Book review and thoughts by Steph.
Bully is a single POV YA romance novel told from the perspective of Tatum Brandt (aka Tate). It is the first book in the Fall Away Series. This book is 337 pages long and the typical read time for it is 5 hours. There are spoilers for this book in this review and lots of my own thoughts on things. There are also spoilers for the rest of the books in the Fall Away series. For those, I’ve included spoiler alerts, but I have not included spoiler alerts for things in this book because, like I said….the whole article is a spoiler!
While most romance novels are dual POV, I actually appreciated the singular POV in this book ONLY AFTER reading book 2 in the Fall Away Series, Until You, which is told from Jared Trent’s POV and covers not only the events in Bully, but so much more.
Tate and Jared met when they were 10 years old and the Brandts moved next door. The two became inseparable best friends. While Tate lived with her single father after her mother died of cancer, Jared lived with his single, alcoholic mother.
For four years, they were like peas and carrots. When things became too hard for one, they’d rely on the other. The large tree that stood between their houses literally acted as a bridge between their bedrooms and its large sturdy branches were a meeting spot for the two on multiple occasions. On nights that were really tough for Jared, he would even cross the branches and sneak into Tate’s room just to sleep next to her in her Queen sized bed.
But after Jared spent 8 weeks in the summer with his father, whom he’d never seen, when he was 14 years old, he came back entirely changed and determined to make Tate’s life a living hell.
Jared and his new best friend, Madoc Caruthers, started up what I’ll call “Operation Fuck Up Tate’s Life” and didn’t let up. They made up all sorts of awful rumors about her, pranked her, had her cast out of social circles, ensured no boys ever asked her out, and made sure that everyone treated her like a social leper while Jared and Madoc pretty much ended up not only being incredibly popular and running the school, but the entire social network of the teens in the town.
Her anxiety about even being near Jared had her create what she called her “lifelines”:
- Phone
- Keys
- Money
All things she might need to get away from him in a hurry.
By the end of her sophomore year, which is where the story starts, she’s had all she can take. She’s literally counting down the days until the school year is over because she’s going to be spending her Junior year in France. This is a vacation away from the two torturous assholes that she can’t wait to start.
At the beginning, she’s with her BFF, KC, who, albeit slightly annoying in my opinion, seems to be like-able enough for an overly preened teenaged girl. KC and her boyfriend, Liam, all but force Tate to go to a party where the three of them are fairly certain the two asshats will be.
Sure enough, they are. Madoc steals Tate’s keys and throws them into the deep end of the swimming pool. Since she’s a social leper, no one in the pool will retrieve the keys for her, so while Madoc and Jared (who has a teenage vamp of a chick crawling all over him at the time) along with everyone else watch on, Tate is forced to dive in the pool to get them herself. This, of course, leaves her completely soaked since she refused to even consider the option of taking off a single piece of clothing to do so.
For good measure, Jared and Madoc (and even Jared’s little whore in his lap) berated her while she was on her way out of the party. After Madoc went a step too far for Tate, she slugged him in the nose and then left in tears.
The story then fast forwards past Tate’s time in France and picks up at “present day” by starting with her at home. Alone. For three months. With no parental supervision. While her father is – get this – IN A WHOLE OTHER COUNTRY ON A WHOLE OTHER CONTINENT!
Can we just pause here for a second? Like, really, just pause here and look around for a bit?
This is the first time you’re going to have to suspend disbelief in this book, and honestly, this is the largest suspension that is going to occur. Mr Brandt is not a bad guy and he’s not a bad parent, but you’ll find, in this series, that the parents throughout these books are by far more concerned with their own lives and their own needs to even remotely give the slightest of shits about their own children.
****MASSIVE SPOILERS START HERE****
I promise to ** where the spoilers end if you don’t want to know any of this.
For instance, later you learn that Mr Brandt has not only been out of the country doing his own thing with work and what not, but he’s also been seeing one of Tate’s teachers. So his attention hasn’t been on her or her life or even Jared (you’ll find out in Until You why that’s even a “thing”). He doesn’t actually even re-focus back to his only child until she’s caught up in a sex-tape scandal and Daddy Dearest has to come to terms with the fact that she’s been sleeping with the next door neighbor while he’s been gone. And it’s not lost on me that once he’s back, all of a sudden he’s policing her time and her bedroom although, now she’s 18, of legal age to do everything but drink, and “the vacuum seal has already been broken” on her virginity! So WTF?
Katherine, Jared’s mom, has been a raging alcoholic for the last 14 years and pretty much left him up to his own devices to raise himself or be raised by Mr Brandt or Mr Caruthers. When she finally does get off of the alcohol, she’s so busy having an affair with Madoc’s dad (which you don’t find out until Madoc’s book) that she LITERALLY TELLS Tate that she’s been gone so much because she feels like it’s just better for her to live her life and do her own thing while Jared does his. WHAT? Then, cuz that’s not enough, she (a few years later) puts pen to paper and writes a romance novel all about her sexual exploits with Jason…using REAL NAMES FOR EVERYONE INCLUDING THE KIDS…and has adult-Jared’s assistant ship the book to the daughter she later shares with Jason when the kid is only a teenager! HOLY FUCK! Who wants to read about their parents’ sex lives? And who wants to know that’s out there for the masses to digest either?
