The Loner and the Prep (bxb)

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Elijah P.O.V

Watson was quiet. The entire car had been silent since my parents inquired about our sides of the story. How can you be expected to pick up a conversation with that dangling over your head? I felt like screaming, just standing in the middle of nowhere and screaming. Where did Jenny get the audacity to throw such accusations around, knowing how serious they are? I couldn't follow her mindset or how she thought that this would work in her favor. Neither of our parents was going to let accusations like this down, not with that many people present to witness the entire situation. It would be one thing if it were just me. I have pushed Jenny's advances off long enough to no longer be bothered by her pushy remarks and touchy hands, but it wasn't just me who she was messing with. She brought Evelyn and Watson into this. This was bound to happen eventually with how open Jenny has been about her feelings as of late; it just was unfortunate that she had to push it too far.

And while I'm struggling to even comprehend the situation, beside me is someone blaming themselves for it. I might not know Watson as well as I want to, but I wasn't blind to how his hands were fidgeting with his shirt or how he had shrunk in on himself. How I wanted to assure him that none of this was his fault, that Jenny was a ticking time bomb, and that she just happened to explode now, but the moment I tried to say anything, my tongue felt like it weighed a ton, and I started second guessing myself. The last thing I wanted to do was make him feel worse, to further convince himself that he caused this when he didn't. If anyone in this car was to blame, it was me, not him. I'm the one who should be worrying about my family's reputation and cursing myself for even putting it at risk, so why was it Watson beating himself up over it?

I ask myself that, even though I already know the answer.

By the time we arrived back at the house, things had only seemed to get worse. Five minutes before we arrived, Dad got a phone call that turned into an argument. He was still on the phone when the limousine stopped. Dad stormed out of the limo, shouting angrily at whoever was on the line. We all knew what the call was about; it would be hard not to understand. My mother tried again to comfort us, but like my father, Watson and Evelyn hurried out of the limousine, leaving me alone with Mom. I could see it in her eyes; she was evaluating me, thinking about the possibility of her son being a perpetrator of sexual assault. It hurt to think that my mother, the woman who raised me, could even remotely think that I could do such a thing. As much as I wanted to try and convince her that nothing Jenny had said was true, I knew that nothing I said would hold much ground. I removed myself from the situation, leaving my mother to sit alone in the limo and collect her thoughts. It was hard, given that all I wanted to do was lean my head on her shoulder, for her to tussle my hair and assure me that everything was okay.

I closed the limousine door, leaning against the cool metal as I tried to compose myself, fighting off the urge to cry. The chilly atmosphere was more peaceful than the chaos irrupting inside my mind and world. At least, it was quiet until my phone began to buzz softly in my pocket, a stream of texts coming in one by one, all from the same number.

From Jenny.

Seeing her name pop up on my phone after what she had just done made me want to hurl the device as far as I could, a feeling that only intensified after I struggled to read the messages she had the audacity to send.

'Baby you pushed me to this'

'Why don't you just come back over and we can work something out (kissing emoji, blowing emoji, and an eggplant)'

'Come on, I have the perfect idea on how we can make up'

'You know I was only messing around'

What does she not understand about me having no interest in her?? In what world does she think that I'm going to visit her for.. for... that?! After the allegations she staged tonight, the last place I'd ever want to be is with her. Instead of throwing my phone, which still sounded tempting, I screenshotted the message stream, which happened to show some of her previous unanswered harassment, and reopened the car door, startling my mother. She tried to ask me questions, but I ignored her, placing my unlocked phone into her lap, still opened on the message stream, and walked away.