Beau and Ashton fought. Pretty intensely, if you ask me. Ashton hurt Beau pretty badly, too. What do you think caused it? I'll give you a hintâY-O-U! Why? That's left for you to figure out. Remain on social media and it'll only make things worse, BELLE (that's what your sweetheart calls you, isn't it? Too bad you're not on good terms).
As Bella sliced her sandwich diagonally at the kitchen counter the next morning, her mind could only bring up a sentence.
More than a week.
That was how long it had been since she had a proper conversation with Beau. She had seen him around school the previous day, after the fight with Ashtonâfirst, exiting the nurse's office with an ice pack and a Band-Aid over a spot on the side of his head, then in the library, where she thought she could relax and refresh her emailâbut they were as good as strangers.
She could hear Maggie-Lyn's humming from her bathroom upstairs, and, though it was excruciatingly disturbing, it offered a weird kind of comfort; the comfort only family could offer.
Bella was recalling how much it had hurt when she realized, just the previous night, that Beau was purposefully ignoring her, when Cody walked into the kitchen, looking into his phone.
"Hey, Beau wants to talk to youâ" He froze when he saw her still in her pajamas. "You're not ready? I have an English essay to turn in before eight. What are you doing?" He was apparently talking to her again.
"Maggie-Lyn's in the bathroom and I was hungry. Want the remaining half of my sandwich?" she answered with a bored voice, then took a bite of the sandwich half in her hand.
"Why the heck would you let her in there first on a school day? Use Adele's bathroom or something. Ashton's waiting outside."
A sour taste filled her mouth when she recalled what Ashton had said about Fleur the day before. "Well, in that case, I think you should go without me. I do not want to be anywhere near Ashton right now."
She heard the front door open and didn't need to peek to know who was coming in.
"Seriously?" Cody said. "You know, Beau hit him, too. The guy broke his nose."
"He deserved it. Beau should've broken one of his arms and both his legs. Did you hear what he said about his sister? That was disgusting."
Cody ran a hand over his face, and a voice came from the kitchen entrance.
"Have something to say to me, Bella?"
Bella looked at Ashtonâwho was leaning casually against the kitchen entranceâdistastefully.
"No."
"I thought so. Better to run your mouth behind my back than to my face."
"Right," she mumbled, "get even douchier, if that's a word."
"Are you gonna text Beau back or what?" Cody cut in before Ashton could retort.
"What did he say?"
"He wants to talk to you. Asked if he could call."
Bella thought about it. She wanted to talk to him, but that would be going against YWN's wishes. Eventually, she shook her head. "I'm not texting him," she said.
A sound came out of Ashton and she turned to glare at him.
"What was that?"
Ashton watched her angrily for a while, and tension filled the kitchen. Cody lifted his head to the ceiling in frustration as he realized they weren't going anywhere at this rate.
"Don't you want to know how the righteous boy's doing?" The way Ashton said it made her uncomfortable. "Or are you scared?"
She opened her mouth to reply, but quickly bit her bottom lip. "You're a jerk."
She took her sandwich dish and walked out of the kitchen, letting her shoulder bump into his armâsince she wasn't tall enough to reach his shoulderâas she walked past him.
"But I wanted that sandwich," Cody said behind her, and Ashton turned in her direction, an amused smile going up his face. "Don't look at my sister like that, dude. Bella, are you coming?"
"No. I'm sick."
She made her way to her room, but before she could open the door, Adele's door opened downed the hallway.
"You're still in your pajamas?!" she exclaimed on seeing Bella.
"Maggie's in the bathroom," Bella replied with a sigh.
"Then use my bathroom. You're going to be late for school, and you'll make Cody late."
"Can't she just... I don't know, not take a bath if she's coming? I have an essay..." Cody said, suddenly appearing at the top of the stairs, trailing off when he saw Adele turn to him with a look of disgust.
"You're gross," she said. "Get out of here. I'll drive her to school."
"Do I have to go?" Bella groaned at the same time Cody exclaimed, "Oh, thank God! I love you, Addy."
Cody gave Adele a weird hug, then rushed back down the stairs.
"See you later!" Cody called from downstairs.
"To my room you go," Adele said chirpily to Bella, who groaned in response.
"Can't we just agree with the fact that I'm sick so I'd stay at home today?"