Jason Caruthers, Madoc’s dad, is on wife #2 (who is a raging bitch and a half) and cheating on her with Jared’s mom FOR YEEEEAAARS. He’s more concerned about his work in Chicago than his son in Shelburn Falls, so needless to say, Madoc is left to run-the-fuck-amuck with unsupervised, hate-filled Jared!
And dear fucking Christ! Don’t even get me started on Sandra Carter! That woman deserves her own special ring in hell. Who IN THE FUCK forces their daughter to take on the name and persona of their dead sister?!?!
Anyway. Moving forward.
*******END OF MASSIVE SPOILERS*******
So it’s Senior Year in HS in Shelburn Falls with Jared (17) living alone next door to Tate (17), who is now currently living alone for three months. What could possibly go wrong??
Well, I don’t know about you, but I considered that Douglas starting the scene off by Mr Brandt telling Tate that he left her some condoms and a pistol – both for safety – might be a bit of foreshadowing.
KC comes over and they’re having a bit of girl time and begin discussing Jared. Tate just wants a normal Senior year. She hopes that Jared will be so busy racing his Mustang Boss at The Loop and working that he won’t have time to notice her, while KC insists that he won’t be able NOT to because she came back from France looking oh-so-hot. Not that she was bad looking before, but France gave her a renewed sense of independence and self-confidence, plus she’s grown up by a year.
KC goes on to say, “What I’m saying is, isn’t it about time you fought back? Played the game? If he pushes you, push back.”
This is the catalyst for Tate’s actions moving forward and I love it. I am totally here for it.
****SPOILER****
Later on in the FA series, I also got a great deal of enjoyment in the fact that KC was the one who said that “isn’t it about time you fought back”, and then had to take her own advice to push back against her mother.
*******END OF SPOILER*******
Later, a party is raging over at Jared’s house and Tate can’t sleep. Tate is a runner so she has to meet up with the running club at some God awful hour in the morning, and Jared’s raucous house party is keeping her awake.
Tate decides to fight back, so she pulls on some clothes and shoes and heads over to Jared’s. While she’s hoping he’ll have “grown up” over the last year, she’s not putting a lot of stock into it, but she’s trying to be diplomatic and take the high road by going to ask him to turn the music down. But before she can find Jared, who does she run into? You guessed it right. Madoc.
Madoc is described as…
More than a few girls wanted Madoc’s attention, but I wasn’t one of them. He was good-looking with his bright, blue eyes and styled blonde hair. He had a great body, and his clothes complimented his form. However, I doubted he ever used girls for longer than one night.
Madoc makes a pass at Tate, but before she can do much about, a guy named Sam steps up and says the first really interesting thing in this conversation.
“Hey, man, Jared says she’s off limits.”
More interesting dialogue continues as Madoc tells Tate that everything that’s happened to her over the last few years was 100% directed by Jared with Madoc giving an assist. While he admits that he still hasn’t figured out why they’re doing it, he states that he’s happy their antics have had the desired effects because now they have to put in much less effort as people have learned to stay away from her.
Jared appears in the doorway with his pants undone and his chest bare wanting to know what “she is doing here”. Tate politely asks him to turn the music down to which he replies with a curt “no”. They go back and forth until finally Jared says that if she strips out of her hoodie and gives him a lap dance, he’ll turn the music down.
Tate yells “COPS!” And the whole party falls apart in front of Jared’s eyes as people grab their shit and run out of the door. He then tells her that he’ll have her crying in no time to which she responds…
“You’ve already made me cry countless times.” I raised my middle finger to him slowly, and asked, “Do you know what this is?” I took my middle finger and patted the corner of my eye with it. “It’s me, wiping away the last tear you’ll ever get.”
Even in saying that, though, she knew it was going to be a matter of time before he exacted his revenge.
School starts and here is where the real drama begins to unfold because not only do you start to see just how awful Jared is and can be, you start to really fucking hate KC…well I did.
People are looking at Tate differently now that she’s back from France. Her self-confidence is showing. It’s during this first-day-back interaction with KC where you hear KC say for the first time that Jared wasn’t so bad while Tate was gone. Yep. Clue #1 the bitch is gonna flip on Tate. It’s a matter of when, where and how. So just go ahead and allow yourself to hate her now because she’s not going to get any better.
In one of her classes, a guy named Ben, who is also a star athlete, strikes up a friendly conversation with Tate which makes her feel uncomfortable. Not that he’s being skeevy (yet), it’s just not anything she’s used to since over the course of years, the Madoc/Jared asswipe duo have kept any potential male suitors away.
