Chapter Thirty
The rest of the day was a shambles. I stayed in my room and packed. I'd really thought it was all coming togetherâI was going to perform on stage tomorrow; I'd met Ethan; I'd even dared to think that maybe my blackmailer had exhausted their use of me. And now this.
I didn't really want to leave.
I didn't have anything to go home to.
It would just be me sat in a bedroom wallowing instead of being allowed to practice ballet and see Ethan. My grades would probably suffer, too. I'd just accepted that ballet really was my life. Just when I'd decided it was what I wanted, it was ripped away.
I didn't want to tell my parents until the last minute. I was waiting for them to arrive for the performance so that I could tell them that I'd decided to quit. I hadn't had the energy to think of an excuse yetâI was hoping something believable would come to me in the moment.
Right now I was facing the impossible task of saying goodbye to Ethan.
Wandering down the corridors at midnight was relaxing, and I tried to memorise the pretty architecture and gorgeous paintings. I'd probably never step foot in somewhere this posh again.
I was relying on my ability to wing it here, as well. Of course ever since Amber had thrown her ultimatum at me I'd been torn between lamenting the ballet career I'd never got to start, and saying goodbye to Ethan. My imagining of the situation had involved us having horny sex one final time before I left rather than what I was actually going to say to him, though.
There weren't any right words or good excuses. Ethan was never going to believe that I was choosing to leave off my own back, not really. But, that didn't matter. I'd left it until the absolute last minute, so Ethan wouldn't be able to figure out why I was leaving and he wouldn't be able stop me.
I swallowed the nagging feeling that this might be enough to make our end of year agreement void. He'd know I was lying to him and that might push our already tremulous relationship over the edge.
Slipping into the teacher's corridor, I felt sick to my stomach.
I didn't want to say goodbye.
I wanted to go in there, give him a kiss and a cuddle, then go to bed together. I didn't want any of the complications anymore. I was worn out with everything.
Shutting my eyes and taking a deep breath, I knocked on the door. It was like a repeat of the last time I'd done thisâEthan answered the door clad only in his boxers and gave me an exasperated look before gesturing for me to come in. He hadn't registered the forlorn expression on my face yet.
"What's up? Oh, hey, what's wrong?" His eyebrows knitted and he took a step towards me. "What's happened?"
I stared at him for long that he really began to get worried before hanging my head. "I'm leaving."
"What?"
"I'm leaving Briarwood. I'm going home tomorrow."
He didn't take another step forward and force my chin up like I'd expected, but took a step back instead. "What are you talking about?"
I lifted one shoulder unenthusiastically. I apparently didn't have the energy to attempt a believable explanation. "I just don't want to be a ballerina anymore."
"That doesn't mean you should leave the Academy." Ethan's voice was strained and he began to pace. "What's really happened? Why now? What has your blackmailer done?" It was the wrong culprit, but basically the same thing. The urge to just tell him and see if he could help was overwhelming. But this was different. One click on Amber's phone and it would be everywhere. I wasn't going to risk that.
I'd leave the Academy, take my exams in college, then go to university after taking a gap year. I'd make new friends, have new experiences and everything would be perfect in the end.
That was the way it had to be.
"It's got nothing to do with my blackmailer. I just want to go home and try and make up with my friends. I miss the life I used to have."
"Your friends were dicks who ditched you the moment you moved away from them. They're not worth giving up your career for." He did move forwards now, his toes appearing in my vision as he grabbed both hands in his. "Please don't go."
I forced my gaze up. His eyes were swimming in sadness and I so desperately wanted to cave. "I love you," I whispered instead, tears brimming as I tried to show him just how much I meant it.
He brushed a stray piece of hair out of my eyes and shook his head in helplessness. "I love you too," he whispered, pressing his lips to mine.
It was a hard and fast kiss, before I forced myself to pull away. I had to get out of here, before I gave in. I couldn't sleep with him, despite how much my body craved his touch one final time. "I'm sorry," I muttered, wrapping him in the tightest hug my body would allow. My throat burned with unshed tears, but I held them back. I left his room without looking back, and thanked God he didn't try to chase me.
