“SO, I WAS kind of thinking,” I say quietly as students make their way into the women’s locker room. “I could cancel shopping with Megan and Chloe and go shopping with you instead?”
Clay sits on the bench, pulling on her sneakers and tying the laces. Her beautiful hair is flipped to one side as she leans over in her black leggings and sports bra.
She doesn’t answer.
“Clay?” I press.
“Shopping?” she repeats, not meeting my eyes.
I tighten my ponytail, looking around for eavesdroppers. “Dress shopping for prom?” I remind her. Did she even hear me?
She meets my eyes, looking like a deer caught in the headlights. “Oh, um…”
What the hell is wrong with her? I sent her a proper sexy pic of me last night, after the dumb one of me with my pasta, and she didn’t answer, and she’s barely made eye contact since we walked into school for our morning workout.
“Uh…” She swallows, standing up and avoiding my gaze. “I actually already have my dress.”
She has a dress… Okay, so what does that mean? I stare at her, her body language all wrong. What the hell happened between yesterday and today? She can’t go shopping with me?
I fight to find my words, but she sees me staring and meets my eyes briefly. “I mean, we said we’d keep this casual, right?” she says, letting out a laugh. “The date last weekend was enough risk for a while, I think.”
Enough risk…
Why won’t she look at me? Maybe I can stand being a secret for a little while longer, but I don’t like this distance that’s there all of a sudden. I’m not just some fuck.
I turn and take my phone out of my locker, grabbing my earbuds, too. “I like spending time with you outside of bed too, Clay.”
But she doesn’t want that. Or she’s not ready to admit it.
She reaches for me. “Liv…”
“Just forget it.” I move aside and close my locker. “Macon was right. He always is. I’m the stupid one.”
She slams her locker and moves past me, murmuring, “Meet me in the shower now.”
“No,” I tell her. “I’m over it.”
I’m not doing this anymore. Shit’s changed. I want to go to prom, and I want to go with my fucking girlfriend. That’s it.
I walk the other direction, but someone slips in front of me, cutting me off. “Hi,” Chloe chirps, carrying her bag and smiling as she looks me up and down. “You’re right. Black is your color.”
I force a tight smile as Clay tries to hide her snarl. “Thanks,” I say to her.
She moves past us to the next row and Clay comes in close. “I don’t want to lose you, okay?” she whispers. “Just give me a chance. I’m just not ready yet. I’m not sure. What if this isn’t real? What if it’s—”
I grab her by the arms and back her into the lockers, the metal clanking echoing throughout the room. She gasps as I glare at her, my teeth damn near bared.
Someone comes around the corner, and I look at Ruby. “Beat it.”
She looks quickly between Clay and me, ultimately deciding to not get involved before she ducks back out of sight. I press my palm to Clay’s chest, feeling the rapid beat inside. “When your heart beats too fast,” I grit out, “it doesn’t pump enough blood to the rest of your body. It starves your organs, making you lightheaded, unable to breathe, dizzy, weak, you can’t think…” I dive into her, pressing my forehead to hers. “I do that to you. Not him. I’m real.”
I release her, backing away and waiting. Waiting for anything. Waiting for a yes. A no. Waiting for her to realize that she loves her life with me in it, and the fact that she’s willing to sacrifice how good this feels breaks my heart.
She stands there, her chin trembling as she stares down at nothing, agony written all over her face. “I can’t…” she mouths before finding her voice. “I can’t tell my parents that I’m gay. I can’t ever tell them that. They won’t see me the same way anymore. I’ll disappoint them.”
Pains wracks my body as she goes blurry in my vision. “You don’t have to tell them you’re gay,” I whisper. “You just have to tell them that you’re in love with me.”
Please . I understand how scary it is to change things. To fear being seen differently in the eyes of the people you love.
But she will regret not taking this chance. She may lose me, but she will never stop who she really is, and someday it will be too much to hide anymore.
“Just take my hand,” I murmur. “Please take my hand.”