All is seemingly okay until lunch comes and Tate is left by herself in the cafeteria, at which point Madoc arrives on the scene to harass her. When he actually grabs her ass, she lays him out on the lunchroom floor with a quick knee to the nuts. Good girl!
While she spends the rest of the school day waiting on the Dean to call her to his office, it never happens. Instead, Jess, a girl on her cross-country team, tells her that Jared took care of everything by telling the Dean that Madoc ran into a chair. A stupid excuse that Madoc, himself, agrees with.
While I held out no hope that Jared had all of a sudden done an about-face regarding how he felt about Tate, I did wonder if maybe the reason he took care of the issue with the Dean was because Madoc had touched her. Like Tate stated earlier, Jared had never crossed that line, so I thought we were finally beginning to see a boundary to Jared’s cruelty.
After practice, the cross-country girls are in the locker room showering and none other but Jared saunters in like he has every right to be there and orders all the girls out except for Tatum, as he calls her. While she’s clad in nothing but a towel, he backs her up against the lockers and begins yet another verbal assault. More back and forth happens until she tells him “don’t touch me” to which he replies….
“If I ever lay my hands on you,” he said low and husky, “you’ll want it.”
Uh huh. Put a pin in that little quote!
The coach comes in and breaks up Jared’s little one-on-one party, but not before her cross-country “friends” all take pictures of the scene with her in nothing but a very short towel, back flat against the lockers, while Jared does the whole sexy-booktok book-boyfriend lean over her. Needless to say, that goes viral and her reputation takes a hit as people start to gossip about what they believe happened.
Later, Tate transfers from a class she no longer needs into a “throwaway class” about films and literature, but she doesn’t do her research on it because guess who else is in attendance? Yep! Jared. But also Ben!
The teacher says 2 things in this class that immediately got my attention. First was this:
“We’ll discuss, during tomorrow’s class, your first project for presenting a monologue to the class.”
Upon reading this I just KNEW that Tate was going to use this as a way to communicate to Jared, so I started mentally going through a list of Box Office Hits with memorable and emotional monologues to see if I could think of one that Tate might use because it matched some of their history or potentially her past feelings about being bullied. Or maybe even something hateful to just shove in his side like a dagger.
Second was this:
“Also,” Mrs. Penley continued, “for various discussions this year, you’ll be asked to pair up with a different person in class.”
And, of course, adding a little more forced proximity to the mix – cuz living next door to each other and going to school together isn’t enough – I guessed that Tate and Jared would be paired together for one of these discussions.
Turns out, I was entirely right about one, and entirely wrong about another.
At some point, KC comes over to Tate’s house for additional girl time, and what do you know? The conversation turns to Jared.
“Mmm . . .” She devoured Jared with her eyes as she backed up to my hair. “I hate to say it, but I wonder what it’d be like to have him.” “K.C.! Stop it. You’re my friend,” I scolded. “I’m sorry, okay? It’s just that he wasn’t that bad while you were gone. Honestly. He wasn’t the hell raiser he was before you left.”
Yep. Time number two that KC says “he wasn’t that bad while you were gone”.
Another night comes and Jared’s throwing yet another loud ass party.
Having already done the whole neighborly thing before by trying to talk reasonably with him, Tate immediately throws that tactic out the window and does the most BOSS ASS THING I’ve ever read a book chick do! She goes to the shed in the back yard, grabs bolt cutters and a padlock, goes over to his house, cuts the padlock to his outside fuse box, flips all the switches, and then replaces the old lock with one of her own. Then she runs her ass as fast as she can back to her house. She flies through the door, locks it and heads into her room. Next thing she knows, there’s a massive BASH downstairs – the front door banging shut – loudly followed by heavy footstep thrashing up the stairs to her room.
Jared comes crashing into her bedroom to confront her at which point Tate learns that he has a key to her house! Why? Well, guess who has been collecting the mail while she and her father have been out of the country over the last however long? You got it! None other than Mr Pissed Off himself!
More of their verbal sparring takes place until finally he promises that he will have her crying by next week.
Sunday afternoon comes and KC comes over to Tate’s house in tears saying that Liam is cheating on her. How did she find this out? Well, as “luck” would have it, Jared happened to be at the theatre KC worked at and happened to mention that Liam would be racing at The Loop. He also kindly offered her a ride, which she took. Upon arrival, he saw some chick all over Liam and confronted them. The girl made it a point to tell KC that she and Liam had been together for two months. Jared, in all of his kindness, apologized to KC for having to see that and told her how bad he felt about the whole situation. Of course, Liam was never on the schedule to race, but Jared promised to have him in the line-up for next weekend so that Jared could beat him for KC. He then sweetly offered her a ride home and even sent a few follow-up texts to see how she was doing.
