Page 180 of The Compass Series

AIDEN

N ever in my wildest imagination did I envision myself going to a party with Carlton by my side.

Then again, never did I imagine Hailee befriending someone like him.

It was the oddest pairing in the history of pairs.

That was what I got for leaving her alone for a year.

My best friend had officially lost her mind.

“Can you do me one big favor?” I asked Carlton as we stood on the front porch of Cara’s house.

“What’s that, buckaroo?” He pulled out a pack of mints and tossed a handful into his mouth.

“Once we get inside, go off on your own and have the time of your life.”

He smirked ear to ear. “You got it, dude,” he spat out, hitting me in the face with one of the many mints sitting in his mouth. He took his hand and wiped it across my face. “My bad.”

Hailee owed me more than she knew.

I’d never been so irritated showing up to a party before. Sure, it wasn’t my first party. I’d been to a handful of gatherings in Los Angeles, but it was my first high school party. I was excited to see how much Hailee hated the party. That would be the most entertaining part of the evening.

As we walked into the house party, it was well underway. Carlton burst into the living room with his arms wide open. “Hello, party people!” he shouted. He went left, I went right, and I’d hoped we wouldn’t run into one another again.

I spent the first thirty to forty-five minutes of the party taking photos with people and having them record videos of me saying hi to their random family members.

The joys of being semi-famous. The second hour was spent with me talking about what acting was like and the different celebrities I’d interacted with.

I’d turned down about fifty drink offers.

The last thing I needed was for someone to post a picture of me drinking underage.

My father made sure that I was very aware of my surroundings since I was a public figure.

Underage drinking was not something I needed to get caught doing.

Even though I knew all the people at the house party, I was playing a role of sorts.

They weren’t allowed true access to me because the more people I let in, the more people could turn on me or use information against me.

Another tactic I’d learned from father dearest. The only people I could be myself around were my family and Hailee—who pretty much was family.

As I sat on the living room coffee table, going on and on about how sweet and great everyone was in La La Land—a lie, but I didn’t need my schoolmates knowing about my Hollywood enemies—Cara stepped into the crowd surrounding me.

“How about you all get off his dick so I can slide on it,” she said, winking my way.

Well damn.

A quite forward approach.

Cara looked striking. It wasn’t shocking. Cara had been beautiful since grade school. She was my first ever crush. She moved with a confidence a lot of people couldn’t carry and just seemed to always get anything she wanted without much effort. Her biggest downfall? She wasn’t Hailee.

Cara held her hand out toward me and tilted her head. “Do you want a tour of the property?” she asked me.

“Uh, yeah. Okay.”

The tour led us to her bedroom, and she locked the door behind her. The music from downstairs was still loud as ever, and Cara pulled out a bottle of liquor from behind her bed. She took a swig from it and then held it out toward me.

I shook my head. “No thanks.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Don’t be a pussy, Aiden. I know you’ve partied it up in Hollywood.”

It was the opposite of that. I worked, I had a teacher who homeschooled me, and then I worked some more.

The last thing my father would’ve allowed me to do was to go off to some Hollywood parties—unless networking was involved.

Each party I’d gone to was a business trip.

Plus, I was given an opportunity of a lifetime.

I wasn’t going to blow it for some booze and bad decisions.

Which unfortunately made my current situation a lot less appealing than I’d hoped it would be.

Aiden from five years ago would’ve been freaking out about being in Cara’s bedroom with the door locked.

The Aiden I currently was? I was on the brink of a panic attack, thinking about what would’ve happened if my father had found out about this situation.

It would look scandalous, and the tabloids loved a good scandal.

I wished I could’ve shut off my father’s stern judgments from every decision I’d made, but he was the Jiminy Cricket on my shoulder telling me not to make bad choices.

Plus, he was proud of me. Damn him and his pride.

“Maybe we should head back downstairs,” I offered, standing up from her bed, where she’d placed me. She walked over to me, stumbling a bit before taking a seat. On my lap. Oh boy .

“Or we can have some alone time.”

It was clear she had a bit to drink. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Why? Are you and that Hannah girl screwing?”

“Hannah?”

“Yeah. That girl who follows you around like crazy.”

“You mean Hailee?”

“Sure, okay.” She picked up the bottle of alcohol and took another swig. “Are you two fucking?”

“What? No. We aren’t. She’s my best friend.”

