Author's Note: Ugh. I'm so not happy with this chapter. Oh well though, I'm posting it anyway because what happens this chapter plays a pretty important part in what happens in the rest of the story. Also, I think I'm sick or something because I feel very awful at the moment. So, yeah. If it sucks too much, blame it on me being sick?

Also, just a few things announcements: 

1. On June 16, 2013 my second joint story with the amazing @writerbug44 will go up. It'll be on our joint account called @RelentlessDreamer, so on the SIXTEENTH OF JUNE, you guys should go and check it out because it's gonna be amazing. It's gonna be called The Seaside Café 

2. I have a joint story with @PeachySweetTea who also graduated high school today, so that's cool. Anyways, you should also read our joint story called Lost in Translation which is up on joint account, @Reveurs.

3. NEW STORIES! My next story will go up on Wattpad on July 8th, and it'll be Like Crazy. Chapter 1 is already up- as a teaser sorta thing- but the actual story will be up on July 8th, which is coincidentally a week before Give Me Love will start going up. 

Okay, yeah,  I think that's it. Don't forget to comment and vote, pleeeeease!

Chapter 18: This is Just the Beginning, Baby

“How was the sleep-over?” Spencer asks me the next morning as we ride down the street back towards Grandmother’s house.

“It was really fun,” I tell him truthfully. “Two of my friends think that you’re hot though, so that’s weird.”

“What?” He asks with a surprised chuckle.

“Two of my friends think you’re hot,” I repeat.

 “Really? That’s…cute.” Spencer retorts, blinking a few times.

“Madison and Carly, they’re the two. Anna Grace just thinks you’re cute though, at least that’s what she told me.” I inform my brother, putting my Sperry clad feet up on his dashboard.

“Cute? Cute? Oh please, I’m not cute.” Spencer scoffs, shaking his head. “I am sexy.”

“If that’s what helps you sleep at night, bro.” I state, looking out of the window absentmindedly.

“It’s true,” He assures me. “Oh, and isn’t Madison the one that opened the door?”

“Mhm, that’s her.” I confirm with a nod. 

“She’s pretty hot,” He nonchalantly says.

“And you have Julia,” I remind him.

“Yeah,” Spencer sighs. “That’s not working out too well though.”

“What do you mean?” I wonder as he parks in grandmother’s yard.

“Just that we’ve both been really distant and stuff; I think a break up is coming.”

 “Well, that’s very optimistic,” I retort, getting out of his car, grabbing my bag.

“You know me, Stef, and you know I’m not an optimist; I’m a realist.”

“I guess that’s true,” I say, walking up to the front door with my brother. “So, did they buy the story?”

“Yeah, they did actually. Mom was the hardest to convince, but after a while, she relented.”

“Oh my God, Spencer, do you wanna do my the biggest favor ever?” I ask him as we walk in the house.

“Nope,” He chirps, going down the corridor and into his room.

“You didn’t even let me ask the question you jerk face!” I call after him.

“Steffy, why are you shouting?” My mother interrogates, walking into the room. “Are you feeling better?”

“What?” I query, furrowing my brow.

“Spencer said you weren’t feeling well last night; are you feeling better now?” She explicates.

“Ooooh!” I exclaim after staring at her in confusion for a minute. “Yeah, I’m feeling a lot better.”

“Are you sure you don’t need to go to the Doctor?”

“Yeah, I’m sure. I’m good. I, erm, I’m just gonna go and get ready for school now.”

“Okay then,” My mom says, making her way out of the house, fully dressed.

I let out a breath I didn’t know that I was holding and make my way down the tiny corridor, heading towards my room. I stop in the process though as my phone chimes in the pocket of my pajama pants, making me wrinkle my forehead, confused. That’s definitely not my text or ringtone, but it’s definitely not my phone. I pull my iPhone out of my pocket and peer down at it, seeing the screen illuminate briefly before reverting back to lock mode. It beeps again and I exhale sharply.

I walk the rest of the way to my bedroom and go in, closing the door behind me. I drop the bag on the floor and cross the small room, sitting down on my bed. I push a lock of my hair behind me ear and unlock my phone, reminding myself to take the stupid password off. It’s Sam0. In my defense, it’s an easy password to remember.

