Finding Paige: (The Paige Diaries #1) Read online

  "I hate you." I groan.

  "Nah, you love me really." She smiles and pulls me across the room and plants me in the desk chair and unzips her makeup bag.

  "What about unpacking?" I grumble.

  "You've got all day tomorrow before classes start on Monday, just leave it for now. Now, sit still while I work my magic."

  "If you make me look like a hooker, I'm not leaving this room."

  "O ye, of little faith." Em smiles mischievously.

  Chapter 2

  "I can't believe you talked me into this." I mutter, pulling at the hem of the ridiculously small dress Em insisted I wear. "I feel practically naked."

  "You look hot. I don't know why you hide your body. Those nuns must have really done a number on you."

  I give her a sidelong glance. "I didn't get sent to the nuns, it was an all-girls school."

  "A religious cult if you ask me, telling young girls to save themselves for marriage. What era do they think we're living in? What do you think they would have said if they knew you had got yourself up-" She quickly stops herself from saying anything else. "Sorry." she apologizes, realizing her mistake.

  I just shake my head and let my long brunette hair fall around my shoulders, not wanting to think about last year. But it's hard to forget when my best friend won't stop bringing it up.

  I run my fingers through my hair, looking at how long it is. I have always kept my hair long and usually curl it, but tonight Em had used the flat iron on it and it's strange how much difference a little makeup and a change of hairstyle can change your appearance. I hardly recognized myself when she finally let me look in the mirror. Add the piece of gray fabric she calls a dress, and I look like someone else.

  Maybe that's a good thing. This is a new adventure. I want to be someone different other than the shy and nervous girl everyone remembered from school. I want to have some fun this year, maybe not as much fun as Em has in mind, but I'm not a prude or anything. I know there will most likely be a few familiar faces from high school here but no one I'm interested in seeing again. I didn't have many friends back in high school other than Em and the people I knew from the chess club and math club.

  Yeah...I was that girl. The girl that attended a math club and wore glasses. I had begged Mom for contact lenses, and she had finally given in, and I'm still getting used to them. I don’t wear them every single day, but I popped them in for this party.

  We cut across the grass and onto the walkway. I can already hear the music pumping out a heavy beat as we near the frat house. I slow down and Em turns to me.

  "What's wrong?" she asks.

  "Nothing."

  "Paige,"

  "It's just...I've never even been to a party before. You have, you got to go to Judie's eighteenth birthday party when I wasn't here. I haven't been anywhere. I don't even know what I'm supposed to do in there."

  "Uh...have fun?" she laughs.

  "I have this image of people dry humping each other and groups of guys chugging beers. Is that what is waiting in there for me?"

  "You watch way too much TV. I mean, yeah there might be some people getting hot and heavy, but that doesn't mean you have to get involved...unless you want to? And yes, there will probably be a lot of beer-chugging going on, but you don't have to drink anything if you don't want to. No one is going to force you to do anything you don't want to."

  "Except go to this party." I fix her with a glare.

  "Look, we'll mingle for at least an hour and if you hate it, we'll leave. I won't even drink if it makes you feel better."

  "No, I don't want to ruin your fun. But I don't know if I'll fit in." I reach up and fiddle with my P initial necklace, feeling nervous.

  "Of course you will. Now stop overthinking this and hurry the hell up." Em takes my arm and leads me along the walkway and we head toward the house where all the noise is coming from.

  Two girls stumble down the porch steps falling all over themselves and they end up in the shrubs in a fit of giggles. It's a prime example of why I don't drink. It's not like I haven't touched alcohol before. Em and I used to sneak it up to her room during our sleepovers and we'd make nasty concoctions and dare each other to drink it, or she'd steal the odd bottle of wine from her mom's wine closet. But I wasn't the kind of girl to go out on the weekends and get totally wasted. I never really mixed well with kids my own age, and it's not like my mom would have ever allowed me to go out partying anyway.

  No one bothers us as we make our way through the front door and not five seconds have gone by before some guy is offering Em a drink. She politely refuses because it's an unopened bottle and he soon moves onto the next girl when I don't give him the time of day.