Have I thought about the possibility of having sex with Hailee? Sure. Yeah. Often. Twice a day. Maybe three times on the weekends. Whatever.

Cara scrunched up her nose. “Why, though?”

“Why is my best friend my best friend?”

“Yeah. I mean, don’t get me wrong, you’re hot and famous, and she’s… nobody.”

Within an instant, any kind of attraction I felt for Cara sizzled up and died. I removed her from my lap and stood. “I’m going to head back downstairs,” I shortly stated as her phone dinged. She reached over and grabbed it, ignoring my comment.

“Oh my gosh, did you see crazy Carlton?” Cara asked. “He’s going off downstairs about Hannah.”

“Who’s Hannah?”

“Your Hannah.”

“Hailee.”

“Whatever.”

I stood and grabbed her phone from her hands.

On the video was a drunk Carlton on a table, swaying back and forth with a bottle of liquor in his hand.

“No way. You think I like Hailee Jones?!” he spat out.

“Hell no. Have you seen her? It’s like she swallowed the Doublemint twins,” he slurred, mocking Hailee’s weight.

“Honestly, I just hung out with her cuz I felt bad for the chubby cupcake. She had no friends, really.” He went on and on and on, because the crowd gave him the laughter and attention that the addict craved.

I could feel the blood boiling beneath my skin.

I was going to murder the asshole.

I pulled out my cell phone to text Hailee, but it seemed she’d already seen the video.

Hailee: I’m not coming.

Hailee: This is humiliating.

Shit.

“Where the heck are you going?” Cara asked.

“To check on Hailee.”

“Who cares how she’s doing? Besides, it’s funny. Laugh a little. She’s not even on our level.”

Our level? As if Cara and I were the same in any way, shape, or form. That made my rage grow stronger.

“We’re not on the same level,” I muttered, walking toward the door.

Cara dashed in front of me and blocked my exit. “I swear to God, Aiden, if you walk out of this room to go check on that loser instead of having the best night of your life with me, then you are dead to me. Do you understand me? We are over if you leave. You’ll be dead to me. DEAD!”

I swallowed hard and stood tall as I cocked an eyebrow and locked my eyes with hers. “RIP.”

She gasped, stunned. “You’ll regret this, Aiden Walters. Mark my words. I’ll make sure of it.”

I pushed past her and left the house. I started running home as nerves shot through my system. The moment I approached the Joneses’ house, I repeatedly rang the doorbell.

“Is she okay?” I asked, my voice cracking when it left my throat as Hailee’s parents answered the door.

They looked up to see me, and the hurt in their eyes made my own chest ache even more.

Fuck. What kind of assholes would hurt someone as soft as Hailee?

She was the definition of kind. At that moment, I wanted to track down everyone who posted, reposted, and mocked my best friend.

I wanted to tear them limb from limb and make them feel like the complete trash they were.

“Not right now,” Penny said, her eyes glassed over. I wasn’t surprised that Penny was on the edge of her emotions because her daughter was her heartbeats. When Hailee hurt, Penny hurt even deeper. That was what moms did. They felt their child’s pain as if it were their own.

“Can I talk to her?” I asked.

“Did you know?” Karl asked. His brows were knitted, and his face was stern. Unlike Penny, he wasn’t sad. No, he was pissed off. “Did you know they were going to mock her?”

“No. Of course not.”

“Going to that party was your idea. I swear to you, Aiden, if you knew?—”

“Karl,” Penny cut in, grabbing him by the fabric resting against his forearm. She looked at me and frowned, seeing the hurt in my eyes that Karl couldn’t see because he was too busy dealing with the hurting of his daughter. She shook her head. “He didn’t know.”

“How can you tell?” he asked.

I respected Karl more than my own dad. When it came to being a father figure who could be soft and gentle yet stern and tough, Karl had it in tenfold.

My father wouldn’t know how to be soft and gentle if his life depended on it.

I really appreciated that about Karl—how balanced he was as a parent.

But, at that very moment, if he didn’t get out of my way and let me go see his daughter, I was going to bum-rush past him, and I wouldn’t even care if he fell to the floor.

“Because he’s Aiden. He’s her person,” Penny said, moving out from in front of the door. She nodded toward Hailee’s doorframe and gave me a broken smile. “So go check on our daughter, all right, Aiden?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I muttered, nodding once.

