Part 13

"I don't have any other siblings. I'm an only child. According to which, you might probably think that I'm spoiled and pampered," Dash begun, his blue eyes resting on me as we sat on the blanket in the heart of the woods.

I nodded, imagining Dash living like a prince in a giant castle. "Yes. I'm sure you have a hundred servants at your disposal, ready to do your bidding."

"I'm sorry to burst your bubble but that's not the case. My father pampered me, I'm not going to lie, but my mother..." He trailed off, leaving me wondering about the woman who gave birth to him.

"What about your Mom?" I pressed.

"Well...let's just say, she won't ever win the Mother of the Year award," replied Dash, cryptically.

"Would you please be clear? What did your mother do to you? Was she not nice?" I asked, suddenly wanting to know everything about this trouble maker.

"She was not nice or warm or comforting. Since the day I was born, she had been telling me how much she hated me," he said.

"What? Are you sure? I'm sure your mother loves you," I replied.

"Shortcake, I think I know my Mom, and I know when she tells me how much she hates me." Was it just me or was that sadness I saw swimming in those vivid blue eyes?

"What happened?" I had the strongest urge to hold his hand.

"She ignored me for most of my childhood. She preferred her friends and parties over me. And even now nothing has changed. She never calls or emails to ask how I'm doing. It's only my dad who takes time out of his busy schedule to talk or see me," Dash answered.

"When was the last time you talked to your Mom? I enquired.

"I honestly don't remember, chocolate chip," he stated, his eyes not leaving me.

"What do you mean? Do you not spend Christmas with your Mom?" This was weird. Maybe Dash was exaggerating.

"No, not really. She is busy spending her Christmas break with her friends and family, not me. My father hates that she doesn't spend Christmas with us, but he loves her too much to say anything to her." He told me.

"No offence, but does your Mom not love your dad?" I couldn't even imagine how lonely it must be to spend Christmas all alone, without your Mom. I stopped celebrating Christmas and my birthday after my Mom died.

"That is a question I do not have the answer for. I mean, she is nice and loving to my dad whenever they are together, but she is hardly ever present, so I don't know." Dash pursed his lips, glancing around the woods before coming to rest back on me.

I was speechless for a minute, trying to process everything Dash told me uptil now. I never knew he had a mother who didn't love him. I thought he came from a rich family with doting parents who never said no to him. Dash never acted like a neglected child, or did he? Could it be that all his crazy behavior, disrupting the silence and decorum of classrooms was a way to get attention?

Stop it, Bri, you're being stupid.

"But this doesn't explain why you are so possessive," I finally said. The more Dash told me about himself, the better I would know him.

"Well, since I couldn't rely on my Mom to stay and love me, I begun relying on other things to keep me company. Whatever my father got me, I held on to it with all my might. I couldn't stop my Mom from leaving me, but I could stop my video games and my dog from leaving me," he said.

"You have a dog?" Instead of asking sensible questions, I asked if he has a dog. Tracey needed to slap some sense into me.

Dash nodded, a genuine smile brightening up his face. "Yes, I do. His name is Mars."

"You named your dog after a planet?" That was a strange name for a dog. If I had a dog I would name it Hydra or something, after the Greek mythology monster.

"He's red, so it fit. Plus I love the planet," he defended causing me to laugh out loud.

"Of course; continue your story," I urged.

Dash rolled his eyes. "Yeah, so, my dad bought me a dog when I was five and Mars has been my best friend ever since. I was close to one of my nannies but she was old and had to retire; we still talk to each other on the phone. She is one of the two people who actually cares that I exist."

This was too much, I was going to cry. I was such a horrible person to judge him so soon. I could feel tears pricking my eyes, and I tried my best not to let them fall. But I was not going to deny it, my heart went out to Dash for enduring so much at such a young age.

"Don't." His voice hardened. "Don't you dare feel sorry for me. The only reason I'm telling you all this is because you are pestering me, otherwise I would've never told you. So don't give me your pity, I don't need it."

"I do not pity you. This is empathy that I'm feeling. I thought you were somebody else and it turns out you're the exact opposite. I misjudged you," I explained.

"It's alright, shortcake, you're not the only one. I don't want people to know about this, so I make sure my secret stays hidden. Which means." He fixed me with those penetrating eyes once again. "That if you dare utter a single word about this to anyone, I would make your life a living hell, and trust me, shortcake, I am very familiar with hell."

I gulped but nodded, locking away his words in the corner of my mind. I wanted to confide in Tracey but I guess I wouldn't be able to do that now. Breaking someone's trust was not something I could do, even if it meant hiding it from my best friend.

"Alright, I promise I won't tell anyone about this. Tell me your story," I said.

"Good. So, I attended school but hardly made any friends. I was disruptive and people were afraid of me—some of them still are. I didn't want to make temporary friends, I wanted a best friend, someone who wouldn't leave at the end of the school year. But that didn't happen.

"I slowly started to build a reputation. No one came near me other than the girls who just wanted to date me. Their intentions were pretty obvious, so I didn't really pay them any mind. They wanted to have fun with me, and so I decided to have fun with them. Though I knew my relationships with those girls would be temporary, I still tried my best to be a good boyfriend. I didn't cheat on them; didn't talk shit about them with the other boys in the soccer team. And...well, I tried to be a good boyfriend to them. I thought, perhaps if I was loyal to them, they would be loyal to me. But that didn't happen either."