  The house is packed and there are bodies everywhere and the smell of smoke lingers in the air. I had just washed my hair this morning and now it is going to stink of smoke. Ugh.

  Em pulls me through the crowd and we make our way to the kitchen area where the countertops are overflowing with alcohol.

  "Whoa. Look at all this alcohol. Someone here must have access to some serious cash." Em murmurs.

  "Or a trust fund." I say, spinning around and leaning against the counter next to her.

  She grabs two red cups and ponders the different choices. "Do you want a Coke or lemonade?" she asks.

  "Um...I guess, one drink will be okay." I cave.

  "Really?" Em says excitedly and not a moment later she's picking up a vodka bottle.

  She pours us both a Coke and vodka and I cringe at the weird taste and try not to crinkle my nose.

  "This is horrible. Gawwd. It tastes like sink cleaner." I say.

  "You said one drink, so drink it up and stop complaining or I'll make you another, minus the Coke."

  We venture into the living room and stand at the side, taking it all in. Em says hi to a few girls that walk by that she must have already met as they all seem to know her.

  "Oooh, what do you think?" Em points to the couches where there is a group forming for what looks like a game of Truth or Dare.

  "Ha. No thanks." I snort, sipping my drink but it's seriously taking everything I have to keep it down, and when Em's not looking, I tip it into an empty cup on the window ledge.

  "You finished your drink." Em says having noticed my cup is empty.

  "Yeah...but I can already feel it doing something." Like my throat is burning.

  "Do you want another?"

  "We agreed on one drink."

  "I meant soda."

  "Sure you did. But I'm fine at the moment."

  "So um...how mad would you be if I left you to go and play Truth or Dare?"

  "Really?" I look at my best friend and see how excited she is to be here and I'm holding her back. "Okay, fine. Go and play." I say with a smile.

  "You're sure? I don't want to leave you on your own."

  "I'll be fine. Just go and have fun." I tell her and she quickly hugs me before joining the group on the couches, and I notice a few familiar faces from high school.

  But Truth or Dare is the devil's game and I refuse to play. I wait around, feeling a little out of place, and eventually find myself in the kitchen searching for another drink and find some lemonade and pour it into my cup. I find a quiet spot in the corner of the living room and get comfortable at the end of a couch, legs crossed so no one can peer up my dress. I watch Em having the time of her life, making new friends and laughing. I had told myself I wanted a fresh start, I wanted to be someone else, and here I am sitting in the corner on my own.

  With a sigh, I let my eyes drift around the large living room and see a couple of guys standing by the wall and one of them catches my attention. He has his back to me and he's wearing a dark cap with a little knot of blond hair sticking out at the back...but there's something oddly familiar about the way he leans against the wall and playfully pushes the other person in a friendly gesture as if they're laughing about something.

  I'm still staring at the back of him when I feel something warm.

 
; No, no, no. This can't be happening. Not now!

  I check around to make sure no one is watching me before I edge forward on the seat and peek over my shoulder and see the dreaded dark stain on the blue couch fabric.

  Yup. I got my period. That's really happening.

  Shit!

  I break out into a cold sweat and my heart rate picks up and goes into overdrive. A girl walks by and I quickly slide back onto the couch, hiding the stain.

  This is a nightmare. If anyone finds out about this I will be known as that girl who bled all over the couch at that party.

  I wave at Em to try and get her attention but she's too busy making out with some stranger who she must have been dared to kiss.

  I don't have any choice but to get up off the couch and make a run for it but then I notice the doorway is blocked with a group of guys standing around. They're making jokes and checking out all the different girls that enter the house, and it sounds as though they're giving each of them a rating out of ten. There's no way I will be able to get past them unnoticed.

  I edge forward and see an opening on the stairs, and I lift my cross-body bag over my head and inconspicuously drag a pillow over the stain as I stand up. I hold my bag in place over the back of my dress, unsure if I'm covering anything or not.