Monday comes around and KC makes it a point to tell Tate that Jared has been texting her to see how she was doing and just overall being nice to her. Then she continues to go on and on with Tate insinuating that Jared is telling her everything that’s happening between him and Tate and, of course, making Tate out to be the instigator and bad guy. And…yep….KC is there for it! Buying the bullshit.
At lunch, Ben asks Tate out to dinner that night and she agrees. During that date, Tate asks why he asked her out. His response?
“Honestly? I’ve been wanting to for a long time. I never had the guts, though. You’re kind of on my bucket list.”
RED FLAG ON THE FIELD! I’m on your bucket list? Um. No, sir.
Regardless, the date continues and ends with a lackluster kiss. Before she gets in her dad’s Bronco, she texts KC wanting to come over and tell her all about the date. KC blows her off and says she has to work late. Seconds later, Tate sees Jared pull up to the theatre and KC get on the motorcycle with him and then speed off into the distance.
Yeah. Work late my ass, bitch!
He had won over K.C. K.C. had lied about working late. She had her arms around him. I wasn’t sure which one I was most upset about.
She gets home and three hours later, so does Jared. She’s watching him out of the window as he pulls into his driveway only to be hotly followed by a car with two guys inside. They guys start a verbal altercation with Jared and Madoc pulls up causing all hell to break loose.
Tate, for some God-forsaken unknown reason decides “hey, let’s grab daddy’s gun and go outside and join the fray! In my underwear!” Cuz sure. Why not? Sounds entirely reasonable. UGH!
After the fight is over, the other guys taken care of, and Jared holding onto the knife wound in his arm, the boys notice her standing there. No one really says anything to each other, but Tate snaps out of it and stomps back into her house with the gun in tow.
The next morning at school, Tate rounds the corner to find Jared and KC standing together at the lockers making out. She quickly hides herself in a hide-hole in the stairwell when the bell rang, only to be trapped there by Madoc and Jared having a conversation about KC and Tate.
Madoc questions why Jared is working so hard for KC and muses that it was just going to piss off Tate. Jared explains that was the plan. Madoc somewhat takes up for Tate saying he never wanted to make an enemy out of her and questions what they’re doing this for. Jared tells him to stay away from Tate, to which Madoc asks why he’s standing in the way of other guys who may want to take a shot at her. Jared claims he couldn’t care less what or who Tate did, so Madoc replies that she went out on a date with Ben. Jared says something about “they can all have her”, and the next thing you know Tate is in the bathroom, on the floor, crying her eyes out.
Good going, Jared. Mission accomplished. Didn’t even take to the end of the day Tuesday.
Jared indulged in my misery like it was candy. He had fed me to the wolves time and again, reveling in the unhappiness he caused. Jared, my friend, was completely gone, leaving a cold monster in his place.
At lunch, KC and Tate have it out when Tate confronts KC about her and Jared and the lies KC has been telling. Then later in the films class, a guy named Nate comes on to Tate. She turns him down and he becomes more aggressive and hostile. Jared shuts him down and pretty much tells him to stop fucking talking to Tate. Tate tells him to mind his own fucking business. She follows up with…
“You’re a miserable piece of shit, Jared. But then, I guess I’d be miserable, too, if my parents hated me. Your dad left you, and your mom avoids you. But who can blame them, right?”
She immediately feels bad about it, but not bad enough to immediately apologize for it either.
When she gets home, her grandmother is now there for a few days. Over dinner, they talk about how things are between Tate and Jared and her grandmother tells her that she can’t really consider herself having done everything she could have to save the relationship between her and Jared if she never allowed Jared to see her truth. Her vulnerabilities. Honestly, Tate’s just too tired to continue on and doesn’t even have the energy to follow through with what her grandmother suggested. She just wants it all to stop.
She goes to bed and wakes up hours later to the sound of a thunderstorm. Because she loves storms, and because it’s something she and Jared used to do together, she climbs out onto the tree and sits in their old spot. She sees Tate coming out of Jared’s house at midnight. He, then, catches her sitting there. In the tree. In a storm. With lightning. So he makes a snide comment about it to which she tells him that her getting hurt never mattered to him before.
“Tatum?” His voice sounded soft and gentle, and I instantly felt warm all over. But then he spoke again. “I wouldn’t care if you were alive or dead.” All the air left my body, and I sat on the tree branch feeling completely defeated. No more. I couldn’t do this anymore. There was no life in feeling like this. It was all a game to him, but I didn’t have the heart to play it anymore. I’m not strong. I’m not a bully. I’m not happy. I knew what I needed to do. I’m letting you go.
This is the beginning of Tate completely letting go of Jared, their back and forth, any energy she had that was still tied to him. All of it. Any of it.
The next day, with five minutes remaining in films class, Tate asks to give her monologue. The teacher agrees, and Tate gets up there and completely nails it. No, she doesn’t use a real monologue from a movie or a play or a book or any of that jazz. Instead, she speaks directly to Jared as though she wrote her own. She sheds a few tears. Everyone is enraptured, including Jared, several other girls cry, and everyone claps at the end. It really was some pull-at-your-heartstrings moment. She ended it with…
“You were my tempest, my thunder cloud, my tree in the downpour. I loved all of those things, and I loved you. But now? You’re a fucking drought. I thought that all the assholes drove German cars, but it turns out that pricks in Mustangs can still leave scars.”