Dragging my finger down the top of the screen, I pull the notification center down and see that the beeps came from Twitter and Facebook respectively. There’s also a notice from Instagram telling me that I’ve been tagged in a photo. I check Facebook first, opening the application somewhat wearily. The fact that I got three of those notifications in a quick succession can’t be a coincidence. Something’s going on. The Facebook app crashes before I can see whatever it is though, making me huff in annoyance. The same for Instagram and Twitter. Must be because of the crap-tastic reception all the way out here.

Deciding that I’ll find out what’s up later, I put my phone down after checking the time- 7:30. My bus comes at 8:05 and I need at least thirty minutes to get ready and look nice and presentable. So I stand up from my bed and go over to my carry-on bag, pulling out the last articles of clothing I brought along. Okay, I definitely will need my clothes here by this afternoon. And if they’re not here, then I’m going to California my gosh darn self. What I have left in the bag isn’t even a cutesy type outfit. It’s more like, biker-chic type apparel. I sigh, realizing that I have no other choice and stand to my feet, going to the bathroom to take a shower.

Twenty minutes later, I walk back into my room, clad by my white towel and close the door behind me. I pull on my undergarments and groan in dissatisfaction, looking at what I’m gonna have to wear today. It’s this or going naked, and that probably wouldn’t be the smartest idea. Not to mention the little fact that it’s totally illegal.

I pull on the jet black cutoff Rag & Bone shorts and button the button up, slightly cringing internally when I remember that these are cotton shorts. What the heck possessed me to buy a pair of cotton shorts? Stupid Steffy, Stupid Steffy.

They are cute though, in a demented sort of way. The shorts stop mid-calf and have frayed leg openings and three little zipper pockets. Next I tug the grey shirt on over my head and smooth it down, peering down at it. It’s not so bad- it reads ‘California’ across it vertically. ‘Cali’, ‘for’, and ‘nia’. Because none of my heels would even look remotely stylish with this get-up, I take out my black 100% calf-skin leather Valentino Boots and slip them on after my white ankle socks.

The shoes are detailed with numerous little studs on them and they have a buckle on the side. I hardly ever go out without jewelry, so I pull my silver necklace decaled with a black mustache on the end on, my black diamond earrings, a skinny black ring with a black diamond heart and my set of set of twelve black bangles.

Leaving my bedroom, I go back to the bathroom and quickly brush my teeth, seeing that it’s already 8:00. I lazily braid my long messy hair into a sole fishtail braid and throw it over my shoulder, high-tailing back to my room. I know my Grandmother will start bitching to me if I miss the school bus and I couldn’t bare having to stay at this house all day- she’d try to make me do even more chores.

In my room, I collect my purse and cell phone before turning the light out and walking out of my room. I walk through the living room and see that my Grandmother, mom and dad are all sitting in the living room now. My Grandmother’s looking down in a tablet at something, but when she notices me enter the room, she closes it and glares at me.

“What?” I snap.

“Where were you this morning?” She interrogates, standing up.

“What kinda question is that?” I query. “I was in my bedroom.”

“No, you weren’t. So where were you?”

“Mother, what are you talking about? Steffy was sick last night,” My mom explains.

“Then why weren’t you here?”

“I was here; I don’t know what you’re talking about. I have to go before I miss the bus, though.”

“Have a nice day, sweetheart,” My dad call after me. “Learn something!”

“I won’t,” I retort, knowing it’s true.

I can really stay here for as much as I learn at Elm East. East Elm on a daily basis. Whatever. How my Grandmother knows that I wasn’t here this morning, I have no idea, but I’m pretty sure that I can get my parents to take my side in the matter. My father anyways. Like I said, I don’t think my mom really likes me that much. Granted, I’m not too crazy about her either, but still. I sling my purse over my shoulder and pull open the heavy front door, push out the screen door and step out in the mildly saturated air.

“Stephanie! Over here!” A voice shouts, startling me.

Suddenly the flash of a camera goes off. That’s when I notice the long line of black and white vans lined up all the way down my grandmother’s dirt road. The yard is full of weird looking middle-aged men holding cameras and voice recorders. They all begin snapping pictures of me, which in contrast with the sunlight, blinds me, making it nearly impossible for me to walk.

“Stephanie, did you father really lose his company?!”

