Chapter 61
THEN: Sophomore Year, October
Paloma
Something is wrong.
It’s the middle of October, sophomore year, at some dingy party scene. There’s a reason I don’t drink—but I barely remember it now, buried beneath shots of tequila and the burn of lime and salt on my tongue. Nothing distracts from the constant sting of being back in Waterfell without him.
Lately, I’ve been drinking a lot.
But tonight, something is different. Wrong. I can feel it.
“I need to use the bathroom,” I say, but the words feel loose on my cotton-dry tongue. The guy whose name I’ve forgotten entirely smirks and tries to touch my newly bleached hair. I shove his hand away, hard, but I miss entirely.
“This way, babe,” he says, using his hands on my waist to lead me through the party and to one of the doors in the long stretch of hallway.
My stomach sinks again as I realize it’s a bedroom, not a bathroom.
This is what you wanted, right, Polly? It’s what you deserve.
I grasp the doorframe and shake my head. “I’m gonna be sick,” I threaten, which seems to work enough to get him into action. He takes me through to a conjoined bathroom and I shut the door quickly, nearly slamming it in his face.
I grab for my phone, tears blurring my vision. I can barely see enough to click the contact, and with the panic racing through me, I take a chance.
He answers on the first ring.
“Bennett?” I call, before he can even breathe into my ear.
“Paloma?” he asks, his voice a disbelieving cry. “What—”
“I need help,” I beg, soft and quiet. A soft curse threads through my ear. “I’m—I’m sorry to call. But I’m scared.”
I hear something loud, like an engine roaring to life, before Bennett’s voice comes back over. “Tell me where you are. I’m gonna come get you.”
My eyes droop lower, head swimmy and fogged up with alcohol and . . . something else. I barely have enough in me to tell him how to find me.
· · ·
“—the fuck out of here, before I kill you.”
“Take it easy! She didn’t say she had a boyfriend—”
I can barely lift my heavy eyelids. Eyelashes fluttering, I try to blink to see what all the distant yelling is about.
No. Not distant. I can almost feel the rumble of one of the voices, as if it’s coming from me.
My hand flexes out, grabbing for something and closing around soft warm material—a shirt. A warmer, stronger hand covers mine, lips to my forehead briefly as I realize that I’m in someone’s arms, outside—the October air cool against my heated skin.
Bennett Reiner’s arms, as he carries me out of the house like a goddamn superhero.
“I didn’t do shit—” someone yells. The voice makes me tremble, hunching down farther into Bennett’s arms, as if I can burrow myself into the bulk of him.
“You better fucking hope I can’t find proof that you drugged her,” Bennett snaps.
Though I almost second-guess if it’s actually him—I’ve never heard Bennett sound like that, as if he’s near to feral.
I’ve never heard him even raise his voice.
“You have no clue what I’m willing to do when it comes to her. ”
“Listen, man—”
“That’s Bennett fucking Reiner, dude. What the fuck did you do?”
Someone else must’ve come outside, the owner of the new terrified voice, because Bennett tenses further, pulling me closer as he drops his voice.
“I’m taking her to the goddamn hospital—so you better get your shit together because I’m sure campus security and the IFC would love to hear about this.”
The IFC—Interfraternal Council. He’s threatening them.
I squeeze his arm as tight as my loose, drugged grip can and whisper, “Can you walk me home?”
It’s not what I meant to say, but he seems to understand it.
“If I ever catch you even looking her direction again,” he says, half over his shoulder as he’s turned away to block me from their view, “I’ll kill you.”
His voice is terrifying enough that a jolt runs through me, only soothed by the fact that I know Bennett. He’s not like this—but he’s panicked.
It’s not until we get to the car that he manages to let go of me. I feel his hands buckle me in, shaking as he maneuvers and settles my body in place. But my eyes are fully closed, nearly completely passed out.
I swear I hear him crying softly as he drives.
· · ·
I jolt up and sprint for the bathroom, groggy, slipping and falling to the tile almost immediately.
Though it’s mostly dry-heaving, I can’t stop trembling over the toilet, eyes barely open and awash with tears.
A hand gently pulls all of my hair up and out of my face, keeping it carefully snug as I continue to be sick for a long moment.
Eventually, the heaving turns to soft sobs, head drooping—but before I can rest my cheek on the seat, my entire body falls back to rest against Bennett’s warm, solid chest.
“I’m s-s-sorry,” I try to mutter, words still half-caught in my dry, achy throat.
“Shh,” he coos. “It’s fine. I’m gonna take care of you, P.”
I take the suddenly proffered bottle of water from his hand and sip slowly.
“Do you want to shower?”
When I nod, he slowly releases me to walk over and carefully turn the knobs to get the water to the right temperature for me. I try to join him, but everything feels sludgy and heavy.
“Paloma?” Bennett asks, renewed concern in his voice as he sees my tears start up again.