Feeling relieved to have all of that out in the open, she agrees to a date at The Loop with Ben and heads out with him into the hall to find Jared, leaned up against the wall with red eyes, trying to pull himself together.
Next up? Dealing with KC.
The idea of apologizing to K.C. caused my stomach to roll. She was dating a guy that treated me badly, and it hurt that she could turn a blind eye to that. But, I also realized that she and Jared were using each other. In time, probably sooner rather than later, this fling of theirs would be over. As long as she wasn’t teaming up with him to treat me like shit, then I’d decided not to give him what he wanted.
And here’s where I just can’t find it in me to care. KC could have used some other guy. There are 2,000 kids in that school and she picked the one dickhead who masterminded a dual effort to ruin her BFF’s HS life! Jared used girls on a minute-by-minute basis, so I expected nothing less from him. It came as NO surprise that he was using KC to hurt Tate. KC’s betrayal, though? I would not let that go unanswered if I were Tate.
After Tate and her grandmother return from dinner, she sees Jared’s little dog, Madman, soaking wet, pawing at the front door frantically trying to get in. Tate goes next door and tries knocking and ringing the doorbell but no one answers. When she checks the handle, it turns and Madman goes rushing in. Tate sees the house completely torn to shit and walks through with glass and pottery and whatnot crunching under her shoes.
Eventually, she finds Jared sitting on the steps to the back porch with rain pouring down his body while he’s drinking straight from a Jack Daniel’s bottle. She tries to check on him, but he asks her why she cares if he’s nothing but a piece of shit. She tries to apologize, but he cuts her short and tells her not to bother.
He goes inside and she gets the bottle away from him and goes to dump it down the drain. They start a tug of war over the thing until she finally lets go and slaps him. He picks her up, places her on the edge of the sink and then pulls her right up against his body while holding her hands behind her back.
They sit like this for a while with her trying to get away and him keeping her directly against his body. He tells her that she fucked him up during films class today, to which she replied “good”. When he asks if she got off on hurting him, she replies…
“No, I didn’t get off on it,” I answered calmly. “I feel nothing. You are nothing to me.” He flinched. “Don’t say that.” The heat from his mouth wafted around me as I leaned in. “Nothing,” I repeated, barely a whisper. “Now, get off—” His mouth crashed down on mine, drowning out my protest.
They make out for a while, both completely getting lost in it, until it dawns on her that this is just another way for him to humiliate her. So she pushes him away and runs out of the house back over to her own.
What happened to “If I ever lay my hands on you, you’ll want it.”?
She hadn’t done anything to give him any indication that she wanted it. He pinned her against his body after he plopped her ass on the sink and gripped her hands behind her back. Neither of them said a word about wanting anything to happen between them before he just smashed his mouth on hers.
I wouldn’t have trusted that scene either if I were Tate. She had no reason to believe that this wasn’t just some acceleration of his “Fuck with Tate” M.O..
Friday night comes and she goes on the date with Ben to The Loop where KC will be with Jared, who will be racing. As it so happens, Liam is there too.
Jared’s race ends in a tie which causes a lot of drama between the two guys.
Jared held his hands out to his sides, palms up. “Man enough?” he asked sarcastically. The trampy brunette from Jared’s party, Piper, walked up and plastered herself to him like a snake. She cupped his cheek with one hand and grabbed his ass with the other. Plunging her tongue into his mouth, she kissed him slow and deep, putting her entire body into it.
Of course this happens in front of everyone, but when KC sees this, instead of getting jealous, she says…
“Fan-fucking-tastic,” she snarled. “Liam just saw that. Awesome.” I almost laughed, realizing that the only thing she was pissed about was Liam’s reaction. If Liam didn’t think that Jared was serious about K.C., then he wouldn’t feel threatened.
The race master decides to have a re-match with a twist.
“We know you’re exceptional drivers. The race was close enough to prove that. Let’s see who has the better machine.” “So who’s going to drive the cars?” Jared all but shouted, his face gone pale. The Race Master’s face puffed out as he grinned. “Your girlfriends.”
Jared retorts that he’s never had a girlfriend. KC replies that he’s just her rebound. The race master explains that if they have any plans on getting paid via the bets placed, then they’ll go along with this little set up and continues by saying that the boys can ride shotgun for moral support.
“There’s only one other person who I’d even slightly trust driving my car.” He raised an eyebrow and turned to lock eyes with me.
Everyone is shocked. No one more than Tate. She declines several times and even goes to walk away, but Jared stops her.
“Can I talk to you?” His voice was hushed, and his demeanor gentle. It had been so long, I’d forgotten how human he could be. Though, it wasn’t enough for me to forget how horrible he’d been, either.
