Author: L A Cotton
Category: Contemporary
Go to read content：https://onlinereadfreenovel.com/l-a-cotton/page,8,606415-ruined_hopes_an_enemies-to-lovers_romance_rixon_high.html
When all I wanted was to keep him in the past…
Where he clearly wanted to be.
I spent the day sleeping off the hangover from hell. Thankfully, when I got home, Mom and Dad were out, so I was able to sneak upstairs and crash.
When I woke up, my stomach growled. So I pulled on a hoodie and slipped out of my room to go in search of food, but paused when I heard Uncle Jason’s voice.
“Don’t like it.”
“He failed senior year, Jase.” That was Aunt Felicity. “He deserves a shot at—”
“She almost died.”
The animosity in his voice startled me. Lily had said they blamed Ezra, but I hadn’t expected to hear such venom in his words.
“She’s okay, Jase,” Dad said. “Ashleigh is a fighter; she’s going to get through this. If he’s on the team…”
Team?
Surely not?
The last thing Ezra would ever want to do was join the Rixon Raiders. He barely made it to gym class last year. Ezra Jackson and team sports were two phrases that had no business being put together.
Ezra wasn’t a team player.
He was a lone wolf.
Someone who marched to the beat of his own drum.
Heart racing in my chest, I slowly maneuvered the stairs, heading for the kitchen before I could overhear anything else.
The adults all paused the second I stepped inside.
“Ashleigh, sweetheart.” Mom smiled. “We didn’t realize you were awake.”
“Hey, Mom. I got hungry.”
“I’m making spaghetti. It shouldn’t be too long now.”
“Cool,” I said, heading for the breakfast counter.
“How was the party?” Dad asked, pulling out a stool for me. He helped me onto it, and I rested my chin on my fists, watching as Mom stirred the sauce.
“It was good.”
“We heard it got a little crowded,” Uncle Jase said with a hint of accusation.
“Yeah, a lot of people turned up uninvited, but there wasn’t any trouble or anything.”
“You should have called—”
“Relax, Dad. I was fine. The girls looked after me.”
“Good.” He nodded. “That’s good. How did you get home?”
There was concern in my dad’s every sentence. It was exhausting, but I couldn’t tell him. Not when I understood why it was there. It would have been nice to just be able to join in like I remembered I would have pre-accident. Just be able to take a seat and join in whatever conversation was happening.
“Kaiden gave me a ride.”
“I can’t believe they leave for college soon.” Uncle Jase whipped off his ball cap and ran a hand through his dark hair.
“Kaiden is a good kid, he’ll look out for Lily.” Dad patted my uncle’s arm.
“It’s not Kaiden I’m worried about,” he grumbled. “You know what college kids can be like. Everything’s different. New and…. more.”
“Lily can handle it,” I said. She seemed to have things under control.
“Yeah.” Aunt Felicity smiled. “She’s come a long way.”
Mom came over and pulled me into a hug. “Your day will come, baby. You just have to take a little detour first.”
Yeah, a detour right back to senior year.
“Sure, Mom,” I murmured.
“Look at it this way.” She held me at arm’s length. “You get a second shot at it, sweetheart. Not many people can say that.”
“Hmm, not really selling it to me, Mom.”
“No, I guess not.” Sympathy flooded her expression. “But I think it’s for the best. At least until…” She didn’t say the words, because with every new day that dawned where I didn’t have a memory epiphany, the hope that they would ever return seemed further out of reach.
Chapter Eleven
Ashleigh
The sun beat down on me as I lay on one of the Bennets’ loungers while my cousins and friends fooled around in the swimming pool.
I hadn’t wanted to go in, still feeling a little delicate after my hangover yesterday. But I was content watching them, soaking up our last summer together before everything changed. Again.
Mya was with my mom at the gallery, helping her prepare for her upcoming installation. She’d always been creative, ever since high school. A passion I unfortunately did not share. She’d suggested painting might help with things, but I wasn’t feeling it. Mya had a ton of suggestions, different therapies and exercises to try. But she hadn’t pushed. If anything, she was still a little standoffish with me. But she was spending the day with Mom, so things couldn’t be that strained between them.
“I made virgin margaritas,” Sofia said, her and Lily appearing with a tray of drinks in their hands. “They’re so freaking good.”
“They’d be even better with the tequila, Sofe,” Aaron said.
“Like you didn’t drink enough Saturday night.”
“I wasn’t that bad.” He poked his tongue out at her.
“Bad enough that Dad threatened your ass with pool cleaning duty for the rest of the summer.”
“He’s all talk. I apologized for puking in the flower bed.”
“Ugh, gross, you didn’t.” Poppy blanched.
“It had to come out, Pops.” He grinned back at her.
“Here, Leigh.” Sofia handed me a drink.
“Don’t let party girl near the liquor.”
“Haha.” I narrowed my eyes at Cole.
“Leave her alone. She’s allowed to have a blow out after everything.”
“Never again,” I murmured. “I still don’t feel right.”
“We’ve all been there.” Aaron lazed back on his floatie, a huge green crocodile he’d nicknamed Nile.
He was such a goofball.
