Trigger warnings: domestic violence, cyberbullying, revenge porn, foreplay824Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOoHGZ8EIJg
824Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxQdV87JdYV
824Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuuEzGLUSAD
Paige had thought the worst thing to ever happen to her was Carter spreading rumors about her sleeping with multiple guys on the day she dumped him. But as she watched Carter falling asleep in her living room and the beer bottle slipping out of his hand, she decided Carter and his dad Owen moving into her house was the absolute worst thing in the world. Getting tattled by her first ex ever was one thing, but being forced to live with him two weeks later was more than she could handle.
But it was all for Mom, who was intent on staying with Owen. It was funny that she'd said the same thing about Brandon until they broke up a couple months earlier. It was as though life kept tricking Mom into thinking the latest boyfriend was better than the previous one. But ever since Owen moved in, his drinking problem finally came out, and Paige gave up on trying to convince Mom.
For the time being, Paige had to deal with Carter, Owen's son and Mini-Me, as well as her lying dipshit of an ex and a bully.
As the beer seeped into the carpet, Paige stomped toward the couch and pushed against Carter's shoulder, waking him up with a start. "You clean that shit up," she growled and pointed to the spill.
He glared. "If it bothers you so much, you clean it up."
She folded her arms. "You're the one that spilled it."
"Last time I checked, your mom's always cleaning up after me. Maybe you should follow her lead."
Her mouth widened to an O at what he said.
To her surprise, he stood up with his hands raised. "Fine, I'll help then."
Smiling, she watched him leave the room and took his place on the couch. Did he finally have the decency to treat her home the way he should've? She could get used to this.
As she watched a Disney Channel show, she got a mini heart attack when a cleaning agent hit her arm on the armrest. She whipped her head around to see Carter standing in the doorway of the hallway with his arms crossed.
"There, I 'helped,'" Carter sneered.
They connected glares that drew for what felt like hours, and at one point Jerry wheeled himself into the room. Paige glanced at him only briefly. In her peripheral vision, Jerry lowered his head and rushed to get to the other couch and passed Carter.
"Ow!" Carter yelled. "You ran over my fucking foot!"
"Sorry, sorry," Jerry squeaked.
"You fucking idiot!"
The opening of the front door's lock sounded, followed by the door swinging open to reveal Owen. He was home from work.
He headed down the hallway toward the living room when Carter said, "You're a fucking embarrassment to your family, Jerry."
"Leave him alone!" Paige yelled.
"He's not wrong," Owen said, his arms crossing. He reeked of beer.
"Were you drinking again?" She scowled.
He shrugged, making her wonder if he'd ever felt guilty before. "It was only a few beers. At least I made it."
"You know what?" Carter said. "I think Dad's drinking is getting worse 'cause of you." He pointed to Jerry trembling in his wheelchair.
"That's a fucking lie and you know it," Paige said through her teeth.
Mom had just entered the room with her red hair in a high ponytail. "Oh, you're home already," she breathed as her eyes stayed on Owen.
"Yeah and I'm bushed." He sat on the sofa. "Dinner ready yet?"
"Almost." She gripped her elbows. "I need to talk to you in private."
He looked around the room to see Paige and the other two kids. "Whatever you wanna say, we could discuss with the kids."
Carter turned off the TV while Paige studied her mom carefully. She looked like she was about to do something incredibly risky.
Mom said, "Fine, they can listen." She took a deep breath. "So, I've been think--"
"You've been meeting someone, haven't you?" Owen interrupted. "Oh yeah, I noticed."
Her jaw dropping, she said, "Y-You did?"
He stood up from the sofa and stalked toward her. "If it's another man I'll...I'll rip you to shreds."
"I'm not seeing him. He's just a friend--"
"You always do this with the men you date, don't you? Is that why you're with a new guy every few months?"
"Nolan's an old friend!" she shouted. "And he knows about how...how abusive you are when you're piss-drunk! Every single day I keep thinking you'll change, but you never do. You're torturing me and Paige and Jerry." She took a deep breath. "We're over."
Her entire body paralyzed, Paige widened her eyes at Mom. Did she even know Owen was already drinking? Hadn't she known better than to piss him off at this point?
It was like watching her mom's death sentence when Owen charged after her and wrapped his hands around her throat. "You can't do this to me, Hailey," he growled.