But slowly, she shakes her head, tears spilling down her face as she backs away.
I take a step. “Clay…”
She shakes her head, backing up more and more.
“Clay, don’t do this.”
“I’m sorry,” she says, wiping her tears.
And I lose it. I slam my hand into the lockers, on fire. “Goddamn you,” I growl. “Goddammit! I told you to stay away from me, didn’t I? I told you to leave me alone!”
I knew this would happen. I always knew she was a cunt.
She sobs, and I get in her face. “Why didn’t you just leave me alone, huh?”
But I don’t give her a chance to answer. I step around her, exit the locker room, and run through the still-empty school until I’m out of the building and a mile away in minutes. My lungs give out, I pant, and halt, hunching over as I try to breathe and stop the tears.
• • •
Hours later, my eyes still burn.
But I’ve stopped crying. I can’t believe I did at all.
“Heart Heart Head” plays as I dip one pearl after another into the glue and stick each to the bodice. Lavinia is running an errand in Miami today, so the shop is closed, the music’s on low in the workroom, and I’m alone. And thankful for it. I didn’t want to go home right after school, and I’m not in the mood to have to talk to customers. I hadn’t turned on the lights when I came in after school. I still wear my sunglasses. I don’t want to see too much.
I breathe in and out, gluing pearl after pearl, and still smell her with every breath. Why do I still smell her?
Why do I still feel her weight on me like I did the other night when we woke up to her parents fighting? She fit so perfectly in my arms, and I didn’t want to move from that spot, even if a dozen tornadoes were headed our way or a bomb dropped. I would’ve died there.
Macon was right. I would never have been the one to stop it.
I hate this feeling. I hate that maybe I finally understand a little of what my mother felt. I don’t want to understand. That kind of despair is pathetic.
I close my eyes, pushing away the tears again, but then I hear the back door slam shut, and I blink.
I lift my head from the worktable in time to see Callum Ames stroll into the room. My muscles tense, Milo and two others from our class—Bailey and Keagan—following Callum in.
Everything inside me tightens, alert.
“What are you doing in here?” I demand. “Get out.”
Callum approaches, and I twist in my stool, about to jump off, but he leans in as the others take up position around the table.
I glare at him. “Don’t touch me.”
“I will never touch you unless you want me to,” he says in a low voice. “And you will want me to.”
I look around at the boys, the sun low in the sky outside the windows, and I take my phone out of my jeans pocket, tapping away.
“I’m calling my brothers,” I tell him.
“Do,” he replies. “You’re not in danger.”
I meet his eyes.
“I guess I’ve never understood rapists and roofies.” He laughs to his friends. “What fun is it to win something that you have to steal?” He lowers his voice, husky. “I want things you don’t know you want to give me.”
Oh, please.
“Kiss me,” he says. “Kiss me and I’ll go.”
Is he high?
He pulls off my sunglasses, and I jerk away.
“Have you ever kissed a man?” he asks.
“Have you ever kissed a cow?”
He laughs under his breath as if I’m just so naïve. How many times have people asked me that same stupid question? As if I need to try everything to know for sure that I don’t want it.
He inches closer, and I press my back into the table, still holding my phone.
“Did you know my father is appraising your land today?”
I stare at him.
“Did you know his plans include demolishing the old lighthouse?” he asks. “They’re building cabanas in that spot.”
His friends draw closer, ever so slowly, and he raises his eyes to meet mine.
“Did you know that they’ll break ground by the end of the year?” Callum taunts.
The lump in my throat grows, but I don’t falter.
He’s lying. That’s too soon.
“Did you know that a structure can be deemed a historical landmark and cannot be destroyed after it reaches one-hundred years old?” he tells me. “And while fucking for me will get you Mercutio, fucking me will get you a meeting with Raymond FitzHugh to push through your petition to protect the lighthouse? And, in effect, your land?” The corners of his eyes crinkle as he pins me with a look. “Fucking me good guarantees it, in fact.”
