The Unloved (2 page)

“I really wish you’d let me do something to your hair. Even if you don’t want bright pink like mine, I could do something a little bit suppler…like a pale pink or a green,” she said, as she pulled a magnetic mirror from inside her messenger bag and attached it to the inside of our locker door.

I clasped my notebook to my chest and tuned her out. Tiffany was always trying to get me to do something more to myself. Since the sixth grade she’d been begging me to let her put some kind of bright, funky color in my hair, the same way she’d been pestering me to wear more than black eyeliner for years, too.

Tiffany just didn’t get it. The more I made myself up, the more my mother’s boyfriend’s hands would find their way to me. My philosophy was: If I kept my looks simple and wore baggy clothes or at least ones that covered me up, then I would be undesirable. The perverts couldn’t want what they couldn’t see. It worked most of the time, but not always.

“Oh my God, please tell me we can all share lockers again this year. Have you seen the freakin’ line at the office for sign ups? You’d think they’re giving out Valium’s or something!” Emily Moore said as she bounded toward us.

I met Emily’s stare—she was another ‘outcast’ in my little group of misfit friends—and smiled.

“Sure!” Tiffany answered for me.

Emily rolled her eyes dramatically and let out a long huff of air. “Oh, thank God!”

Something on her nose caught the florescent light and shimmered. “No way,” I said, my mouth hanging open, its corners twisted into a slight smile. “When did you get your nose pierced?”

“You like it?” Emily asked, tilting her head to the side so I could get a better look. “Blake’s cousin is working down at Magnum as their new piercing person. She did it for ten bucks for me because she’s trying to get in some more practice.”

“I love it! When can I get mine done? Oh, we should
all
get ours done!” Tiffany shouted a little too enthusiastically.

I’d always wanted to get my nose pierced, but never could go through with it. An image of bits and pieces of toilet paper stuck to it during allergy season was always the deciding factor as to why.

“Eh, I’m not sure,” I said scrunching up my nose.

“Come on, it would look cute,” Emily pressed.

“So cute,” Tiffany agreed.

I rolled my eyes and smiled. They weren’t going to let this one go and I’d never find a cheaper price.

“All right, I’ll do it,” I said.

“Whoo-hoo!” Tiffany shouted, startling a few freshman girls standing nearby. “So, when do we go?”

“I’ll see if Jess is free tomorrow afternoon,” Emily said.

I sucked in a deep breath. I couldn’t believe I was actually going to go through with this. A little shiver of excitement slid through me as a smile sprang to my face. Tomorrow afternoon I was getting my nose pierced.

CHAPTER THREE

NICK

High school and jail, the two seemed eerily similar to me right about now. In both places you followed the rules, did your time, and then you got out. This was the thought that swept through my mind during the first few minutes of my day. I couldn’t see this place getting any better any time soon. There was one good thing though; no one seemed to remember me yet.

This was fine by me. In fact, it was downright comical.

Maybe it should have bothered me, the way no one seemed to remember little Nick Owen from Hilton Street, but it didn’t. Because I wasn’t that frightened, wimpy little boy anymore who came to school with bruises on his face and busted lips. I’d managed to bulk up while I was away for when mom finally decided to let me come home, that way I could protect her, because I knew there was no way my piece-of-shit father would stay gone forever. And when he decided to come back, I would be ready.

I walked through the hallways with a permanent scowl on my face. I hated being here. No, that wasn’t it, not if I was being honest with myself. The reason for the scowl was that I hadn’t seen Jules yet. That girl had never left my mind while I was away. I’d worried about her every single day. I wondered what she looked like now, after two years had passed. Would she have changed at all? Would I even recognize her? Shit, who was I kidding? I’d know those big green eyes anywhere.

I smirked and rounded the corner, headed toward my locker on the main floor—number 317. A high-pitched laugh caught my attention as I hooked my combination on the door; I glanced a few lockers down from mine to a group of girls. The laugh came from one with brown hair streaked with pink and skinny jeans on. Her back was to me and all I could see was her shaking with laughter. I slugged my book bag into my locker, keeping out a notepad, and glanced once more in her direction. She had a nice ass. It was then that she stepped aside and revealed a petite, redheaded girl swallowed by a sweater.

My heart thumped wildly at the sight of her. The redhead was talking, though I couldn’t hear about what. I noticed how alive her face seemed as she rambled, but there was something off about her. Even while she smiled and continued to talk, sadness seemed to ooze from her.

She closed her locker and the three girls started in my direction. I turned slightly so I could watch them somewhat as they walked past me without seeming like a pervert. Just as they reached me the redhead shifted her gaze toward me like she could feel my eyes on her and drew her eyebrows together. She shot daggers at me with her piercing green eyes, obviously knowing what I was doing. She was very observant this one. I smirked at her and then it hit me.
Big green eyes.
Relief trickled through my veins.

I’d finally found her—I’d found Jules.

The moment I realized who she was, it was too late, she’d already rounded the corner and the warning bell had begun to ring.

CHAPTER FOUR

JULIE

He looked familiar, the muscular guy staring at me a little too hard in the hallway this morning, but I couldn’t figure out why. I didn’t know any meatheads and they sure as heck never checked me out. There was something about his hazel eyes that tugged and pulled at my memory like I should know them, like I should remember them from somewhere, but I couldn’t place them.

“So Luke is in one of my classes, first period to be exact.” Tiffany smiled smugly. “For a sophomore, the kid is pretty cute.”

Luke Preston was my little brother Cole’s best friend. I’d known him since he was like five. It just seemed wrong hearing Tiffany say he was cute and not mean it in a baby-cute way. “Well, go for it,
cradle robber
,” I teased as we continued toward the cafeteria.

