47. Jude
Chapter 47
Jude
It’s times like this I wish I had more friends. The last place I want to be is at home, but when Alex doesn’t answer my call as I’m driving back to Dearth Manor, there’s no one else I can turn to.Come to think of it, I didn’t see Alex in the locker room. I could have missed him, I guess.
Dad made it clear I was to come straight home anyway. What was the point in fighting him on that?
I sit in the Range Rover while the rest of my family pile out of Dad’s Audi. Rosie is crying, and I swear that breaks my heart more than even the thought that I might be expelled next week.
Ha, might?
It’s a fucking definite. And I don’t know if that makes it worse or not, knowing, but it gives me something. An advantage, maybe? For the next three days, only me and Harper know what my future holds.
Harper.
I go cold just thinking of her. Fucking bitch played me. She played me so well, a part of me is silently congratulating her. Only a small part. The rest is already plotting how to destroy her. I held back in the past. I was going easy on her. Because she’s a girl, because she’s my sister. I dunno, because I was a fucking pussy.
That ends today.
She’s stolen the sole reason for my existence. Football, my university scholarship...up in flames. And she’s holding the match, fucking winking at me.
Please, Jude.
Yeah, Harper. I hear you. You’re begging me to put you in your place. I hear you, princess.
Don’t worry. Your day of reckoning is coming.
“Can I talk to you?” My voice is gravelly. I haven’t had a sip to drink all morning except for my cup of coffee.
Dad looks up from the kitchen countertop. I thought he’d been busy on his phone, but he’d just been leaning on his hands, staring at the marble. When he looks at me, it’s like he’s surfacing from a daydream. “Yes, of course, son.”
His gentle tone catches me off guard. I stand in the entrance to the kitchen for a second, not sure what to say anymore. I’d been expecting harsh words, perhaps an order for me to go to my room and not come out until the test came back.
I almost want to tell him everything. Everything. About the dreams, the resentment, the enmity. About Harper, and what we did in the dark last night, how badly we both fucked up.
But something stops me. Self-preservation, probably.
I drag one of the kitchen stools closer to his and sit down, swallow, muss up my hair.
“This shouldn’t have happened,” I tell him. “The last thing I ever wanted to do was disappoint you.”
He studies me for a long moment, and I do my best to maintain eye contact. It’s difficult though. The longer I stare at him, the more aware I am of how old he’s gotten. The wrinkles around his eyes, thinning lips, receding hairline.
“What did you want, Jude?” Dad’s dark brown eyes narrow. “Did you want me to be miserable the rest of my life? To never have someone at my side again?” His eyes are watery now, like he’s about to start crying.
My chest closes up. I can’t speak, so I shake my head.
“I loved her as much as you did. More. She was my fu—she was my wife, Jude. You’re not the only one who lost someone that day. But all you lost was a mother. I lost a wife, a lover. And my best friend.”
Pressure builds in my head. “Dad, I didn’t?—”
“What would she say about all of this? About your bad attitude? The things you say about your sister? The drugs ?”
I have to look away. It’s too painful. Because now I can’t get the image of my mother’s kind eyes out of my head. I was such a good kid back then. I never fucked up. I can’t even imagine how she’d react if Dad’s disappointment is anything to go by. How it would distort her lovely face into something...ugly. Something alien.
“I fucked up,” I mumble, trying desperately not to let the dark emotions inside me spill out. “And I’m sorry for that. But it’s not all my fault, Dad.” I grab his wrist, but I hold him gently so he doesn’t think I’ll try and hurt him again. “You have to believe me, please.”
“Then whose fault is it?” He ducks his head to look me in the eyes, because I’ve bowed my head. “Are you going to try and pin this on Harper?”
“I—” My voice catches hard, and I fight back an angry sob. I pour every ounce of willpower into keeping my defenses up, making sure I don’t break down in front of my dad and lose whatever shred of respect he still has for me.
It’s a fucking battle, but I win.
Only because Harper walks into the room, though. If she hadn’t arrived just then, I wouldn’t have held out. I’d be sobbing in my father’s arms like a fucking child, and I’d have hated myself for it. He’d have hated me for it, for being weak, for being a fucking kid.
“Mr. Dearth, Mom said I had to ask your permission to...” She trails off, stopping somewhere behind me, hidden. “Oh, I...Did I...I’ll come back.”
Dad pulls out of my grip, stands, walks around me to go to Harper. I follow him, a morbid fascination forcing me to watch their exchange. “Harper, did you have anything to do with this?”
She frowns. “With what?”
Dad crosses his arms over his chest. “The drugs in Jude’s locker.”
Harper blinks and says nothing, just her mouth working. For a second, hope blossoms. If she admits to what she did, this would all be over. I’d be back to playing football on Monday. The scholarship would still be mine.
Her throat moves as she swallows. “You think I put them in Jude’s locker?”
“Did you?” Dad’s frown turns quizzical. “Harper?”
“No. Of course not.” She glances at me, blushes, glances away. “I was nowhere near his stuff.”
“So you didn’t go into the locker room after the game? Because you disappeared just after halftime. I only saw you again when we were leaving the school.” Dad grabs her arm. “Harper, if you’re lying...”
Her blush deepens. “Yes. I mean, no! I was with a…friend the whole time.”
“Who?”
She licks her lips, her eyes fixed on the ground. “A-Alex.” Her eyes dart up to mine, but whatever she sees on my face must terrify her. “Jude’s friend.” The last is a whisper.
I lean away from her, blinking hard. “You’re lying,” I spit out. “He would never?—”
“We were just fooling around. Nothing happened!” She claps a hand over my dad’s, squeezing him. “Please, Mr. Dearth, I’m telling the truth. You can ask Alex if you don’t believe me.”
Please, Jude.
I growl and shove past them both as I exit the kitchen. My father calls after me, but if I turn around now, I won’t stop at a single punch.
Rosie is in the hallway when I storm up the stairs to my room, and she beams when she sees me. “Jude! Are you better—” but once she registers the expression on my face, she falters. “Jude?”
I sweep past her, throwing out a hand to stop her in case she tries to follow. I slam my bedroom door so hard, one of my certificates falls off the wall and shatters. I rip my phone off its charger and call Alex.
He doesn’t answer.
I barely rein in my hand, but I still end up slamming my phone on my desk hard enough to shatter the screen. I start pacing like a caged animal, my hands curling in and out of fists, my breath more of a pant than anything else. But this room is too small, and there are too many things in here that can break. That I want to break.
So I rip open my bedroom door and trot down the stairs, ignoring Rosie’s trembling, “Jude?” when she calls out to me from the living room. I jog down the basement stairs and step into the gym, heading straight for the weights. There are spare sweats and towels next to the sauna, but I don’t bother with those. I pick up a set of dumbbells and start with reps, not even bothering to warm up.
I need to feel pain. Maybe then I’ll stop thinking about all the ways I can hurt Harper.
There’s no pain, though. Not yet. But I do manage to focus. And with that focus, I work through every moment of my life since I met my stepsister. I sift through those memories like someone hunting for turds in a box of cat litter.
Harper’s smarter than I thought possible. Crafty, like a little fox. I need to find something so incriminating, so damning, the only logical place to send her would be a fucking nunnery in Tibet.
I move onto the rowing machine, then the punching bag. But it’s only when I collapse into the sauna an hour later, sweat streaming over my aching muscles, that it comes to me.
My head shifts forward. My eyes open to lazy coils of steam. I blink, cock my head, think it through really carefully.
And then I smile.