I squeeze the phone in my fist.
“And did you know—”
“Shut up.” I clench my teeth, steeling my spine.
He cocks his head.
“Just shut up.”
And did you know…? And did you know…? I should keep my mouth shut, but the anger is spilling over the side. I’m full.
“Everything in the way you act tells me I’m supposed to be scared,” I say. “Showing up here with your boys. Uninvited. When I’m alone.” I gaze around the room at all of them. “What happens when you find out that the one thing you want is something you will never get? You will never feel like a man, Callum.”
That’s why he does this. Because hurt people hurt people. He doesn’t want me. He doesn’t want Clay.
I know what he wants.
“You’ll never take enough from people to erase him and how he fucks your stepmom and fucks your stepsister and hates you.”
His jaw flexes. “You think you know—”
“There’s nothing else to know about you,” I bite out. “You’re not in control. You’re a bottle of Jack Daniel’s away from slitting your wrists.”
The threat of four bodies surrounding me vibrates off my skin, and I don’t want to antagonize him and risk myself, but I’m tired of them making me cower.
And cry. Do your worst, you fucking asshole . I don’t think I can feel any more pain than I already do today.
I turn, slide my phone into my pocket, and start gluing again, feeling them all behind me.
I wait for the pushback. For the grab. The yank of my hair.
But it doesn’t come. The bodies in the room start to filter out, the back door opens and closes, and I glue more pearls, still feeling him behind me.
“We still have a deal,” he says. “And if you accept that role, I expect you to keep your end of it. Fox Hill. Be ready when I call. I’m dying to see you fuck.”
I keep working, his words making my stomach roll.
“How is she, by the way?”
I pause for a moment.
“She’s good, isn’t she?” His voice is almost a whisper.
I swallow.
“A woman’s body is made for men.”
My heart punches against my chest, unbidden images of him with Clay…
“She will fuck me,” he says. “You know she will.”
I close my eyes, knowing without a doubt that he’s right. She won’t do it, because she wants to. She’ll do it because she’s tired of fighting herself and she’ll give up. She’ll just let it happen, because it’s easier to surrender.
I bite the corner of my mouth to stifle the tears, hearing him leave as the feel of her floods through me. My arms around her, my nose buried in her neck.
His mouth on her body, his fingers inside of her.
I drop my tools, a sob lodged in my throat. Fuck her. How did I let her do this to me?
As if on auto-pilot, I take my bag, leave the store, and lock the doors.
She hasn’t called. She didn’t approach me the rest of the day.
She’s going to fuck him this weekend, and there’s nothing I can do about it.
I don’t know when it starts to rain, but in the half hour it takes me to leave St. Carmen, cross the tracks, and walk home, I’m drenched. My hair sticks to my face, and I trudge through puddles without the energy to avoid them. I step into my house, hearing the TV going and a radio blasting upstairs.
“Liv?” Iron hops off the barstool. “Jesus, why didn’t you call for a ride?”
Water spills down my legs and drips from my clothes. I walk for the stairs.
“Hey.” He hurries over and grabs my arm. “Christ, what happened?”
He looks down at me, but I can’t look up. “I’m fine.”
I can’t stop the tears welling, I only hope he can’t tell the difference with the rain on my face.
“That fucking bitch,” Dallas says, strolling over. “She break it off with you or you with her?”
I shake my head and climb up the stairs.
“Liv?” Iron calls.
But I keep walking.
“It’s dinnertime,” he says behind me. “Come and sit down. Please.”
I hear the worry in his voice, and it reminds me of Mom. How we would watch her avoid us and disappear into her room.
But I just want to be alone.
“Liv!” Iron shouts as I reach the top of the stairs.
“That’s what they do,” Dallas bites out. “Use and abuse until they’ve had their fill. I told you! We all told you!”
I push open my door and slam it shut, dropping my bag to the floor.