“I . . . I can’t move my arms,” I whisper. “Everything feels numb.”
His jaw clenches tight, eyes closing for a moment before decision stamps his face with conviction. Unwavering in his movements, he cuts off the now-steaming shower and begins to run a bath.
It makes my heart throb, affection for him that’s never waned racing over my body like a wave.
In the quiet, I realize this isn’t his usual bathroom—it’s newer, larger than the townhouse dorm he used to stay in.
Probably some nice off-campus housing. My chest aches for the time lost with him, for the differences and the way that I feel like I know him so deeply and yet .
. . he’s different. His life is different.
It’s a pain I didn’t prepare for.
“Do you want me to help you?” he asks; the words seem pained. Still, I nod.
With anyone else, I’d suffer through the night with sweat-damp skin and vomit sticking to the strands of my hair. But no matter the circumstances, I feel safe here, with Bennett.
He undresses me carefully, slowly, but keeps me facing away from him as he helps pull off my jacket and dress. My feet are bare—which I assume Bennett did himself when we first got here, so that I could sleep more comfortably.
Then, he takes my arms in his massive hands, moving his chest to hover over my back as he helps me into the steamy hot bathwater.
Bubbles froth at the edges, and that deeply hidden little girl within my heart peeks out of her shadowed safe space.
Once I’m safely settled against the porcelain, Bennett steps back and closes the toilet, flushing and sitting atop the lid to watch over me. In the last nine months, I haven’t relaxed my shoulders once. This may be the first time I’ve even taken a full breath.
“I . . . I’m sorry—”
“Don’t apologize again, Paloma,” he says, voice fierce and loud in the echoey bathroom. “I can’t take it.”
“I think he put something in my drink.”
“Thought so.” Bennett nods, wiping his hands over his eyes and massaging his temple. I can feel the anger, the fury quietly brewing beneath his skin. “I thought you didn’t drink,” he says, aggressive.
“People change.” My back is up, the words flying from my mouth before I can stop the bitter reply.
Silence stretches between us. Not the usual kind that makes me relaxed, that doesn’t need to be filled. But a strained, angry kind. One filled with fury and anxiety and fear.
“What time is it?” I ask, desperate for something to fill the space.
“Six in the morning,” he says, voice flat. “I’ll get you some clothes and when you’re done, I’ll drive you home. You still live in the dorms?”
The question hurts. “Yeah.” He nods and leaves the room.
I bathe and wash my hair quicker without his assessing gaze.
I cry silently, yanking at the tangles in my hair with the brush, too terrified that he might offer to do it .
. . even more terrified that he won’t. He leaves a pair of sweatpants and an old long sleeve that I’ve slept in before, given the chewed-up, frayed sleeve from my teeth; I dress in them quickly.
The car ride is silent, the approaching dawn making the blue and black sky slightly lighter. But when he parks and I grab for the door handle, he reaches over me and pulls it back shut.
Eyes still on the empty road before him, Bennett huffs out a slow breath and swallows hard.
“I won’t pretend to know what happened . . . why you didn’t want to be with me anymore. And if I did something to hurt you . . .”
“You didn’t,” I interject, desperate to stop his self-hatred but too petrified to give him another word beyond that.
He nods, but still has that aching, burning look to his face, eyes reddened more from pain than lack of sleep.
“I love you. That doesn’t just go away for me, okay? So . . . I can’t worry this much about you.”
“You don’t have to. You—I promise—”
His eyes dart toward me, scanning over me once before they’re back to glaring at the road. “I don’t believe you.”
My hands wrap around my middle, hugging myself, just barely resisting the urge to pull my knees up to my chin and sink into his seat. To tell him everything. To ask him to believe me, to take me home and hold me until I feel clean again.
“I need you to do something for me,” he says.
“Anything.” It’s a vow.
“I’m not asking for anything more. I’m not trying to get you to change your mind. But please, Paloma. If you need me—if you’re scared or worried or just need something, anything at all, please call me. Use me. That’s . . . that’s the only way this anxiety over you won’t eat me alive.”
I can’t speak, tongue-tied and words turning to ash over and over again in my mouth.
“Okay,” I say. My hand reaches back for the door handle; I’m suffocating in the warmth of his steadfast affection and care. Feeling continuously unworthy of it all.
He still looks hurt, eyes downcast and fingers gripping the steering wheel as I look back over at him.
I want to ask him: Do I haunt you?
Do you still think of your hands in my hair and the sleepy feeling that invades my every muscle in the safety of your presence?
Do you remember the night you told me it felt like poetry to be inside me? Before you kissed along my spine and took me again, hard and insistent, and dominating my soul in a way that I was sure would brand me as yours forever?
Instead, I stand in the cold fall air and stare at him, lingering at the open car door for a too-long moment.
The wind chafes my skin, but I barely feel that pain. It’s nothing compared to the way my heart begins to eat itself.