The Seven Devils (YA "New Adult" Romance) Read Online Free PDF

party started right!”
     
    I grimaced, not understanding how my family could continue to drink as they did when it was plain to see what it had done to my father. Neil took my hand and asked quietly, “Would you like to take a little walk?”
     
    I nodded gratefully and called to my mom, “I’ll be back soon. Neil and I are taking a walk.” She waved at me distractedly and laughed at a something Austin was saying. Derrick glared in our direction and looked as though he was going to object to our leaving when we ducked out the door.
     
    Neil led me through the backyard and into the woods. I was an emotional mess and was happy to walk in silence. Neil held my hand and stroked it softly with his thumb as he led the way. After a few minutes we entered a slight clearing I had not come across before, and we sat down together in a patch of shady cool grass.
     
    I put my head in my hands and closed my eyes. “I’m sorry, but can I just have a minute here,” I asked. “I just need to try to calm down for a second.”
     
    Neil replied, “Of course.”
     
    I hoped he didn’t think I was a nut, but I felt like I was going to lose it. I quickly ran over my day up until that point. The mean girls, the lunch line, Neil being so nice, Erin and Melanie’s warning about him, my first kiss, and then Austin and Derrick’s reaction to finding me alone with him. It was all just too much. I thought Neil seemed great, but everyone says to stay away from him. I didn’t like Derrick but he seemed to be the most popular guy at the school. Was I wrong, or was the rest of the school? I seemed to have gotten myself into a mess already on my first day. And here I was in the middle of the woods with a guy I didn’t know very well and whom everyone warned me about.
     
    I let out a small sigh. “I’m so embarrassed,” I said softly. “I’m sorry for everything Austin said about you, about me. I don’t know what that Derrick guy could have said to him. Austin usually just ignores me… I’ve never had him yell at me like that.”
     
    “You already met his friend?” Neil asked.
     
    “Derrick? Yes. He made a fool of me in front of his friends in the lunch line,” I responded.
     
    “He likes you,” Neil said. “I could see it in the way he was looking at you.”
     
    I shook my head and said, “You should have seen them laugh at me earlier today. He made me feel so stupid.”
     
    Neil smiled. “You’re going to have to trust me on this one. He’s the type who sets his mind on something and won’t rest until he has it. The fact that you’re hanging around someone he detests is really going to get his blood boiling and make him try even harder.”
     
    “Are you telling me I should keep away from him?”
     
    Neil looked uncomfortable for a moment. “No, I don’t want to tell you what you should or shouldn’t do. I just don’t trust him. He never has anyone’s best interests in mind other than his own.”
     
    Each boy warned me about the other. I was beginning to think holing up in my room for the next year sounded like a great plan.
     
    Neil gazed out into the woods for a moment and then took my hand. “Ellen, there’s something I want to say to you, but I don’t want it to seem strange or make you uncomfortable.”
     
    I was almost afraid to ask. “Go ahead.”
     
    He looked down at my hand in his for a moment and then met my eyes. “Something happened to you, Ellen. I won’t pry. I won’t ask you about it at all. But,” he stalled for a moment and just gazed at me. He lifted a hand very slowly and moved it towards my neck. I tensed and nearly cried out, but something in his face made me trust him. His fingers grazed the area where my neck was bruised so lightly that I almost couldn’t feel it at all. “But something happened to you that shouldn’t happen to anyone,” he continued. “And I just want you to know that you’re not alone. You don’t have to deal with this by yourself.”
     
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