"Stop it!" Paige screamed as she ran to him and tried pushing him away from Mom, but to no avail.
Suddenly he released Mom and turned his glare to Paige, causing a shiver up her spine.
"None of y'all appreciate me." He turned to Mom. "But you, you're just plain using me. You fucking slut!" Raising a fist, he clocked Mom, and as she covered her face, she took a few steps toward the couches.
"No!" Jerry said as he blocked Owen from getting to Mom. But Jerry seemed to realize at the same time as Paige that doing that was a recipe for disaster.
Before Paige could even react, Owen picked up Jerry by the shirt and flung him to the carpet. Paige and Mom cried in protest while Carter went to the wheelchair, kicking it and beating it up. Owen crouched down and punched Jerry in the face, then kicked his shaking body a few times.
Mom grabbed the metal thermos on the table and threw it at Owen's head. Paige looked around to find the cleaning agent Carter had thrown at her and threw it back at him, who had broken off a few pieces from the wheelchair. Screaming something Paige couldn't decipher, Owen left Jerry alone and confronted Mom, who ran out of the room and toward the kitchen.
Carter's shoulders heaved, and Paige was afraid of approaching him in case he'd hurt her. But he stayed on his knees with his hands on the battered-up wheelchair. She hadn't realized she was crying until the tears dripped from her cheeks.
"What did he ever do to you?" she asked.
He never looked at her. "Freaks like him don't belong."
Mom's piercing scream jolted Paige's heart. Paige left the living room and bolted down the hallway to find Owen banging his fists against the bathroom door. Mom had locked herself in there, but from the force Owen exerted on the door, Paige was certain he'd break it down soon He might even murder her mom tonight.
Her breathing quickening, she pushed him away from the bathroom door with all of her might, and when that didn't work, she scratched against the skin of his arms. She was glad her nails were long enough to make the scratch marks ooze blood, but when he turned to her, she didn't feel so glad anymore. One of his large hands grabbed a bunch of her hair and dragged her down the hall. Tears welled in her eyes from the pain in her scalp.
Then he pushed her to the floor of the kitchen and kicked her in the stomach and the back multiple times. When he paused, she curled up into a ball, hoping the next blows would be less hard.
The sounds of glass breaking, a body falling onto the floor, and Mom's heavy breathing made Paige open her eyes. Mom was holding the neck of a shattered beer bottle with Owen lying on the floor next to Paige. Ignoring the pain in her stomach and back, Paige slowly stood up and pulled Mom into a hug.
"I'm so sorry, honey," Mom said in Paige's hair.
Paige ran out of words and just tightened the hug.
Mom pulled away. "I got help." As if on cue, the doorbell rang. "I'll get it. Go check on Jerry."
"Fuck," Paige muttered as she, while clutching her stomach, made her way to the living room. What if Carter hurt Jerry? But instead, Carter was staring at the TV though it was off, and Jerry was still lying on the floor in the same spot as before. Paige kneeled next to him with a hand on his shoulder. "You okay?" she asked.
He reached up to touch his face. "How bad does my face look?"
Studying his reddening cheek from Owen's blow earlier, she couldn't help but smile at the somewhat joking tone in his voice. "Your cheek's gonna bruise, which is actually an improvement."
They both cracked up.
Several pairs of footsteps sounded from the hall, and Paige stood up and turned in time to see Mom, a few cops, and a part Hispanic man with short dark curls. Paige guessed it was Dr. Nolan Perez, Mom's childhood friend.
Mom pointed to the kitchen. "My boyfriend's in there."
When the cops went in that direction, Mom said to Nolan, "Thanks so much for calling them right away."
"Of course."
"You didn't call the police?" Paige asked, dumbfounded.
Mom's hands fidgeted. "Well, he was the first person I thought of."
While Mom and Nolan made sure Jerry was okay, with Nolan asking doctor questions the whole time, Paige couldn't help but grin.
There was something about this guy that made her believe he'd be the one for Mom.
Life was finally good.
With Paige's ribs fixed, Owen taken into custody, and Jerry bandaged at the hospital, Paige was finally rid of the feeling of being in danger. Of course Carter was still around--probably sulking like the depressed motherfucker he was on the night of the arrest--but she hadn't seen him ever since. All she heard was that he was put in the foster care system. As long as he was out of her life, she didn't give a single shit.
