“What’s up? Three calls before breakfast is a little excessive, even for you,” I said to Eve as I joined her in the parking lot the next morning.
She was paler than usual, and there was a jumpy, anxious quality to her that I rarely saw. I had barely raised my head from my books yesterday, given my important test, so it was nice to see Eve and get filled in on all the gossip of HHH that I wasn’t a part of.
“So, you saw my calls and just decided not to call me back?”
“I was in a hurry, and I knew I’d see you here.” Truthfully, I’d overslept and then had to shower for obvious reasons before breakfast and sort the sheets out in case my mother decided to be helpful and go and change them while I was at school.
Eve blew out an impatient breath and pulled her phone out of her pocket. “Whatever, we don’t have time to talk about why you’re so bad at answering the phone. Look what was posted on the student community board yesterday. It was taken down pretty quickly, but lots of people screenshotted it.”
She passed me her phone, and a heavy weight landed in my gut.
It was the article from the Midnight Falls Chronicle. The one about eight-year-old Cayden. There were a whole lot of replies underneath, though clearly the screenshot hadn’t captured them all. Most of them were shocked, skeptical, and some were demanding answers or saying that their parents wouldn’t want him at school in Hade Harbor.
“How can you trust me like this after what you’ve done?”
Oh my God. The truth finally clicked into place and made sense.
“He thinks it was me.” My voice sounded hollow. “Cayden thinks I leaked this.”
“Did he say something to you about it?”
I shook my head.
Eve’s face scrunched. “Why wouldn’t he? I’d want answers from you if I were him.”
“He doesn’t need answers. He’s already decided that it’s me…” I broke off and took a couple of steps away from Eve. “I need to speak to him.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea? He’ll probably be really angry,” Eve pointed out.
Suddenly, his quiet behavior last night was terrifying. If he was going to get angry, he would have already done so, like the night on the ice rink. No, he wasn’t angry, not like that. A terrible, terrifying thought occurred to me. I recalled what he’d said to me when we’d first met.
“When someone crosses me, I don’t get angry – I get even.”
I rushed into the school. The fastest way to the rink was through the main school building, and I couldn’t afford to waste any time. I had no idea if Cayden was still getting dressed after practice, but it was a place to start.
I was in the foyer when it registered.
White, fluttering sheets of paper were pinned to the bulletin boards and blowing around on the floor. Students were picking them up and reading them, laughing. Some people pointed at me, and I suddenly knew, before I’d even looked at one, exactly what that paper was.
“Lil,” Eve whispered, still at my shoulder.
I turned to her, feeling like the world was moving in slow motion. I glanced down at the paper in her hand and saw my own writing.
I dreamed of Cayden West again. Taking me, holding me down, filling me up so full I could feel his cum sliding down my leg all day.
No, no, no, no. I grabbed the paper and scanned it. Not only was it the most explicit and nonconsensual of all the things I’d written in my journal, but I talked about California in it, too. Both my terrible secrets exposed in front of the entire student body.
The paper crumpled between my fingers, and I dropped it on the floor. Pain filled me like nothing I’d ever felt before. Embarrassment, shame, and fear scorched a path through me.
I started forward, ignoring the laughter and shocked murmurs of those watching me.
“Lillian! Wait up,” Eve said, hurrying after me.
“Don’t follow me. I need to speak to Cayden alone,” I ground out.
“Wait, I’ll come with you,” she insisted, dogging my steps all the way down the front entrance stairs to the school and toward the rink.
“Don’t be seen with me, people will talk about you, too, that way,” I warned her.
She scoffed. “You think I care what people say? Lily! Stop!”
I spied Cayden’s bike sitting at the curb near the rink.
“Eve!” Asher’s voice reached us. He was heading out of the sport’s building, his bag over his shoulder and his eyes trained on his sister.
“Where is he?” I demanded.
There wasn’t any need to specify, I could tell by the look on Asher’s face that he’d already seen the journal pages.
“Inside.” He jerked his head toward the building.
“Wait out here or go to class,” I advised Eve.
“No, I need to come with you,” she started, until her brother grabbed her.
“Evie, they need to talk alone, clearly,” he said quietly.
I didn’t hear anymore, the roaring in my ears was too loud. I blasted through the ice rink doors, my gaze glossing over the display of sports equipment displayed at the entrance, celebrating all the sports that Hade Harbor excelled at. An empty hockey mask hung over a baseball bat, mocking me.
I turned on my heel and made for the locker room. When I got there, Beckett was just stepping out. He paused on the threshold, holding the door open. I stormed toward him, too embarrassed to meet his eyes. He’d read the pages, probably, just like everyone else. He knew what I dreamed about, all my twisted little fantasies.