“Samuel Watkins says you two are dunzo!”

“We all thought you were vacationing in Tahiti!”

“Is your brother here with you?!”

“What’s with the change of clothes?!”

“Whose house is this!? Are you living here?!”

The questions are fired at me fast. Really fast. So fast that I can barely even fully process one before another’s being shouted at me. I shake my head and raise my hand, trying to conceal my face from the camera flashes, but it doesn’t work. If anything, it makes it worse, as I try to walk away from all the photographers, because I trip over some kinda gardening tool in the yard and gracelessly fall to the ground, landing near a disgusting pile of cow droppings, just barely missing it.

Thank sweet Mother of Chanel.

“Is your father in jail for money laundering?!”

“Steffy!” Spencer calls, coming out of the house as the photographers crowd me, snapping their cameras, not even asking me if I need help or if I’m okay. Rude. “Leave her alone,” Spencer snaps, pushing the stupid men and their stupid big expensive looking cameras away.

“Spencer, are you still dating the Buckley girl?” One of them asks, referring to Julia.

“Is it true that your family’s poor now?!” Another shouts.

“Get outta here,” He demands, pulling me up from the ground.

I hear the familiar roar of the school bus roll up in front of the house and peel my eyes open, squinting as the photographers, relentlessly taking pictures. There has got to be at least ten, maybe fifteen of them. Spencer flags the bus driver, telling him to go on and his hand latches around my arm, trying to push his way through the paparazzi people surrounding us.

“Get the hell off of my property before I call the police,” My grandmother’s voice warns loudly.

“Mr. Vandergeld, is your family now living in poverty?!” One of the shutterbugs asks as my dad walks out of the house and stomps over towards the group of picture-takers that’ve engulfed us.

My dad remains silent, but he grabs me away from Spencer, pulling me towards the house. Spencer mutters something under his breath and out of my peripheral, I see him deck one of the persistent photographers dead in the face. In his defense, the little, short, bald man was shouting questions in his face. After punching the man, Spencer turns on his heel, walking back up to the porch, inserting the house behind our dad and me.

“What the hell are they doing here?” Spencer wonders, shaking his slightly bleeding hand.

“I have no idea,” My dad retorts. “I don’t even know how they found us.”

“I, erm, I think I may have an idea of how that happened,” I admit sheepishly.

“What’s going on?” My mom wonders, walking into the living room wearing a muddled look.

“There’s fucking paparazzi everywhere out there, Ma.” Spencer informs her.

“What?” She says, her eyes going wide. “Why are they here?”

“They were all crowding Stef; taking pictures of her and stuff.” Spencer explains.

“You were saying you may know how they found us?” My dad asks, looking down at me.

“Yeah,” I nod, pulling my phone out. “Just a sec.” I unlock my phone and try again to go to the Facebook app. This time it works though without any hesitation. The first thing I see when the screen loads is the red number above my message bar. Apparently I have a new inbox message, but the little globe also has notifications on it- fifty-two. I click on the message and see that it’s from Samuel.

It reads: I hope you didn’t think you’d get away with cheating on me that easily. P.S., after you see this, the damage will already be done. My family’s very powerful, you know that- getting Facebook, Instagram and Twitter down for a few minutes wasn’t too hard. In an hour everyone will know that you’re dirt poor- prepare to lose some friends. P.P.S., I’m not done; this is just the beginning, baby.

“Samuel must have tipped off the paparazzi,” I conclude, showing the message to my dad.

“What does he mean, ‘cheating on him’?” My father wonders. “Did you cheat on Samuel?”

“Oh, erm,” I stammer, my face going red. “This isn’t about that. This about them,” I state.

“You cheated on Samuel? Who the hell with?” Spencer demands, staring down at me.

“Can we maybe have this conversation at another time?” I plead.

“No, we’re having it now,” Spencer firmly tells me, crossing his arms over his chest.

“No, I don’t think we are.” I argue, putting my phone back in my pocket.

“That doesn’t matter right now.” My mother interjects. “What matters is getting things under control, and that means flying under the radar from now on. Is that clear?”

“Mom, come on, we’ve been hiding in Tennessee; how much more, ‘under the radar’, can we go?”

“Stephanie, don’t be difficult,” My mom sighs.