Paige pushed Jerry across the driveway toward the garage. After she helped him into the house, she remembered she had yet to check her YouTube channel, as she'd been in the hospital without access to a computer in the last day and a half. She made her way to her room and sat in her desk chair, rolling herself toward her laptop on the desk.
As she logged into her account, she expected to see dozens of new comments on her latest video she'd uploaded a few days before the arrest. But right when she scrolled down her profile, swear words and insults littered the comment section.
You use your body to get attention bitch plz
you dont even have b00bz
DIRTY SLUT!!!!!!!!!
ur a whore rofl
Kill yourself BITCH
What a great role model to your subs. They're all little girls in case you didn't notice.
I hope you get kidnapped and raped and die in an alley
Paige grew dizzy as her breathing quickened. Her loud, pounding heart sank to the floor, with countless tears flowing down her cheeks. It was like when Carter spread the slut rumors, but this was much, much worse. Strangers on the internet--people that had never even met her in real life--were saying all of these vile things to her.
Someone probably posted something about her, but she had no clue as to who on YouTube or elsewhere on the internet would do this to her.
She wanted to do anything but look elsewhere on her channel, but her finger on the touchpad moved the cursor to the latest video and clicked on the link.
Her video had comments similar to the ones on her profile, with very few people defending her and actually talking about the content of the video. She held her breath as she scrolled down dozens of insults, until she found someone mentioning her nudes.
Her fingers on the touchpad froze. She'd taken nudes, but the only person that had them besides her was Carter.
She gasped loudly. He didn't post them on the internet, did he?
With minds of their own, her hands opened a new tab and Googled "Paige Connelly nudes." And she did in fact find the same ones she'd sent Carter.
She was a complete fucking idiot. She should've tried deleting the pictures from his phone every chance she got, or at least threaten him to delete them. As a matter of fact, she shouldn't have sent them in the first place.
Why did she decide to send an immature dipshit her nudes and take his virginity, only to discover his true colors after dumping him? Had she been that head over heels for him to not carefully consider who he was and what she did to him?
Maybe she really was a slut. The fact that she even sent a guy nudes was slutty in and of itself.
She could never be a good person.
Paige had watched various versions of Rizzo's musical numbers on YouTube for at least a thousand times. She wanted everything to be perfect, while also not copying any one performance. It just helped to look at examples.
She glanced back at the script with her lines highlighted and decided to take a break from the songs. After rereading the first few lines, she said them out loud in different ways and figured out which ones sounded the most fitting to the character.
Knock knock. "Can I come in?" Nolan said through the door.
She looked around her room to make sure it looked acceptable to the eyes of her parent. But then she checked herself. He wasn't officially her parent. Yet.
She turned the doorknob as it unlocked, and she found Nolan in a green T-shirt and khakis. He was in desperate need of a shave and his shaggy dark curls reached past the nape of his neck. If he cared more about his appearance with the money he had, he would've been attractive enough to be on a magazine cover.
"Do you need help practicing your lines?" he asked.
Pretty sure he was only doing this to get her approval of him proposing to Mom, she had to again ask herself why he hadn't met her family sooner. He could've at least started dating Mom right after Owen's arrest, but instead Nolan waited for months because of Mom's brief depression and indecisiveness. Sure, he might've been an asshole asking her out when she was at her most vulnerable, but it wouldn't have been half as bad as the bullshit her exes made her go through.
In Paige's opinion, waiting for sixteen years was more than enough for Nolan.
His raised eyebrows reminded her that he'd asked if he could help with the lines, so she said, "Sure, I just need to study the first page first."
She sat in her desk chair to study her lines as he sat on her bed and looked around her room.
"Didn't you have a YouTube channel?" he asked suddenly.
She looked up from the page. "Yes?"
His eyes stayed on her computer screen showing the YouTube page she'd left open. "Just trying to jog my memory."
Wincing, she recalled the cyberbullying era in her life. It was just after Owen got arrested, and with Carter depressed about the situation, he reached his peak level of douchebaggery when he posted her nudes--which she only intended for him to keep when they dated--on 4chan.