I paused before entering.
“He’s alone, if you’re wondering,” Beckett offered.
I nodded. If even cold-as-ice, rich-boy Beckett was pitying me, I had to be pitiful indeed. I pushed inside, and he let the door close behind me.
Cayden sat on a bench, his padding still on. He stared at the floor, lost in thought. For a guy who had just exploded my life, he didn’t look too satisfied.
I stood and stared at him for a long moment, taking in the defeated slope of his strong shoulders and the fading bruises on his torso. My heart squeezed. It hurt. His betrayal actually physically hurt.
“Why?” I asked, my voice ragged.
He flinched, his eyes shooting to mine. There was a second where I saw his hurt, too, and it matched mine. Then cool indifference coated his features. He shrugged, leaning back against the lockers behind him, his beautiful body a picture of nonchalant strength.
“I could ask you the same.”
“Yeah, except I never told anyone—”
He held up a finger to me. “Don’t. Don’t lie to me. I had enough of your poisonous lies last night.”
“I’m not lying. I would never have done that to you.”
He exhaled in a harsh snort and stood. “The time for talking about this, and having a chance of being believed, is behind us. Get out of here and leave me alone, unless you want me to fuck you in the shower again. This time, though, I might not let you come up for air.”
He pulled his pads off and tossed them on the bench.
Frustration coursed through me. “So, you won’t listen to the truth?”
“I won’t listen to anything you have to say, because you’ve fucked with my head enough.” He let out an incredulous laugh. “Well done, though, Bug. You played me, you really did. I never saw it coming. Shy, geeky little Lillian, innocent, sweet…I bought it all. I never thought a girl like you could look at me, knowing everything there was to know, and want me anyway. Turns out I was right after all.”
I swallowed a lump of emotion in my throat.
Cayden’s eyes narrowed on mine. “Congratulations. You’ve managed to do what the Cutlers and Uncle Jack never managed to do – break my fucking heart and endanger my future. Now, get the hell out of here before I lose it.”
Break his heart? My own trembled at the confession, but then frustration reared up. He wasn’t going to listen to me. He wasn’t going to believe me, and he’d fucked my life up just as hard.
My terrible hurt turned to anger in a flash. “Before you lose it? Is that supposed to scare me? What are you going to do to me? Are you going to hurt me?” I stepped closer to him, getting in his face.
He put a hand on my chest and held me back. “Don’t.”
“Why not? You’ve already humiliated me in front of the entire school and let everyone know about California! My dad will know…” A sob forced its way up my throat. I beat at his hands, pushing him as hard as I could. “I hate you! I never did anything to you, and you’ve fucking killed me!”
“Don’t touch me, Lily, and don’t bother crying either. Your tears won’t work on me. You’re dead to me. You don’t exist. I don’t care what happens with you and your parents. I don’t care if everyone thinks you’re a fucked up little slut. I don’t care if you go live out those fantasies with half the hockey team – just stay out of my way.” He delivered the last words with stone-cold finality before shoving me away.
I staggered back a few steps, my feelings flashing between hurt and anger.
Anger won.
I turned on my heel and went for the door, fury brewing in my veins. I stormed through the rink, toward the foyer. The display at the entrance caught my eye. I plucked the baseball bat off its perch before I could stop myself and charged outside.
My eyes fixed on the bike at the curb.
I drew the bat back and lined myself up. The first hit took off the side mirror. I circled around and demolished the second one.
“Lily!” Eve’s voice screamed at me.
The sound of feet rushing toward me didn’t distract me as I raised the bat over the taillights and smashed it down, again and again.
Strong arms went around my middle, lifting me.
“Lillian, that’s enough,” Asher’s firm voice spoke in my ear.
“No, it’s not. It’s not enough until this thing is rubble!” I screamed, twisting in his arms.
Despite my wild movements, I couldn’t get away. Asher dragged me from the bike, and Eve pulled the bat out of my hands and tossed it to the ground.
“Get off me. I have to do something. I have to hurt him—”
“Like he hurt you? I think he’s hurt enough,” Asher said.
He had me turned away from the bike and the rink, facing the school. Everyone stared, and some had their phones out.
“It wasn’t me. I didn’t say a thing about him,” I fumed.
“Eve told me. Still, he thinks you did.”
“I don’t care what he thinks. He doesn’t believe me,” I ground out.
“Yeah, well, trusting others doesn’t come easily to some people… And if you read that newspaper article, you might understand why.”
“Don’t!” I managed to wriggle down from Asher’s hold. I pointed an accusing finger at him. “Don’t try and make me feel sorry for him, because I won’t.”
“Lillian Williams!” a loud voice thundered behind me.
