Chapter 28
TWENTY-EIGHT
The journey to Maths was painful.
As expected.
Will walked too fast, and I could hardly walk at all. Not a great combination. He didn’t even notice at first, just kept moving with zero interest in waiting for the slow and wounded.
To be fair, he did take my backpack—eventually. But I’m convinced he only did it so I’d stop lagging behind and making him have to stop about a million times.
Will has about as much empathy as a brick, maybe less.
By the time we make it to class, I am already exhausted, but at least the teacher doesn’t ask about my face. Or the despicable way I’m currently sitting. For that, I’m grateful.
At my seat, though, Kym keeps side-glancing at me. Not saying anything, just looking. She’s wearing a dark green turtleneck today, the fabric snug around her throat, and the same black beret she always wears, slightly tilted like she always places it.
I force a small smile and pull out my notebook and pens.
It’s silent between us for a while. Not awkward, not comfortable. Just there. Then, after a moment, Kym finally speaks.
“Are you okay?”
I take a second before turning to her, mustering up the widest, most convincing smile I can manage.
It feels wrong on my face. “Perfectly fine.”
Kym just looks at me, nothing behind those golden eyes of hers. Then, without looking away from her book, she says, “If you’re going to lie, at least make it believable.”
I sigh, glancing down at her notebook. It was empty moments ago, but now it’s already half full with equation after equation, and I stare at it in shock.
This girl really is a machine.
But before I can even say anything about it, something else catches my attention. And I notice it.
Her sleeve is pushed up just enough to show… something purple?
I look closer. Deep purples. Angry blues. Fading reds.
“What is that?” The words slip out before I can stop them.
Kym stills, then follows my gaze to her own wrist. The moment she sees it, she yanks her sleeve back down and shifts away, her body going rigid.
“Nothing,” she says coldly.
I don’t think. Don’t weigh out my words before I say them. “I’ll get better at lying when you do.”
Kym’s head snaps toward me, her eyes narrowing. “I’m not lying.”
With the way she says it, I almost believe her. Almost. If I hadn’t seen the evidence marked into her skin, if I hadn’t felt the way she tensed the second she realized I noticed.
Did someone do that to her?
The thought wedges itself into my mind. Bruises like that don’t just appear out of nowhere. And she was so defensive about it… it makes me wonder just how many times she’s had to hide them before.
It reminds me of Mason. Of all the times I covered for him, swallowed down the truth for him, destroyed myself for him. I held his secret for so long, and it ate away at me, piece by piece, until I barely knew what was left.
People are capable of so much pain. Even the ones you trust. Especially the ones you trust.
“Did someone—”
“No.” Kym cuts me off before I can finish. Here she goes again, closing the door before I can even step in.
I sigh. “Okay, fine. I won’t ask if you don’t want me to.” I don’t say anything else. And Kym doesn’t reply. Instead, I rip out a piece of paper from my notebook, scribble my phone number down, and slide it across the desk toward her.
“Take it.” I hold it out to her.
Kym stops writing. Stops looking at the textbook, her eyes flicking to the paper, then to me. “What is that?”
“My phone number,” I say. “So, if you want to talk to—”
She scoffs, looking away, shaking her head like I’m ridiculous for even suggesting it.
“Kym, don’t be one of those people who need a friend, but don’t know how to ask for one,” I say, because that has been me more than once.
For a second, nothing happens. Then Kym’s fingers twitch, so slightly I barely notice, before she reaches out and takes the note.
She doesn’t look at me. Doesn’t say thank you. Just folds the paper neatly and tucks it into her pocket.
***
Fifteen minutes.
That’s how long I’ve been standing outside the classroom.
Break ended ages ago, everyone has already gone off to their next lesson, and yet here I am, leaning against the wall like an idiot, waiting for someone who clearly has no concept of time management. Or basic consideration, for that matter.
I sigh, adjusting my weight carefully, trying not to make the pain worse. Maybe I should just go by myself and pretend this whole thing isn’t happening. Maybe that would be easier.
Then I see Kai, dressed in the same disguise he was wearing that day on the bus, walking toward me at what can only be described as an offensively slow pace. Hands in his pockets, shoulders relaxed but poised.
I straighten slightly, watching as he gets closer. He doesn’t speed up, doesn’t even acknowledge that he’s late, just stops a few feet in front of me and tilts his head slightly, like I’m the one making him wait.
“You’re late,” I point out, narrowing my eyes at him.
“Follow me,” he says, already turning, already assuming I’m just going to—what? Magically appear behind him?
