"Your what?" Corrie stands there dumbfounded, mouth open, bat on the ground. He doesn't even hear the initial clattering of the bat, he barely hears the aftershock.

"Corrie, right?" the fiancée says, happily. She's totally obviously to the fact that Corrie has no fucking clue who she is.

She holds out her hand and Corrie, being the well mannered man he is, shakes it before pulling away.

"Okay, well. If you're going to have sex, do it in the basement, use protection, and don't get weird liquids on the couch." Corrie then stomps upstairs to his room, leaving his father and the fiancée he never bothered to get the name of behind.

It's 2:30 am. He has school tomorrow and he's not tired. It's a dilemma.

He looks at his iPhone, checking all recent likes on Instagram and Snapchats. The one person he hoped would pop up didn't.

Fucking Bradley.

Some may ask by Corrie and Bradley's close relationship, are they doing each other?

To be fucking clear, no. Corrie has no romantic feelings for Bradley, and vice versa. At least, Corrie thinks so.

If Corrie had to say anyone he had romantic feelings for, it'd be Devon. But who knows in a year.

Who the fuck even knows in a month?

Corrie sure as hell doesn't.

Because life is un-fucking-predictable, and his father just proved that.

•••

Corrie sulks into school. It's not his usual manner, but it's certainly not the usual day.

He woke up to the vomit worthy sounds of Ophelia's screams. They didn't even sound like she was having fun, but Corrie didn't bother to check on them. That was their business, not his.

Corrie's walking to homeroom when some fucking freshman pops up in front of him.

"Hi Corrie!" She's too fucking cheery for 7:30 am.

"Madison," he greets with an eye roll. A day later, he's still not a nice person.

He doesn't change.

People don't change.

"So," she's walking her two fingers up his chest. He almost gags. "I was thinking we could, ya know."

"Madison, first off, I don't think we can 'ya know' if you can't even say the word sex without acting like you're committing a crime." Corrie snaps. "Second, I don't fuck freshman; learned that one the hard way. Third, not interested. Find someone who'll give you the time of day before having sex with them."

He pushes her hand off his chest and walks away.

She scoffs and screams, "this isn't the last of Madison Morgan McJefferson."

Corrie almost laughs aloud. Just the fact that she had to announce her whole name shows how immature she is.

Rejection isn't anything to be ashamed of, he should know, but Corrie thinks the rejectee should at least keep their dignity.

Corrie goes to his first hour class and finds Devon isn't there, sitting in the seat he always sits in.

Corrie's not especially great at knowing Devon's location but he knows Devon's a total school nerd. He's too much of a goody two shoes to skip.

This one time, Corrie tried to convince Devon it was a good idea to skip. Halfway through the drive to the coffee shop, Devon cracked and started to have a minor panic attack.

To put it nicely, Corrie may have started to scream angrily because of the gas he was wasting and took Devon back to school. It was not a pleasant time in their relationship for a couple of weeks afterwards.

"Hey," Corrie whispers to a guy on the baseball team beside him. The guy snaps his head over before saluting Corrie; it's something like team respect or whatever the fuck. Corrie's tried his hardest to get the team to stop, it hasn't worked so far. "Have you heard from Devon?"

The guy thinks about it for a moment, hand rubbing his chin in thought. "Something about this hot southern chick new to town. Met her at a coffee house or something. Man, I hope he gets lucky. He's been way too uptight lately. Either sleeping with her or Wesley giving him some weed."

Corrie nods his head, teeth clenching together. He's not jealous—fuck it. He's really fucking jealous.

He goes on the rest of class thinking of all the ways he's going to punish Devon. But every time he found a way to torture his not-so-boyfriend, he remembered that exactly. They're not boyfriends. They're friends with little to no benefits.

Corrie even slept with Whitney—four times while him and Devon were figuring things out. Corrie just had to know if he was really into guys and girls sexually. He had slept with some guy before but he was really wasted. He also came out to the school but it's not like anyone actually gave a shit.

Him sleeping with Whitney four times really just proves to point.