I turned to see the principal staring at me from the top of the school stairs. She looked at me and then at the bike. Cayden had come out of the rink and now stood next to it, his face expressionless.
“Cayden and Lily – both of you, my office, now!”
I was bristling with anger as I sat next to Cayden in front of the principal. Cayden seemed like he might have been carved from ice. Not even a muscle ticked in his jaw, nothing.
Principal Smith blew out a long sigh. “Look, I know things can get out of hand when you’re a teenager, but destruction of property and whatever this is,” she waved a copy of my journal page, “we don’t have time for it at school.”
She turned her attention to me. “Lillian, are you aware that Cayden could press charges against you for destruction of private property?”
My face heated. “Well, then, I guess I’ll press charges against him for libel, or slander, or distribution of confidential information.”
Principal Smith gave me an exasperated look. “Or you could both decide to let things go. I’m sure Coach Eric will cover the bike repairs, considering the vast number of witnesses who saw you cause the damage, Lily.”
I shrugged. “I wouldn’t count on it, as my parents are probably never going to speak to me again.”
Cayden snorted. “Don’t be so dramatic.”
I shot him a deadly look. “Don’t speak to me. I don’t exist, remember?”
“Whatever. Can I go?” Cayden made to stand.
“No. Sit down, Mr. West. Did you distribute these papers?”
“Not that I recall,” Cayden drawled. “Besides, if Bug wasn’t acting like a kid caught with her hand in the cookie jar, no one would even suspect that it wasn’t just a prank. The way she’s acting is only confirming that it’s her journal entry – if only she was smart enough to figure that out.”
My anger choked me, and I could only glare wordlessly at him.
“So, if that’s all, I need to get to class. We have an important game this week, and I was at practice at five a.m. and didn’t get much sleep last night.”
The reminder of last night only angered me even more.
The principal sighed, sounding like she was completely over idiot teens and their problems. “Are you going to press charges about the bike?” she asked, all business now.
Cayden shook his head.
“And do you want to make a complaint about this ‘joke’ of a journal entry or just laugh it off and de-escalate this entire thing?”
I shrugged. They were right, laughing it off would have been the smart thing to do, but I’d seen red.
“De-escalate it, I guess.”
“Good, okay, I’ll say we’ve looked into it, and it’s just a silly prank, made-up junk. Cayden, Coach Eric will get your bike fixed. I don’t want to hear about you two being at each other’s throats again. It’s senior year. It’s too important to waste time on this nonsense.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Cayden said as we all stood.
I glowered at him, but he strolled out, unbothered by my anger.
I followed him into the hall and waited until Principal Smith had closed her door before shoving him from behind.
“How could you?” I started, furious tears forming again. I’d never been so angry or upset.
I pushed him again, and he grabbed my arm, whirling us both so we ended up against the wall, hidden behind a huge fake ficus.
“Don’t start a fight you can’t win, Bug. We go our separate ways, that’s for the best. It’s merciful for you.”
“And who said I wanted your mercy? You really think I’d be grateful that you decided not to go after me, after what you’ve done?”
“It wasn’t unprovoked, and you know it,” he said quietly, emotion gleaming in his stormy eyes.
It hurt to see, and my own heart’s betrayal only made it worse.
“Right, you claim I broke your heart? Like you even have one.” I stabbed a finger into his chest right over said organ. “It’s just an empty cavern in here, isn’t it? Tell the truth. Don’t pretend to feel things like normal people do. I was right, I guess, when we first met, and I called you a parasitoid.”
His face tensed at that, and I could feel the hurt radiating off him. He was sensitive as hell about that word, I’d found that out the first time we’d met. In my anger, there was no weapon within reach that I wouldn’t hurl. It was a horrible thing to find out about yourself. I tilted my face up and stared at him, knowing he was too amped up to speak right now. He was working for calm, but it was slow coming.
“An organism that eventually kills the host it feeds on. That’s you, isn’t it…?”
He took a deep breath, and I saw the moment that he mastered his anger.
A cold smile slid across his full lips. “Careful, Bug. I don’t want to crush you, but I will.”
“I told you, I don’t want your mercy. Go ahead and crush me. Thanks to you, I have nothing to lose.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that. There’s always something,” he said with perfect confidence. The kind that made me nervous as hell.
Despite that, I couldn’t back down; I simply wasn’t able to. My anger was too great, and my pride, and fuck, my disappointment, too. I felt stupid and betrayed and annoyed at myself for feeling anything at all for such a monster.
“Do your worst, Cayden… that’s all you’re capable of anyway.”
I shoved him back, and this time, he let me. Escaping out of the side door, I walked away, my cheeks blazing, tears threatening, and a flurry of loud murmurs following me wherever I went.