I glare. Hard. Then, for emphasis, I gesture aggressively to my destroyed self. “Kind of the one thing I actually can’t do right now.”
Kai sighs, then gives me a slow once-over, raking a hand through his already messy hair.
His eyes skim over my limp, my red arms, then stop somewhere near my very unimpressed face.
“Well, you—” He cuts off, blinking. Like he’s actually seeing the problem for the first time and not just avoiding it because he can’t be bothered.
“Well, I what?” I prompt, folding my arms, because if I can’t move, I can at least be difficult.
His mouth opens. Closes. But nothing actually comes out of it.
I raise both eyebrows. “You did not think this through, did you?”
His eye twitches. There’s something restrained in the way he stands, like he’s physically holding back from snapping at me. “I just misjudged the extent of your injuries.”
“Isn’t that literally the same thing?”
Kai exhales sharply, shaking his head. Then, with all the warmth of a robot, he deadpans, “One is negligence. The other is optimism.”
I scoff. “Right. Because you’re such an optimist.”
He murmurs something under his breath that I imagine I don’t want to hear. Then he shakes himself off and looks at me, gaze suddenly polite again. “Now, either let me carry you, or figure it out.”
I blink. “You want to carry me?”
Kai doesn’t say anything. He just turns. Fast. One second, he’s standing, glaring, looking like he’s about two seconds away from abandoning me altogether—and the next, he drops onto one knee.
My stomach lurches. What. The. Hell.
I stare. My brain short-circuits. I glance wildly around the courtyard, but everyone’s already gone home.
“What on earth,” I gasp, still gaping, “are you doing?”
“What does it look like I’m doing?” he says calmly. Then, before I can answer, he taps his back with two fingers. “On.”
I choke. My eyeballs practically launch out of their sockets. “You want to give me a piggyback ride?”
“I want to get to the hospital,” he says, and it’s then that I realize how big of a mistake I made letting him take me. “But you, being physically incapable of functioning, makes that difficult. So—get. On.”
I hesitate. Partly because what the hell, and partly because there is no version of this where I climb onto his back and don’t immediately fall on my face. “I don’t—this isn’t—I don’t think this is a good idea.”
“Would you rather I leave you here?” he offers, and I have an incredibly strong feeling he would not hesitate if I were to say yes.
I open my mouth. Close it. Debate my options. Realize I don’t have any.
Still. There’s no dignified way to do this.
I step forward awkwardly, trying to figure out where my hands are supposed to go. Shoulders? Neck? The rigidity of him is not helping. I go to hop up but completely miscalculate, missing his back entirely and kind of… slamming into him instead.
This was way easier with Bea.
He grunts. “Oh, for—just—stop moving, would you?”
“I’m trying!”
“This is you trying?”
He grabs my arms harder than necessary and yanks them around his shoulders, then shuffles my legs into place. “Jesus—what the hell was that?”
“Momentum,” I wheeze, already laughing at how absolutely pathetic that was.
Kai is not laughing. “That was an attack.”
“Sorry, sorry!” I try again, scrambling to get a grip. “Just give me a second—”
“You’re taking multiple,” he mutters.
“I don’t know how to do this, okay?” I hiss, awkwardly wrapping my arms around his shoulders and flailing a leg up. “People don’t just—casually—ride other people—”
Kai mutters something under his breath that I don’t ask him to repeat. Mostly because we start moving, and suddenly I’m gripping onto him for dear life as he walks with exactly zero regard for the fact that I am barely attached and might actually die.
The journey to the car is violent.
He moves fast. I bounce. A lot. Every step actually rattles my soul. At one point, I accidentally pull at his neck, and he literally snarls.
“Can you—not—strangle me?”
“Can you not be built like a human brick wall?”
“If you’re uncomfortable, the solution is simple. Get down,” he suggests.
“Oh, yeah, I’ll just hop right off and start doing cartwheels.”
He says nothing.
By the time we reach the car, I feel like I’ve been in actual combat. He yanks the door open and goes to set me down in the passenger seat. But instead of gracefully placing me inside like a normal person, he whacks my head on the door frame.
A loud, dull thunk.
I freeze. My vision goes static. A single, pained breath rattles through my lungs.
Kai also freezes. Slowly, his hands tighten on my arms, “Are you alright?” he asks, going stiff.
I let the silence drag. Then, very calmly, I say, “You might have just concussed me.”
His jaw tightens. “You’re fine. I’m sorry.”
“Am I? Because I’m pretty sure I just got bodied by your Rolls Royce.”