I’m sorry. WHAT?!?! NOW you want to talk? Now that your reputation and your car are both on the line and you need Tate’s help? THAT’S the price of entry for a heart-to-heart? Get fucked, Jared Trent!
She says no, yet again, causing another round of back and forth between her and Jared.
Surprisingly, this whole ordeal is settled by Madoc who turns into the voice of reason in the moment and gets both of their heads in the game and their asses in the car.
While they’re sitting in the car waiting for the race to start, Tate notices a necklace of sorts hanging from his rearview mirror and recognizes it as being the Mother’s Day present she made for her mother after she died. It was a small piece of clay with Tate’s fingerprint on it that was hardened and put on a green ribbon.
“Good luck charm,” he offered, not meeting my eyes. “I took it a couple of days after you left it there. I thought it would be stolen or ruined. Kind of had it with me ever since.”
Tate wins the race, but not without a bunch of good-natured albeit antagonistic back and forth between them as she drove.
After the win, she thanks him for letting her race his car, and he replies with the following…
“Thank you, Tate,” he whispered. The hair on my neck stood up, and my hands shook. He hadn’t called me “Tate” since we were fourteen. Not since we were friends.
After that is the bonfire. Tate has already told Ben that she needs to leave at 1130, but he proceeds to get drunk and act as though her hard-stop means nothing to him, but not before he tells someone that he “scored the jackpot” by dating Tate.
WTF is up with this guy? First she’s on his bucket list and now she’s some jackpot? I don’t get it. Is it just me? Am I being weird here or is he?
Tate needs to leave, but KC has already left with Liam (that didn’t take long) and the other folks Tate knew are gone other than Ben and Jared – neither of whom she wants to leave with. So she goes off further away from the crowd in search of someone familiar that might give her a ride. Instead, she runs into the douche canoe, Nate. The guy that couldn’t take the hint in class who Jared told to stop talking to Tate.
Nate gets really aggressive and handsy which causes Tate to pepper spray his ass and yell at him about why all of the guys in their high school have to be such assholes. This ruckus brings Jared over who gets a real good picture of what happened and an even better idea of what could have happened and loses his shit on Nate. After he beats the dog shit out of that guy, he all but forces Tate in his car and starts to take her home.
Now I’m left wondering…
What’s happening here? Does he feel obligated to help her now because she helped him win that race back at The Loop? Clearly he has SOME morals. BUT! To call Jared morally grey would still be a bit of a challenge for me. He’s more along the lines of morally charcoal colored.
Jared is ALL IN HIS HEAD during the drive and begins to go faster and faster and drive more recklessly all while Tate is screaming at him to slow down, but he doesn’t listen. Instead, he says…
“Do you know how many squealing airheads I’ve had sitting in that seat? They loved it.” His eyebrows pinched together as he looked at me with mock puzzlement. He was pushing me. “Stop.The.Car!” I screamed, my heart pounding with dread. He was going to kill us. Jared twisted his head to face me. “You know why you don’t like this? Because you’re not like them, Tate. You never were. Why do you think I kept everyone away from you?”
Tate finally gets Jared to stop the car and they get out and have a heated knock-down-verbal-blow-out…in the middle of the street. As you do, of course! Tate steals the keys to his car and takes them off one-by-one and starts throwing them out into the dark woods when he either won’t answer her questions or doesn’t give her an answer that makes sense.
Eventually, Jared gives as many answers as he’s willing to give at the time, which equates to: he was protecting her, he was jealous, he was actively trying to hate her, but he wasn’t actively trying to hurt her (which I never bought), he never hated her, he couldn’t talk to her anymore, and finally, that he hurt her because she was there and he couldn’t hurt the person / people he really wanted to hurt. So, hurting her gave him the outlet he needed. Oh, and let’s not forget the excuse of “I needed you to not forget me”. Well good on you there, guy, cuz you ensured that with all of your torment and torture!
While he admits that he’s not telling her everything, he also says he’s not going to ever hurt her again, but he doesn’t want to talk about it anymore. That doesn’t sit well with Tate who just wants answers about what happened that caused them to end up where they were. Instead of giving her what she wants, he throws her over his shoulder and sets her down on the hood of his car and tries to kiss her.
When she pulls away and tells him no, he says he won’t unless she asks for it and then drags his lips all over her face and neck while practically begging to kiss and touch her. At one point, he even says…
“I want to touch you.” His words were against my lips now. “I want to feel what’s mine. What’s always been mine.”
Well, guess what, honey!!?? You could have been touching whatever you wanted for years now you fucking moron! Instead, you fucked it all up! And you think sitting her on the roof of your car and rubbing your lips all over her after you offered her a trail mix of shit excuses as to why you tormented her for years is going to have her spreading her legs for you? God! THIS IS WHY WOMEN HATE MEN SO OFTEN!
