Chapter 29
TWENTY-NINE
Something inside me cracks, a sharp, quick snap that tunnels my vision until it’s black. It comes back into focus with bright, white spots as I try to keep my knees from buckling.
Wes steps into the circle holding two beers, passing one to him with a smile, and my entire world collapses.
My eyes dart between the two in rapid movements.
I can’t help it. I’m searching for an explanation like it might be written across their skin, but there are no glaring truths I missed by being oblivious.
At least, none that I can see on the outside.
The inside...well, that’s a different story.
He smiles at me. “I know Ivy.”
“You do?” Wes asks his friend, his brow knitting in confusion, and I float above my own body.
“Oh yeah. We’ve met.”
I flinch.
We haven’t, I want to say. I don’t know him.
But that will lead to more questions. More comments. More truths.
He keeps smiling, but it turns more wolfish by the second, and I shrink into myself. Wes looks between us, perplexed, but I can’t worry about that because his eyes on my body have my skin rolling and rippling, and I wish I could rip it off like an itchy wool sweater.
How can they be friends?
I scratch at my arms.
“Oh yeah?” asks Wes. “When?”
Wes’s eyes are on my face, reading me like a worn paperback, and I know he’s seconds away from realizing that something’s wrong.
That something’s really wrong. So I do my best impression of a well-adjusted person and give his friend a genuine smile even though it kills me on the inside, a fucking knife to the heart.
Because I can’t have a meltdown here, in front of him.
I can’t do this right now—I can’t do this ever—and by some miracle, I manage to answer him in a stable, steady voice.
By some miracle, I get the words out without stuttering or stammering or stumbling, though I nearly swallow my entire tongue in the process.
“He dated my friend in high school,” I say.
Wes shakes his head in disbelief. “Wow, seriously? What a small world.”
His eyes never leave my face as he takes a sip of his beer. “Tell me about it,” he says, and I want to die.
But then Kaden says something about beer pong and Ben makes a joke and the subject changes and the party moves on.
I don’t. My body is paralyzed in place. I told myself that if I ever saw him again, I’d do what I couldn’t before. I would run. I wouldn’t stand there like a sitting duck, oblivious to the kill shot, free for the taking, a punching bag for someone else’s rage and release.
I would run.
But I can’t. My feet are glued to this floor, and the party rotates around me in a blur of faces and laughter and drunken antics. Why can’t I move?
Shock.
Through the madness, I focus on Wes, and my heart splits in half. He’s the safe place. He’s supposed to be the safe place. But now he’s talking to Kaden and Ben and him, and I slip away, into the kitchen. My fingertips tingle. My chest constricts. I feel an anxiety attack coming on.
I latch onto the nearest bottle of tequila and pour myself a shot.
I down it like a life elixir and then stare out the window in a trance.
If my body’s supposed to be in fight or flight, it didn’t get the memo.
It’s just…immobile. I just stand at the sink and stare into space while tequila churns my gut and my heart tries to remember how to beat.
I’ve lost track of the amount of time I’ve been standing here when I sense his presence behind me, too close. Way too close. I didn’t notice anyone enter the kitchen. I didn’t hear anyone approach. But my body knows, and my hair stands on end.
“You look good,” he says. I shake my head in the tiniest movement.
“What, don’t want to talk? Do you talk to Tucker, at least?
” I say nothing. He steps closer. Too close.
Intimidatingly close, as if he’s letting me know he could overtake me if he wanted to.
I stare down at my shoes. “You guys fucking?”
I flinch away, tripping backward as the flight finally kicks in, and he snickers.
I stumble out of the kitchen, snatching the tequila along the way. Nausea twists my stomach.
First priority: Distance.
Second priority: Air.
Third priority: Vomit.
I don’t know where to go. The moon is too close at this point, not that it’s an option.
Somehow, I make it out of the house, onto the main beach road. Walk a step. Dry heave. Walk another step. Dry heave some more. When I’m a decent distance from the house, I sink down to the sand. I raise the bottle of tequila to my mouth and drink.
But I can’t keep the memory at bay.