5. Grayson

Iknew she would start harassing me on the phone or try to, but since I refused to answer, she had taken to leaving me screaming voicemails, which were all going into the folder I had been keeping for the last couple of years.

This wasn’t the reason for me not answering her, but once I heard what she had to say in those messages, I was glad I didn’t answer because how else would I have the proof she’d so easily given me?

I have no doubt that she’d try to get her father to pressure me into dropping out to join her at her school, but that wasn’t about to happen. I had a full scholarship, and even though I was using my parents financially right now, I could always dip into my investments to pay for whatever I needed that my scholarships didn’t cover.

There were a lot of things I could do to make money if I wanted, most of it online, but the whole point of using my parents was part of my plan. To me, I was owed that money, since they saw nothing wrong with selling me to make it, so why not?

If I’d gone with my emotions, I would’ve cut ties with them long ago, but there were still another three and a half years left of this nightmare. There wasn’t much I could do now without my degree, so I had to toe the line pretty much. But if I get to my parents before Sinclair does, I can swing things in my favor.

All I had to do was threaten to go no contact if they even hinted at me leaving the school I was at, and they’d backpedal because if I cut them off, then I would as easily cut off the Sinclairs. It wasn’t the best strategy but it’s all I had for now.

I would use breaking up with Lacey as my trump card every time going forward and let the chips fall. I really didn’t care one way or the other, I was just using them at this point to pay my way. Why not spend their money and save mine?

As it stands, I have enough for a nice house somewhere in a decent neighborhood, plus a nice little cushion to see me through until I find the job that is right for me, but that’s years down the line. Right now, I need to get Lacey off my back about school, which is what she’s after now.

I called my Dad and told him I didn’t know what was going on with her, but I had exams, and she was losing her mind because I heard her sister’s name on campus.

I played it as if we didn’t even have any classes together, and I didn’t even know what she looked like. I told him about the erratic phone calls and asked that he speak to her parents to see what was going on with her. I never called her myself and claimed that I didn’t want anything to distract me right now and the drama was just added stress.

As much of a piece of shit as my Dad is, he’s very strict about education, plus he has bragging rights because his son was enrolled in one of the top schools in the world on a full academic and partial sports scholarship. What would he tell his friends if he talked me into moving to a lesser school that had nothing to do with my major or the career path I wanted?

It was only later that night, as I lay in bed thinking things through, that it hit me just how messed up what I’d been contemplating was. Was I really going to ask her to pretend for the next almost four years that we didn’t know each other?

Was I really going to keep up this farce of a relationship with Lacey while stringing Lily along just for revenge? When did I become like the people I despise? The thought of what I had been about to do made me so sick to my gut that I sat bolt-upright in bed.

Why hadn’t she called me out? It’s not like her; she’s not the type of girl to be used like that, so why hadn’t she said anything? I was in full panic mode when I grabbed my phone to call her.

“I’m coming to you.” I didn’t even give her a chance to say hello.

I hung up and barely had the patience to look for my keys because I knew how stressed she was about me not walking anywhere alone late at night, but I really just wanted to run back to her place as fast as I could to apologize and to reassure her that I am not that guy.

I made it in half the time, and it usually takes only five minutes or so to reach her condo. I bolted up the stairs to her door, and she was there waiting. “What’s….?”

That’s as far as she got before I snatched her up in my arms and held her tight.

I’m sure she could feel my heart beating like crazy, and it was all I could do to keep the tears I felt burning my eyes from falling. I haven’t cried since I was about five or six years old. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

“What’s happened? Talk to me.”

She tried pulling back to see my face, but I couldn’t release her just yet. I was so afraid that I’d fucked up royally. That as soon as she had time to think about what I’d been planning, how I’d planned to keep her like some dirty little secret, that’s she’d be pissed, and rightfully so.

I can only imagine that the reality hadn’t set in for her yet, and that’s why she’d even let me in the door. “Forget my stupid revenge. I can’t ask you to do this. I can’t ask you to wait on the sidelines while I go on pretending that your sister and I are in a relationship. I don’t know where my mind was; forgive me.”

This time, when she pushed to be let go, I let her slip out of my arms, but I wasn’t expecting the grin on her face or the way she pulled mine down to hers and pecked my lips with hers. “Thank you, but I don’t need you to give up your revenge; in fact, I don’t want you to.”

She took my hand and pulled me along to the couch. “I don’t understand; what are you thanking me for?”

