43. Reese
43
REESE
My eyes are scratchy and dry when I wake up tucked into Dane’s side. I don’t remember going to bed or putting on his shirt over my thin camisole. He must have put it on me when I fell asleep during our movie marathon. Something inside me warms at the gesture.
For a short spell, I stare at the wall and watch the gentle shades of the pale yellow sunlight drench the room. Unbidden, my breath catches in my lungs as the Caleb situation comes to mind. Mortification grips me once more. Hurt floods my system.
I don’t know how to feel about it. I don’t know if it’s possible to get over how humiliating it is.
Stinging tears blur my vision just then. I suck in a lungful of air and bite back my sob when Dane slings his arm around my waist and draws me into the warm shelter of his body. His coarse leg hair is scratchy against my thighs. His breath hits my neck as his fingers link through mine.
“I know, I know,” he murmurs into my hair. “It’s a crying shame his Charger got totaled.”
A stifled snort escapes me. My eyes squeeze shut as a stray tear rolls down my cheek and splatters onto the pillow.
“At least it wasn’t a Stang,” he continues, and my shoulders shake with quiet laughter. “That would have been the real tragedy.”
Carefully peeling myself out of his embrace, my elbow nearly connects with the wall when I turn around to meet his gaze. His oversized shirt bunches up awkwardly against my hip and spine in the process.
His sharp features tighten with concern, and his mouth pulls into a firm line. With measured slowness, he brings the pad of his thumb to my cheekbone and dries my tears. “Hey, come here.”
“This is a twin bed,” I grumble, bridging the inch between us. “I’m already here.”
With a low chuckle, he somehow manages to tug me in closer to his hard chest. Even though I know the weekend’s over and that I have a calculus quiz in an hour, I cling to him and listen to the steady rhythm of his heartbeat.
“I’m so embarrassed,” I admit.
“That’s okay.”
“I’m really embarrassed.”
“That’s fair.” He begins to stroke the line of my back.
I swallow roughly. My voice is small when I find it. “I hate that they did this.”
His response is immediate. “I’ll put them on my list.”
“There shouldn’t be a list,” I mumble, and a soft laugh breaks free while I rub my bleary eyes.
“Then they shouldn’t have done this,” he grumbles, “if they didn’t want to go on my list.”
Despite myself, I rasp out a chuckle. “I wish I could continue calling out sick,” I admit. “I don’t want to see any of them.”
I haven’t shown up to work since my fight with Lilian. Knowing my sister, she’ll camp out at the campus bookstore and wait to corner me into a conversation I don’t want to have. Not right now. Not ever, if I had a choice. Why would I subject myself to another argument where she won’t let me get in a single word?
“I’ll be your bouncer,” he offers. “I’ll turn them around. If they refuse, I’ll scare them away, yeah? How does that sound?”
“Like you have too much time on your hands,” I say without missing a beat, and he snorts.
Before he can respond, my alarm goes off. With a groan, he reaches blindly for my phone, and the buzzing sound halts a few seconds later.
“What if we stay in today? We can attempt to make our own copycat pancakes from the pancake house.” He pauses. “Learn how to make artsy ones for your fiesta.”
“I wish,” I murmur. “I have a quiz worth five percent of my grade, and I don’t think my professor will let me retake it because I’m hurt that my sister paid a guy to go out with me.”
“You don’t know that,” he says. “Check the syllabus before you jump to a conclusion.”
I let loose a soft peal of laughter, my eyes sinking closed while his lips skim against my hairline. “I’m pretty sure it won’t be in any of them.” Reluctance weighs heavily on my mind as I detangle myself from his embrace, and my shoulders immediately hit the wall with an audible thump.
This bed is not meant for two people, especially those as tall as Dane, who always sleeps with his legs curled into mine whenever he stays over. Even so, I love the closeness it grants us.
His hand slides to my upper back and gently kneads away the faint sting, and his voice breaks my train of thought. “You okay, Reese?”
“I will be,” I whisper back and reroute my focus from his chest to his eyes. I know we’re not talking about my shoulder.
