Chapter 51
Ren
Ivy didn’t bother with the elevator and ran for the stairs.
“Ivy,” I called after her. “Ivy, please stop.”
She didn’t answer, but I heard her crying. Ivy was a lot faster than I expected and was already through the door to the senior floor before I could catch her.
I held my side, trying to get rid of the stitch as I sucked in large mouthfuls of air. I really needed to get my cardio up. I jogged the rest of the way to our room and tried the handle, but it was locked.
“Ivy, open the door.”
I knocked, but nothing. Shit, I was going to have to dig my key out. I dropped my backpack on the floor and started opening pockets.
“Is she in there?”
I startled at the sound of Chantry’s voice. I hadn’t even seen her coming.
“Yeah. Ah, there it is,” I said, and opened the door.
Ivy was in the bathroom, and I didn’t care. I wasn’t leaving until she was okay.
Pulling out my phone, I wasn’t sure who to reach out to first, but chose Myles.
R: Hey, can you do me a favor? Grab a bunch of feel-good junk food from the cafeteria and three coffees.
M: For sure. Ivy’s room?
R: Yeah.
M: Be there as quick as I can.
R: THX LV U
M: Love you more, Snowflake.
Chantry knocked on the bathroom door.
“Ivy, it’s me, Chantry. Can you open up and let me in?”
“No! Go away,” Ivy yelled.
“Ivy, please. We are not leaving until you come out,” Chantry said. “Don’t make me bust it down because I will.”
My eyebrows raised. I’d never pictured Chantry hurting a fly, let alone destroying school property. Yet, I believed her.
I joined Chantry in her pleading.
“Ivy, please let us in. You don’t need to be strong for us. We only want to be here for you,” I said, pulling up a text to Sabastian.
R: Tell me the truth right now. Did you do this to Zigzag?
S: What the hell do you care? I didn’t realize you and Zigzag were so friendly.
R: Not the point. She won’t forgive you if you did this. Not liking him and wanting him out of Ivy’s life is no excuse.
Chantry knocked again. “Ivy, I’m not leaving. I mean it.”
There was a long pause from Sabastian, but finally the little dots popped up.
S: I wish I had. Happy now? It wasn’t me, so find someone else to blame.
When I saw him next, I was going to be the one to smack him. I wasn’t even sure if I believed him. Everything was always turning on its head. Just when you thought things couldn’t get any stranger, they took another left until you were chasing your tail.
Leaving Chantry to talk Ivy out of the bathroom, I turned around and froze.
There on my bed, which I rarely used, was my notebook and hairbrush.
Walking across the room, I picked them up and closed my eyes.
Shit. Now, I remembered exactly what had happened and how I left them in here to grab later.
This was another perfect example of how screwed up everything had become.
Something as innocent as me forgetting my hairbrush and notebook in another room had turned into a complete conspiracy in my head. I fucking hated it when Nash was right.
Frustrated with myself I walked to the door and stepped out to wait for Myles. We were tangled in a web of lies, half-truths, and agendas that had become one giant Sherlock Holmes episode in my mind.
“Hey Snowflake,” Myles said, walking down the hall with his arms full.
“Wow.”
“Aye, ya said bring the goods.”
Rising on my toes, I kissed his cheek.
“I love you. Thank you,” I said, taking the pile from him.
“You make me heart smile, Snowflake.”
Sometimes Myles was just too much, but he was mine, and that made me smile.
“No idea how long I’ll be, and I’m with Liam and Theo tonight. I’ll call you later.”
He kissed my forehead.
“Take all the time ya need.”
I watched him until he turned a corner, then went back inside.
“Ivy, that’s it. You leave me no choice. I’m busting it down,” Chantry shouted as I set the food down.
She backed up several paces and looked like she was ready to charge, but the lock clicked, and the door slowly opened.
When Ivy stepped out, we all but attacked her as we wrapped her up in a group hug.
“This is all my fault. He’s in jail, and it’s all my fault,” Ivy said, and then broke into sobs again.
We guided her to the table and made her sit. Grabbing the coffee, I put one in front of her, and she gripped it like it was a life vest.
“This is not your fault,” I said, rubbing her shoulder.
Her eyes were red and puffy from crying when she looked up at me. You could see the pain in every tear that slid down her cheek.
“It is. If I hadn’t gone to meet him that day, if I hadn’t kissed him, if I hadn’t told Sabastian that I still had feelings for Zigzag, none of this would be happening,” she said, and covered her mouth.
“How could Sabastian do this? This is the rest of Zigzag’s life we are talking about.
This isn’t some slap on the wrist. He was arrested. ”
“Sabastian says he didn’t do it,” I said, and Ivy rolled her eyes.
“Of course, he would say that. Who else could it be?”
“His father,” I said, and Chantry nodded.
“Sure, but who ran to Christov and told him that Zigzag was pissed at him? Because it certainly wasn’t me, and I know you didn’t. That only leaves Sabastian.”
“True, but it could have easily been something that Zigzag said to Christov himself that made him a liability.”
Ivy stood and walked away from the table.
“Why are you defending Sabastian? And do you even hear yourself? You’ve turned into one of them. He was a liability,” she said, in a voice that sounded like it could be Nash or one of the other guys.
“I didn’t mean it like that, and I’m sorry if you feel like I’m defending Sabastian. It’s just that I like to dig for the truth. I don’t want to blame him if we don’t know for sure that he did it.”
I got up and grabbed her by the shoulders to make her stand still and look at me.
“You love Sabastian, right?”
“Yes, as angry as I am, I do. And don’t even get me started on how messed up that is.”
Letting her go, I took the box of tissues from the desk and handed it to her.
“Then tell me, do you honestly think he did this to Zigzag?”
Ivy wiped her eyes and blew her nose. She shook her head and sighed.
“I don’t know. Sabastian was really angry after the fight the other day. They called my dad and his. It was a whole thing.”
“See, right there. Christov could’ve decided that helping Zigzag was no longer going to benefit him if Sabastian and Zigzag were at each other’s throats.”
She shrugged and walked over to the table to flop back down into a chair. I handed her one of the bags that Myles brought with sugar donuts inside. Ivy pulled one out and took a huge bite.
“Maybe,” she mumbled around the food. “But the point remains that if I hadn’t set this whole thing in motion, then Sabastian and Zigzag would never have been in a fight. His father wouldn’t have been called. So, you see, this is still my fault.”
“Ivy, Christov is the enemy here,” Chantry added. “No matter what, if he called the police because Zigzag and Sabastian were fighting over you…that is just…just…stupid. Who does that?”
“Chantry is right, you can’t blame yourself for this,” I said, squeezing her hand.
“What am I going to do? I want to help him, but if I do, it’s only going to cause a larger fight.”
She crossed her arms on the table and dropped her forehead down. Ivy’s body shook as a fresh wave of tears started to fall.
“I hate this so much. It’s true to be careful what you wish for. I wanted two guys to like me and look what’s happened…worst wish ever,” she mumbled.
Chantry and I looked at one another, and neither of us seemed to know what to say, so we just sat quietly and let Ivy go through her emotions. If Christov did this because he found out that Zigzag was helping us…I hoped not, I really did.
Even knowing all the things Zigzag had done to the guys and me for Christov, I would still feel like shit. His whole life, people had used and manipulated him.
No matter what, that didn’t sit right with me.