  Why did Em have to pick the gray dress and not the black one? This is a disaster! I don't even have anything on me. With all the stress of coming here, I had completely overlooked my period starting. I know Em doesn't have anything on her as she had crammed her lip gloss and mirror into my bag, and she has her phone in her hand. I don't even know anyone here to ask if I can borrow a tampon. How embarrassing.

  I make my way around the room, keeping to the side and ducking out of everyone's way if they get too close to me. I pass the sliding doors and try to catch a glimpse of my behind in the reflection and end up walking straight into the back of someone.

  They turn around and I don't even look up at them as I slip around them, trying to hide my dress with my bag.

  "Sorry!" I quickly apologize and dart toward the stairs.

  I swing around the banister and dodge out of the way of a girl on her way down and jog up the stairs.

  Everyone probably thinks I'm running upstairs to be sick. But I actually feel like I might throw up I'm so embarrassed.

  I hurry along the upstairs hallway looking for the bathroom and have to wait as it's occupied. A few minutes later a guy and girl fall through the door, laughing and giggling and I edge around them and shut the door. I dump my bag on the side and spin around, trying to look at my butt but I nearly fall into the bathtub. I jump up and down to try and see in the mirror but I'm too short. In the end, I yank my dress over my head and see a nasty red splodge. I can't exactly wash it off and walk out of here with a wet patch all over the back of my dress, that will just look like I've peed myself.

  I sag against the sink almost laughing. Those are my choices, I can either let everyone see my period blood or attempt to wash it out and everyone will think I've peed myself.

  This is the worst night ever.

  There's a knock at the door.

  "I'll be out in a minute!" I yell, grabbing some tissue and making a make-shift pad and shoving it into my knickers but it's the cheap toilet roll and it feels like I just shoved sandpaper down there.

  There's another knock at the door.

  Seriously? Can't they wait a minute?

  "I said one minute!" I snap, getting annoyed with whoever is on the other side as I look around the bathroom for anything to wear. But there's nothing other than the green shower curtain and I'm not wearing that. There's not even a towel.

  I'm digging through a cabinet looking for a towel when I hear the door open.

  What the...?

  I spin around and see the bathroom door opening and before I can reach it to close it, someone steps inside and I stumble back as they push their way in.

  "Couldn't you wait one-" I stop talking when I see who it is.

  My mouth drops open and I forget how to function and just stare at him like a lemon.

  "Oh Gawwd," I murmur.

  "It's actually just Boston, but you usually call me Dario." He smirks at me and kicks the door shut behind him.

  Chapter 3

  I stare at him. Unable to wrap my head around what he's doing here.

  "Wh-what are you doing here?" I ask, taking a step back and suddenly realizing I'm standing in my bra and undies. It's one of my nicer sets, but still. I'm nearly naked.

  I snatch up my dress from the sink and hold it in front of me.

  "Well? You still haven't answered my question."

  "I was in the area." Dario replies vaguely.

  "In the area? You don't go to college." I say and he raises an eyebrow at me.

  The last time I looked him up on Facebook, he was running his own garage. But I don't say this out loud because we're not friends on Facebook anymore after I unfriended him last summer and promised myself I would stop stalking him.

  Dario Boston and I have a complicated history. Well...not that complicated. We never dated or anything, but my feelings for him were very real. Still are, if I'm honest, and looking at him now only confirms that.

  My heart feels as though it's pumping as loud and as hard as the music downstairs that is vibrating through the floor.

  I lift my eyes to the boy I have been crushing on since I was fifteen, ever since I started working at the same supermarket as him. The thing about Dario is, I never felt like I needed to impress him or be somebody else around him. He was a year older than me and I was young and a little foolish, and not really sure what I was feeling for him until it was too late and my mom moved us to Nebraska in an attempt to keep my sister away from the boy she was head over heels in love with. But it's almost laughable how that turned out, I don't know why Mom ever thought 400 miles would keep them apart.

  This thing between Dario and myself all started when we started messaging each other and laughing together at work, it was all innocent...until it wasn't.