The corner of his lips tilts up while the rough feel of his palm trails to my jawline. “Fuck yeah, you will be.”
“I will be,” I repeat, steadily holding his gaze. Determination sets in and straightens my spine. Even though I’m not fully certain I’ll get over my mortification right now, I’ve dealt with much worse. If I can survive nearly dying on my bedroom floor almost two years ago, surely I can handle what Lilian and her sorority sisters did.
I expected to run into my sister at the campus bookstore; not while I was heading out of the Science Building. Maybe I should have seen it coming. With all the STEM courses I’m taking this semester, I have a lot of lectures in this building. Heck, I have a late class tonight in the same classroom I just left.
“Reese,” she calls out.
Indignation hardens my mouth into a harsh slant, and I stare ahead. My pace quickens, and I’m power-walking away from her like she’s one of those pushy solicitors on campus trying to get people to sign an obscure petition. It’s no use. With legs much longer than mine, she easily falls into step beside me.
“We need to talk,” she continues, and her words are enough to put a pit in my stomach.
“We do not,” I counter, growing stiff when she grabs the bend of my arm. “Let go of me?—”
“I’ll let go when we?—”
“ No ,” I bite out and shrug her off of me. Her stiletto nail snags onto the knit material of my sweater and unravels the yarn when I roughly pull away. “I don’t want to talk to you right now.”
“I need to explain?—”
“I don’t want to hear it,” I reiterate, heatedly swiveling toward her. Our eyes collide, and her breath hitches. “What I want is some space?—”
“Will you let me explain?—”
“Seriously, Lilian? Save it ,” I hiss. “You’ve never given me the chance to explain anything, so why should I give you the same courtesy?”
Taken aback, she opens her mouth, only to catch herself at the last second. She presses her lips together and tersely nods.
My jaw becomes tight as I forge on. “You wouldn’t talk to me for weeks when you found out I lied to you a couple of times about when I was working, so why don’t you give me the same amount of time now that I’ve found out you lied to me for months about Caleb?”
It takes everything I have to keep my frame from trembling while I level her with a reproachful glare. It takes twice as much effort not to crumble like a sandcastle and apologize for my petty remark. The people-pleaser in me wants to smooth things over, but I will not have my feelings dismissed anymore.
“I’m hurt by what you did. I’m beyond hurt. I’m humiliated .” My hand flies up when it’s clear she’s about to respond. “I don’t want to hear your excuses. Give me some space if you want me to get over this. I can’t heal or move on from this if you’re always steamrolling me into forgiving you because you decide that now is the time to resolve things between us. That’s not fair.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “For everything. I truly am?—”
“Save it,” I wheeze, hugging my arms to my chest. “Please don’t ask for my forgiveness, because you’re only going to make things worse. Just go . Please.”
“I didn’t mean to?—”
“You didn’t mean to pay Caleb?” I almost explode. My face blazes as I stare at her in disbelief. I don’t want to hear her rationale as to why she paid him to go out with me in the first place. “It just accidentally happened? Money somehow slipped into his hand and he instinctively knew what to do? Just— Leave me alone .”
Pivoting on my feet, I stalk off before things get worse between us. She doesn’t follow. Thank God. In a desperate attempt to distract myself, I try to fix my sweater while I head toward the tutoring center.
I wish I could feel vindicated. I wish I felt happy or justified I stood up for myself, but I’m just sad. Irrevocably so. My heartache hangs over me like a gloomy cloud. My mind is foggy, my eyes are still puffy and sting with fresh tears, and my throat is so dry that it hurts to breathe.
Sniffling hard, I only jolt out of my little pity party when my name sounds across the quad. Embarrassment flushes across my cheeks the second I spot Caleb jogging toward me, and despite turning the other way, he easily catches up.
“Are you being paid to talk to me right now?” The words hiss between my clenched teeth.
He halts, wincing. “You have every right to be mad?—”
“I am mad.” A mix of fury and disbelief spears me while I level him with an agitated glare. “How could you?”
