up. I don’t expect you to forgive me anytime soon. I wish you would and after today, I can’t guarantee that I won’t keep trying to earn it, but I don’t expect it.”
I gripped my upper arms tight. “Vaughn.”
“Just give me a second to get my thoughts together. I, um, I didn’t know if Natalie would actually lead me here and I was so caught off guard by the path she took that I didn’t have time to plan out exactly what I want to say.” He rubbed his jaw and sat the bag down by his feet. “Okay. I don’t think I deserve your forgiveness, but Booth and Fish do.”
Shaking my head, I looked at my door and considered calling the conversation done.
“It was my fault that they did what they did. They were upset because of me.” He stepped closer and put his hands over mine on my arms. “I was upset when you said that we were a mistake. I was jealous of Booth and Fish still getting to be with you and I didn’t think I could watch it and be okay. I told them I saw you with Billy and that you said that we were a mistake. We, as in all three of us. I couldn’t stand the idea of being the only one hurting without you so I took them down with me.”
I stared at him like he’d grown two extra arms and a head. I hadn’t known what to make of Booth and Fisher turning on me but I thought they were like the Three Musketeers, or something. One for all, and all of that. To find out he’d purposefully turned them against me hurt. It didn’t change the rest of the pain I felt, though.
“I’m sorry, Ella. I was scared. I didn’t want to lose you and I didn’t know how to make you see that I wasn’t a mistake. So, I went and proved you right. Booth and Fisher just got sucked into my shithole.”
I tilted my head as I stared at him. “Do you want to know what just occurred to me, Vaughn? They expected me to trust them with my body and my secrets but they didn’t trust me enough to have a conversation with me that night before writing me off completely. So, no, they aren’t just innocent bystanders who got caught in your crossfire. What you did was the catalyst, but they are big boys who made up theirs minds to insinuate that I’m a stepbrother fucking whore to everyone on campus. All of you did.”
“No one will mess with you anymore, Ella. I… I’m so sorry. I-”
“I don’t know what you expect from me. Do you want me to thank you for stopping the number of guys who come on to me thinking I’ll be an easy lay? Or maybe I should thank you for cutting down on the amount of people loudly calling me names? It’s much nicer now that everyone is whispering or just thinking all the bad things about me.” I forced out a laugh. “I was coming back to tell you that I was wrong. I was coming back to tell you that you weren’t a mistake and that I was just terrified of people finding out about my feelings for you and thinking that I was… Well, that I was a stepbrother fucking whore.