“Macon!” I hear Iron shout downstairs.
I slide down the wall, sitting on the floor of my dark room and lean back, my arm hanging over my bent knee.
I’m here. She’s somewhere on the other side of the tracks—shopping or doing homework with her friends or meeting him or…
If she wanted to be here, she’d be here. She doesn’t want to be here.
She doesn’t want me. She’s not thinking about me right now. She wants to be free of me.
Silent tears spill down my face, and I lean my head back, squeezing my fist as I hear paper crinkle.
I look at my hand, seeing a ball of paper inside that I didn’t realize I’d grabbed hold of from my school bag.
I open my fist, recognizing the lined paper and black handwriting. It’s her note. I don’t remember reaching into my school bag for it on the way home.
She wants to be free of me. Yesterday, she was mine.
I bend the other knee up and rest my elbows on them, burying my head in my hands.
Fuck her.
Fuck Clay Collins, piece of shit Saint with her money and hair and…
But I can’t stop sobbing, nearly choking.
My door swings open, and I smell the grease on Macon’s hands as he squats down next to me.
“Please don’t yell at me,” I beg, not looking at him. “Just let me get past it, okay? I will. I’ll get past it. I just need tonight.”
My family is good about staying in their lane, but when one if us is upset, everyone goes on alert. With our mother being clinically depressed, it only makes sense one or more of us will have inherited her problems.
I’m not depressed. I’m just…shredded.
“Look at me.” He puts his hands on mine. “Livvy.”
I shake my head. Please go away. A lump stretches in my throat so big it hurts. Just let me get past it.
“You’re going to stand up,” he says.
I shake, a cry in my throat. “I can’t…stand up.” I gasp, fighting for air. “I can’t breathe.”
He pulls my hands away, and I see him hover over me and take my face in his hands. “You’re going to stand up,” he tells me, “and you’re gonna do your homework, and you’re gonna go to prom.” My stomach twists into knots, and I shake my head. I can’t. “You’re going to be in the same room with her, Monday thru Friday for the rest of the school year, and you’re not sacrificing yourself out of fear. You’re going to do all of this, Liv.”
I cry harder, squeezing my eyes shut. I’m not in love with her. She can’t do this to me. This wasn’t supposed to happen.
“You’re going to go to Dartmouth.” He dips his head down close to mine, holding my eyes. “And you’re going to join a club and make some friends, and in a couple of months you’re going to have a life.”
How?
“You’re going to leave,” he grits out. “You’re going to leave here and leave any hope of her. You’re going to do the hardest thing you’ve ever had to do, because it’ll save you, Liv. Because you’re Trysta Jaeger’s daughter, and we’re going to do what she would’ve wanted us to do and didn’t have the courage to do herself. We keep biting back. We survive, because sometimes that’s the most violent thing we can do to other people. We stay alive.”
My body shakes as the tears pour.
“And in a year, you won’t even understand how you could have loved her this much,” he tells me. “I promise you.”
How can he promise that? He doesn’t know. No one does. I don’t think I can see tomorrow, much less months from now. God, how do I leave?
“I promise,” he says again, his eyes hard. “I promise.”
But I can’t imagine not wanting her. I can’t see not hating her with someone else and wanting anyone else as much as I want her. I cry, covering my face with my hands again, so he doesn’t see how fucking awful and pathetic I became because of her.
How I let this happen to myself?
But for a moment, maybe I understand a fraction of what my mother felt all her life. The despair. God, I hate it. I hate it so much.
Macon doesn’t say more. He scoops me up into his arms and carries me out of my room. Holding me tight, he carries me into his, where my father’s old recliner still sits, and sits down, hugging me close.
“Old world pepperoni,” he orders as he tucks my head into his neck.
And faintly, I hear Trace’s grumble, “I hate old world pepperoni. It scratches the roof of my mouth.”
But he leaves, following instructions, and after a moment, I let my arm circle my brother’s neck as he holds me until the pizza comes.