"No, baby," her sister replied sweetly. "You don't want to ruin your life at such a young age."
"Drama queen," Bella mumbled, then opened the door to her room. "My heart's not in this," she announced as she kept her sandwich dish on her study table and made her way to the bathroom to get her deodorants.
Adele smiled. "I know, darling."
* * *
Adele reached over to smoothen Bella's hair as she drove, glancing away from the road for a moment. "You should have put a matching bow in your hair, since it looks like you were going for the JoJo look. I mean, you got the ponytail right. The only difference is that you're a brunette, and you dance like a crippled sheep."
"If the sheep is crippled, why is it dancing?"
"Exactly my point."
Bella shook her head, ignoring the insult to her rhythm. She was sure it was hereditaryâperhaps from a great, great grandaunt.
"So, what's the reason you didn't want to go to school today?" Bella opened her mouth to say it wasn't important, but Adele added, "The real reason," shutting her up.
Bella sighed, then leaned back in the seat. "I don't know. I just didn'tâand I still don'tâwant to face high school today. Can you turn around, please?"
Her sister ignored the last part of her sentence. "Trust me, these are the moments you'll remember when you graduate."
Bella snorted. "I doubt that," she mumbled. "I can't remember most things from freshman year, and senior year is still far away."
"That's what you think, Bella. What we think will happen mostly doesn't. A few weeks ago, if you'd told me I'd be driving you to school today instead of struggling to write a stupid literary essay and stressing over article deadlines, I would've poured a bowl of ice cold water in your pants."
Bella studied her face. Adele hadn't mentioned anything about Jared or her breakup since she arrived, and Bella had been too occupied to ask. Her sister's eyes got a bit distant, and Bella hoped she hadn't forgotten she was driving.
"What really happened between you two?" Bella asked, and Adele's lips lifted in a sad smile.
"How old are you?"
Bella sighed in frustration. "You're my sister. You should know."
"I've lost track of time, and I want to be sure you'll understand what I'm about to tell you."
"Fine. I'll be sixteen in November."
"Fair." She took a while longer, then said, "Jared and I..." She smiled at the memory. "Bella, I want you to promise me something."
"What?"
"Promise me you'll never let trust be absent from your future relationships."
A raw emotion struck Bella at the word 'trust'. She knew she trusted Beau, but a taunting voice in her head told her she didn't.
If you did, you wouldn't do what YWN wants, the voice said. You'd tell him so the both of you could face the consequences together.
Still, she knew that wasn't exactly what bothered herâthis didn't have to do with trust. But if it didn't, why was she feeling so guilty?
"Adele, what if you trust someone, but can't tell them exactly everything that's going on?" she asked, wanting an answer.
"Then you don't trust the person. If you do, you'd tell them. Some things are hard to say, I know, but you'll find a way. So, Beau, right?"
Bella smiled. "It doesn't always have to be about a boy, you know."
"I saw the look in your eyes when you were telling Maggie and I about him, Bella. You're crazy about that boy, and I need teen talk to keep me focused right now. What's up with the both of you?"
She sighed, then looked out the window. "We haven't talked for days. And it's my fault. He's been trying to reach out, but I justâ" She stopped when she realized she was moving into restricted territory. She wasn't ordered to keep quiet about YWN, but she felt pressured to keep it to herself.
Adele threw her a curious glance, but before she could ask why she suddenly stopped, her phone rang from the center console. "Who's calling?" she asked instead, and Bella looked in the phone to see her mom's smiling face.
"It's Mom."
"Pick it up and put it on loudspeaker."
Bella did as she said, lifting the phone closer to her sister's face.
"Hey, Mom. Missing me?"
Her mom laughed. "Sorry to hurt your feelings, but I'm quite happy with the state of the house right now. Ignore Maggie-Lyn's YouTube videos and I'm perfectly fine watching food shows."
"Hey, we were supposed to watch those together."
"I'm a traitor. Sue me. Are you still with Bella?"
"Yeah. What's wrong?"
"Your dad just called, and I want to scold her for something."
Adele glanced at Bella, urging her to speak.
"Hey, Mom," she said, a bit too chirpily.
"Belinda Quincy, I see you've been ignoring your father."
"Me?"
"Yes, you. He said he called you on that sleepover night, but you weren't picking up, so he left a voicemail telling you to call him back. You didn't!"