“Don’t call me that!” I exclaim, annoyed.

“Well, I don’t know what y’all are gonna do. But get them away from here.” My grandmother tells us, before stalking out of the room with an angry expression upon her old, wrinkled face.

“Hey, you feeling okay?” Spencer asks me. “You didn’t hit your head or anything, right?”

“Yeah, no, I’m fine.” I assure him. “Just not ready for the hell I’ll get at school for this.”

“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” Spencer assures me with a plastered smile.

“You didn’t answer any questions, did you, Steffy?” My mom wonders, looking at her PDA thing.

“No, mom, I’m not stupid; I know to ignore journalists.”

It’s not like when we lived in L.A. we were regularly attacked by a paparazzo or anything. In fact, we never were. I mean, why would we be? We weren’t- and still aren’t - celebrities or anything. Yes, I did live in Los Angeles, but most of the reporters and photographers lurked around Hollywood and Calabasas where the famous people live. 

Usually the only time stuff like that would occur is when it got out at Bayside that a family was withdrawing. Of course, the main suspicion of why a family would leave the city’s most prestigious and elegant country club is because they could no longer afford it. From there, someone would let the magazines know and they’d all send their people out for the story and photos.

The last time it happened was about two years ago. To the Miller’s. Poor Miller’s. I heard Mr. Miller was busted for embezzlement, so the bank repossessed everything and Mrs. Miller and her two teenagers daughters ran away to Paraguay on a ‘permanent vacation’. I guess we really aren’t that different; just my dad’s not in jail and we ran away to Tennessee.

“Good, because I have a feeling they’re not going anywhere anytime soon,” My dad sighs.

✈✈✈✈

“Samuel George Watkins, you better fled the country because if I find you, I’m gonna murder you. Then I’m gonna cut your fingers and toes off and force-feed them to you. Then I’m gonna hit you over the head with a shovel and toss you in the Pacific Ocean,” I threaten through the phone, leaving Samuel a warning voicemail. Figures the son of a bitch wouldn’t answer his phone when I called.

“Steffy,” Spencer scowls after I hang up. “You can’t leave shit like that on a voicemail.”

“And why not?” I scoff, rolling my eyes at his weirdness.

“Because if something really does happen to him, you’ll be a suspect.”

“Nothing’s gonna happen to that stupid jerk face,” I tell my brother, shaking my head.

Spencer is driving me to school, despite my pleads of staying out of school for the day. It’s not that I wanna stay at Grandmother’s place, I just don’t wanna have to go to East Elm today. Maybe the kids who briefly saw what was going on from the school bus window a while ago won’t remember. That or maybe this whole ‘Southern Hospitality’ thing is real and they can keep a secret. I don’t think the latter is true though.

“You don’t know that.”

“He’s a prick who sits at his house all day ruining lives.”

“Ruining lives?” Spencer echoes, glancing at me before averting his eyes back to the road.

“Yes, Spencer, that’s what he does. He’s a life ruiner, he ruins people’s lives.” I state, make a reference to Mean Girls, which is totally fitting and proper seeing as how I watched it last night for the first time ever. How I survived life on this planet for a mere seventeen years without seeing it is beyond me. Granted, when I was born, it wasn’t yet out, but still.

“Was that a joke? Because I don’t get it.” He admits, cruising down the street.

“It was a reference to Mean Girls.”

“Oh, that Lindsay Lohan movie? Jesus, Julia makes me watch it all the time,” Spencer complains.

“Speaking of Julia, how are you two doing?” I wonder.

“What do you mean?”

“Just that this morning you said you think you two are gonna break up.”

“Oh, well, yeah, I think we are. I think I’m gonna end it today.”

“What? Why? That’s an awful idea; Julia’s so sweet!”

“Well, yeah, but she’s kinda a, you know, bitch. Plus, we’re too far away.”

“Distance is an awful excuse, Spencer,” I scold him.

“Oh yeah? So, what was your excuse for cheating on Samuel?”

“Would you look at that,” I state as he pulls up to East Elm. “Gotta go to class, can’t talk.”

“We’re discussing this later,” He assures me as I get out of his Aston Martin.

“Yeah, whatever you say.” I say in a sing-song voice, closing the door and walking up to the front double doors.