He fucked Devon over and it's Devon's turn.

Because everyone in Corrie's life has fucked him over.

Now he just decide if Devon's worth it all. Worth all the lies, the secrets, the confusion.

Corrie could be the ass he's always been. He could be the asshat that breaks if off and spirals. Could be the guy fucking most of the school's population and contracting a few STDs while doing so.

Corrie doesn't change.

People don't change.

•••

By the time lunch rolls around, Corrie's ready for the day to be over. He still has basketball practice after, too.

"Hey," Hannah greets him, a hand on his shoulder. She smiles at him and winks.

He knows it's definitely a ploy to get Matt jealous. Corrie looks out of the corner of his eye to see Matt's hands balling into fists. Matt's face turns a comical color of red.

On most occasions, Corrie would just go along with it but today he's just not feeling it.

"Look, Hannah," he makes eye contact with her as she sits down across from him, three seats away from Matt. "I'm not sure what the fuck's going on between you and Matt but don't put me in the middle. Stop being freshman and fight until you have nice make up sex or angry sex. Either way it should be fun."

Corrie leans back in his chair and sighs as the couple or whatever they call themselves, leaves the cafeteria. Now it's just him. Bradley's gone—no surprise there—and most of the baseball guys are gone too.

He's never really been alone at school. Usually, there's always someone kissing his ass or following him around like a lost puppy.

Yeah, he notices that people follow his commands, but he figures: if they don't want to do it anymore, they won't. It's not his place to tell them to stop.

He finishes up his lunch before throwing the tray away. He walks down the school's hallways, running his fingertips across the red lockers.

He's supposes he could go to the library to do homework. Despite what people think, Corrie does do his homework. Not that it really matters, nobody is going to think of him as someone smart. Corrie is always going to be whatever people may think of him, because that's their version of him. A jock, an asshole, a player, an adventure, a sex toy. Whatever the case, he isn't any of those.

Because it didn't matter who he was. They didn't look at him like that. They thought about the guy who broke Laurel Jason's heart and the guy who slept with Joshua Nickerson. He wasn't the person who worked his ass off in all sports. The person who dreamt of a world where his mother came back. The person who studied his ass off. He was the guy born with a silver spoon in his mouth. The guy who sleeps with people and breaks their hearts.

Because everyone has a version of him in their mind. They put his face on a personality trait or action and sticks with it. Because once someone's made up their mind about you, you may as well be that person forever.

Corrie walks into the library and says hello to Ms. Kobb, the librarian. She smiles and waves him back to the tables for homework.

Once he's back there he see's something he never thought he'd see, ever.

His father's fiancée, Ophelia, making out with Bradley's father, Graham Johnson.

__________

☒ - unedited

Woaah. Woah. Did you expect that? Because I certainly didn't when I was writing. I hadn't figured Corrie's plot out until after...

Please tell me if you see any mistakes, I'm the queen of typos.

Read, vote, comment, and please, please share! Tell me what you liked/disliked. Constructive criticism is very, very welcome!

Rant of the chapter: I'm shit at figuring out plots...

Dedicated to: @rayetfan &@acctivation . Love seeing your guys respond to this book.

Next update: honestly, i have no idea. i'm figuring out all the plot details. but i don't want to write aimlessly.

Teaser: cliff hangers everywhere ...

Quick notes:
[ 1 ] wow shits gonna go down. comment what you think.
[ 2 ] corrie's chapters are going to be filled with cliff-hangers because i know where i need the chapters to lead. this book is going to be seriously long and i really hope i can finish it before it's one year mark (lol).
[ 3 ] my pm's are always open for a chat if you guys are in need of advice/help! unfortunately, there are many things such as rape/abusive relationships i'm not an expert in. if those are the cases, please please see a specialist.
[ 4 ] want to know a quick fact about this book? it was originally going to be 10 chapters long. the characters were never going to go into so much depth and bradley was going to get over being fat in 10 chapters. it leaves no room for character growth...
[ 5 ] i love you and i'll see you soon. ❤️️

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