4. Xander #2
I’m off the couch. Across the room. Through the crowd. I grab Penny’s arm—not gentle, not careful, the grip of a boy who has been watching the worst-case scenario unfold in slow motion and has finally snapped the pause.
Her eyes fly open. The chemical glaze is already settling in—pupils dilating, the softening of a face that’s being rewritten by opioids. She scowls at me but it’s delayed, the reaction time of a girl whose nervous system is running on a three-second lag.
“Get the fuck off me, Xander.”
I pull her through the crowd. Down a hallway. Away from the music, away from the bodies, away from Reece’s smile. Into a corner where the light is dim and the bass is muffled and it’s just us.
“What the fuck did you take.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Don’t. Don’t fucking lie to me. I watched you take it.
I watched Reece hand it to you like you’re one of his customers.
Because you are, aren’t you? You’re buying from Reece Hall.
Penny MacHale—the girl who used to lecture me about smoking weed—is popping pills from a drug dealer at a house party. ”
Her face changes. The glaze burns off—not the drug leaving, but the adrenaline cutting through it. Fear. Exposure. The panic of an addict whose secret has been spoken out loud for the first time.
She rips her arm free. “Get away from me, Xander.”
“No! This is serious, Penny! You don’t even know what he’s giving you. You don’t know what’s in those pills. He could be—”
“I know exactly what I’m taking.” Her voice is ice.
The kind of cold that comes from a girl who has been managing her addiction with the precision of an accountant and does not appreciate being told she doesn’t know what she’s doing.
“I know the dose. I know the frequency. I know the supply. I’m not some naive little girl who got tricked into taking candy from a stranger, Xander.
I’m an addict. I know I’m an addict. And I’m choosing it. ”
The honesty is so brutal it winds me. “Why?”
“Why?” She laughs. Mirthless. The laugh of a person who can’t believe the question.
“I was kidnapped, Xander. I was drugged and beaten in a basement by Jon and his father. I watched them torture my best friend through a wall. I can still feel the zip ties on my wrists. Their fists and hands on me. I can still taste the chemicals they injected to keep me quiet. And when I got out—when the ambulance came and the cops came and everybody told me it was over—it wasn’t over.
It’s never been over. It plays on repeat in my head every single day and the only thing—the only thing—that makes it stop is a little white pill that costs me twenty dollars and ninety seconds of self-respect. ”
“Penny—”
“And you.” She steps closer. Into my space.
Her eyes bright with tears and chemicals and fury.
“You don’t get to stand there and preach to me.
You don’t get to act like you’re better.
I know what you’re doing, Xander. I know about the fights.
I know about Reece. I know you’re putting the same shit up your nose that I am.
So don’t stand there and pretend you’re trying to save me when you can’t even save yourself. ”
“Penelope Carra MacHale. Enough.” Her full name. The one that used to mean you’re in trouble. Now it just means I’m scared. “I will not stand here and let you destroy yourself.”
“Stop pretending like you care.” She shoves my chest. “You don’t care.
You proved that at the pool house. You proved it in the closet.
You proved it with the money and the Plan B and every cruel thing you’ve said since October.
” Her voice is rising, cracking, the dam breaking.
“Whatever we had is gone, X. You killed the last bit of emotion I ever had for you. So take your fake concern and your—”
I kiss her.
Not soft. Not asking. I grab her face with both hands and crash my mouth onto hers and swallow the rest of her sentence.
It’s anger and desperation and violence of two people who are destroying each other and can’t stop reaching for the wreckage.
She freezes for one second—one single second where her body doesn’t know whether to fight or surrender—and then her hands are on my chest and she’s kissing me back, hard, biting my lip, tasting like vodka and Percocet and strawberries and the word “home” that I will never stop associating with her mouth.
Then she pulls back. And slaps me.
Open hand. Full force. The crack echoes off the hallway walls. My head snaps sideways and the sting blooms across my cheek and when I look back at her she’s breathing hard, chest heaving, tears streaming down her face, her hand still raised.
“Don’t you ever do that again.” Her voice is a wreck. “You don’t get to kiss me and pretend everything is okay. You don’t get to use my body to shut me up.”
She shoves past me. Hard. Shoulder into my chest. Gone. Back into the party, the crowd swallowing her like water.
I lean against the wall. Press my hand to the cheek she slapped.
Feel the heat of her palm still imprinted on my skin.
