The hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
This time, I don’t brush off the sensation. I stop, my shoulders inching higher. I can’t relax enough to lower them, to pretend that everything is normal. I glance down at my phone, wondering what to do. Text Greyson? Video while I rotate in a circle?
I scan the street, but I don’t see anything out of the ordinary. No one obviously watching me anyway. My gaze lifts to the windows of the shops and the apartments above them. Still nothing. It’s as quiet as can be expected on Friday, mid-afternoon.
Yes, there are people around. But no one pays me any attention.
After a moment, I continue on. My gait is a little faster, my stride stretching. I don’t want to panic. Not yet. And once I round a corner, I’m suddenly able to breathe again.
I shake it off and continue to campus. I walk into the student center and find the spot Willow has holed up in with Amanda and Jess. They’ve got their textbooks and laptops open, notebooks on their laps.
“Hey,” I say, sinking down into the empty chair.
“How was it?” Willow asks.
“How was what?” Amanda scoots toward me. “You holding out on us, Reece?”
I laugh. “Yeah, I guess I am. I have an audition with Crown Point Ballet in two weeks.”
Her eyes widen, and her mouth drops open. She chucks her notebook to the floor and bolts to her feet. “No fucking way!”
She grabs my hands and pulls me up, hopping around me. “You’re a fucking rockstar!”
“Easy, easy.” I hold on to her forearms, steadying her. “It’s just an audition.”
“Up until recently, you never thought you’d dance again.” She leans in. “It’s a big deal, okay?”
“Let us celebrate with you,” Willow adds. “It’s the least we can do.”
“We will celebrate,” I allow. “At the party.”
Jess perks up. “We’re going?”
We’ve been avoiding parties at the hockey house for the last month. I didn’t ask them to, but they did it out of solidarity. Willow and I weren’t comfortable being around Knox and Greyson. Actually, I’m not quite sure they’ve made up…
“Did you make Knox sleep on the couch?” I ask Willow.
I saw him folding sheets this morning, seeming annoyed.
She smirks. “Yep.”
“I wouldn’t have thought you could make that man do anything he didn’t want to do,” Jess says, awe in her voice.
Willow shrugs. “I told him he could risk it if he trusted me…”
I wince. I see that look in her eye. She was hurt by it, too, as much as she’s putting on a brave face now. “Well, we’ll get plastered and we’ll forget about him,” I advise.
“Perfect solution,” Amanda agrees. “We’re going to need it to drown out Paris and Madison.”
I snort. That’s the fucking truth.
“Hey, what did your mom say about the audition?” That comes from Jess, whose brows are drawing together. She has an over-the-top mother, too. The pinch of concern is warranted.
But it reminds me… “I actually need to break the news to her.” I rise. “I’m going to call her now.”
I step away from them, going to another quiet corner and taking out my phone. When I open her contact information, it shows me all the attempts to reach her that have gone unanswered. And again, I’m reminded that I’m just one of those things that has been left behind.
I dial her number, not hoping for much. I’ll leave a voicemail. One that explains everything, so she can decide. Because I can’t keep putting myself out like this, over and over, for her to ignore me.
Because it hurts. Each call that doesn’t connect with her hurts .
“You’ve reached Leigh Reece,” her recorded message says. “I’m not available at the moment. Please leave a message!”
She doesn’t promise to get back to me, I note. Whose benefit is that for? When calls go unreturned, she can say, I never said I’d call you back, Violet .
“We’re sorry. The mailbox is full. Goodbye. ” There’s a beep, and the line cuts out.
I stare at my phone screen for a second in disbelief.
Really?
I try again and get the same message. Has she not been checking them? Has she not seen my voicemails building up? With no inclination to listen to them—or delete?
I call her again, the hysteria climbing my throat.
This time, it doesn’t even ring. It just goes straight to that message.
Funny. I thought… I thought I’d have her if I truly needed her. Like if I was hurt and needed help, I could ask her to come back. And I thought she would. It’s a lie, though. A fabrication I created to make myself feel better.
A noise rips out of me. It comes out in a screech, like nails on a chalkboard. The sound cuts my throat, but I can’t stop it from bursting out. I don’t know what possesses me.
“Violet,” Willow says, shaking my shoulders. “Violet, stop .”
I close my mouth.
The sound is still building behind my teeth. I press my tongue to the roof of my mouth, trying to seal it out. Agony lances through me, and if she wasn’t holding on to me, I would fall to the floor. My vision swims.
“Breathe.” Willow looks over her shoulder. “She’s not breathing. Someone—fucking hell.”
White spots dance in my eyes, and I try to focus on her—I do. I really try. But there’s so much going on in my body. My skin is on fire. My lungs burn. My mind is going a thousand miles a second, racing toward the inevitable conclusion.
That my mother just doesn’t. Fucking. Care.
Willow releases me and steps back. I grasp at her, but then someone else steps in.
Greyson.
A sob bursts out of me, and I fold in half in front of him. I just know, somewhere deep in my heart, that he’d come for me even when all else failed.
But he’s the last one who should suffer through my public meltdown.
