Elle hesitates for a moment before turning to look at me, scrunching her face up with a cringe in the process. “I don’t want you to think less of me.”
“I don’t think that’s possible,” I tell her truthfully.
She watches me a moment longer before letting out a shaky breath. “Okay, well…a few months ago, I was at the top of this school. I was the cheer captain and to be completely honest, I was a real bitch. I was worse than Phoenix.”
“That’s not possible.” I shake my head. “There’s nothing worse than Phoenix.”
She considers me with a smirk. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. It’s not like I slept with one of my relatives.”
“Yeah,” I laugh. “That shit is seriously messed up. I can’t believe I dated her for those few weeks.”
“Wait. You were actually dating her?”
“Hey,” I say. “This is your story. We’re not here to learn about my fuck ups, just yours.”
Elle rolls her eyes and gets on with it. “So, over the summer, I was partying hard and letting loose before senior year, and one night, I think maybe I got a little too wild.”
I narrow my eyes with curiosity, picturing a wild Elle and realizing just how much I like it. “How so?”
She scrunches her face up and looks away, ashamed of what she’s about to tell me. “I sort of got naked with Puck and Ty.”
My brows fly up into my hairline and I find myself on my feet. “What?” I grin, looking at her in a new light. Maybe she’s not as innocent as I keep assuming. Pride beams out of me. “You’re down for that kind of shit?”
Elle’s cheeks flush and she refuses to meet my eyes. “I mean, well…I’m not going to deny it. It was fun, like a lot of fun.”
“Fuck me,” I breathe, unable to control the excited grin on my face. “We are not finished discussing this, but I’m far too curious how you went from that vixen cheer captain to this little innocent good girl.”
“Trust me, I’m far from a good girl, but I’m trying,” she tells me before letting out a breath. “So, at the beginning of senior year, Tora and I used to butt heads a lot and it got pretty nasty, to the point that Jesse stepped in and warned me that he’d take me down if I hurt her.”
My brows crease as I watch her, not liking where this story is going. “What did you do, Elle?”
“I…shit. It’s awful,” she warns me. “You’re not going to like it.”
“Let me be the judge of that.”
She nods before finally letting it out. “I was the one who gave Josh the idea to mess around with Tora. I thought he’d just pull her aside and freak her out a little, and after Jesse’s warning, I told him to back off, but he didn’t. He went out on his own and that’s…”
“That’s when he attacked her.”
Elle nods again, looking so desperately ashamed of herself. “I didn’t want her to get hurt. That was never my intention and when I realized what he tried to do…I felt sick. I was a monster and I hated myself for it.”
“Nate and Jesse retaliated, didn’t they?” I question, already knowing the answer as it’s exactly what I would have done.
“Of course, they did,” she scoffs. “There was a party and nearly everyone was there. It was freaking huge and I was in my element, which is when Jesse came through on his warning. He tore me to shreds in front of everyone and told them all about what I’d gotten up to over the summer…or well, what had gotten up me. It was humiliating. Everyone looked at me as though I was some kind of walking STD, and I guess I deserved it because I’m sure Tora was feeling even worse.” Elle lets out a sigh. “The fallout happened instantly. Jesse hadn’t even walked away before my squad turned their backs on me and alienated me. I went from the top to the bottom in a matter of seconds.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” I tell her, seeing way too many holes in her story. “Half the cheerleaders have been offering themselves up for fucking orgies in the locker room. Why are you getting blasted for a fucking threesome?”
“Because that was Jesse’s intention and when either one of the Ryder brothers speaks, everyone follows. He wanted them to treat me like trash and that’s exactly what they did.”
“Fuck,” I sigh, seeing the devastation in her eyes. I find myself moving across the pebbled ground and wrapping her in my arms. She smooshes her face into my chest and I realize that while this was a few months ago, it’s still hurting her deeply. “I could kill Jesse for doing that to you.”
“No,” she murmurs against my chest. “It turned out for the best. I was able to see what it was like being on the bottom and it made me re-evaluate the person I’d become and I was able to turn it all around. I guess sometimes you have to lose it all to gain something new. It’s forced me to look at the big picture and I’ve been working on shaping myself into the person I want to be.”