I left the teachers' corridor with a heavy heart and strode straight towards Liliana's room.
Seeing Ethan hadn't inspired me, exactly, but I'd left his room feeling so utterly miserable and angry at myself that I just couldn't let her win. I'd been pushed around all year by various people. I'd been so scared of her this entire time because of the possibility of losing my scholarship, but now there was nothing on the line. Not really. If it was edited, there'd be some way to prove it was edited, and Liliana would know how.
I didn't even have access to the video, but Liliana could surely help me somehow.
At least, if she was willing to. There was no guarantee she'd listen to what I had to say.
But, I had to try.
Luckily, I'd been to Liliana's dorm room enough times to know where it was. No doubt her roommates were going to be less than pleased when they heard me knocking on their door at nearly one in the morning, but this was more important.
I hoped none of Amber's friends that she may or may not have confided in were in the room. That might mean I'd shot myself in the foot just by trying to get some revenge.
I cringed when my soft knock echoed through the corridor. I was bound to get caught by someone before the night was done. It wasn't Liliana that answered after my third knock, but another disgruntled girl who I didn't recognise. "What on Earth are you doing here at this time?"
"I need to speak to Liliana." We kept our voices to whispers. "It's really important. I can go wake her."
"I'll do it." Maybe Liliana had bitched about me to her dorm mates and this girl knew Liliana was probably going to tell me to get lost. I wouldn't have been surprised.
Liliana dragged herself towards me with the biggest scowl on her face. "What do you want?"
"I need your help," I was forced to admit, scratching the back of my head and staring at my feet. The last time I'd seen her had been when I'd foiled her attempt to bomb the power plant. It was so selfish of me to be here now. "At least hear me out, please. You might find yourself inclined even if it's not for my benefit." Liliana hated Amber, too. Maybe she'd be willing to help me if it meant sending Amber down.
Liliana slipped out of the door in her pyjamas and gestured for me to continue. "What is it?"
"Amber has edited some porn video so it looks like I'm the girl in it. She's told me to leave the school, otherwise she's going to put the video on the internet. I was going to just leave butâ" I scowled, "âI really can't bring myself to submit to her again. I'm more of a bitch than she is if I do that."
Liliana was shifting her weight and staring at the ceiling whilst she debated it. "Gosh, she really is something, isn't she? I'm not sure what I can do to help, though. I mean, you don't have a copy of the video, right?"
"I don't."
"Then there's really nothing I can do. If I had the video I might be able to prove she'd edited it and we could take it to the head, but otherwise I've got nothing. I'm sorry."
"I'm going to go and find Leon, to see if he knows anything about it," I decided. "Is it okay if I come and call on you if I find something? I know I've been a bitch and you have no reason to help me, but it would really mean a lot." I'd been far more of a bitch than she realised.
"I'm doing it for the benefit of potentially kicking Amber out of Briarwood, not because I want to help you. Got it?"
I nodded. That was more than I could have hoped for. "Got it."
"Good. Then I'm coming with you. It's not really fair to keep waking everyone else up. Besides, I know where Leon's room is, Callum shares with him. Unless you already knew, of course..." she trailed off, giving me a suspicious side glance.
"I didn't know." I'd been planning on asking her if she did before she disappeared. "But Leon did tell me he liked me after he broke up with Amber." Maybe plying her with some gossip would help. "And yeah, he broke up with her not the other way around."
"Huh. He's kind of cute. How come you didn't go for it?"
Ethan. That was all there really was when it came to that discussion. "He's not really my type. He's cute, but he was also a bit clingy. I don't know, we're kind of friends now anyway."
"That's nice. Do you think Leon will actually know anything about this whole thing? I mean, him and Amber were going out, but if he was interested in you then she might not have been very forthcoming with her plans to annihilate you."
I chuckled. "True. Maybe he stumbled across something and didn't think anything of it, though." We might be able to jog his memory now we knew what her big finale was.
"I hope so." Liliana's voice had taken on that same excited edge as when we'd been bombing her father's plant and I welcomed it. I had a genius on my side. That had to count for something.
