25. Juliet
25
JULIET
T o my surprise, it takes a few days back at school for the populace to realize that my situation has changed again. I don’t know who notices first or how, though I suspect it’s the fact that I show up and leave with them every day. If it’s not that, then it’s certainly the appearances I put in at their football practices as I hang out on the bleachers waiting for them to give me a ride either back to Nolan’s or to work. Either way, it’s not easy falling back into the same routine. It should be, but after everything I’ve been through—the strings of distrust that linger—it’s not. No matter how much I want it to be.
“So…” Roquel scuffs her Converse against the floor of the hallway as I grimace at the new trash that’s collected at the bottom of my locker today. Megan has really stepped up her game. It’s more than just used tampons and sandwich wrappers. I roll my eyes as one of the notes unfolds to reveal a scratchy, serial killer style script that reads.
Leave town or else .
Oh gosh, a threat, how original.
“Jules?”
“Hmmm?” I lift my head and leave the note on the ground with the rest. She glances from the note and to me.
“You’re not worried about that?” she asks.
“Not really.” Bitches like Megan and her crew are only going to enjoy it if I give them the time of day—I should know. I was a Megan. I was the one that decided who was in and who was out of the cliques at Silverwood Prep. I hadn’t cared about other people. I’d been focused on myself and only myself. Familiar shame curls through my gut, and I face my locker once more.
“Okay.” Roquel draws out the word. “Seems like a bad idea, but you’re you. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that you wouldn’t care about threats.”
“I don’t,” I agree. “Threats aren’t actions.”
She seems to grow quiet at that and remains that way for several long moments as I rummage around in my locker for the books I’ll need for the rest of the day.
“What about them?” she finally pipes up, and I don’t have to ask who “them” is. “Are you officially back with them now? Are you staying with Nolan Pierce?”
I don’t answer her, not right away. Shoving textbooks and a pen case into my backpack—the old one that I left at Nolan’s—I contemplate what to say. Nothing has come to mind by the next warning bell, and when she doesn’t get a response, Roquel huffs out a breath.
“I thought you were smarter than this,” she snaps. “I thought you were gonna find a new place.”
The sound of metal ricocheting against metal as I slap my locker shut echoes into the hallway as I turn to face her with a frown. “Why does it matter to you?” I ask, hitching my bag up further on my shoulder. I start walking, and she follows.
“It—you’re my friend,” she says.
“Miss Lee, your shirt needs to be all the way down,” one of the female teachers says as we bypass an open classroom door.
Roquel groans and reaches back to untie the hairband she used to tighten the fabric of her shirt up around her waistline. She then holds it up for the teacher to see as her shirt falls back down to cover her flat stomach. “Keep it that way,” the woman says.
We continue down the hall, marching towards our next class, and just as I expect, the moment we turn a corner, she reties her shirt the way she likes. “As your friend,” Roquel says. “I can’t help but be worried that you’re going to get taken advantage of again. There was a reason you stayed with me for so long. They did something to you.”
They’d made me trust them and then broken that trust, or so I thought. But all of the evidence is piling up and I can’t ignore it anymore. Did they have a motive to burn down my building? Yes. To keep me in their grip after I refused to go back to them. This time, though, it’s my choice. They hadn’t forced me.
“You told me I needed to make friends,” I remind her.
Roquel shoves a hand through her short choppy black hair, a sign of her frustration. “Yeah, I know I did, but these are the Scorpion Kings. How do you know they’re not just trying to use you to fuck you?”
I don’t know that, but I hate hearing it nonetheless. “I know how to take care of myself,” I say. “Been doing it for months. There’s nothing the Scorpion Kings can’t throw at me that I can’t handle.”
The look she sends me isn’t pleasant. If anything, Roquel looks half ready to throttle me. As we reach our classroom door and the final bell rings, though, she exhales a slow breath and grazes my arm with her fingertips as she slips past me.
“Just, promise me,” she says, lowering her voice as her eyes dart to the man sitting at the back of the room. Lex arches an eyebrow our way but otherwise doesn’t move. “If you need to get away from them, you’ll come to me.”