At the sleepover, she didn't use her phone. She didn't even see it. When she saw it before going to bed, it was on the floor, like it had fallen and no one noticed. "I didn't see his calls, Mom."
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah."
"Well, you'll have to tell him that yourself. He's not happy."
"Okay."
When she got to her locker, a part of her was expecting Beau's note to fall out, but nothing happened. Then she knew he was mad at her.
All her classes that day whooshed past her like cars on a busy road. She barely listened to anything the teachers said, almost earning herself detention with Mr. Dylan when he called on her twice to answer a question and she wasn't paying attention.
She was thinking about finally building up the courage to tell Beau what was going on. She would apologize for ignoring him and tell him everything. Beau would understand. Right?
But what about YWN? What would they do when they found out she told him? Since Fleur was one of them, she doubted she'd let her brother get hurt, but that didn't rule her out of the punishment.
YWN could hurt Bella in the blink of an eye. She thought back to the looks they gave her a week before, especially the way Fleur looked at her, and how scared she'd been.
She was torn between saving the relationship between her and Beau and saving her reputation, and, painfully, the latter was harder to ignore.
When Beau walked into the cafeteria during lunch, she almost jumped up for joy, but disappointment slapped her hard across the face when he walked to the table his sister was at. She watched him whisper something in her ear, and glared when Fleur whispered something back with unfairly bright eyes.
Fleur smiled when she pulled back, and Beau shook his head at her in amusement, then took something out of her lunch tray. Jun looked up at him, her lips moving curiously, and Beau's lips stretched into a smile that had Bella's heart stopping.
Bella's eyes followed him as he moved to the entrance, silently urgingâbeggingâhim to look at her, even if for just a second.
But Beau walked out without one look over his shoulder, and Bella slumped in her chair, her body deflating. Her eyes accidentally met with Fleur's, making her panic. Fleur was staring at her like she had been watching her for a whileâunblinking, eyes slightly narrowedâand her lips were curled up in a sly smile, like she alone knew the final answer to a very difficult math equation.
Then Fleur lifted a hand in a wave, daring Bella to speak out, daring her to oppose them. As Bella sat there, watching Fleur publicly threaten her, she knew she had to take her up on that challenge.
She was an ocean of nerves by the time last period rolled around, and immediately she heard the last bell, she rushed out of class and headed to Beau's locker, hoping she wouldn't miss him. She had to do this while courage was still pumping through her veins, together with her blood.
Thankfully, Beau was there, intensely studying the back page of a book.
Bella let out a sigh, then took a deep breath and walked to him.
When she stopped beside him, she expected quite a few thingsâa glance, a forced 'hi', him rolling his eyes or making a comment that would hurt her feelingsâbut he did nothing. He acted like she wasn't thereâlike she was invisible.
The action caused her to snap, and with all the emotions running through her little teenage body, she punched him in the shoulder, hurting her fist more than him. "I'm standing right here, you know," she said.
Beau finally looked at her. "Oh, really? Sorry, I didn't notice."
If he had smiled while saying that, she would've probably teased him back, but there was no trace of emotion on his face. And it hurt.
"You're mad about this morning, aren't you?" she asked when he turned back to the oh-so-fascinating book in his hand. "Well, I'm sorry. And I'm sorry about last week, too. A lot of stuff was going on and..."
He wasn't reacting, making a fire start in her stomach. She wanted to get this over with, but he wasn't making it easy.
"Beau," she called, hoping it would get a reaction out of him, but it was useless. "I'm standing here, and I want to talk to you." She was getting emotional at this point.
"My ears are right here, Bella. I'm listening." His words didn't hold the assurance she needed, and she touched a hand to his arm. His muscles were tight, his expression unreadable.
"I'm sorry."
Beau turned to her, his eyes locking with hers immediately. "I'm mad at you," he admitted, making her heart drop to the bottom of her stomach, "but not because of this morning."
She studied the faint bruise on his right cheek to distract herself.
"Bella, you were in trouble, but you kept it to yourself. That's why I'm mad."
Her eyes snapped back to his, slightly widened. "What do you mean?"
"The fake dating thing with Travon," he explained. "The agreement he signed. Didn't you know about it?"
Wind was immediately knocked out of Bella, and she could only stare at him.