"It's this corridor." She went to open the door before her eyes widened and she dodged away from the glass. "Mr. Langley is down there talking to Leon."
My eyebrows shot up. My lie really had been very appalling, then. I almost wanted to smile. He was up wandering about in the middle of the night trying to find what was sending me home, too.
Pulling open the door, I gave him a little wave. He eyed Liliana behind me. "Are you going to tell me what's up, then? Since you've clearly decided running off home wasn't the right choice for you."
Both Liliana and Leon looked between us. I was feeling better and better about the situation as we went on. Having something to do rather than just sitting around and waiting for my misery to swallow me was refreshing. "Yes, I'll tell you. And you." I pointed to Leon. "I'm hoping you can help me out."
"I have no idea what's going on, Mr. Langley seemed to think Amber might be threatening you with something."
"She is. She's edited a porn video so that it looks like I'm the one in it."
Ethan sighed. "What a piece of shit."
Liliana put her hand to her mouth and let out a giggle. "Did you really just say that?"
"Sorry, Carly's corrupted me. I'm going to be calling my mum mam soon and she's going to be horrified."
I smirked, probably best not to make ourselves look too suspicious. Liliana was still looking terribly amused by the situation. "I don't think seeing teachers after hours should be allowed if they normally swear so much."
"I think some of the other teachers might not be so laid back." He scratched the back of his head and directed his attention towards me again. "So, this video. What are we going to do about it?"
"I'm not really sure. I don't have a copy. Liliana says she can try and prove that it's edited together if I do, but until then I haven't a clue. I was hoping Leon might have, I don't know, something. Did she ever mention anything to you that might help?"
"She never mentioned anything to me specifically," Leon apologised. "She just ranted about hating you a lot."
"Geez, what did I even do to upset her that much? I mean, is she really just that prejudiced?"
Leon shrugged. "I think that's probably what started it off. She didn't like you, but then more things happened and she started to really dislike you." He didn't bother ticking things off, even though everyone actually knew that he fancied me now. "Anyway, I might not be much help with that side of things, but there's something else I can do. Just gimme a minute."
He dipped back into his room and the three of us were left stood in the corridor. "You okay?" Ethan checked with me. "I didn't think it would be anything this bad."
"I'm spurred on by vengeful thoughts at the moment," I assured him. "If this fails then it'll be a different issue."
Ethan nodded and Liliana watched us in silence. It wasn't too unreasonable to assume we'd become friends during months of private lessons together, I hoped. Our age gap wasn't that big.
Leon returned moments later brandishing a key. "I still have this. She gave me a spare key to her dorm so that I could sneak in, er, for stuff. We can go and get her phone whilst she's sleeping. She always has it on her bedside table rather than under her pillow or anything, so that shouldn't be an issue."
"Oh, cool." They'd taken my keys off me when I'd swapped dorm rooms. "Thanks."
"And when we say we." Ethan fixed him with a look. "Do we mean you? If Carly goes in and Amber catches her then she'll definitely post the video. You can come up with an excuse and we'll have a second chance if you get caught."
Leon scratched the back of his head. "Sure. Works for me."
So the four of us paraded down the hallway towards my own dorm room with an unreasonable amount of hope. We didn't talk for fear of someone waking up and finding us out here on our weird little mission. I wanted to smile up at Ethan and thank him for trying to help out, but I knew our expressions would give us away if I did that, so I withheld the sentiment for when we'd get a moment together later.
We paused around the corner. "We'll wait here in case you get caught and she chases you or something," Ethan said, looking mightily amused by the possibility. "Please don't get caught. This is probably our only chance."
Leon held his hands up. "Thanks for the vote of confidence. I thought teachers were supposed to be encouraging."
"I can't function on teacher-mode at one in the morning. I'm hoping you'll have forgotten this has happened by morning." He rubbed his eyes and let out a yawn. "Good luck."
It was a tense couple of minutes as I waited for Amber's accusing screams and I tapped my hands against my legs in agitation.
"Please stop," Liliana and Ethan groaned together when I sped up my rhythm.