Something inside me softens. When was the last time someone ever cared about me this way? Not because they wanted to get in my pants or because they saw me as a ticket to get what they wanted, but… as a friend. Roquel and Mads are the only real friends I have, and even if she’s flighty on occasion, Roquel is the one that got me a job when I needed one. She gave me a place to stay. She’s in my corner and it’s nice to have someone there again.
“I promise,” I say. “Thanks.”
She dips her head and then hurries off to her seat, allowing me to find mine as the teacher slips back into the classroom and shuts off the lights for a slideshow day. All throughout the period, I can feel Lex’s gaze on the back of my neck. Every so often, I peer back at him with a frown. Lex isn’t the type to care if he’s caught, either. He never looks away, but he also never gives me any indication that he has a question or wants something. He just sits there and he stares until the hairs on my arm lift and the teacher coughs, grabbing my attention once more.
When the class is over and the bell rings, I slide out of my seat and grab my things. Roquel eyes me, but the second Lex stops by me, she slips out of the room and disappears down the hall. I blow out a breath and look up at my shadow.
“I don’t need a bodyguard,” I say. “I’m just heading to the counselor next.”
Lex’s smoky gaze fixes on mine. He lifts his hand, several silver rings adorning the long, almost piano-perfect fingers, and pushes a large swath of his rich dark hair out of the way. “Not bodyguarding,” he murmurs. “Just walking.”
I roll my eyes. “Don’t you have class or something next?”
He shrugs. “Maybe I do. Maybe I don’t. Why?” He tilts his head, that swath of hair falling right back into place and almost making him appear boyish. A flash of memory slams into me. Those dark gunmetal eyes on me, that hair hanging into his face as I rode his lap in the back of his SUV. I promptly shut that shit down and stride for the door.
“No reason.” Do the words sound choked to him? They do to me and damn it, I don’t want him to know what I’m thinking or how being near him again is going to warp my senses, especially if it’s going to be on a regular basis.
Lex hums in the back of his throat and the sound vibrates through my fucking soul. God damn that sound. He should make it again when his face is buried between my —no! Absolutely the fuck not.
I shake my head and walk faster. When the counselor’s office door comes into view, I practically sprint towards it in an effort to get away from my shadow. Having him so close, so near, sets me on edge. He waves me off as I open the door and I offer him the same, disappearing and sliding into the cheap and uncomfortable seat in front of Ms. Beck a moment later.
The scent of potpourri is heavy in the room, practically drowning out the undercurrent of bleach and cleaning spray, but not by much. I wrinkle my nose and adjust myself in the seat as Ms. Beck finishes typing something into her computer before turning to me with that bland smile of hers.
“Welcome back, Miss Donovan.” I don’t reply, choosing instead to let my backpack fall to the floor as I kick it under the seat and cross my legs. “I’m happy to see that you haven’t had much more in the way of disputes with other students since we last chatted.”
That was because I didn’t bother to go to the teachers or Principal Long—though at least the principal seemed a reasonable person—and Megan and her cronies had gotten smarter. Do I say any of that, though? Nope.
“Is there anything you want to talk about today?” Ms. Beck asks.
“How much longer do I have to keep coming here?”
The fake smile twitches, but she’s good—she manages to keep it on. “Do you not like coming here?”
“ You don’t like me coming here,” I point out. “Why would I?”
“That’s not true.”
My fiancé killed himself . Her words from my first meeting with her circle in my head. A breach of what she’s allowed to talk about with students, I’m sure, but I’m no normal student. I’m the representation of the man who destroyed lives, including hers.
Turning my head away from her ageless beauty, I scan the windows, noting that the sky is clear today. After several more moments of silence, Ms. Beck sighs.
“I can’t release you from counseling until I’m confident that we’ve worked through some of your issues,” she states.
“And what are those issues?” I ask, whipping my head back around.
She arches one eyebrow. “Anger management. Defiance to authority figures. Negative attitude. Unwilling and inability to make friends?—”
My upper lip curls back. “I have friends.”
Ms. Beck straightens in her seat and purses her lips. “And?” she prompts.
“And what?”
“What about all of your other issues?”