She’s right. She’s right about everything.
I can’t save her. I can’t even look at her without wanting to consume her.
We’re two addicts in a hallway telling each other to get clean while we’re both high.
I need Kaiden. Now.
I find him in the kitchen. Cat is draped across him like a beautiful, intoxicated blanket—her arms around his neck, her face in his shoulder, giggling about something only she can hear.
Kaiden’s holding her up with one arm and making her a water with the other, the multitasking of a boy who has memorized the choreography of taking care of a drunk girlfriend.
I grab his arm. “Kaid. We need to talk. Now.”
He looks at me. Reads my face. The grin he was wearing for Cat drops. “What happened?”
“Penny’s using. From Reece. I just watched her take a pill at the party. She’s in deep, Kaid. And Reece—”
Cat lifts her head. Her eyes are glassy but she’s tracking. “Penny? What about Penny?”
“Nothing, baby.” Kaiden puts the water in her hand. “Drink this.”
“Is Penny okay?” Cat’s voice has shifted—even drunk, even half-conscious, the mention of Penny’s name activates something in her that bypasses the alcohol. “Kaid. Is she okay?”
“She’s fine. X and I need to talk for a minute. Drink the water, Cat.”
She narrows her eyes—the ice princess flickering behind the glaze—but takes the water. Kaiden steers her toward a stool and turns to me. He pulls me three steps away, out of Cat’s earshot.
“Talk.”
“Penny is buying from Reece. I saw it tonight. He kissed her cheek, passed her the pill, she took it right there. And Reece—he told me she’s got a tab. A big one. He’s holding it over her the same way he holds my fights over me.”
Kaiden’s jaw sets. The Kaiden face—the one that means the analytical machine behind his eyes is running calculations and none of the outcomes are good.
“How long have you known?”
“Suspected for a couple weeks. Confirmed tonight.”
“And you didn’t tell anyone.”
“I’m telling you now.”
He looks at Cat on the stool. Looks at me. The exhaustion of a boy who has been putting out fires since September and has just been informed of a new one.
“I need to get Cat home. She’s drunk and she’s going to spiral if she hears about Penny tonight.” He puts his hand on my chest. “We’re talking about this. Tomorrow. All of us. You, me, the guys, the full conversation. And X?”
“Yeah.”
“Keep your eyes on Penny tonight. Don’t let her leave with anyone.”
He goes back to Cat. Scoops her off the stool.
She wraps around him like a vine, her face in his neck, murmuring something I can’t hear.
He carries her toward the door, and the last thing I see is Cat’s hand waving over his shoulder—a sloppy, drunk goodbye that would be funny if everything else weren’t on fire.
I turn back to the party just to find Penny dancing with Kole.
Of course she’s dancing with Kole. Because the universe has a sick sense of humor and Kole Hobbs operates on a radar frequency tuned exclusively to vulnerable girls at parties.
He’s got his hands on her hips—lower than Iz’s were, more deliberate, the grip of a boy who is testing boundaries while maintaining plausible deniability.
Penny is laughing. Her head thrown back.
The chemical ease in her body making everything soft and everything permissible and everyone trustworthy.
She looks happy. That’s the cruelest part. The pill has smoothed every sharp edge and what’s left is the Penny from before—bright, open, the girl who laughed at everything and trusted everyone and hadn’t yet learned that the world would punish her for both.
Kole leans in. Says something. Penny nods. He takes her hand—interlacing their fingers, possessive, leading—and pulls her toward the hallway. She follows. Unsteady. Her Converse catching on the edge of the rug, stumbling, and Kole catches her with a laugh that isn’t concerned. It’s anticipatory.
I follow.
Through the crowd. Down the hallway. Past the first bedroom—closed, occupied, the muffled sounds of other people’s bad decisions. Past the second. Kole opens the third door. Pulls Penny inside. The door closes.
I kick it open.
The door slams against the wall. The room is dim—just a bedside lamp, casting warm light across Danny’s guest room.
Kole has Penny on the bed. Her dress is pushed up to her waist. Her blazer is off, thrown on the floor.
Kole’s shirt is unbuttoned and he’s holding his phone above her—camera on, flash off, taking pictures of her body while she lies there with her eyes half-closed and a smile on her face that doesn’t know what it’s smiling at.
He sees me. His face goes white. “X—bro, we were just—”
I don’t let him finish.