But she was mostly affected by the humiliating and slanderous comments and messages she'd received. She lost her appetite most days and cried herself to sleep every night. She didn't even go to school for a couple of days, the excuse she left as just a sickness. And though she wasn't actually sick, she felt it in her head, from the floods of tears washing down the shower drain to what felt like a serious case of a broken heart.
After all, she'd lost hundreds of subscribers, as if the only reason people hated her was just that she'd stupidly sent private pictures to the lowest asshole on Earth.
"Well," Nolan said, pulling her out of the murky cloud of the past, "I do understand why you stopped making those makeup videos. But...I'm sure everyone forgot about what happened."
She scoffed. "I still get nasty DM's in my Twitter and Instagram sometimes."
He seemed to think. "But I'm sure it doesn't matter to most people anymore. It was...three years ago, right?"
"Yeah, after Carter posted the pictures," she said through gritted teeth.
"But that was three years ago," he reiterated. "Why not try making videos again?"
She forced out a laugh, remembering what Mark said after she told him about her YouTube days during Sadie's volleyball game: I bet you know a lot more about makeup now, and you don't seem that shy. She had to admit he wasn't wrong about either point.
"What's funny?" Nolan asked.
"Oh, nothing. It's just...someone told me the same exact thing."
"It seems I'm not the only one. But it's up to you." He shrugged.
"Um, sure. I'll think about it." And she did mean it.
She went back to studying her lines, unable to focus. Nolan didn't need to care about a part of her life that didn't concern him. He went as far as being so insightful about it.
But a voice in the back of her head said, Maybe he's not always trying to win your approval of him marrying your mom? Maybe he really does care about you?
As she handed the script to him and listened to the other characters' lines he read out loud, she was starting to agree with that voice.
Despite his failed marriage up in Washington state, Paige was confident that he'd have a happy marriage with Mom, and Paige's family badly needed him. It was like he was made to be a part of the family.
"Thanks so much," Paige said as he stood up to leave the room.
"Anytime. I think, if you do get to go onstage, you'd be amazing." He grinned.
She agreed, if she could just get Christy injured or sick in some way, but she pushed that thought away when he turned to leave. "Wait," she said, her hand reaching toward him, then lowered her hand to her side as he turned back to her.
"Yes?" he asked.
She took a deep breath. "You got my okay. You know, on the proposal thing."
Staring at her, he widened his eyes. One of his hands raked through his messy hair while the other planted on the side of his abdomen as he said, "Wow, thanks."
She grinned in return. "But you gotta let me help plan out the wedding."
"Sure, of course," he said, nodding quickly and smiling. "Yeah."
After he went downstairs and she closed her bedroom door, she already started coming up with wedding ideas.
Nolan needed to propose as soon as possible so Paige could share her ideas with Mom.
"I said close your eyes," Paige said, sitting on Mark's lap and holding the blending brush in front of his left eye covered in light eyeshadow.
"But you look super hot when you're doing makeup."
Though she started blushing, she rolled her eyes. "Sorry I'm making you horny, but I need all the practice I can get."
He jutted out his lower lip in an exaggerated pout, and giving in to the temptation, she leaned forward to kiss him. She was planning on a short and sweet kiss, but his tongue did crazy things in her mouth that made her drop the brush on the floor and curl her fingers in his hair. His hands made their way up the sides of her torso toward her breasts, but she grabbed his wrists and ended the hot kiss.
"Later," she whispered against his lips.
He glanced at her bedroom door. "The door's locked. And your mom's taking a nap." Both Jerry and Nolan were at work.
But she wouldn't allow herself to give in. "We need to bake cookies." She checked the time on her phone. "Like, right now."
He made the cutest and saddest puppy eyes in the world. "How about...I make you cum twice? It won't take long." He winked.
She blushed again at his knowledge that he could make her cum fast. "Nope."
"One?"
"Nopers."
"A make-out session?"
She paused to think. "Okay. But no more after that."
And they devoured each other like hungry lions. It went on for what felt like hours, and just when she decided to call it quits, his hands lowered her tank top and dug into her bra. His rough fingers against her nipples were soon replaced by his mouth, then his teeth.
