Chapter 13 #2
“He told me things about you, you know,” I rush out in a low voice, my heart slamming into my sternum.
Heat floods my veins, and my whole body quivers, the anger inside me combustible.
I want her to hurt for once. I want her to know what it’s like.
“He told me you were annoying and desperate. He told me your ass was too flat and your chest nonexistent and that he was only with you because you were easy and jumped at the chance to suck his di—”
She lunges for me again, and I shrink against the wall, shielding my face with my hands. I’m not fast enough, though, and her nails make contact before someone’s dragging her off of me. My chin burns where she scraped off a layer of skin.
“You know what people said about you, Ivy?” she snarls. “That you were a slut and a whore, and you stole my fucking boyfriend! And that you turned into some fucking deranged zombie when he tossed you out like yesterday’s trash! People saw you walk away with him that night! You’re a fucking liar!”
Her words hurt more than the current state of my face, and I stumble to the door, out of the apartment, and into the freezing night air, desperate to leave her and the memories behind.
All the fight, all the anger, all the venom drains out of me, and I feel lost. Regretful.
Afraid. I don’t have my jacket, but I thankfully have my phone.
I pull it out of my back pocket with shaky hands, fingers fumbling to find Wes’s contact information.
I dial without hesitation, and he answers on the first ring.
“Miss me already?” he teases. I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. Only my labored breathing. His voice reappears, this time more urgent. “Ives?” I don’t answer. “Ivy, are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I manage, but my words come out twisted and wobbly.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, his voice deepening with urgency. “You sound off.”
I swallow. “Is it—would you—can I come over? I’m sorry.”
“Of course you can come over,” he says immediately. “Do you need a ride?”
“No,” I say out of habit. But then reality sinks in, and tears well in my eyes.
I blink them back violently. I have no car keys, not that I could drive after the amount of tequila I’ve had, and I have no jacket to protect me on the twenty-minute walk to his house.
My voice comes out as a squeak. “Maybe. Is that…would that be okay?”
“I’m already heading out to the car. Where should I pick you up?”
“I can meet you in the library parking lot,” I tell him. I need to keep moving. Need to keep walking. Because if I stop and stand and wait, not only will I freeze to death, but my own panic might suffocate me, and I can’t think of a less desirable end.
“Okay, hang tight. I’ll be there in ten.”
I hang up the phone and continue putting one foot in front of the other even though my eye throbs, and my chin burns, and my skull aches from where it cracked against the wall.
My skin’s numb from the cold or the tequila…
or maybe from adrenaline, my heart pump, pump, pumping, so I won’t collapse from the absolute tragedy of it all.
I beat Wes to the library, which is closed at this hour, and scan the dimly lit lot for the first sign of headlights. My mind is racing, my breathing jagged as I try to gain control of my pulse, and the numbers that usually calm me down aren’t coming out right in my head.
Ten. Six. Two. Nine. Three—
Everything’s jumbled, my thoughts especially, and when the silver SUV turns into the parking lot, I feel relief that I have something solid to focus on. Something real.
I squint against the lights as he parks in the spot closest to the building, shielding my eyes and my face. I’m still hiding when he cuts the engine, only now because I don’t want him to see the damage.
It hurts like hell, so it must be bad.
The car door opens and shuts, Wes’s footsteps hurried across the sidewalk.
“Ivy, are you okay? Where the fuck is your jacket? It’s freezing out here.
” I keep my head down, my hair acting as a curtain to shield it from view.
“Ivy,” he says more seriously, and his feet stop inches from mine. “Ives. What happened?”
I have no choice but to look at him then, so I do, letting my hair fall back.
His eyes widen, scanning over my face in disbelief, before they harden and flash with a fury I’ve never seen in Wes.
“What the fuck?” He reaches out as if to touch my face, but then freezes, thinking better of it.
A muscle in his jaw ticks. “Ivy. Who did this?”
But I can’t answer. The corners of my mouth keep twitching down, determined to break my composure, and I’m this close to losing it. I shake my head, staring down at his shoes again, back where we started.
