Prologue: Part Four

"Holy hell, calm down, would you? It's just me," Shark said, "You really want your parents running in here right now?"

"How did you get in here?" I managed to squeak out as I tried to slow my racing heart.

"I climbed in through your window. Figured I'd snatch you up for the day," he responded.

"Well, tough cookies," I said, gaining my confidence back, "Thanks to you, I'm grounded from now til eternity."

"Hmm...that is a shame. Guess that means we'll have to entertain ourselves indoor then," Shark said as he locked my door. Then he approached me, grabbed me by the waist and pulled me into him.

"Wh-what are you doing?" My heart started racing again for very different reasons. I felt my palms start to sweat and my cheeks flush.

"Just trust me," he whispered into my ear.

The minute he kissed me, I surrendered any fight I had planned on making. Before I knew it, we had moved to my bed.

"Shark, I think we should stop..." I said somewhat unconvincingly.

"And I think you don't really mean that," he replied.


***30 minutes later***

Shark had left pretty quickly after we...well, you know. I was glad to see him go. I felt awkward, and all I wanted was to get in the shower.

As I let the hot water run over me, I thought about the last 24 hours. A lot had changed for me in a very short amount of time. I wasn't really sure how I felt about that. Part of me found it thrilling and exciting. Another part of me just felt wrong. Looking back, I can see that I was still so young, facing situations that I was too immature to handle.

I passed Ashley on my way back to my room. "Anna, could I please talk to you for a minute?"

I shrugged, and we moved into my room.

"Listen," she began, "I wanted to explain why I was so upset about you going to prom with Shark."

Here we go, I thought. Instead, I said, "I'm listening."

"Do you remember Isabel Evans? She came over here a few times a couple years ago?"

I nodded, "Didn't she die in a car accident?"

"Yes and no. I'll get there. She was a really great friend to me. She was funny and so incredibly smart. Well, she kind of had a thing for bad boys. She always thought she could 'fix' them." Ashley shook her head in sadness. "She started seeing Shark, and eventually they started sleeping together. After about a week, he got tired of her and refused to speak to her anymore. What's more is he made sure that everyone knew what they had done. She was called horrible names and her friends, myself included, either stopped talking to her or weren't allowed to be around her. Pastor Bill even did a sermon shortly after about the sins of the flesh, and even without saying her name, everyone knew who he was talking about. It was all so cruel, Anna, I just can't even tell you, but you know how people in this town can be. A month later, she drove her car into a ravine and died. The papers reported it as an accident, but the official report ruled it a suicide."

I didn't know what to say. I believed Ashley was telling the truth. She's not the kind of person to make things up, but I just couldn't wrap my head around the idea that the guy I had come to know over the past few weeks would hurt someone so deeply that they felt they had to take such extremes. What's more is if this is true, and I've already...Oh no.

"So, do you understand now why I'm worried about you?" Ashley asked, mistaking my silence as mere quiet reflection. "And after you came home in handcuffs last night, I knew he hadn't changed. He left you to take the fall last night, didn't he?"

Yeah, he did, I thought. But I stayed quiet.

"Alright, you don't have to say anything. I just needed for you to hear this. I know I can be silly and ditzy sometimes, Anna, but I do care about you. I don't want anything happening to you." Ashley stood up and left me in my room with my thoughts.

***The Next Week***

We had the following week off due to a mysterious flood at the school, so I was excited that Monday to see Shark standing outside of school with his friends. I had spent a lot of time mulling over what Ashley had told me, but I couldn't write him off completely, at least not without talking to him first. I decided there was no need to be awkward about what had happened between us, so I went up to him and said hi. His friends all started laughing and he walked into school without even saying a word to me.

My heart sank. Maybe he just didn't want to talk in front of his friends, I thought, Just because they were laughing doesn't mean he told them what happened.

It wasn't until lunch time when I ran into Ashley that I knew things were far worse than that.

"Come with me," Ashley said, pulling me into the girls' bathroom, "Do you have any idea what people are saying about you?"

I started feeling shaky. And a little sick. I shook my head.

"They're saying that you sleep around! That you're the "up-and-coming whore" of the freshman class!"

I gulped. This is very, very bad.

"Do you have any idea what's going to happen when mom and dad hear about this?" Ashley was hysterical at this point. "They're going to ship you off to boarding school in the middle of nowhere, and I'm going to be left with them all alone! So tell me the truth: did you sleep with Shark?"

"Yes," I squeaked.

Ashley burst into tears. Whether she was crying for my sake or for herself, I wasn't sure.

At any rate, I tried to calm her down, despite the fact that I'm pretty sure I should have been the one crying. "Look Ash, there's only one more week of school left. We've just got to try to keep this under control until then. Once everyone goes on break, the gossip mill will shut down, and by the time school starts back up, no one will care anymore? Okay? But you've got to help me!"

"Okay," Ashley said, wiping a tear from her eye, "let's do some damage control."

***A Week Later***

I had truly underestimated Ashley's power of persuasion. When she spoke, people listened, and she was successfully able to convince everyone that Shark made up lies about me because I had turned him down. It's not like anyone really trusted anything he had to say anyway.

Shark and I, naturally, were not on speaking terms. I was absolutely furious that he was such a cold-hearted bastard, and he was furious that my sister and I had flipped his evil plan around on him. Luckily, he had finally graduated and moved to Bridgeport, so I didn't have to worry about ever seeing him at school again.

My parents finally let me off the hook after I came clean about what happened on prom night and shed a few tears. They believed I'd been taken advantage of, but they knew I'd learned my lesson. Despite their faults, they could be really fair sometimes.

Ashley and I were closer than ever. There's nothing quite like some drama and a good secret to bring two sisters together. I tolerated her incessant chatter a bit easier now.

Yes, everything was finally back to the way it should be. I was on good terms with the people who mattered, and the trying events of the past couple weeks were behind me. Nothing left to do but move forward.

***One Month Later***