Who knew that Jesse Ryder had the ability to take me down? Well, I guess if anyone did have the power to do that, it’d be Jesse or his brother, Nate.
I made some mistakes. Okay, I made a shitload of mistakes, each one of them worse than the last. My biggest mistake had to be allowing my body to be used by two men who didn’t respect me. That has changed now and those two guys could even be considered friends, but at the time, they were just pieces of man meat who I used to make myself feel good.
Yep, that’s right, I had a dirty threesome with Tyson and Puck and while it was some of the best sex I’ve ever had, it was used against me and once the whole school found out, I was slut-shamed in a way that not even the cheer captain could withstand or overcome.
Overnight, I’d become the local whore and people around here treated me like it.
I don’t get what the big deal is. Sex is fun and threesomes are better. Half the girls here are doing it and all the guys are begging for it, yet I was the one crucified for it. Girls at this school have done far worse, girls like the one who just followed me into the bathroom.
Phoenix Reilly.
If anyone around here should be crucified for being a whore, it’s the girl who seduced a guy, knowing he was her half-brother. I mean, that shit is just sick, but because that guy was the famous Jesse Ryder, her indiscretions were excused for the juicy details of how he was in bed. I’ve never felt sorry for Jesse Ryder until now.
To say the girls on the cheer squad have their priorities screwed up is an understatement. At least Phoenix was demoted from being the captain, but that doesn’t explain why I was completely shunned. After all, what Phoenix did was so much worse than just some summer fun threesome.
I turn towards the sink and look at myself in the mirror, trying to ignore the way Phoenix does the same. I let out a sigh. She hasn’t slut-shamed me all morning so she must be running late on her schedule. After all, it’s impossible to get through my day without some sort of bullshit flying out of her mouth.
“Well,” Phoenix says, pulling out her lip gloss as she grins at me through the lipstick-stained mirror. “If it isn’t the runt of the litter.”
I roll my eyes as I turn on the tap and try to tune out her running commentary, though I’m not going to lie, the comment stings. She’s referring to the squad being the litter and me being the one who wasn’t strong enough to make it. “What do you want, Phoenix?”
“Isn’t nationals going to be so much fun this year?” she beams, though the sickly sweet glimmer in her eyes tells me she knows exactly what she’s doing. Phoenix gasps, holding her hand over her glossed lips. “Oh, wait,” she pouts. “You won’t be there.”
Fuck me. How was I friends with this bitch for so long? Though having Tora, Brooke, Brylee, and Courtney in my life, I now realize what it means to actually have real friends.
“Is there something you need?” I ask, turning to face her while crossing my arms over my chest. I raise a brow as though speaking with this skank is beneath me, but to be honest, it really is. I may not be the cheer captain like I used to be, but that doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten how to shut a bitch down. In fact, I was actually spectacularly good at it.
Phoenix’s eyes bulge, but she quickly reins in her shock. She hadn’t expected that. She thought I’d bow out like I’ve become so accustomed to over the past few months, but when you become predictable, that’s when you become an easy target.
Phoenix steps into me, trying to appear intimidating, but she should know this shit won’t work on me. I’ve been around it too long. Had she tried it on an innocent, sweet soul like Brylee, it probably would have worked, but this is an error in judgment that’s going to come back and bite her on the ass.
“You’re nothing,” Phoenix whispers. “All those years I stood in your shadow and now look at you. You’re a loser. I’m standing in your spotlight and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it. Your team is mine. Your friends are mine. Your life is mine. I own you.”
I step closer, meeting her challenge as I raise my chin. “You own me? I’ve never heard such bullshit. You might have swooped in and stole my position, but you were there by default. I was voted in, I earned it, you,” I scoff, “you just fell into it. They respected me, but they tolerate you. You’re the one with nothing, Phoenix. I have the world at my feet, and even without being on the team, you’re still walking in my shadow. You know it’s interesting how you go to all this effort to expose your relationship with Nate and Jesse, but where are they now? I don’t see your brothers standing by your side. In fact, if they walked in here right now, you know whose side they’d be standing on? Yeah, that’s right. Mine. You really fucked that one up, didn’t you?”