A Win?

Keith just smirked and laid back in his bed, folding his arms above his head. “Good luck with that. Let me know how it works out for you.”

The urge to hit him was overwhelming again, but the last thing Noah needed right now was for me to be arrested as well. Although… that might work… No, no. I warned myself. We have to do this right. Otherwise, it could get even messier. But that didn’t stop me from grabbing the container of ice water that hospitals so kindly leave for everyone. Then, with a smile as wide as the state of Texas, I poured it over his head.

Glee filled me as he shrieked like a girl. He was still shrieking as I turned on my heel and walked out of the room with my head held high. His parents came rushing towards me in a flurry of fine silk and panic.

“Oh, my goodness!” his mother proclaimed. “What happened?”

I gave Mr. and Mrs. Horton a direct and unsympathetic look. “I know you’re not going to believe me. Because he is your son. But I want it to be known that we were NOT dating. In fact, I was doing my best to stay away from your son. He is a creep and a predator. That is something you SHOULD know because this is not the first time your son has been accused of not taking no for an answer. I hope you’ll do the right thing and drop the charges against Noah Jones because he did nothing but defend me,” I declared to all that were within hearing range.

“That doesn’t give him the right to beat him up!” Mrs. Horton screeched. “My poor baby boy is in the hospital after all! That man broke my son’s NOSE, for god’s sake!”

I smirked and shook my head. “Actually, I broke his nose. He was drunk and wouldn’t stop grabbing at me. When he wouldn't stop despite my rejections, I felt I had no choice but to hit him. But I don’t feel guilty at all. If you want to press charges, I’ll gladly tell everyone what happened.”

I knew I hadn’t been the one to break Keith’s nose. But I was more than willing to take the blame if that’s what this was all about. I felt Molly step up beside me and put her arm around me. Her support was invaluable to me. Especially when I was faced with two crazy socialites.

“Why, you little—” Mr. Horton started but was shut down when Mrs. Horton put her hand on his chest.

“That’s not necessary,” she told me. “We won’t be pressing charges.”

“And you’ll drop the charges against Noah?” I pressed her.

Mrs. Horton made a graceful wave with her hands. “I was planning on dropping everything anyway. We won’t be around for the trial anyway. My husband just made a deal, and we’ll be moving next week. Might as well leave this sordid nonsense behind.”

Mrs. Horton gave a high-pitched laugh that seemed a little too forced when she saw her husband’s startled look.

“Oh, was I not supposed to know about that yet, dear? Well, you know that I have my ways! Besides, Seattle will be so much better than this podunk town any day.”

I could see Molly’s look of surprise out of the corner of my eye, but I kept my face carefully blank with a pleasant smile. I didn’t want them to think they were doing me any great service. Because they weren’t. All they were doing was picking up their lives and moving on as if nothing had happened.

That bothered me to the core, and I just wanted some way to stop them. But I was afraid they would begin to attack Noah again.

“Well, I hope you find all the happiness you deserve,” I told them as cheerfully as I could.

Molly choked a bit, but she quickly got herself under control. Mrs. Horton speared her with a slight glare, but it quickly went away as the doctor walked back up to us.

“Are you ready to sign the release form?” the doctor asked them. “He’s more than ready to go home. He’ll heal just fine.”

Mr. and Mrs. Horton glared at the doctor, and I saw this as our sign to go. The last thing I wanted to do was be caught up in any more drama caused by the Hortons.

We rushed out and left them to argue with the doctors to keep their son in. Somehow, I managed to hold my laughter in until I made it to Molly’s car. Molly only made it as far as the front doors of the hospital.

“They looked so mad when they found out their ‘baby boy’ was fine!” Molly chortled.

“My favorite part was how much she was going to love Seattle. I mean, it is a great city. But she’s gonna hate how much it rains. It’ll ruin her silk!” I laughed.

Molly continued to giggle and shook her head. “That whole family is a piece of work. I thought your parents were living in a fantasy world. That family seemed to make it up as they go along, rejecting the facts in front of their faces.”

My laughter faded as the reality of the situation slowly hit me, and it wasn’t family anymore.

“But he’s gonna get away with it again,” I said softly. “He’s gonna get away with it again. I’m just gonna be another name on the list of women he’s assaulted and just walked away from.”

Molly reached over and put her hand on mine. “If you want to go to the police about this, Becca. I’ll support you.”

I sighed heavily. “I would love to. But I just worried Keith's family would do the same thing to me as they did to the other girl. They would ruin me and without the backing of my family…,” I shook my head. “I don’t know what to do at all.”

Molly smiled cruelly. “No, but I do.”

I had no idea what she was planning on doing because she did not talk to me about anything. But within five minutes, her phone began blowing up.

“What did you do?” I asked in shock.

Molly was a popular girl, but the way her phone began to go off was absolutely insane.

Molly turned to me with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes. “It’s amazing what social media can do.”

My phone went off, and I picked it up to find that she had managed to tell EVERYONE on her friend’s list warning them about Keith Horton. I was absolutely shocked by the amount of responses from the other women on the list. Pretty soon, other women got on discussing their experiences with Keith. Most of them were just as creepy as my own experiences. I suddenly felt like I had a large group of people who completely understood where I was coming from.

“Now, the women here know what happened, and they’ll spread the word. You know how our circles are. This will get out, and he will be blacklisted. His parents will be lucky if they’re not. Especially now that everyone knows that they are hiding the things that he does,” Molly told me with a sense of pride in her voice.

I laughed out loud as tears gathered in my eyes. I had known that Molly had my back, but she really had everyone’s back. She was more than willing to go out on a limb to help to keep people safe, even if it meant she would get a backlash.

My phone began to ring, and when I looked down, my heart sank to my stomach when I saw my mother's name pop onto the screen.

I groaned loudly. “Oh, shit.”