And then she came with a long gasp, followed by short breaths and her heart beating an energetic rhythm. She felt sparks travel from her sensitive center to her nipples to her head in a cloud of euphoria.
When she finished, she had her eyes closed, her forehead resting on his, and her arms locked around his neck. Still panting, she opened her eyes to find his filled with intense desire.
"That was pretty hot," he breathed.
"No one's ever made me cum like that," she realized out loud.
His sexy grin in response made her grin too. And yet, finding a new erogenous zone thanks to him wasn't as shocking as the fact that she wanted him to give her countless more orgasms.
"It almost made me cum too," he said before giving her a quick peck on the lips.
"And you can." A few minutes later, as she gave him head, his hands gripped hers hard when he came just as quietly as she had.
After she cleaned up the sticky mess on her face, she removed his eye makeup and led him downstairs. Mom was nowhere in sight, so she was probably still napping. Had she woken up and heard, it would've been awkward as hell, as that had only happened once when Paige dated a guy freshman year.
It was Mark's fault it even happened, but at the same time, she wanted to do it again and again.
Mark was making her even more of a sex fiend than she already was.
She pulled out her phone for a chocolate chip recipe she found online and set it on the island, then started looking for all the ingredients.
Mark set his elbows on the table next to the phone. "So what are the cookies for?"
She set a tray of eggs on the table. "It's for my soon-to-be dad."
He gaped. "Really? Congrats!"
"He hasn't proposed yet, but he will." She leaned back against the table and sighed. "I really do think this guy's the one for my mom."
"That's great, Paige," he said, turning to face the same direction she was.
"I feel really stupid for taking this long to give him the okay. I guess my mom's exes made me be such a bitch to Nolan. All the 'dads' I've ever had were fucking pricks."
He laid his hand on her shoulder. "I get you. My dad was a prick too. He was almost never home, and when he was, he beat up my mom a lot. And me, and sometimes Christy." He looked up at the ceiling. "My aunt thinks his death was in God's favor. And, like, after seeing what he did to us, it makes sense. But at the same time, I still kinda miss him."
She looked at him with sad eyes and held his hand. "I'm sorry you went through that."
He shrugged. "What's past is past." Then he frowned. "My sis can't let go of it though. If I had to be honest, she started acting like a crazy person after he died."
"What do you mean?"
He sighed. "Well, after he died, my mom and my aunt decided to move the family here. And when Christy found out, she got all excited. She was the first one packed up and ready to go." He looked at Paige. "And now I see why. She had this huge plan to get back at you, all 'cause she thinks you have something to do with Dad's death." Shaking his head, he said, "It's complete bullshit."
Paige was speechless. Their dad's death had something to do with Christy's actions? A shiver crept up her back. This whole time, she thought Christy was just pissed about Paige lying in the court case.
But before Paige could ask more about it, the doorbell rang. It couldn't have been Jerry or Nolan since they were working until nighttime.
She and Mark went to answer the front door, and they saw Jerry with James and Dave standing awkwardly behind. The pair had guilty looks on their faces while Jerry seemed to have been crying.
What the fuck?
As if reading her mind, Jerry said quickly, "Carter came to work and he gave me all these nasty insults."
"What about them?" She turned her glare to James first, who looked at anything but her.
"They were with him, but they didn't say anything. They just drove me home after."
She stepped out of the house, making James step back. "Why didn't you call me to pick you up?" she asked Jerry as she thought of multiple ways of hurting Carter, James, and Dave.
"Well, they offered to drive me." Jerry gestured to the pair behind him. "So I thought, why not?"
Paige forced out a laugh. "They were with Carter. You don't think it's weird that they'd be nice to you all of a sudden? Acting like they're the good guys when they're actually not?" She glared at James.
He looked up, seeming to be frightened by her vehement "not." He walked toward her and said, "Look, I can explain."
She felt tears coming on. "I knew you and your whole possé would hurt my fucking brother! You guys totally would!"
"I swear we didn't--"
"You can attack me all you want, but attack my brother? You guys are so fucking...ableist!"
"Look, I know I made you that promise..." But she didn't listen to the rest of what he said as he raised his hands. How dare he act innocent? How dare he act like he hadn't been part of the whole Christy drama and Carter drama? How dare he be even friends with Carter?
And before she realized it, her knuckles connected to his nose.
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