Tate tells him to stay away from her. Jared says “you first” and takes her home. Grandma leaves, and KC texts Tate to tell her “Jared’s all yours”.
God, I can’t possibly hate this bitch more.
School on Monday is interesting as Tate is actively trying to avoid Jared and Ben, and not really in any mood to deal with KC, when what do you know? Lunch time comes and Madoc Fucking Caruthers makes a complete spectacle of asking Tate to the Homecoming Dance in the middle of God and everyone. Tate finally gives in just avoid any further embarrassment, but figures she’s got a month to find a way out of it.
However, after a run-in with Jared in which there is more kissing, Jared apologizing, and Tate saying “no”, Tate tells him that she’ll never be able to really trust him until he tells her everything about how they ended up like this. Piper enters the scene and makes a fool of herself, but it’s here where Tate discovers that Jared gave Madoc a black eye for asking her to the dance. Now, all of a sudden, Tate’s no longer that motivated to ditch Madoc anymore!
KC comes over again. (WHY? WHY is this bitch still being allowed to hang around?!?!). She starts in on attempt to slut-shame Tate about how she’s dating Ben, jonesing for Jared and going to the dance with Madoc.
Back at school, the class slut, Piper, corners Tate at her locker and tells her that Jared is hers and has no interest in Tate. Tate takes the bait and starts rattling off questions to prove a point. If he’s yours…what’s his favorite color? What’s his mom’s name? When’s his birthday? What band would he listen to on repeat for the rest of his life? This pisses Piper off, but she does get a jab in by telling Tate that at least she knows where Jared goes on the weekends.
Tate goes home with a plan. Wait for Jared to leave. Sneak into his room via the tree. Snoop through the shit in his room. Find out what Jared’s not telling her. Get the hell out.
That works for all of about five minutes until Jared walks in wearing nothing but a towel and Tate has to make up a good excuse for being in his room. Since his birthday was a week ago and hers is like a day or two away, she uses that as an excuse and kisses him. Then she tells him that she’s not stopping, at which point, Jared proceeds to give her his own birthday “kiss”. They’re about to go all the way when Sam interrupts because Jared has a race at The Loop. Tate offers to go with him. Jared agrees so long as they come immediately back to his room to finish where they left off. On her way out of the room, she sees a picture of an abused kid on the floor that fell out of a box she was looking through. She snatches it up so as to not get caught and shoves it in her hoodie pocket.
When they get to The Loop, Jared pretty much tells her that he’s not doing the whole GF/BF thing in public, but shoots daggers at Ben the whole time for talking to Tate on the sidelines. When Jared goes to race, Piper steps up to Jared’s window and starts to get all skanky. Tate comes over and snatches her off, throwing her to the ground. She then throws Piper’s words back in her face by saying “he’s not interested in you”, and then tells Jared that she’s not hiding him and she won’t be hidden either. He responds by kissing her in front of everyone.
On the way home, Tate asks Jared where he goes on the weekends. He becomes defensive and they get into an argument. She asks why it’s okay for Piper to know but not her which really only makes things worse. Jared says some unnecessary shit in the heat of the moment and Tate’s just done. She takes the picture out of her hoodie and shoves it into Jared’s chest before she walks off.
Tate’s 18th birthday comes and she’s at a restaurant with KC. (Christ. Will you ever learn?). When they get back to Tate’s house, there’s a crowd of neighbors standing on the sidewalk gawking around her house. She gets out to see the tree covered in lights and lanterns of all shapes and sizes. Tacked to the tree is a note that says, “Yesterday lasts forever. Tomorrow comes never. Until you.” Thus the name of book two.
She goes to her room and finds Jared there standing on the balcony. He shows her a Manila folder with a bunch of stuff in it and tells her to look through it. Then he tells her what she’s been waiting to hear.
The summer he went to stay with his dad, he found out he had a half-brother, Jaxon, who was a year younger than him. He was raised by their father. They lived in squalor, for the most part, and their dad was a grifter. He was also into drugs, abused Jaxon, used Jax as part of his robbery schemes, and even let his friends sexually assault Jax. Jax and Jared immediately hit it off, and Jared went into big-brother-mode trying to protect Jax, but it only made things worse and ended up with Jared getting beaten as well. Jared tried to call his mother to get help, but she was drunk and didn’t think it was a big deal and had no interest in helping Jaxon since he wasn’t hers. (Like I said. The parents in these books are real gems.). Jared tried to save them both, but realized he could only save himself. So he stole $50, bought a bus ticket and went home. When he got there, he immediately went to find Tate and saw her at their pond with her dad…and his mother. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back. To him, it was a betrayal. She was getting the family he could never have, including his mother. He did get with his mother and showed her the bruises and the scars on his back, and she did call the cops to report Jax’s abuse. Jax was taken out of the house and put into the foster care system, but Katherine couldn’t take custody of him because she was an alcoholic. From that point forward, he threw all of his hate and anger toward Tate because she was there and she was an easy target. Because he couldn’t do anything to his father and he couldn’t change his mother or his past. He needed an outlet, and he chose Tate.