Maybe he feels differently, because his arm slides under my knees and behind my back. He scoops me up like I’m weightless and cradles me to his chest. My mouth is open, desperate for air, but nothing comes.
I’m not weightless. I’ve got a thousand pounds on my chest.
He carries me into a bathroom and sets me on the counter. He’s between my knees now, holding my face in both his hands. His lips touch mine, and I don’t know what to do with that. My mind shorts out.
I grip his shirt and anchor myself to him.
He kisses me through my tears and mess, pushing air into my lungs.
It isn’t so much a kiss as a resuscitation.
His breath fills my chest.
I exhale in a rush, through my nose.
We repeat, and I don’t have time to think. My mind stutters to a stop, just aware of his fingers splayed across my face, and his lips on mine. I tug at his shirt, inching closer. Until I can wrap my legs around his hips and fully press my torso to his.
He pulls away, just slightly, and looks me over. He swipes his thumbs under my eyes, catching tears and probably no shortage of running mascara.
“You always see me at my worst,” I murmur, a lump forming in my throat again. I’m too greedy taking deep gulps of air to say more. I feel like I just starved myself of oxygen for too long. The dizziness is still there, pushing at the edges of my consciousness.
“I want to see you at your worst,” he replies. “And your best. And everything in between.”
I don’t know how to respond.
“Tell me.”
“My mother.” I close my eyes.
More tears. They leak out, and he catches them with the pads of his fingers. He collects them like memorabilia, savoring them before they disappear.
“I think she’s finally set me aside for good.” I force myself to look at his face, to absorb his reaction. “She does that, you know. She forgets things, leaves them behind. I didn’t think she’d do that to me… but I haven’t talked to her in months. Actually talked to her.”
He scowls. “Parents are overrated.”
I touch his cheek. Of course he thinks that. His mom… he has happy memories of her, but she’s gone. And his father is the authority in his life. The loveless, political, power-hungry authority.
My mom did love me, but my father dying changed her. It ripped her up on the inside.
How do I compete with a broken heart?
“You and me, Vi,” he swears. “Okay? That’s all we need.”
I nod carefully. “That, and your teammates, and my friends. They’re our support system, too. Deep down, I think you love them just as much as I love Willow, Jess, and Amanda.”
He hesitates.
“If you didn’t trust Steele, you wouldn’t have had him in the locker room with you,” I point out. “And if you did something to Jack, I think you would’ve had someone with you for that, too. Or did you fly solo?”
I hold my breath. I never got concrete confirmation that he did anything to Jack. And while I don’t want to know what almost happened to me, I think I deserve the truth.
He sees my determination and sighs. He opens a video on his phone.
Jack is in the frame, hunched on the ground with the cliffs of the point behind him and the lake glistening in the moonlight in the distance. He’s looks like he went through a battering ram. His face is bruised and bleeding. He glares at someone off camera.
Greyson watches me. “Are you sure you want to know? You just… I just found you on the floor, Vi. Maybe wait a day.”
I shake my head and hit play.
“I went to her apartment after I saw the press release. I have a prescription to help me sleep. I brought some with me and crushed them up to put in her drink. It took a little while for it to hit her. I didn’t even have to force her to her bedroom—she walked there on her own two feet. I was going to fuck her, and I was going to video it and send it to you.”
Jack pauses.
“I’ve been dating Violet forever. She’s been by my side for the past three years. And then you come crashing into her life, and suddenly she wants nothing to do with me.”
He shuffles backwards a little.
“I fucking hate her for that. It’s a betrayal. She just left me? No.”
From off camera, Greyson asks, “You wanted to win her back?”
He laughs. “I fucking tried to mess with her head like you do. Especially after that video of her blowing me was posted. But instead of reacting like she does to you, she just… was done with me.”
It ends. The camera goes black.
At least it sort of confirms that Greyson didn’t take on Jack alone—but still, hearing those disgusting words come out of Jack’s mouth is something I wasn’t prepared for. I shudder.
“Why did you come to my apartment that night?”
He scowls and looks away. “A fucking fluke. I wanted to see up close and personal how you were handling the press release.”
“Asshole,” I mutter.
“You don’t remember what happened that night?”
I shrug. “No. I remember Jack waiting for me when I got home, and the next thing I know, I woke up feeling like garbage. Willow and I pieced together that something happened, but…”
“I came into your room to find him…” Greyson’s jaw tics, and he visibly has to wrestle himself under control. “He was about to make a choice that would’ve ended a lot differently for him if I had arrived five minutes later.”
I shudder.
“I knocked him out, put you to bed, and took him to the point. He needed to know that touching you would have consequences.”
“And you broke his knee?”
He sneers. “He got off easy.”
“After hearing that? Yeah, he did.”
He steals a kiss from my lips. It’s quick, there and then gone, but his smile is back. “See? You’re as bloodthirsty as me. Another reason why I love you.”
I freeze. “Love?” I choke out.
He grimaces. “Not romantic enough? Fine. I’ll tell you in other ways… tonight. After my hat trick.” He puts his lips next to my ear. “I’m looking forward to seeing you naked on our kitchen table.”
