"Well Princess, looks like we interrupted something," Patrick said just as the two of us sprung apart after the initial shock of being caught wore off.

"You never call me Princess," Maddie pouted and I had to stifle the laugh that was ready to come out of my mouth. 

Patrick leveled Maddie with a megawatt grin and I knew Eli was in for it. 

"Oh, I wasn't talking to you," Patrick said, evil grin pointed towards Eli and I couldn't help laughing right along with Maddie even though I was secretly annoyed that they'd interrupted us...but then also partly grateful as well, because no matter how attracted I might've been to Eli, he was still my dad's player and I had still sworn off boys. 

"Alright alright, that's enough babe.  I actually need to talk to V for a second.  You got a minute?"

I nodded to Maddie, flashing one more look over my shoulder at Eli who already had his eyes on me, almost like we couldn't be in the same room without our gazes gravitating towards the other. 

"Yeah, sure."

Oh great.  This was where I was going to be fired, before I'd even received my first paycheck.  There went my dream of moving out and sticking it to my dad and-

"Girl, what did I tell you about Eli?  He went for you even before a frat party and you were seriously about to kiss him?!"

"It's not like that.  He's-" I cut myself off, not sure what I could say to her because it wasn't like I could just come out and say that I had lied about who my dad really was and Eli and I had bonded over the mutual crazy drama that my family had rained down upon us...or maybe I could, but either way, I wasn't going to do that. 

"He's different?  Wow.  I mean, I thought you were smarter than that but I guess I'll just have to prove it to you."

I furrowed my eyebrows as she skimmed through her phone looking for something, and a wry satisfied grin of distaste flooded her features as she held out her phone to me. 

"What am I looking at?"

"See that arm in the background?  That tattoo on the person's back?  It's Eli's.  This is from my friend Mia's snapchat story from a few days ago.  She saved it and posted it to her Instagram feed.  I know it's recent because I remember seeing it when she posted it.  This was from last Friday, quite a few days after he met you.  So tell me again about how he's 'different'?"

My stomach pitched as I took in the grainy photo, the faux dog ears adorning the girl's features as she posed for a duck face in the heavily edited photo with multiple different filters on it, and sure enough, there was his silhouette in the background. 

It was shadowed, but I could just make out the charcoal ink wrapping around Eli's back and climbed up his side, the intricate detailing impossible to replicate.  It was him, and the serpent and lion that dueled for dominance on his back gave him away completely. 

I had once marveled at the sight of the tattoo that must've taken hours to complete, the amount of pain he must've endured in order for all of the shading to give way to the entire piece, but after seeing that picture, all I could feel was...contempt?  Anger?  Jealousy?

What did I have to be jealous of?  Sure, we'd been hanging out, and there was an inordinate amount of heat between the two of us, but there was never anything else that had happened between us. 

We'd come close, twice in one day, once when we'd hit our heads together in the entryway to my house, and then there was that moment we'd had in the doorway of my bedroom, in my dad's study...

That just proved that we had good 'moments' but nothing really ever came of it.  He was probably not even a good kisser, anyway.  I was better off without guys ruining my life, just like I'd already figured out.  I didn't need Eli hurting my pride any further by proving it for me time and time again with other girls. 

"Maddie, we've never even kissed.  It's just been flirting and, I don't know, he's just really intense.  I'm backing off of him, though.  I don't know this Mia girl but if they're close enough to be posting each other on their social medias then I'd definitely be an idiot to let it go any farther."

"Good.  I'm sorry, I just don't want to see you getting hurt.  I know Mia really well and she's a sweet girl, I don't want to see her get hurt either, and I'm going to tell her what I saw here tonight too."

"Wait, can you not, please?  I just started here, I really don't want to start drama with an upperclassman."

Maddie's eyebrow quirked in confusion. 

"But if they're a thing, then it's his fault, not yours."

"Yeah, but sometimes the other girl doesn't always blame the guy.  I've seen it happen more than once.  I just don't want any trouble.  Please?"