Flushing, I shrugged. "I'm nervous."
"You're making me nervous," Ethan said.
"You're already nervous," I returned without hesitation, folding my arms across my chest and resisting the urge to tap my feet instead. "Why is this taking so long?"
"It's been less than two minutes." Liliana sent me a flat look. "Just be quiet. Leon will be out in a moment."
He was out in less than a minute, brandishing Amber's jewel-encrusted mobile.
Liliana took it. "Oh, neat, it's the same brand as mine, I can get the video onto my laptop and have a proper look at it. Come on, let's go."
Somehow we still didn't run into anyone as we went back to Liliana's room so she could pick up her laptop and then to Ethan's room so that we could talk without the fear of waking anyone up.
Leon wasn't good at hiding his interest as we watched the video. "They're really not my tits," I assured him. "And you can't have a copy."
Liliana began messing with things that I didn't understand after we'd watched it through once and I took the time to lean back against Ethan's headboard, grabbing the book he was reading off the side and flicking through it. "Why are you reading this?" It was a book aimed a school kids.
His face turned scarlet and he snatched it from me. "This was my favourite book when I was thirteen. I was doing it for nostalgia purposes, okay?"
I chuckled. "I'm pretty sure I can't afford to judge, anyway. I barely read at all and when I do it's definitely not anything of literary significance."
"You just binge watch films instead. Don't you always think the books are better, though?"
I shrugged. "Sometimes. I'm lazy though. I normally fall asleep halfway through films, I just put them on when I'm tired. Or miserable, and then I'm too busy being miserable to concentrate on what's going on in the film anyway."
Ethan considered this with an amused smile on his face and I watched him unabashedly. If I really got to stay at the school and continue seeing it every day I'd definitely be the happiest person here.
"Okay, I can prove it," Liliana announced, spinning her screen towards us. Leon had been watching her every move, eyes glued to the screen anyway. "See this?" She pointed to the edge around my face and began changing the colours.
I blinked, squinting at the screen and not understanding what she was getting at. "Not really."
"Yes, I think I'm missing something here," Ethan agreed.
Liliana didn't look overly surprised. "Well, it doesn't really matter whether you can see it or not, anyway, because the Mr. Rowsley definitely will when I show it to him and the head." Liliana and her IT teacher got on well, she was always telling me about the cool tricks her showed her, so I felt relatively safe in the knowledge that he wouldn't lie to protect the school's golden girl.
"We should go now." Ethan got up and stretched. Nothing could stop me admiring that small bit of exposed skin as he did. "Before Amber realises that her phone is gone. She might try and upload it from her laptop instead."
We all followed suit. "Makes sense," I agreed, remembering well how he'd said that it was a bad idea to wake Mrs. Mellier up in the middle of the night the last time I was here. Either that was an excuse to keep me in his bed, or there was a chance the head would send us away or be too annoyed to be fair tonight.
On the other hand, we were going above Mrs. Mellier this time and straight to the head teacher. Hopefully he'd be a decent enough guy.
Ethan was the one who strode in front and he'd replaced any semblance of a teasing smile with his business face. The head was getting strict, professional Mr. Langley, and that definitely made me feel more reassured.
"He's going to answer the door in his pyjamas and I'm going to giggle again," Liliana whispered to me, already biting her lip at the thought of it.
My own lips quirked. The head was a middle-aged man with the wackiest moustache I'd ever seen in real life. Seeing him in pyjamas would probably send me over the edge as well.
"If you laugh at him, we won't get anywhere," Ethan warned, somehow managing to hold back any amusement at the situation.
He knocked on the door and the three of us waited behind him with the most composed looks we could manage. Our head teacher opened the door with a very disgruntled expression. I bit down on the inside of my cheek hard when I saw pyjama shirt he was wearingâit was an inflated picture of a cat that had just been bathed. A man after my own heart.
"What are you doing here?" He rubbed at his eyes.
"We've come to report an urgent issue regarding the bullying of a student. It really can't wait until morning, I'm afraid."
"Well, go on then, at least give me a rundown before you make me get dressed."
