liar, liar. jacob barber

before

'Please, baby, I'm begging you.'

His hand brushing the hair off his face, Ben pleaded to his girlfriend as she remained uninterested. The boy had clearly never learnt that part of graduating middle school is to actually do schoolwork.

'Ben, if I do one more of you're assignments, I'll actually explode,' she spoke. 'You have Mr Owen for math right?'

This earned a nod from Ben, and a huff from his girlfriend.

'Yeah, he hated me when I had him last year. He would also probably recognize my writing. And in conclusion to my very important list of reasons you should do it yourself: you'll get held back like Jacob Barber did, and we won't go to high school together.'

Brown eyes widened at the reference to Jacob Barber. 'He's not just the clown, he's the whole freak show babe, I'm kinda offended. No clue why Derek hangs around him, he's gonna catch some disease from him, I swear.' Ben's voice had never faltered the cocky tone he's always had, yet y/n had grown used to it after their 12 months together. Yet however much she loved him, he'd always bullied Jacob Barber, and she'd actually felt sympathetic for the guy before Ben had tricked her out of it.

'Careful,' she laughed without the humour. 'Sarah has a huge crush on him. Lunch is literally just spent with her going on about Jacob this and Jacob that. She even wrote a song about him. It's obsessive.'

'Well, I guess Sarah can do whatever the hell she wants, it's just us.'

Their lips met over the piles of homework sprawled on his bed between them, her hand resting on his jaw as his rested in her hair. Ben lived in this moment, it was pure and innocent and he loved her. And she loved him.

They broke apart seconds before a knock sounded his door, the faint voice of his mother ringing through the hinges. The muffled speaking surrounded y/n's name, so she sprung up from the bed, swinging her backpack over her shoulder and turned the handle of Ben's door.

Joan's dimples appeared as a smile showed on her face at the sight of her son's girlfriend. Mrs Rifkin had always loved y/n, she was polite and grateful and she was a good lover for her son.

'Thank you for letting me come over, Mrs Rifkin,' y/n said with a smile, earning a nod and smile in return from Ben's mother.

The stairs creaked as she walked down them, and the door opened to reveal Mrs l/n on the phone to someone, her personal assistant probably.

By no means would I ever say that y/n's mother didn't love her, but it never really seemed like she cared. She had always been super distant, but y/n had always drawn it back to the fact that her mother had a busy job and being the Mayor of an overdrafted town can't have been an easy workplace on top of being a mother and wife.

They sat in the car for a moment, breathing being the only noise beside the rambling of her mother's PA over the phone, on and on about some financial economic downturn that he'd stressed over for days.

The ride home was silent, as many of their conversations were.

And as they pulled up to the house, a mumbled 'thank you, mom' leaving the girl's mouth, y/n trodded up the stairs in her fatigued state, not even a word from her father in the kitchen, she shut her bedroom door and collapsed on the bad as if she'd never left it.

At the end of the day, everyday was the same.

She was aching for something new, something special to happen to her.

Little did she know.

Hello!

First, I'm apologizing. I'm sorry that I left you guys after two chapters and an a/n. I never thought my book would gain that much traction and that so many readers would be left without an explanation to:

1. What happened in the rest of the book?

2. Why did Jacob record that conversation?

3. Where the hell did I go?

I'm so eternally grateful for the love my book has gotten in the past 8 months since I updated; I have 1.5k reads and people telling me how much they loved it. I'm so so thankful that people have read and enjoyed my book.

Now, for the book going forward?

You may notice that y/n's family life has changed drastically, and I'd like to explain that.

I'd really love for my book to be inclusive. Defending Jacob revolves around two families (The Rifkins and The Barbers) who are seemingly 'perfect', and I felt that playing into this stereotypically 'perfect' trope would exclude or disinclude those who don't come from families like those often represented in the media, like myself.

Please feel free to leave constructive criticism or your ideas under these chapters, as they will really help in the development of the book past the point we left off on.

Thank you all for visiting/revisiting, and to those who asked about my health, I'm doing alot better thank you!

All the best,

Poppy x