“If you’d let me explain?—”
“Go ahead,” I grit out. “Explain how you pretended to like me for money.”
His throat bobs reflexively. “You have every right to be upset, Reese. I’m pissed the girls forced me to go out—” He expels a hoarse breath. “That sounds way worse out loud.”
“It really does,” I confirm with a too-bright smile, then tread toward a different walkway and glower at the palm trees nearby when he matches pace with my strides. “Do I have to pay you to leave me alone?”
He flinches. “The girls paid me, yes, but I would have turned them down if I didn’t need the money.”
“Nice to know where your principles lie,” I say flatly. “Thank you for the truth. You can leave me alone now.”
“I think I told you that my dad got injured at work,” he goes on, and dammit, my brain is quick to snag onto the fact that he has two younger sisters he’s been taking care of in his free time. His mom’s picking up more hours to make ends meet, and his dad still hasn’t returned to work after a scaffolding accident last summer. Rent’s been increasing, too. “My sisters have gymnastics?—”
“I know.” Because I genuinely cared about you while you pretended to like me for cash. My eyes prickle with tears I don’t want to cry. Not over him.
“Savannah and Quinn had all these fees my mom couldn’t afford, and—” He blows out a weary breath and streaks his fingers through his hair. “That’s just me trying to justify it. I agreed to do something awful to you. I shouldn’t have; not even when the girls strong-armed me into it.”
“Your sisters?”
“No. Peyton, Karla, Jenna, Chrissy—all of them,” he clarifies. “They told me you had a raging crush on me.” He cringes when I squeak in horror. “And that I should ask you out. I didn’t want to— because there’s someone else ,” he tacks on quickly. “But they all gave me crap about it and said I was an awful human being—called me the worst guy on earth for not giving you a chance because of your scar.”
“And you thought being the awful guy who pretends to like me is a better alternative to being known as the awful guy who’s superficial about my scar?”
“I know. I’m sorry. I didn’t want to piss off the girl I like and?—”
“The girl you like?” I echo, and my brow shoots up while he shakes his head.
“It’s nothing,” he splutters, but my mind is racing with the process of elimination of who would be most offended, and my eyes go wide. His ears tint red as he clears his throat and aims his line of sight directly above my head. “You’ve been nothing but nice to me. I’d always feel shitty after every date the girls would help me plan.”
“You never liked any of that stuff?” I whisper, and he blinks.
“Well, no, I do,” he stammers. “I think we would’ve become friends if not for their meddling. We like the same stuff. Lili Pad used to talk about you to me all the time. She would always ask me for movie recs for you.”
“Oh.” My eyes suddenly sting with tears.
“Honestly, though,” he continues. “I was kind of hoping you’d realize there was nothing there between us and end things with me.”
“You were?”
“I never made a move on you for a reason,” Caleb says.
I swallow hard. My brain can’t stop overanalyzing every meandering date of ours and how they all felt like friends hanging out. Because that’s what they were . Just two friends hanging out.
He expels a wry chuckle. “I even took you to see this band I hated because I was hoping the date would be so bad, you’d end it once and for all.”
I blink, stunned. He made me endure avant-garde experimental screaming for that? “But… you tried to get me to change my mind when I said we should end things,” I remind him. “You asked me to take you back.”
“I was just covering my tracks. I didn’t want the girls to accuse me of sabotaging things again,” he says. “They got on my ass and told me to try harder after the concert date, and I didn’t want to risk them blowing up on me if I didn’t try to fight for you or something.”
“Seriously?” I gasp, and he reluctantly nods. “But you showed up at my apartment right before Christmas.”
“The girls were pushing me to step up and be the man they paid for, since you were still having a hard time with your attack,” he mutters. “I knew you weren’t going to take me back. I just wanted the girls to stop pestering me once you turned me down.”
My brow lifts. Was this after my attempt to call Travis out at the sorority house ? “You knew I wasn’t going to take you back?”