“I don’t have anger management problems,” I tell her. “I have people trying to fuck me up because they’re mad at my dad issues.”
“Please watch your language while you’re here,” she says. “That’s another thing I should add to the list.”
I roll my eyes. “Please.” I huff out a breath. “Like you don’t cuss.”
“I don’t.”
Liar.
As if she knows exactly what I’m thinking, her smile returns and this time, it feels more genuine. It reaches her eyes. “Words are important,” she says. “What we say and what we believe. The words that we write and the words that we say affect us.”
You’re so pretty, Juliet. You take such good care of yourself. You like it when people watch you, don’t you? Like it when they see all the things you won’t let them touch, but you’ll let me touch, won’t you?
The foul taste of something acrid and bitter fills my lungs, bites into the back of my throat, and threatens to soak into my tongue. Ms. Beck goes on, unaware that I’m no longer sitting in the room with her even if I can still hear what she says.
“Words are the weapons no one even realizes they’re using,” she continues. “They can cut down a person twice your size or lift you up to make you feel like you’re flying. War is not won necessarily by guns and bombs and soldiers, but by words—by the ability of a good leader to inspire their people. So, no, Juliet, I do not curse.”
She’s right. Words are dangerous weapons. I never realized it until she said it in so many words, but those words are what keeps me up at night. Pretty girl… pretty girl…
Want this. Don’t want this. You want this.
My stomach cramps and my throat tightens. My skin grows hot, the scratch of my clothes too close, too much. The heater kicks on and I nearly jump straight out of my seat at the sound. Why is there so much noise?
“Juliet?” I lift my head at my name and Ms. Beck leans forward across her desk, brow creasing. “Are you alright? You look a bit pale?”
Reaching up, I wipe a hand over my brow. It comes away damp with sweat. “I’m fine.” Another lie. I need a cigarette or maybe some weed. Something that will calm me. Which means that I need to get this counseling session over with. “I’ll try not to curse, if it makes you uncomfortable.”
Ms. Beck blinks as if she hadn’t expected that concession from me, but I don’t care. She leans back and then nods. “Well, I appreciate that,” she murmurs. “That’s very mature of you.”
I bob my head, feeling as if each of my limbs are slowly detaching from my main body. My toes tingle, as do my fingertips. I glance at the clock. How long have I been here? Nope. Not even twenty minutes. Lovely.
“There is one more thing I’d like to discuss with you,” Ms. Beck says, shuffling a few papers off to the side of her desk as she turns towards her computer. “I’ve received some correspondence from Mr. Morpheus Calloway. He’s expressed some concerns about your living situation and?—”
“You can’t tell him anything about me,” I snap, cutting her off. “That’s illegal.”
The counselor pauses and stares at me for a moment. “I haven’t released any of your private information, Miss Donovan,” she says, her lips turning down. “But his concerns do strike up some of my own. I understand that your home address when you filed for transfer from Silverwood Prep was the unit of one of the apartments that unfortunately burned down a few weeks ago.”
“Why does that matter?” I shift on my seat, eyes darting back to the clock. I’m not going to make it the full time. I already know.
“I want to make sure that you’re in a place that’s safe.” Ms. Beck’s voice is that calm, soothing pseudo-concerned kind that nurses get when you have a breakdown in a doctor’s office and I hate it. “Morpheus is your uncle?—”
“He’s not!” I can’t stand it anymore. I grit my teeth and glare at her. “Morpheus Calloway was my father’s business partner,” I tell her. “You know that— everyone in fucking Silverwood knows that. He is not my uncle.” She gapes at me, but I keep going. “Don’t play this bullshit with me. You hate me too. Just as much as everyone else.”
“Juliet. I don’t hate?—”
I can’t let her finish. “I’m done with this.” I stand up and grab my bag.
“Juliet!” My heart thunders against my ribcage. As I turn towards the door, I hear her chair scrape across the floor and that sharp, too fucking loud, sound is the last straw.
I bolt. Fleeing from the counselor’s office, down the hall, and out of the school building before she can call me back. I don’t know where the fuck I’m going as I run, my backpack slapping against my spine, but I know it needs to be away from here.