“For putting me before your revenge, that’s what I was waiting for.”

“I don’t understand. Why didn’t you say something?”

“Because it had to come from you, not coerced by me. I wanted you to make the decision on your own.” She seemed really pleased about something, but I was still too much in the fog to understand exactly what was going on. I thought I was about to lose her because of my stupidity and that I would never get the chance to tell her that she had come to mean more to me than the revenge I’d been plotting for years. That I was willing to give it all up if it meant I could be with her.

“But what do you mean you don’t want me to give up on my revenge?”

“I mean, we can have it both ways if we use our heads. You can have your revenge, and we can be a couple, a hidden one, of course.”

“But I don’t want to hide the fact that we’re together anymore.”

“Oh, but you have to.”

“I don’t think you understand what the next few years are going to look like if we continue with this.”

“I know what you’re worried about. You think it would be hard for me to see you with her, but there are ways to get around that. Wait right here.” She left the living room for the bedroom and came back with her phone.

When she sat beside me again, I wasn’t expecting what I saw. She opened her phone and scrolled through some videos, all of which looked kind of racy from the little bits I saw. “My sister seems to have some kind of obsession with recording things that are better left not seen.

There was video after video of Lacey at her new college, and let’s just say she wasn’t in class. “Whoa, how many guys is that?”

“That, my friend, is the Amtrak of all trains. I lost count, never mind, it’s not important. You can use this against her. Tell her you’d go public with it if she tries to control you, but don’t break up with her. String her along just like you’d planned to….”

“Where did you get those?”

“Oh, I’ve been collecting shit on Janice and Lacey for a very long time, but there’s no time to talk about that now. We have a lot of work to do.”

“How long have you been thinking about this?” She just smiled and shook her head.

“A while now. Since you and I started hanging out together, I was hoping…. I was hoping that your feelings for me would change, that they would become more like what I was already starting to feel for you.”

I started to reach for her, but she brushed me off. “Nope, we’ve got work to do, mister. Now, here’s how we’re going to string her along. I know the one thing she wants more than anything is recognition from my grandmother; I also know she’ll never get it. But there’s no reason we can’t use that need against her.”

“How?”

“I’ll show you.” An hour later, I was the one left stunned.

“Why do I get the feeling that you’re better at this revenge thing than I am? Talk about diabolical.” She smirked and genuflected as if receiving an award.

We didn’t sleep together, but we slept together that night. It was the first time I’d slept in a bed next to a female and because it was her, I had one of the best night’s sleep I’d had in a while. We didn’t even kiss because I didn’t want to risk it. We just held each other and slept as comfortably as if we’d been doing it forever.

I didn’t want to make love to her for the first time after a night like that. I wanted everything to be perfect for both of us. I hadn’t asked her about her past relationships because I didn’t think I needed to know, even though each time I imagine her with someone else, I get pissed, and knots start to form in my lower gut.

I just keep telling myself that she’s mine now, and that’s all that matters. Besides, I don’t see in her any of the things I saw in her sister. I woke during the night thinking how weird life is sometimes. Why is it that I’d met the other one and not her when we were younger? And why had fate brought us together now?

I drew her in closer and she sighed in her sleep and rubbed her nose into my chest like a little kitten, which made me smile. The plan she’d come up with was going to make my revenge even better than I’d planned, and I was already looking forward to the fallout, which wouldn’t be for another four or five years at least, but getting there promised to be fun.

As long as I no longer have to be close to Lacey, which, if everything goes the way we want, won’t happen. I know her parents don’t care that she’s screwing around on me; as long as I toe their line, they’ll keep me saddled with that hag, but Lily’s suggestion of using a connection to her grandparents as leverage is genius.

The next day, I called Lacey, and I could tell from the way she acted before I even spoke that she thought she still had some kind of control over me and our situation. “I’m coming to your campus this weekend.”

“Uh, no, no, why don’t we meet at home?”

“I wasn’t planning to go that far this weekend. I have finals, but I need to see you. It’s important.” I finally got her to meet me halfway, which she claimed would be a great weekend getaway.

I didn’t let on that I knew why she didn’t want me near her campus. While I was going to meet her, Lily was going to take care of the other part of our plan, so I set out to meet Lacey, hoping that it would be the last time I’d have to do this, at least for a while.

I didn’t realize that I’d grown to hate Lacey over time, I mean really hate, even more than I despised her parents and mine. But when she came running to meet me with a knowing smile on her face, I almost kicked her away from me.