“I mean, yeah?” he chuckles. “I know you’re dating Kingsley. I’ve known for a while. I’ve seen him pick you up while I was leaving practice for months now. He’s, like, right there in front of the music building every night. It’s kind of hard not to notice his loud cars. Also, he did make an ass out of himself at the girls’ Halloween party for you, and that guy hates everybody he comes across.”
I gawp at him like a fish. “Did you tell anyone about us?” I gasp, and he shakes his head. “Why not?”
“Lili Pad doesn’t like him,” he says, and that’s the understatement of the year. “Figured I’d give you the chance to tell her about him yourself.”
“Oh.” My voice tapers off, and he shrugs. “Thank you for that.”
He gives me a nod. “I understand if you want nothing to do with me ever again,” he says. “I’m genuinely sorry for my involvement in this?—”
“Did the girls really push you to do this?”
“Yeah. They dogpiled the crap out of me,” he says. “Kept accusing me of being shallow, mean, cruel, and all these things for not wanting to date you.”
“And… you didn’t want to piss off my sister,” I hedge, and his ears go red again. “Or have her think you were shallow and cruel to her sister?”
He releases an awkward cough, then another, suddenly invested in the succulent nearby. “If I could do anything to make it up to you, let me know. But I won’t blame you if you never want to talk to me again.”
I hesitate. For a contemplating moment, I rock on the balls of my feet, then chew on the inside of my cheek. I feel bad he was pressured into this, but it’s not like he couldn’t decline or back out at any time. My thoughts become muddled when I think about his sisters and my sister, which makes me realize how messy this is. Not only is this a weird moral dilemma, but it’s such an absurd situation either one of us has found ourselves in.
Sucking in a lungful of air, I meet his gaze. “Can you tell me something?”
“I didn’t date you to get closer to your sister,” he says, and I blink in confusion before my nose wrinkles at the horrifying idea. “I swear on my guitar. I haven’t talked to her in months.”
“It’s not about her,” I whisper, although I’m surprised to hear that. “It’s about Travis Walker.”
His expression turns inscrutable. “What about him?”
“I know he’s a frat brother,” I begin, only for him to cut me short.
“He’s not in my fraternity.”
“Yeah, I know,” I whisper. “But, um, do you know anything about his fight with Dane? Or anything useful about him?”
“We’re not really in the same circle,” he says, “but I might have some information about that night.”
“You do?”
“Yeah. I wasn’t there when it went down. I had just dropped my sisters off at a sleepover and was heading back to the house when I saw him,” he explains. “Kingsley was just lying there in the middle of this street. I almost didn’t see him. I actually considered going a different route that night, since I only took that street whenever I wanted to avoid traffic during the day.”
My breath halts in my lungs. “Did you… leave him there?”
“What?” Something a lot like offense shines in his disbelieving stare. “No. Of course not. I called 911 and almost left my car rolling in neutral when I ran to check on him.” His voice lowers to a rough-hewn note while he shuts his eyes. “I stayed with him until the ambulance arrived. I applied pressure to his wound.”
Nerves tighten in my stomach at his words. I’m shocked, to say the least. “I can’t believe you did that.”
“But I did,” he says. “I don’t think he remembers me—he was in pretty bad shape, Reese. I was just fucking relieved he didn’t die on me and later— much later —I heard that he got into a fight?—”
“No,” I interject. “He didn’t get into a fight. He got attacked by a couple of frat guys.”
He nods straight away. Some part of me is grateful he’s not sticking his neck out for Travis simply because he’s also a fraternity member.
“I didn’t know that,” Caleb says. “At the time, all I heard was that Travis wrestled a bottle out of Kingsley’s hand and defended himself with it.”
“But that’s not the truth.” Sheer anguish nearly breaks me while I find his gaze. “Travis left him there to bleed to death in the middle of the street?”
“I think so,” Caleb replies, and acid creeps up my throat at the horrifying realization.
My sister is dating him—the guy who left my boyfriend for dead. A growing dread churns in my stomach, and my mind whirls.