  He was at some party one night and phoned me up as part of his dare and that's another embarrassing story I never want to repeat to anyone. We didn't have many kisses before I left for Nebraska, but they stayed with me. Dario stayed with me. Even after I left, I couldn't get him out of my head. He was like a stuck record playing over and over. I still remember the day we left Radley Springs. It was pretty chaotic. The police called my mom in the middle of the night to inform her that my sister had been involved in an incident and that her boyfriend, Mitchel Torres, had been shot. Mom woke me up and quickly explained the situation and made me get in the car and drove us to the hospital with the car loaded up with all our clothes and other household items ready for the move. We were leaving Radley Springs and I hadn't even told Dario I was moving.

  One year ago...

  Mom had left me sitting in the car in the hospital parking lot. She had told me to wait while she tracked down Kelsey. I don't know where she thought I would go at six in the morning. And I don't know what mess my sister had gotten herself into but it sounded serious if her boyfriend had been shot.

  I knew Kelsey was going to flip her lid when Mom eventually finds her and drags her out of there and tells her we're leaving. Like right now. Mom didn't give me much time to change and grab the last of my things, but I remembered my pillow at least.

  I propped my pillow up against the window, listening to Taylor Swift on my phone. My phone was in my hand, wondering if I should message Dario or not.

  Mom had sprung the move on us at the last minute, and when I say last minute, I mean like Friday night when I got back from school. We had two days to pack the whole house and my sister took off when she caught sight of the boxes and I hadn't seen her since. The only person I had told was Emily, and she had come over Saturday afternoon to help me pack and say goodbye. But I hadn't told Dario I was leaving. I didn't know what to say to him.

  It was so unfair!

  Mom was making me
move because my sister had royally screwed up. Again. I hadn't done anything wrong, but it felt like I was being punished as well. I phoned Dad and begged him to let me go and live with him but he told me it wasn't possible as they were having renovations and the house was being redecorated, but I suspected his fiancée had something to do with it.

  I opened a message and tried to think of the right words but nothing came to me. I gave up and dumped my phone by my feet so I wouldn't be tempted to message Dario and say something I might later regret. There was no point. I was leaving and I would probably never see him again. He'd probably forget all about me by next week. I'm sure he'd hear about the move from someone. He’s friends with Kelsey's boyfriend and no doubt she had told him about the move. I don't even know why I'm getting upset, it's not like anything ever happened between us. I don't even know if he really liked me or if I was just some girl he liked to mess around with at work. I'm only a year younger than him at seventeen, but maybe that was the problem...he just saw me as some annoying kid. For all I know, he could have been making fun of me behind my back and making jokes about me. He's never outright said he likes me. He confused me no end. At work, it started as us messing around and then it progressed to casual flirting even though I didn't know how to flirt, but then one day everything changed when he pulled me outside behind the delivery drop-off point and kissed me. It was unexpected and I never told him it was the first time I had been kissed. After that day it became a pattern, we would stock the produce section and when no one was looking we would sneak out back and make out. It made my evenings at work a whole lot more fun, and I looked forward to going to work.

  But as soon as it started, it was already over when the Torres brothers moved to town and Dario made friends with them, and he started calling in sick to work and things hadn't been the same since. I'd hardly seen him, and at school, he completely ignored me, so I had no idea what to think. Was I just a distraction to make the time go quicker at work? Did he even like me? Did he kiss other girls? I had so many questions and they would all go unanswered now. I felt like an idiot because it wasn't just kissing for me...it was more. I had slowly fallen for the goofy idiot. He made me laugh and I had fun with him, and he made me feel things I had never experienced before. I had never been interested in boys and I didn't know I was interested in Dario until he pulled me outside and kissed me that first time and it sparked a fire inside me. It's like he opened a whole new door. I found myself wondering what it would have been like if he had asked me out. Would I have said yes? Oh, who am I kidding? Mom wouldn't have let me have a boyfriend. She wouldn't even let Kelsey have a boyfriend and she's eighteen.