CHAPTER THREE - Hike

As Michael and I walked, I noticed how he changed.

His expression was much more relaxed, much more open. He swung his arms and laughed more freely, talking vibrantly as we hiked.

"So tell me, Elle," he said as we walked. "Why'd you come to BCC?"

I tensed slightly. "I thought that subject was off limits."

He shrugged. "I'll tell you mine," he said.

I frowned, pursing my lips. "Do you wanna go first?"

"Do I want to? No, not really. But I will, because I'm curious to know what a girl like you could have done to land yourself here," he said, grinning. "But you have to promise me you'll tell me your reason when I'm done."

I sighed. "Fine."

Michael held out his pinky. "Pinky promise? It's the closest thing us BCC kids have to a contract."

I laughed and looped my pinky around his. "You have a deal."

He beamed. "Excellent."

"So, your story?"

Michael took a deep breath. "Promise me you won't look at me differently."

I pursed my lips and answered, "That's kind of hard to promise."

"Please," he whispered, detouring off the side of the trail and dropping onto a tree stump, looking worried. His eyebrows drew together, and he stared down at his feet.

Sitting on the stump next to him, I said, "Fine. I won't." I held out my pinky. "Promise."

His crooked grin sealed the deal. "I haven't told very many people this," he murmured, rubbing the back of his neck.

"I'm assuming everyone in my cabin knows. And your friends."

Michael shook his head. "No. The girls vaguely know what I did. The boys are the only ones who know the whole story. Everyone else, they kind of just assume I was stuck here because I couldn't keep it in my pants." A wry smile flashed across his face. "But I'm sure you already knew that."

I bit my lip. "Well... I'd been told."

"Of course you had. But I'm telling you the whole story. Everything."

My eyebrows furrowed together. "Why? I don't understand. We just met yesterday."

Michael avoided my eyes. "I need someone to tell," he said unconvincingly. "And who better to tell than someone I just met?"

"Loads of people," I replied immediately, and he shot me a look.

"Do you want to hear or not?"

I gave him an apologetic smile. "Sorry, sorry. I'll listen."

He adjusted his position on the stump - he scooted an inch closer to me - and then began.

"When I was a freshman, some of my senior friends brought me to a party. Naturally, there was alcohol and all the jazz. And there were some really, really hot girls," he said, biting his lip.

Inexplicably, jealousy lept up in my chest, but I kept my mouth shut and let him continue, "But I was only a freshman. Most of them didn't want anything to do with me. A few poured their drinks on me, but I didn't really care. I was a freshman at a senior party, having drinks, meeting girls. It was great. I was haivng the time of my life." Michael ran a hand through his hair and sighed.

"But then, this one girl, Lois. She was the most beautiful girl I'd ever seen. She had gold hair, chocolate brown eyes, and the most beautiful smile. She offered me a drink, and of course I accepted.

"Then some of the senior guys found out that the freshman was flirting with Lois, and they took me out to the back of the house where we were partying and started beating me up. Three guys: Mark, Jake and Richard. I wouldn't have avoided the hospital if it weren't for Lois." Michael's eyes had closed, and now they opened, unfocused and fixated on the memory.

"Lois stopped them. She brought me inside and helped me clean up. The only evidence that I'd been beat up was a bruise on my arm and a few cuts on my face, which I could pass off as tripping. Lois was so nice to me...

"The next week at school was hell. The three guys had spread rumors that I had slept with Lois and got three other girls to say I'd slept with them, and everyone believed them. No matter what Lois and I said, people believed them."

I realized how close Michael and I were sitting. His right side was pressed against my left side, and I had the strangest urge to take his hand and tell him everything would be okay. But I forced myself to stay quiet and allow him to finish the story.

Michael finally met my eyes. "I was bullied for a month, Elle. For a month, people would call me a whore and a bastard and a player and anything else they could come up with. They'd throw stuff at me and make sure that I remembered every day that I'd slept with four girls, three of whom I'd never met, in one night. Even my friends believed the rumors, because I'd stopped trying to deny it a long time ago. It was pointless.

"And then one weekend, Lois invited me over to her place.

"Of course I said yes. Lois was the only friend I had left. So I drove over to her place, and she was wearing this tight black dress, and finally we were in her room and she told me we might as well make the rumors real."

Michael's voice was agitated as he said, "I don't know why I agreed. I had no idea what I was doing, I just remember that she locked the door and that was it. And then the next week, people were telling me Lois had told them that I'd spent time at Lois's house and that we'd hooked up."

His light eyes looked into mine. "After that, the rumors got worse. People were sure that I was a player, and rumors popped up everywhere. I was hooking up with girls behind the bleachers. I was hooking up with them in my car. I was hooking up with them left and right. And after a while, I decided that if these rumors were going to go around, I might as well live up to them. Stupidest decision I've ever made," he said, shaking his head. "It was easier to deal with the rumors if I knew they were true. It was easier to admit that I did hook up with Hailey Rogers behind the choir room, and it was damn good, rather than hear people say I was doing all this shit with people I'd never even met."