"Those girls played you?" I enquired, shuffling closer to Dash, eager to hear the rest of his tale.

"Some of them tried, some of them actually did. So I broke up with them," Dash responded, flatly.

"I see." I paused, wondering what to ask him next. "How did you come to Burswick? And why didn't your father choose to home-school you?"

"My dad wanted me to grow up in a healthy environment, and not to isolate myself from the rest of the world. So he made sure I went to school. I did have private tutors who gave me extra lessons, though," he replied.

"That's nice, so why did you come to Burswick?" I asked again.

"My dad travels a lot as you might've guessed. And I'm too old for nannies now. However, my dad still worries about me and wants me to study in a good school, so he sent me here. Also, I sort of got expelled from my old school." Dash paused. "Maybe my father sent me here because he was afraid my attitude was going to get me expelled again. I'm not sure about it, though. Maybe I'll ask him."

"You got expelled?!" The horror of the situation was too much for me. How was he still breathing after getting expelled from school? If something like this happened to me, I would dig my grave by myself and lie in it before the news could travel to my father, who would do the same to me. "What did you do to get expelled?"

Dash laughed. "I sort of embarrassed a teacher; more like the principle. She kicked me out."

"That is not funny! What did you do to her?!" I slapped a hand over my mouth when I realized I had spoken too loud.

"I just planted a boobie trap in her office. The bomb exploded and she ended up being covered in slime," Dash answered, laughing hard, his body shaking.

"That is not funny!" I was going hysterical. I could never imagine disrespecting a teacher like that. And he was talking about it as if it was a joke that never got old for him. Dash was not only bad, he was downright evil.

"You have no idea how funny it is. The look on her face as purple slime dripped down was hilarious. The entire school was laughing at her." Dash continued to laugh, it was a miracle he had even managed to utter the words.

"It is not funny, it is disrespectful. She ran the school and you ruined her reputation. No wonder she expelled you. Why did you prank her anyway?" I just couldn't wrap my head around this. How could a student blatantly disrespect a teacher?

"I pranked her because I was bored, and it had been a long time since I did anything fun. So I thought, why not. And it was worth it. So she expelled me, and my father enrolled me here at Burswick because he has to travel and therefore can't keep an eye on me," Dash replied.

I rolled my eyes at his blatant disregard for teachers. I was right, Dash was a bad influence; I needed to stay away from him. But how could I avoid him when I just agreed to be his girlfriend?

Bri, you are so stupid!

Stupid I was, and now I was the girlfriend of the boy who enjoyed creating chaos and panic amongst students and teachers. What was I going to do? Dash made me his girlfriend because he was afraid of people leaving him. Would I be just like them if I decided to leave him? And if so, did that make me a bad person?

"So, do you plan to behave yourself now or are you still planning to prank teachers and ruin the lives of the other students?" I questioned. I would teach Dash to follow rules. I would make him a law abiding citizen. People who followed rules were good, and I would make sure Dash became a good guy.

"Yes and yes. You will help me in destroying the lives of everyone in this school. It's fun destroying a school's reputation, don't you think so, shorty?" This guy was insane. He had lost his mind and now he was going to do the same to me. He would make me commit crimes until I lost my mind and then together we would live in an asylum where Dash and I would ruin the lives of the hospital staff.

My life was ruined.

"I will do no such thing. We have a murder to solve if you haven't forgotten. And once that is done, I will make sure you follow the rules—"

"Rules are for pussies!" Dash exclaimed.

I gasped. "That's a bad word, you're not suppose to swear while you are in school!"

"Says the girl who swears like a sailor when something bad happens," Dash shot back.

"That is not true! I do not swear like a sailor. I swear like a lady," I defended.

Dash rolled his eyes. The action tugged at my heartstrings and I knew I was a goner. If I found his eye rolling adorable, then there was no hope for me; I was crushing on Dash and was well on my way to the road which would lead to insanity.

"A lady doesn't swear at all. So you are not a lady," Dash stated.

"You don't know the definition of a lady; I doubt you ever read a dictionary," I snapped, folding my arms in front of my chest.

"I don't need a dictionary to know who is considered a lady, which by the way you are not," he said.

I rolled my eyes. He was stubborn and he was not going to give in. But it was getting late and I needed to go and read the bunch of diaries I stole with the help of my best friend. Hopefully they would help us find the real killer. I needed to go now and process everything Dash told me, only then would I be able to understand and be able to handle him better.

"Right, of course you don't. So this is why you are so possessive? Because you are afraid of people leaving you?" I had to make sure I had all my facts in order.

"Yes, which is why you are my permanent girlfriend now. And I won't let you go," he stated, standing up.

"But what if I don't want to be your girlfriend?" I asked, following him and standing up as well.

"You just agreed to be my girlfriend so now you are stuck with me." Dash picked up the blanket and begun folding it.

"What if I cheat on you?" I needed to know if there was a way out, I wasn't actually planning to cheat on him.

"Then I will ruin that guy but you will still be my girlfriend," he answered. Great, there was no way out. I wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not.

"I'm not sure how I feel about that," I stated as we begun walking back to the campus. I hope we didn't get caught.

Dash wrapped an arm around my shoulders and tugged me closer to him. "You should be happy, chocolate chip, because after I kill Damien I will take you out on another date."

Oh boy!

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Author's Note.

Hi guys,

Here is another chapter, I hope you all like it.

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Until next time.

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