Karl gave me another hard look, but he didn’t say anything. He stepped to the side, which was more confirmation than any words he could’ve given me.

I placed my hand on Hailee’s door and turned it as my heart twisted in my chest. As I opened it, I found her sitting in a floral dress, cross-legged, with her back toward me as she stared out her bedroom window.

“Jerry,” I said, closing the door behind me. She didn’t move an inch. I wasn’t exactly sure what to do. Her hair wasn’t in an afro puff. It was styled with perfect loose curls. Even from only being able to see her from behind, I knew she looked beautiful.

She didn’t say anything.

I shifted around in my sneakers. “Can I sit by you?”

I waited a few seconds, and when there was no reply, I frowned. I bent down, untied my shoes, took them off, walked over to her, and sat beside her, cross-legged. Because when you were a best friend, you didn’t need an invitation to be there for your person. You just showed up and stayed.

Her makeup was ruined as tear stains left marks from their departure from her eyes.

Still, she looked good. I’d seen Hailee in some of her worst states.

When she had food poisoning from our favorite Chinese buffet a few years back, she looked like the walking dead.

She couldn’t do anything except walk to the bathroom, where she’d thrown up nonstop.

I held her hair back during her vomiting, and then she’d crawl back to bed, and I’d sat with her talking about bullshit that didn’t matter just so she didn’t have to be alone.

Carlton being an asshole wasn’t worse than when she had food poisoning, but I knew it twisted up Hailee’s stomach just as bad. My stomach was in fucking knots, so I couldn’t imagine what hers was doing.

I stared out the window with her, looking at the big oak tree sitting in front of it. We stayed there for a few minutes, silent and still. I only knew she was still alive due to her blinks every few moments.

“I put on a dress,” she finally said.

“I know.”

“I hate dresses.”

“I know.”

“I also did my hair.”

“I know.”

“I hate doing my hair.”

“I know.”

She turned her head in my direction, and her eyes were bloodshot, and fuck, if hearts could break from moments, mine shattered right then and there.

“I thought he was my friend,” she whispered.

I sighed. “I know.”

I patted my left shoulder, and she lay her head against me. I placed my head on top of hers, and we went back to staring out the window. Her makeup smeared on my shirt, but I didn’t care at all. If she wanted to use my whole outfit as a rag, I’d let her.

“I’m going to kill him,” I told her. It’d been the only thing I’d been thinking about since I’d seen the video of Carlton being a complete shithead. When I saw him, I was going to murder him.

“No, just… let it be.” She sighed and lifted her head from my shoulder. “Don’t you have a party to be getting back to, anyway? I’m sure Princess Cara is freaking out about you being gone.”

“I don’t care what she thinks.”

“Please. She’s the only thing you’ve cared about for years. Plus, going to a party is on our high school bucket list. At least one of us can check it off.”

“I’m not leaving, Hailee.”

She looked my way and frowned. “I think I need you to go, though, because I feel like I’m going to cry.”

“Which is why I need to stay.”

“You don’t need to see me cry, Aiden.”

“Why not? I’ve seen you cry a million times before. You’ve cried an unrealistic number of times before. Remember when we watched Bambi for the first time? Waterworks.”

“This is different. I’ve never cried like this before.”

“Like what?”

Her lips trembled as she stared down at her hands, which were linked together, and she began slightly shaking as she choked out her words.

“Like everyone is laughing at me because of how I look. Because of my weight. And I just thought… I thought he was my friend, and I don’t know why he’d say those things just because someone mocked him about us being friends, and…

and… and…” She began sobbing into the palms of her hands, and I was definitely going to murder that fucking asshole.

“Please, Aiden? Please just go? I want to be alone right now.”

“Swear?” I asked.

She nodded. “Swear.”

I sighed and stood from the bed, but before turning to leave, I wrapped my arms around her from the back and held her tight.

“I know you’re sad, Hailee, and I know you’re hurting, but even though you want to be alone right now, you aren’t alone.

I’m right next door. Okay? I’ll be right here, too, if you need me to be. ”

I walked out of the room and closed the door behind me. Instead of going home, I had another thing to tackle. So I headed to the living room, where Hailee’s parents were sitting on the couch, talking about what had happened to Hailee.

“Penny and Karl?” They looked up at me with concerned expressions, and I gave them a broken smile. “Do you think you can help me with something?”