"Okay, fine.  But I'll still tell her to be careful of the guy.  I don't like him playing multiple girls at once, that's disgusting."

"Agreed," I said, and stole a glance over at Eli who was playing a game of keep away with the basketball against Patrick and was winning by a mile. 

It hadn't felt like he was trying to play me.  In all actuality, it had seemed quite the opposite as he took an interest in my life, asking me if I was okay after what my family had done to me and even taken my side, saying that he didn't like how my dad had treated me even though I could've ran to my dad and told him that.  It was like he was on my side when there seemed like no one way in my family. 

Guess that put me back at square one, with the only person looking out for me being myself.  

"Don't worry about locking up, I'll do it for you.  I'll tell Eli you had to leave early.  School emergency or something."

"Say it was family drama.  He'll know what you mean," I said, and while there was a question in her face, she didn't voice it, thankfully.  She had known that we were close to speak about family issues together, which wasn't good.  I just hoped he didn't ask her too many questions. 

"Thank you," I told her sincerely, sending her a relieved smile like she'd saved me from dodging a bullet, which in retrospect, she actually had. 

Eli's lips had been a speeding bullet that would've derailed everything I'd been working towards.  I needed to refocus my priorities, and figure out how to keep my family from falling apart at the seams. 

The first step to that, however, was finding out the truth about the night and the car wreck.  I needed to find out if my dad had actually been the drunk driver in the disaster that had killed my mother and paralyzed my father from the waist down. 

Grabbing my purse and sending one last longing look towards the courts where Eli still hadn't caught my eye, thankfully, I popped open the front doors to the gym with my hip while scrolling through my phone searching for a phone number I hadn't used in over five years. 

The number was still programmed in my phone though it was blocked, per my father.  I didn't know why I didn't unblock it the second I turned eighteen, but if there was something that my father did well, it was establishing the visage of freedom without there actually being any there in the first place. 

Yes, I was allowed to go to college and live in a dorm, but I was forced to come back every weekend because of his arrangement to pay for my education.  Yes, I had a job, but only because he'd called in a favor with one of his college buddies. 

Yes, I had a car and a cell phone and a food budget and wardrobe budget and spending money and all of these nice things, but they all were conditional.  He dangled these things in front of my nose as if a carrot on a string in front of a starving horse. 

He had made it clear on more than one occasion that if I lost sight of my business degree that the metaphorical carrot would be snatched away faster than I could say 'singing career', and it was obvious the way he felt about the avenue I was pursuing. 

He couldn't care less about my scholarship at the New York Conservatory.  I should've taken the scholarship and ran from his oppressive thumb, but it was like he used his love as something to leverage, like I was only good enough when he said so and if not then I just needed to work harder to earn it, and I so desperately wanted to earn it. 

Maybe it was because he was my last living parent, and I thrived on his approval more than I cared about my emotional and financial freedom.  Maybe it was because I had become as codependent upon him as he had me. 

I didn't know the true answer, but I did know that after the stunts pulled with Sara and Jared back home that it was going to come to an end. 

I unblocked her number and immediately the flood of missed calls and text messages and voicemails that I'd never received came pouring through, the proof of her love and that she'd never given up on me. 

I squashed the tears that threatened to rise up in a tsunami of emotions and pressed 'call'. 

She picked up on the first ring. 

"Ahyoka, it has been too long."

"Hi Grandma."

***

Author's Note:

Hello my lovely readers!

We are about halfway through this book already!  What are your thoughts so far? 

What do you think is going to happen next vs what you want to happen next?

Do you think Mia is going to be an antagonist or a good character? 

Do you think Jared and Sara can change?  What about V's dad? 

How do you think Eli's past is going to come to light, and is going to affect their 'relationship' moving forward?

How do you think V's trauma is going to affect the rest of the story?

Are you excited to meet her grandmother?  

FUN FACT:

Ahyoka in Cherokee means 'She brought happiness', and let's just say her V is going to need a ton of that happiness after what her grandmother has to say.

I hope you're enjoying the story, next update either later tonight or sometime tomorrow!  Until next time my lovely readers, 

Kristen :)