Penalty: A Bad Boy Sports Romance (Alpha Second Chances Book 3) by Rowena Page A

time—this image was photoshopped to remove it and make her look like some twisted version of what she eventually became.”
    “Damn, that’s cold,” she says, but part of me suspects she likes it as I watch her face. She seems to like all sorts of weird art, and now that I think of it, an image like this is probably right up her alley.
    I take it out of her hands gently.
    “I figured it couldn’t get much worse than that,” I say, “but apparently, Bethany was nowhere near done with me if she’s the one behind these rumors.”
    I tuck the photo back in the envelope, hiding it away again.
    “None of them true, by the way, and I can’t believe I have to actually confirm this. I know I’m quiet and I don’t talk about my past, but you and I are like ships passing in the night. Anyway, my life has been nowhere near as exciting as Bethany is making it sound, but it’s no one’s business either, you know? I like my privacy. I like things to be… peaceful.”
    “Well, you definitely swatted the wrong nest; the hornets are after you. I’m sorry, Madison. I don’t know how you’re gonna deal with this. I suspect things will only get worse.”
    I don’t know how I’ll deal with this either.
    I’m briefly tempted to start uploading more stuff to my Facebook profile and friending people so they can see how wrong they are, how normal I am.
    I have photos of things I ate and places I’ve been, too!
    I can prove I was in another college before this, and before that, in high school, just like everyone else.
    Damn, I thought keeping a low profile would spare me from this kind of drama, but now it’s working against me. Quiet people are easy to make things up about since no one has information that counteracts it. No one knows anything about me, so they’d believe anything about me.
    And I’m an easy target now that I’m with the highly visible, most coveted hunk of our school.
    That was my biggest mistake.
    How do I fix this? I can’t just transfer to another school again.
    I didn’t even really want to go through with college, but I always made excellent grades and got a free ride, so I figured, why not? Having a degree is always a good idea.
    But these college years are turning out to be the longest of my life.
    I remember wanting to grow up so badly, anxiously awaiting the day I reached legal age and could pretty much do whatever I wanted.
    The teen years seemed to stretch on and on, teasing me that I couldn’t really have my own say yet, each painstaking year toward eighteen.
    I got an unexpected boost to adulthood when my mom dead, and since then, it seems time has started going slower; I’m still not free somehow.
    “If there’s a silver lining or good news or whatever, I don’t think everyone buys the weird disease part,” Judy says.
    “Excuse me?”
    “The disease you picked up and gave to Abe. You know—since you guys were all big lovin’ and whatnot, and the few guys slept with all the women in the group, but didn’t really ‘keep it in the family,’ so to speak. Well, besides the one… ”
    I groan out loud, dropping my head into my hands as I plop my butt onto my bed.
    “Until Abe, I was a virgin!” I say, unintentionally revealing more than I usually would. But considering what’s going around about me, being a virgin isn’t exactly the worst thing someone could have learned.
    God, so I’m a diseased incestuous weirdo?
    I might have to move again after all.
    Something drops inside me at the thought.
    Yeah, it’s a pain in the ass to pick up everything and go somewhere new to start all over, but can I really stick around here now?
    I don’t think I can handle it.
    The last thing I want is attention, and now I have the worst kind.
    How could I possibly concentrate on my studies when I’m wondering who’s talking about me at the moment?
    What are they saying? Are they posting it in online forums? Will my name be attached to all these ridiculous rumors so that, in future job