Dead End: Midnight Hollow by Penn Cassidy (free novel 24 TXT) 📗

their backs without meaning to. Okay…maybe I did mean to, but I hadn’t meant to lie about it. It was a surprise every time it happened. I never set out to hurt anyone, and you honestly couldn’t pay me to choose between them, because I loved all four of them equally. I finally knew that all these feelings I’d been harboring for Jason, Michael, Freddy, and Norman were real, and they were mutual. I loved them, and deep down, I was pretty sure they loved me back. But would that love disappear when they found out?

When Jason had come over the other day after school, he only had one thing on his mind. He’d been wild. The moment my door shut, he’d had me against the wall, his mouth devouring mine as his fingers slipped between my thighs. It caught me off guard, but I’d fallen into it yet again, like a spell weaving around my heart. But I’d pushed him away after a few heavy heartbeats. I just couldn’t stay into it without feeling sick with myself. I hated lying to them and to myself. I was sick of keeping secrets, and it was time I just let it all out on the table. If they didn’t want me anymore, then so be it. At least I’d know I tried.

I was pretty sure I’d scared Jason when the water works started. I completely understood his wide eyes. I mean, who the fuck breaks down like a hysterical baby after a makeout session that heated? I did, apparently, and he hadn’t known what he’d done wrong.

I couldn't turn it off, even as he’d demanded to know what was wrong. He’d always been a sucker for girl tears, and the babbling mess spilling out of my mouth like word vomit had him freaking out. I’d only told him half of it, not the full truth. I’d told him about how I had feelings for Norman, but I didn’t tell him it was all of them. I didn’t tell him how Norman was the one to take my virginity. I decided not to describe the way his best friend’s tongue and fingers had made me feel things I’d never felt before, and how I still ached to do it again.

Jason didn’t seem too upset. He’d been almost okay actually, as if he expected it, and gave me a small secret smile like he knew something I didn’t. I was worried he might get mad and call me a slut for harboring feelings for both of them. I knew for a fact there were others who wouldn’t hesitate. But he’d chuckled darkly before tackling me to the bed and demanded that I place my lips against his immediately. He’d nipped at my neck with little scattered love bites that made me blush and tingle down to my curling toes.

I needed to just stop being a baby and finally tell the guys how I really felt about them, before they heard it from someone else's mouth. It had to be me. I had to tell them the whole truth about what happened. Even if they didn’t feel the same way, at least it would be out there in the open.

“Dad, I can’t stress enough how much I really need to be there. Please… You guys don’t know how important this night is to me. Why don’t you ever let me go out during Halloween anyway?”

Was I pouting? Yes. Did I sound like a six-year-old and not an almost eighteen-year-old woman? Maybe. But their superstitions were getting in the way of my life, of actually living my best before college next year.

Dad looked over at Mom, his brows furrowing as he took a deep breath and released his death grip on the steering wheel. I watched him actively calm himself down and force a smile that was more of a grimace.

“Sorry, pumpkin, but the answer is still no. It’ll always be no. One day, you’ll understand why we do the things we do. We just want to keep you safe, and Halloween isn’t the safest night of the year. Maybe we’ll pop in a movie, say like...oh, I don’t know, Hocus Pocus? Your mom can make us some of her famous hot apple cider, eh?”

He smiled over at Mom with the same wide stretch of his lips he always reserved just for her, like she was the only star in his sky. Mom kept glancing back at me with hopeful ice blue eyes that matched my own, pleading with me to drop the subject and give in.

“I don’t want to stay inside on the spookiest night of the year and watch a movie with my parents when I could be with my friends instead. Why are you guys always saying no to everything I like to do?”

I was fuming. I just wanted to have a normal teenage life, to go out and have fun once in a while. “Why won’t you let me go outside when the sun goes down? Other girls get to go to the movies or hang out with their friends. Other teenagers go to parties on weekends. What is so damn bad about Halloween that we can’t even celebrate it?”

“Now isn’t the time to talk about this. You’ll know when you're ready to know these things. Everything we do has a reason,” Mom said, reaching back over her seat to swirl a piece of my dyed blonde hair between her fingertips. Crinkles appeared on the side of her eyes… I believe they were called crows feet, along with a soft, sad smile when I finally looked up at her.

“We love you, October,” Dad said as he reached over to clasp Mom’s other hand. He placed a gentle kiss on her knuckle.

He took his gaze off the road for a split second. Just one second to meet my eyes in the rearview mirror. One second was all it took to shatter time and make it stand still.

Mom was suddenly screaming, “David! The