Tiffany shoved me playfully and smiled wide. “Cradle robber my ass! The age difference can still be counted on one hand.”

“I’m sure most pedophiles think that way, too,” I said with mock seriousness. “If that’s what you have to tell yourself to make you feel better about your little crush, then go for it.”

“You’re horrible,” Tiffany muttered, shaking her head.

“Kidding, I’m only kidding,” I said just as we entered the cafeteria and the scent of cheeseburgers wafted to my nose, making my stomach rumble loudly.

“Geez, hungry much?” Tiffany asked.

“Starved, I was in such a rush this morning I didn’t get a chance to eat breakfast,” I lied.

The truth was there wasn’t any food in my house to be eaten. My mom’s tips from stripping went to buy her alcohol and pills. Every now and then we’d get lucky and there’d be enough for one meal in the cabinets or fridge. Most of the time though, that food wasn’t for us, it was for one of her boyfriends. So she could cook and play house.

No, Cole and I were old enough to fend for ourselves. My mother’s exact words whenever either one of us complained about there being nothing to eat. It was hard to fend for yourself when you didn’t have any money. This was why I had found myself a part-time job at a little frozen yogurt and ice cream shop within walking distance from my house. Minimum wage four nights a week wasn’t much, but it was more than what I had before I got hired so it counted as something.

“Hey, there’s little Luke now,” Tiffany whispered all giddy.

“Keep calling him little Luke and I’m really going to think you’re sick,” I said in response.

I was rewarded for my snide remark with a slap on the arm as Luke and Cole strolled up to us. I could tell from the gleam in Cole’s eyes that he was just as hungry as I felt and wondered if he’d been waiting, staring at the double doors, to see if I had first lunch, same as him.

“Hey, can I get some lunch money from you?” he asked, holding out his hand. “Um, mom forgot to give me any.” His eyes flickered toward Luke and I wondered if his lie was as obvious to him and Tiffany as it was to me.

None of our friends knew what our home life was like. Sure, they all knew that our mom was a stripper at Luscious Lizard, that was a hard one to hide in a town as small as ours, but they had no idea what went on behind the closed front door to our house. And that was how we wanted it to be. It wasn’t anyone’s business but ours. Cole and I had formed a pack long ago with our oldest brother, Logan; no friends were to ever make it past the front door. Where the driveway and the front door met, that was our barrier. We maintained the barrier that Logan had created for us, the one that the three of us lived by, because if someone, even a friend, were to make it past that threshold, then we were all at possible risk of DSS interfering with our mother’s warped sense of parenting. Our home life might not be ideal, but we knew that some had it a hell of a lot worse. Some like Nick.

“Sure,” I said, digging in my pocket for one of the fives I knew I had. I handed it to him and he snatched it without even a smile. I wanted to smack him and take my money back.

“Thanks,” he muttered as he walked away.

I scowled after him. Cole needed to get a dang job or else show some freaking gratitude that I had one.

“Did you see the way Luke was looking at me?” Tiffany asked excitedly.

I laughed and shook my head. Here we go; crush number one of the school year had begun.

CHAPTER FIVE

NICK

Either I didn’t share the same lunch as Jules, or else she just wasn’t planning on eating today because I’d hustled to the cafeteria and scanned each female face that passed through those double doors searching for her.

I sat at a table near the wall, with my back against it. It felt safer somehow, to know that no one could sneak up behind me. This was the paranoia that still plagued me from getting the shit beat out of me every day for no reason by my dad. I’d come to terms with it, though. In fact, I liked to think that it made me more alert and aware of my surroundings at all times, which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Some would call this my silver lining. I’d call it making lemonade from the lemons I’d been given at birth.

A girl with a long mass of curly, black hair, deep-rooted dimples, big brown eyes, and a nose ring sat down at my table like she knew me.

“Hey, you’re new here, right?” she asked with a smile.

I nodded. “Sort of.”

“You look seriously familiar.”

I grinned. “So do you.” It was her eyes; I never forgot a pair of beautiful eyes. Jules was proof of that. Some guys were leg men, others boobs…but me, I was an eyes kind of guy.

“I’m Emily, Emily Moore,” she introduced herself, and I paused mid-chew on the bite of burger in my mouth.

“You were Jules’ best friend.”
That
was where I knew her from.

Emily scrunched up her face in confusion and her eyes flashed. “Still am, but how do you know that? I haven’t heard her called Jules in years! I’d actually forgotten that nickname for her.”

I set my burger down and folded my arms across my chest. She’d been the first person to tell me I looked familiar today, and I couldn’t wait to see the look in her eyes when I said who I was. “I used to live on her street, kitty-corner from her house actually.”

Emily’s big brown eyes grew wider than I’d ever thought possible and her mouth formed this cute little O shape, which really set off her dimples. “Oh my God, Nick? Nick Owen?”

“The one and only.” I smirked.

“Does Julie know your back?”

“Nope, I don’t think so,” I muttered, remembering the heated glare she’d given me earlier in the hall. Maybe I was the one who looked too different and she was the one who wouldn’t recognize me. The thought hadn’t crossed my mind until now.

Emily slid her eyes up and down the portion of me that was visible above the table and smiled. “Oh, she will be
so
happy to see you again.”

I couldn’t help but grin. I shook my head and picked my burger back up, but deep down, Emily’s approving stare made hope slither through my mind. I’d always had a thing for Jules. Even if my mom hadn’t decided to kick my dad out and let me come back, I would have come back for her after graduation. I’d promised myself that the day I left. Jules was mine. Always had been. Always would be.