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Riley Carson had no idea she'd wind up as the school's pariah when a wager was placed to see whether she'd fall in love with Mitch Lingston. With stories swirling about, she has no choice but to attempt to remain under the radar. Riley's plans to spend the remainder of the year alone are dashed when Alex Kinley, the school's known bad boy, expresses interest in her. What happens when she befriends the bad boy?
Chapter 1 Prologue
People that are broken are terribly gorgeous.
*
"You placed a wager." Those four words shattered my heart. I was saying it out loud stung. I should have known better. I should've learned that the jock would never ask a lady like me out unless it was for his benefit.
"Yes." You'd think he'd be upset about it, but he wasn't.
He had a smug on his face. He could have cared less. I hadn't seen him with that look before. He was no longer the sweet, loving lover I had imagined him to be.
"How long will this last?" I asked.
"Five months," he said. "However, it was the longest five months of my life." Another hit to the chest. I felt as though I were in the film She's All That. It was odd because it was one of my favorite movies, and now I find myself in the same scenario.
"Why?" My voice cracked, humiliating me even more.
"You came up with an excellent challenge." He didn't care that he had torn my heart out and was now walking on the fragments. He was pleased with himself.
My body was malfunctioning. My eyes did not well up, at least not yet. I felt hollow. 'How could I have missed this?' was all I could think. 'Didn't you see that wasn't real?'
"I didn't expect it to take me five months to convince you to admit you love me, but getting in your trousers was worth it."
People stared at us. Of course, Mitch had to do it at the center of the school entrance, where everyone could see him. It was as though they summoned everyone to the front of the school. And those who weren't there would hear about it in less than 30 minutes. Whether you liked it or not, gossip spread quickly in high school.
"I didn't do-" I began to talk, but he cut me off. I never slept with him. We didn't do anything like that.
"However," he said, "discovering you were also banging my pals behind my back stung."
The audience gasped. He was lying, but nobody could tell. They saw the pain on his face instead.
The glitter in his eye told me it was his retaliation for forcing him away the night before he sought to sleep with me. His three pals smirked behind him as they agreed to the proposal.
I wanted to knock their grins off of their faces. They were all infected. It's sick to gamble on and embarrass me in front of the whole school.
"But it no longer matters," I thought. "Nobody loves sloppy seconds in the first place." Hundreds of eyes looked at me, all of them judging. Everyone assumed I slept with Mitch and cheated on him.
Worse, no one appeared to care that he had made a wager in the first place. No one cared about that little detail, just that I had 'cheated' on Mitch Lingston, the golden boy. No matter what I said, I knew no one would believe tiny invisible Riley Carson or me.
My throat tightened, and my eyes began to hurt. Mitch laughed, and then everyone laughed, and their laughter hung in the crevices of my ear like bangles. Kids pointed and chatted all around me. From what others were saying, I had become the school's laughingstock as well as its slut in a matter of seconds.
I grabbed the strap of my bag before turning away, not wanting to weep in front of the whole school. Mitch said again after I had barely taken a few feet.
"You weren't even a decent deception."
My feet were moving before my thoughts could catch up. As everyone shouted and laughed for Mitch, I dashed across the parking lot to my vehicle. I started the car with trembling hands and drove out of the parking lot.
As I drove home, with tears streaming down my face, I knew that the remainder of the school year would be misery.
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Chapter 1 Prologue
16/07/2022
Chapter 2 Part I
16/07/2022
Chapter 3 Part II
16/07/2022
Chapter 4 Part I
16/07/2022
Chapter 5 Part II
16/07/2022
Chapter 6 Part III
16/07/2022
Chapter 7 Part I
16/07/2022
Chapter 8 Part II
16/07/2022
Chapter 9 Part III
16/07/2022
Chapter 10 Part IV
16/07/2022
Chapter 11 Part V
16/07/2022
Chapter 12 Part I
16/07/2022
Chapter 13 Part II
29/07/2022
Chapter 14 Part III
29/07/2022
Chapter 15 Part IV
29/07/2022
Chapter 16 Part I
29/07/2022
Chapter 17 Part II
29/07/2022
Chapter 18 Part III
31/07/2022
Chapter 19 Part IV
31/07/2022
Chapter 20 Part V
31/07/2022
Chapter 21 Part VI
31/07/2022
Chapter 22 Part VII
31/07/2022
Chapter 23 Part I
31/07/2022
Chapter 24 Part II
31/07/2022
Chapter 25 Part III
31/07/2022
Chapter 26 Part IV
31/07/2022
Chapter 27 Part I
02/08/2022
Chapter 28 Part II
02/08/2022
Chapter 29 Part III
02/08/2022
Chapter 30 Part IV
05/08/2022
Chapter 31 Part V
06/08/2022
Chapter 32 Part I
06/08/2022
Chapter 33 Part II
06/08/2022
Chapter 34 Part III
06/08/2022
Chapter 35 Part IV
06/08/2022
Chapter 36 Part V
08/08/2022
Chapter 37 Part I
08/08/2022
Chapter 38 Part II
08/08/2022
Chapter 39 Part III
08/08/2022
Chapter 40 Part IV
08/08/2022
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