Poppy and Carrie-Anne shared a conspiratorial look and then in a coordinated attack, grabbed Nile’s tail and flipped Aaron clean off into the water. He surfaced, spluttering and choking while we all laughed.
“Oh, it’s like that, huh?” His eyes lasered in on Poppy.
“Aaron.” She started backing away. “It was a joke. We were—”
He dived at her, pulling her under with him. When she surfaced, she was red in the face and seething.
“You ass. I didn’t want to get my hair wet.”
“Shouldn’t play with fire, Pops, if you don’t wanna get burned.” He smirked and we all caught the moment between them.
Poppy and Aaron shared something rare and precious. They’d always gravitated to one another, but neither of them were brave enough to act on it, always quick to point out they were just friends. But Aaron looked at her the way Kaiden looked at Lily, and Bryan looked at Carrie-Anne. Full of love and longing. The fact she chose to ignore it was impressive. But sometimes the truth scared people. I understood that better than anyone.
While I’d always been pretty upfront with Ezra about my intentions, I’d never wholly admitted how I felt about him.
I got up and excused myself to go use the bathroom. I didn’t need it, but I did need a second to collect my emotions. When I returned, the guys were all in the pool playing water polo with Lily and Carrie-Anne. Sofia and Poppy were sitting on their loungers talking, but when they noticed me, their expressions dropped.
“What’s wrong?” Dread snaked through me.
Poppy glanced at Sofia, and she let out a sigh. “Aaron thinks Ezra has a date.”
The words echoed through me.
A date.
He had a date.
The ground felt shaky beneath my feet.
“With who?” The tremor in my voice matched the way my body vibrated.
Sofia gave me a sympathetic smile. “He thinks it’s the girl from the diner, the waitress.”
The waitress…
My heart sank. He’d moved on. I’d been in a coma and woken up with almost a year of my life missing and Ezra had walked away and gotten himself a date.
I guess life really had moved on.
“We’re s
o sorry, Leigh. Maybe he’s—”
“Don’t,” I clipped out.
My heart was already in tatters, I wasn’t sure I could handle anything else.
“At least we’ve got Lily’s going away party to look forward to, although I guess you might not want to come now—”
“Of course I’m coming,” I replied, a little too harshly. But sometimes Poppy was so clueless to people’s feelings.
“Sorry. I just didn’t know if you’d want to, given the circumstances.”
“Lily’s family. Of course I’ll be there.” Even if saying goodbye to her, watching our friends and family bestow her with well wishes for college would be incredibly hard.
I lay back down, and Sofia and Poppy went back to their conversation, avoiding Ezra’s name in my presence.
But I couldn’t avoid thoughts of him on a date with some waitress. Ezra didn’t date—at least, that’s the vibe he’d always given off. So if he’d found a girl he wanted to willingly spend time with, she must have been really special.
Maybe they’d been dating a while? No one knew he’d been hanging out at The Junction did they? Fact was no one really knew Ezra at all. Is that why he had been avoiding me? Maybe he’d rejected me but hadn’t rejected her.
All I knew was I couldn’t face seeing them together.
Everyone headed down to Riverside after soaking up the summer sun at the Bennets’ pool. I made my excuses.
Maybe I was a coward, avoiding any scenario where I ran into Ezra and his date. But I couldn’t wrap my head around the idea, not yet. Not while I was still stuck in a time where I was the girl who managed to sometimes bring Ezra out of his shell.
He might not have been very forthcoming, but the scraps of attention he’d given me made me feel special. Made me feel like I was the only girl who could get through to him.
Had that all been a lie? Something I made up in my head to make myself feel better? And what the hell had happened between then and now to make him not even be able to reply to a simple text message?
Even if he didn’t feel the same, he could text me back and tell me. It was unfair to leave me hanging like this. He knew what had happened in that ten months I couldn’t remember.
He was there that night, the night everything went to shit.
So why not fill in the blanks for me, even if he then left me the hell alone? He owed me that much at least.
Gav offered to give me a ride home since he had to get back to babysit his sister, Millie.
“Thanks,” I said when we arrived at my house.
“You good? You were quiet this afternoon.”
“I found out something about Ezra.”
I didn’t know why I could talk to him about this, but there was something about him that put me at ease.
“About his date.”
“So you heard?” I focused on my hands, wringing them in my lap.
“Yeah. Aaron was pretty excited… Shit, I didn’t mean—”
“It’s okay. I get it.” I sucked in a sharp breath. “I just want to know what happened. I mean, I know what people keep telling me… but Ezra wouldn’t just quit on me like that. He wouldn’t.”
“Ten months is a long time, maybe something happened—”
My head whipped up. “Do you know something?”
“I swear, I don’t.” He held up his hands. “I’m just saying, a lot can happen in ten months. And you two weren’t exactly open about your relationship.”
Because we didn’t have a relationship. We had a tenuous friendship at best. Ezra would never have pursued me, not the way I relentlessly went after him. But everyone deserved at least one friend in the world. And ever since the day he had arrived at the Bennets, I’d been dead set on being his.
“It’s not… it wasn’t like that between us.”