It was only my hunger for revenge that helped me stay the course. I did smile at her, but behind that smile were nothing but sinister thoughts. I think I hated her more for believing that I was such a fucking simp that I’d put up with her shit and that there was nothing I could do about it because she had me by the balls.

What she doesn’t realize is that she never had me by anything, it was my asshole of a father that they owned, but that buck stops here. I evaded her hug, and her face fell. “What’s wrong? Why won’t you let me hug you?”

“Let’s sit down.”

I had purposely asked her to meet in a park where there were sure to be people, and at Lily’s insistence, I was already recording everything just to be on the safe side. I’d stopped trusting Lacey a long time ago. Not because of the cheating, because I don’t even look at it as that because I have absolutely no interest in having that sort of relationship with her, but because she’d shown her true colors after years of friendship and that, along with the things Lily had shared showed me that she was never the person I thought she was.

I didn’t say much; I just took out my phone and showed her the videos Lily had sent to my phone. “Is that you?”

“How did you….? Where did you get this? Have you been spying on me?”

“I don’t have time to care about what you do, Lacey. I stopped caring a long time ago.”

“How dare you? My Dad said you have to….”

“Shut up and listen. You can carry on doing what you’re doing. I won’t share this with the rest of the world, but you have to stop trying to get me to change schools. For as long as I’m here, you have to leave me alone. If you keep trying to pressure me, I will expose this to everyone, not just our parents.”

“Does this mean you’re breaking up with me? Your dad would lose his cushy job then….”

“I said to shut up, and if you threaten my father again, the deal is off. You and I are going to go on as usual, but you won’t mess with my education, and I won’t be at your beck and call.”

“I’ll be interning this summer at one of your family’s company branches in Europe. I have a meeting with your grandfather in a couple of weeks.”

“You talked to my grandfather? What did he say? Was my grandmother there?”

Looks like Lily was right. She’s hungry for a relationship with those two people. “We only spoke about the internship; we haven’t met as yet.”

“But why didn’t you go through my Dad?”

“My school has a grant that allows us to apply to intern with different companies. Your grandfather’s company was one of them, and he’s the one who handles things there, not your father.”

I only just found that out myself from Lily, but it’s not like it’s some big secret; all she has to do is ask her father, and she’ll see that it is the truth.

“Why Europe?”

“No, you don’t get to ask me that. But I’ll tell you this. I think we need to put some space between us because you obviously have some growing up to do. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“Not really, no.”

“I’m giving you a free pass. While you’re in college, you can be as wild as you want to be, but once we get married, I expect you to stop.” Her eyes lit up at the mention of marriage, and I almost puked. She really does see me as this person she could walk all over. Has it always been like this? Has our friendship always been built on this hill of lies?

“And you won’t see Lily?”

“Who’s Lily? Oh, your sister? Why are you so hung up on her? She’s in a few of my classes but we’re not close or anything. What’s the deal with you two anyway?”

“Nothing, it’s nothing, it’s just that she’s always been jealous of me, is all.”

“Oh, female stuff. I don’t have time to make friends anyway; I’m there to study, remember?’ Had she been anyone else, she’d have seen right through this whole setup, but because she was so sure of herself, she didn’t realize she was being played.

Lily had suggested using her grandfather’s name because she knew how much Lacey wanted a relationship with him and his wife. If I could convince her that I was getting an in with them, which I plan to do after this summer, then I could convince her that I would work on getting them to like her at some point. She’s dumb enough to buy that childish bullshit, and I was pissed that I’d wasted most of my life on a friend like her.

All in all, the meeting went about as I expected it to. I didn’t stay for the weekend like she pleaded with me to though, and walked away feeling lighter because it was the first step to getting her off my back to pursue my relationship with the girl I had fallen in love with.

This was done just to buy myself some time. Knowing her, like I’m coming to, she’d be more focused on all the dick she can get now that I’d given her a pass and be too preoccupied to care about what the hell I was doing.

I didn’t hear anything from her Dad or mine that following week, so I guess it worked. Lily had indeed done her part with her grandparents, and I was set to meet them that weekend. It’s a good thing they barely had a relationship with their son because that meant there was no danger of the two of us running into each other or our lives crossing paths.

Lily had explained that later on, she’d tell her grandparents the truth about how we came to be together, but for now, she was going to introduce me as her college boyfriend. Since I was big into finances and her grandparents were pretty much the same, I hoped to wow them with my knowledge on the subject and use that as a way to break the ice.