"Amber edited a video so that it looked like I was starring in some porn and then blackmailed me to try and get me to leave the Academy," I explained in the simplest terms.
The head master's eyebrows shot up. "Well, then. That does seem to be a rather urgent matter. I suppose you have proof."
"I do, but you might need Mr. Rowsley to confirm it." Liliana lifted up her laptop for effect. "It's a bit technical."
"I'll get someone to fetch him. And I'll get someone to fetch Miss Mullender, too."
"She might have a copy on her laptop that she can send, so could you let whoever is going to fetch her know that they have to bring her right away without letting her do anything?" I said.
"I'll have security sort that out." The head nodded and yawned. "Well, I need to make some calls and put my clothes on. I trust you four know where my office is. I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't mind waiting there for me."
Ethan nodded, so I assumed that meant he knew, because I hadn't the foggiest. The head slammed his bedroom door and we shared tentative smiles. "That went well, I think?" I hazarded to say it out loud as Ethan led the way towards the office.
"I think so too," Ethan agreed. "Now let's just hope the rest of it goes well."
Liliana explained the video to her IT teacher without any hesitation, even as we all shifted a bit uncomfortably. Letting Leon and Liliana see it was completely different to having two middle-aged men watch what looked like a very real video of me being fucked.
"She's right," Mr. Rowsley admitted, hasty to turn the video off. "It's been edited together."
"And tell me exactly what Miss Mullender said when she was showing you this video," the head urged, looking very much like he had a headache forming.
"She showed me the video and told me that if I didn't leave the school before the ballet performance then she'd post the video online and that everyone would see it. Then she handed me some forms for me to apply to take my exams at a local college. It happened in the changing rooms, so there won't be any cameras or anything with it on."
"And do you want to press charges?"
I blinked. "What?"
"This is an offence. At least, I would imagine it is. Do you want to press charges on her?"
I shifted my weight. "No, I just want her to be expelled." The drama of going to Court or anything like that sounded horrific. "That is on the cards if she's technically committed a crime, right?"
"Yes, yes, of course," the head assured me, beginning to massage his temples. "Of course." There was a knock on the door. "Well, I guess that will be her. I suppose I have to listen to both sides of the story."
Amber had obviously worked out exactly what was going on when she'd been woken in the middle of the night, and her face was ashen as she was led into the room.
She'd been absolutely positive that she was never going to be caught, that much was obvious. "Sir?" Her cutesy, naïve voice made me want to hurl something at her.
He didn't offer her a seat. "What is your explanation for all this nonsense?"
Amber played innocent, of course. "What are you talking about?"
"You blackmailed a student with an edited video."
"Iâ"
"Yes, and I've seen the proof so unless you've got some retaliation with evidence, I don't think there is much to say, is there?" The head stood up and looked around the room. "I'll be keeping the phone and your laptop and any other device which can potentially store the video on with me and you'll be leaving the school in the next couple of days. I'll be ringing your parents in the morning inform them. Luckily, Miss Smith has been gracious enough not to press charges. You should thank yourself lucky. Now, get her out of my office."
I could barely contain my grin as Amber was led back out with stroppy protests.
I'd won. All the shit over the last six months that I'd taken from her because I was scared of losing my scholarship, and I'd actually won.
Amber was being expelled.
I contained my joy for the headmaster, but when he apologised for Amber's awful behaviour and dismissed us, I practically bounced around with glee. "I can't believe it."
Everyone grinned. "Can't say she doesn't deserve it," Leon admitted. "That look on her face was definitely worth it."
I'd remember that horrified, defeated stare for the rest of my life. If I was ever feeling down, today would definitely never fail to cheer me up.
We walked back towards the dormitories with large smiles, joking about all the misfortune that was coming her way. Ethan and Leon departed with a congratulatory grin and it left me and Liliana to walk back to the girls' dorms together. And I had something to ask from her.
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Oh wow I'd forgotten what a ridiculously long chapter this is! Anyway, this book is nearly over :'( Just a few more chapters and an epilogue to go.
I can't thank everyone enough for getting me to #239 on the Romance List! It's so exciting, I can barely believe it.