“I can always ask around,” he offers, “and see what his brothers could tell me. See what anybody knows. I might not get anything, but?—”
“It’s better than nothing,” I finish. Swallowing past the lump lodged in my throat, I glance sideways at him. Dane might not be here right now if it weren’t for him . “I can’t believe you saved him that night. He never brought you up.”
“To be fair, I didn’t stick around. I left after I gave the cops my statement.” He pauses. “I did check in on him once at the hospital, though, but he told me to fuck off.”
“That… sounds a lot like my boyfriend.” My focus goes to the middle ground. It’s a lot of information to receive—a lot to digest. I don’t know how I’ll break the news to my sister that her boyfriend is the scumbag of the century without risking the chance of her bulldozing me into forgiving her about the Caleb situation.
“I’m sorry for everything,” Caleb says, snapping me back to the present. “For my involvement with the girls’ plan. I told them many times it was fucked up, how I wanted no part in this, and how it was gonna hurt you.” His green eyes fill with regret. “They kept insisting and… There’s no excusing it. I should have told them no.”
A dull sting twinges in my chest, and I draw in a shaky breath. “I… I understand… but I need some time.”
Both of his hands lift. “Say no more.” His expression is nothing but remorse. “Again, I’m sorry.”
“Me too.” Readjusting my backpack over my shoulder, I spare him a sad smile. “I should go. I need help with my physics homework, and the tutor I like is only there for another hour. But, um, let me know if you find out anything about Travis Walker.”
He nods without protest. “Will do.”
With one last look at him, I amble off to the tutoring center and cling to the desperate hope that I’ll be left alone from here on out.
Is there a sign on my back telling everyone to approach me and apologize for paying Caleb to go out with me? I half expect to run into another sorority sister when I emerge from the Science Building, so I’m extremely thankful to see no one there.
Huffing out an irritable breath, I trudge back to the center of the campus. I still haven’t decided if I truly forgive Caleb, and he’s the one who was browbeaten into going out with me. The sorority girls were the ones who paid him to go out with me in the first place.
Objectively, that’s worse. They’re the ones who came up with the idea. They’re the ones who schemed to have a guy I had a raging crush on go out with me.
They’ve overstepped so many lines I never knew existed, and all I want right now is to be left alone. I’m still trying to come to terms with this, and they’re not helping their case at all when they keep bombarding me with explanations or apologies. I don’t care. As it is, I don’t want to hear why they came up with this crappy idea in the first place.
It makes me feel worse, regardless of their intentions, and I’d rather have the earth open up and swallow me whole than die of utter mortification.
Blowing out a lungful of oxygen, I avert my focus to my knit sweater. Pinching the unraveled yarn, I try my best to fix it when I hear my name being called.
Almost immediately, my lips flatten into a thin line. Dammit. I’m tired of being forced to go on the listen to a flimsy apology tour.
It’s late. I’m exhausted. My environmental engineering class just flung a bunch of new information I need to go over for the upcoming quiz.
Whatever excuse they have for me this time, I don’t want to hear it. I simply want to go home, study, and snuggle with my boyfriend and cat. Is that too much to ask for?
My name is shouted this time, and I heave out a quiet sigh as I come to a complete stop. Damn my soft heart.
With a put-upon frown, I glance to my right, and instinctively, my hand flies to my pepper spray as a hooded figure steps out of the shadow.
My breath runs ragged. My hands are clammy. My heart is skittish as blinding terror seizes me in a viselike hold and keeps me frozen in place.
“You’re Old News’ bitch.”
I can barely hear over the incessant thrum of my pulse in my ears, and it takes me way too long to parse his words. Old News ?
“Stay back,” I whimper. My fingers are clumsy as I release the pink tube from its keychain. “I will?—”
My sentence catches in my throat when a strong pair of arms grabs me forcefully from behind. My brain hurdles back to that awful night in my childhood room—to the dark, overwhelming feeling of helplessness and defeat. Hot, desperate tears well up behind my eyes at once as I try to shield my neck.
Frantically squeezing the can of mace with my other hand, I barely let out a terrified scream for help when something is yanked over my head and envelops me in pitch darkness.