“Let’s get you into the car, okay?” He reaches out hesitantly. When I don’t flinch, his hand settles against my back, guiding me carefully down the sidewalk and over to the passenger side. He opens the door and eases me in, before shutting it gently and coming around the front.
Once he’s settled, he starts the engine and cranks the heat, leaning across the interior to turn all the vents in my direction. Then, he looks at me again with hard eyes. I don’t like them on Wes, I decide, and I feel guilty for being the one to make them that way.
“What happened?” he asks, his voice low and urgent.
I suck in a wobbly breath and shiver, the chill in my bones finally registering after walking around for so long in nothing but a tequila blanket.
Despite all the shots I took, I feel dead sober now, and I can’t tell if the shake in my hands is the comedown from the alcohol or the fight.
“Please tell me,” he implores quietly when my silence lingers.
"I…got into a fight,” I begin, in disbelief that these words are coming out of my mouth, “with a girl I knew in high school.”
“Ivy—” he starts like he doesn’t believe me.
“I did. She punched me. And clawed her nails down my face.”
He sucks in a sharp breath, reaching out to take my shaking hand between his two much larger ones. “Fuck.”
My throat clogs up, and I blink back tears. Crying is not going to do anything good for my eye right now. “Is it bad?” I croak.
“It’s…” He hesitates, squeezing my hand. “I mean, Jesus, Ivy. It’s not good. We need to ice that eye pronto. And put some disinfectant on those scratches.”
I nod again. “Yeah. Yeah, okay.”
His eyes roam over my face again, jaw clenching as he lingers on my chin.
He squeezes my hand one more time between his before releasing me and backing out of the parking spot in one swift move.
As we drive in the direction of his house, I stare straight ahead, thawing out in the hot air, defrosting my fingers by holding them up to the vents.
“You didn’t punch her back?” he asks after a while.
I glance at him in surprise. “How do you know?”
“Your knuckles look fine. Your hand’s not swelling.”
I flex my fingers. “No, I didn’t hit her back. But…”
“But what?”
“But I wasn’t nice.”
Shame courses through me as I recall the horrible words I threw at Alexis.
No, I didn’t punch her back, but I egged her on.
I let my anger get the best of me. I let alcohol cloud my judgment.
I said awful, nasty things. I tried to fight back, but at what price?
I allowed my mind to be invaded by memories of him and his words and that night—
Don’t.
Wes shoots me a look like he doesn’t believe me, but he doesn’t ask any more questions for the rest of the drive.
Despite his silence, I can tell by his body language that he’s upset.
His shoulders are stiff, his jaw clenched, and the sparkling light he normally exudes is all doom and gloom at the moment.
I hate myself for veiling him in shadows.
When we pull into his driveway, he shuts off the car and comes around the front again, helping me out, though I can manage on my own. I shiver as we make our way up the steps, and only once I’m inside the house do my teeth stop chattering.
I vaguely register that the interior is back to its normal state, no more birthday decorations or trash bags cluttering the entryway. In the living room, I spot Kaden and Ben seated on the couch, watching a show on the TV.
“Where did you go in such a hurry?” Ben asks, before looking up. His mouth gapes when he notices me, and he fumbles for the remote, pausing whatever’s on screen. “What the fuck? What happened?”
Kaden looks over as well, and his shocked expression mirrors Ben’s. “Okay, who do we need to kill?”
I don’t answer. Neither does Wes. “Where’s the first aid kit?” is all he says, his deep voice carrying the same restrained emotion from the car.
“In the downstairs bathroom, I think,” says Ben, getting to his feet. “Let me get a bag of ice.”
“I think we have frozen peas,” says Kaden. “I’ll get you some water.”
“Thanks,” Wes says, before guiding me again, down the hall to the door at the end. I step back while he rummages through the cabinet, pulling out band-aids and disinfectant.
When he closes the bathroom door, I finally look at my face in the mirror.