“You became a target, Tate. I hated my parents, I was worried about my brother, and I sure as hell couldn’t rely on anyone but myself. When I hated you, it made me feel better. A lot better. Even after I realized that nothing was your fault, I still couldn’t stop trying to hate you. It felt good, because I couldn’t hurt who I wanted to hurt.”
Emotionally exhausted, they fall asleep on Tate’s bed only for her to wake up hours later to a storm outside. Jared wakes up a bit after that, finding her standing outside in the rain. Shortly after, she ends up losing her virginity to him outside, in the rain, on her 18th birthday.
Homecoming Dance night comes and Tate has TWO dates. She goes with both Madoc and Jared who are pretty much dressed the same with the exception of Madoc’s purple tie. They go to the after-party at the same house where Madoc threw Tate’s keys in the pool and Jared eventually leads Tate upstairs into a bedroom. He sets his phone on a nightstand, queues up the music, and dances with her in private because he couldn’t bring himself to dance with her in public. Instead, Madoc had been the one to do that. One thing leads to another and they end up having sex in this guest bedroom.
Monday comes and Madoc is walking Tate to class. Shortly after he leaves her in French, everyone’s phones start going off with text notifications, including Tate’s. She sees a text from Jared and lo and behold it’s a sex video of them from the Homecoming after-party with a text that read something along the lines of, “I’ve had her. Who’s next?”
Because of the angle of the camera, which appears to be from the nightstand, and with all of Jared’s past actions over the years, AND because, let’s face it…the text came from Jared’s phone…Tate goes straight into “this was the ultimate betrayal and humiliation ever”. She leaves the class and Madoc catches her in the hall and convinces her he had nothing to do with it this time. She gets out to the parking lot to leave and sees Jared’s car sitting next to hers so she takes a crowbar to the entire thing, until he comes out and stops her.
Jared tries to convince her that it wasn’t him, but she’s having none of it. She leaves and goes to the cemetery to visit her mother’s grave. Jared finds her and reminds her that he forgot his phone at the after-party house and when he went back to get it, it was gone. Tate decides to play along so she calls his mother who previously mentioned on an off-handed remark that she turned on a GPS tracker on Jared’s phone when she got it for him. Tate tells Jared to go get the phone from his mother and meet her at the school because Katherine says that’s where the phone is pinging from.
At the school, they are walking down the hall with Jared using his mom’s phone to locate the tracker until they get within 50 yards at which point, it won’t track any more precisely. So Tate starts calling Jared’s phone. She realizes that it must be in a locker since it’s not going to voicemail, so she keeps calling it until she hears her ringtone in locker 1622. She tells Jared where she is via text and he comes up to meet her and recognizes the locker as being Piper’s.
Piper comes out of the classroom and is confronted by Tate and Jared but refuses to cop to anything. Everyone is gathered around watching and listening. Finally, between threats from both Jared and Tate, she opens the locker and throws the phone at Tate. She tries to put all the blame on Nate, and Jared tackles him to the ground and holds him in place while Piper tells how they got the footage from the balcony outside of the room, stole Jared’s phone after he left it, transferred the file from Nate’s phone to Jared’s then sent the mass text that day.
None of the kids who were oooo’ing and aaaahhh’ing, laughing it up and joking about the video earlier are singing the same songs. Everyone seems to understand how fucked up the situation is and just goes on about their business afterwards. Jared and Tate work to get the videos taken down off of various websites, and Tate’s dad comes home because Jared called him in the middle of the shit storm and told him what was going on.
A week or so later, Jared sneaks into Tate’s room during a storm and asks her if she likes her car (a G8). He’d gone with her and her dad to Chicago to pick it up. It had been something she was looking at for a while. He then gives her a charm bracelet with a cellphone, a key, a coin and a heart. They represent her lifelines. He tells her that he didn’t like the story she told on the way to pick up the car about how she had to make sure she had her lifelines with her because of everything she’d been put through, so he decided to get her this bracelet and add a fourth lifeline – a heart – him.
All of a sudden, Tate’s dad is everywhere. Like I said earlier in the first spoiler section, he’s now decided that this is the time to focus on Tate. Now that’s she’s 18. Now that she’s almost done with high school. Now that she’s lost her virginity. Now that she’s gone through a sex-tape scandal. Now that she’s in a committed long-term relationship with the only guy she’s ever loved (who is also 18). Now, apparently, is the time to play Dad.
And Tate’s sitting over here repeating to herself, “must earn father’s trust back”. WHAT?!?! Fuck that guy!
Overall, this was a great book and ends up being a fantastic series. There’s even the Hellbent Series with everyone’s kids.
I rated this 5 stars with no regrets and no hard choices in that matter. I will be re-reading this book and this series years to come. This is definitely not a one-and-done read for me!
Romance Novel Rants 