"Eventually, it got to my parents. They found out about me. About all of the things I'd supposedly done. And all the things I actually did. And they sent me here. Special orders not to let me get out. Not to let me drink. Not to let me near other girls." Michael glanced at me. "So no, I haven't actually slept with Kat. Yeah we act like it, but we haven't. After I got to BCC, I stopped sleeping around."

My mouth felt dry. "How many?" The question left my lips as a whisper.

Michael lauged without humor. "Too many," he said, his face hard. "Every single one of them, I regret."

I put a hand on his shoulder. "Michael, I'm really sorry."

He took a deep breath. "Do you want to know the real reason I wanted to tell you?"

I stayed silent, and he said, "Because I want you to know me. I don't want you thinking that I was sent here because I was just unable to control myself. Everything I did was a choice and everything I did was for a reason. I didn't just do it to do it. I..." he scrubbed his face and groaned. "I screwed my life up bad, Elle. Really, really bad." He sighed. "And I wanted you to know that I want to be friends with you. Not just so that I could get in your pants." he said, grinning. "So what's your story?"

I took a moment to collect myself. "Um, it's not as dramatic as yours."

Michael laughed. "Well thank god, otherwise between the two of us, we'd be a mess."

I laughed uncomfortably. "Right... should I start?"

"Please."

I cleared my throat. "Uh, two years ago, my dad left. He disappeared in the middle of the night. He took all of his stuff and just left. My mom and I woke up, and it was like he didn't ever exist." I frowned. "I guess I should mention he left on my birthday."

"What a bastard," Michael muttered, and I raised an eyebrow at him. "Sorry," he apologized, giving me a smile. "Continue."

"So he left, and I was devestated, because I didn't know why, and he'd always been my favorite. Turned out he'd been sleeping with his secretary behind my mom's back, and he'd gotten sick of lying and decided to just run off with her. So that was my fifteenth birthday," I said.

I took a deep breath. "Three months after my dad left, my mom brought someone home," I said, my mouth twisting. "Someone she'd been seeing while she and my dad were still together. They were both cheating on each other, turns out, and as soon as my dad cleared out, Bill came and took his place, staying for dinner pretty much every night."

Chewing my lip, I said, "I'm really not proud of what I did."

Michael grinned. "And you think I am? Please, what you did can't be as bad as what I did."

"Oh you just wait," I muttered under my breath, and then said, "I hated Bill. I hated how different he was from my dad. I hated that he came and took my dad's place. But most of all, I hated that he made my mom happy. I mean, that was my dad's job. That was something he'd done for years. And now here was Bill just coming and making my mom smile and act like a giggly teenager. I hated it.

"There's this guy at my school named Chase. He's the local druggie, but nobody cared enough to deal with him. Last year, I asked him for some weed, just to piss my mom off. Just enough." I frowned. "Chase gave me some, and that was that.

"My mom found the weed in my room the next week. Real shit went down," I said, smiling dryly. "She was beyond angry. She started raging. She asked me how much I'd smoked, and I told her the truth: none of it. I hadn't smoked any of it. I just had it to piss her off. And I was hoping that maybe she'd see that her being with Bill was driving me to this, and she'd get rid of him..." I trailed off and sighed. "But anyways, I didn't smoke any of it at first."

Michael raised an eyebrow. "At first?"

I grimaced. "My mom didn't get the message about Bill. She decided that I needed a more stable family environment and Bill moved in to our house. That was it. I started smoking.

"My mom smelled it on me when I got home from school. She confiscated the supply I had and forbid me from getting anything more. She thought then maybe, I'd be okay, I'd get over it, and hopefully Bill could help me out.

"For some reason, she thought that locking me and Bill into a room would be beneficial for us both. It ended up with me assaulting Bill, something he 'mercifully' decided not to press charges for."

Michael's eyes widened. "What the hell did you do to the guy?"

I grinned. "I can beat people up, and Bill's about as strong as a string bean. Also, I've got nails," I said, flashing them to him."

He eyed them warily. "I'll keep that in mind," he said.

I laughed. "So yeah, my mom decided this summer I was in need of correction and decided to drop me off here at BCC. I only smoked a few times, I never got hooked. But the best part is that she doesn't even get the message. She still doesn't get that Bill is the damn problem, not me." I sighed. "So yeah, that's why I'm here. Because my family is fucked up."

Michael wrapped an arm around my waist, and I tensed. "I'm sorry," he whispered into my ear, his lips brushing the skin there, sending chills down my back. "I'm really sorry that all of that shit happened to a girl like you."

"A girl like me?" I repeated, and he shrugged.

"It seems like you didn't deserve any of that."

"Well, neither did you," I said, and he nodded.

"True enough," Michael agreed. He stared into my eyes and whispered, "God, please don't take this the wrong way. I know we just met, but you look so fucking kissable right now."

Involuntarily, I ran my tongue over my lips, and his eyes traced the movement. "Can I?" he breathed, slowly moving forward.

My heart was pounding, and my head was spinning. I could feel Michael against my side, and his forehead was pressed against mine. "Yes," I whispered, and his lips met mine.

A/N We finally found out why Michael and Elle were at BCC. What do you guys think? Don't worry, you'll find out about the other characters soon enough. As always, thank you so much for reading, commenting and voting! All of your comments make me smile, you guys are amazing. Love you! H xx.