He gave me a knowing look. “But you wanted it to be.”
It wasn’t a question, and I wondered if I’d confided in Gav like this before.
“You haven’t,” he said as if he knew exactly what I was thinking. “I mean, we’ve talked about him before. But not like this.”
“So why now?”
“Because things are different now and I know what it’s like to feel like your life is out of your control.”
“Your mom—”
“Let’s not make this about me. I’m fully aware of my decisions and the consequences they bear.”
“You’re doing what’s right for your family.”
“Yeah.” He ran a hand down his face and blew out a steady breath. “If only it were that simple.”
“I’m here. If you ever need to talk, I’m here.” It seemed only fair to reciprocate his patience and understanding, even if I still didn’t truly understand the depths of our friendships. After all, actions spoke louder than words, and Gav had been nothing but there for me since I got out of the hospital.
“Thanks, Leigh Leigh, but you don’t have to worry about me.” His expression hardened, and I knew that was the end of that particular conversation.
And it hit me how strange it was that I felt more comfortable with Gav—a guy I couldn’t even remember being friends with—than my own friends and family.
“I’ll see you soon, okay?”
“Sure thing,” he said, his expression giving little away.
I climbed out of his car and started for the door. But his voice gave me pause. “You’ve got this, Ashleigh. Even if it feels like right now you don’t.”
I gave him a small nod, too choked up to reply.
How did he know what I was thinking as I walked away? How did he know exactly the right thing to say to ease the knot in my stomach?
I didn’t have all the answers, but I was grateful.
The second I went inside, Dad called, “Leigh, is that you?”
“Yeah. Be right in.” I kicked off my sandals and put my purse on the stairs before going to find my dad.
“How was your day?” he asked.
“It was good. Everyone went on to Riverside, but I didn’t feel like it.”
“Headache?”
“No, I’m okay.”
It came and went, but for the most part, it was manageable now.
“Just remember to take it easy, okay? The doctor said—”
“I know, Dad. You don’t have to worry.”
“Of course I do, you’re my little girl. That’s never going to change, Ashleigh.”
“I love you, Dad.” I went over and laid my head on his arm. He wrapped it around me and pulled me closer.
“I love you too, sweetheart. So much. And I want you to know, I’m so proud of how you’re handling everything.”
“Don’t really have much choice.” Strained laughter bubbled out of me.
“That’s not true.” He looked at me with those all-seeing eyes of his. “You could have locked yourself in your room and refused to face this head on. But you didn’t. I can’t pretend to know what it’s like… to be missing so much… but I am in awe of your strength, sweetheart. Of how mature you’ve been about everything.”
His nice words were too much. Didn’t he see the cracks in my carefully constructed veneer? Didn’t he see that I was barely holding on by a thread? Couldn’t he smell the fear lingering on my skin?
Obviously not. The words clanged through my mind, splitting my chest wide open.
“I’m trying, Dad.” I smiled. But it was fake and full of bitterness.
He looked at me with such pride. I wanted to roar at him and make him see how hard this was for me. To really see me.
But I didn’t.
I wouldn’t.
Because that’s what you did for family, you protected them at all costs.
No matter the cost to your own heart.
Chapter Twelve
Ezra
I stared at the text message, clenching my fist over and over. Open and release. Open and release. It did little to ease the giant fucking pit in my stomach, but it stopped me from doing something stupid, like texting her bac
k.
I read the words again, absorbing every letter.
Ashleigh: Is it true? Were you on a date? I keep thinking it’s not possible. You don’t date. But everything has changed, so why can’t you change too, right? I want to be angry… maybe a small part of me is. But I also only want good things for you… always. Just wish I remembered…
Even now, in the aftermath of so much pain and ruin, Ashleigh managed to handle herself with grace. I didn’t deserve her blessing just like I didn’t deserve her understanding.
But it didn’t stop me from wanting to beg for it.
“Everything okay?” Pen asked, glancing over at me. We’d met at the diner after she finished the lunch shift. She’d suggested going to Riverside, but I’d wanted to avoid anywhere I might cross paths with Ashleigh.
I was a cold-hearted bastard, but I didn’t want to rub this—whatever this was—into her face.
Playing it safe, I’d suggested we head out of town to Halston. Pen didn’t mind the short drive and she didn’t question the location.
“Yeah, just my brother,” I lied.
“You know, E, I’m glad you texted me. This has been nice.”
“Yeah.” I stared out of the window, watching the streets turn familiar as we entered Rixon.
It was my home and yet, the air became thinner with every passing minute. An invisible weight pressing down on my chest as Pen navigated the streets with ease.
“This is the nice end of town.” She whistled through her teeth.
She wasn’t wrong. Asher was a partner in his father’s successful tech company, where they set up security systems for celebrity clients, affording him the best of everything. Best house in the neighborhood, with the best views and biggest yard. He wasn’t flashy about it, but it didn’t change the fact Asher came from money.
“Yeah, you could say that.”
“I mean, I’ve heard of your dad… do you call him that?” She peeked over at me.
“Asher. I call him Asher.”
“Asher Bennet. Best friends with Jason Ford, right?”