Chapter 50
Jase
Last year, I came to your house a few times, but I couldn’t bring myself to knock because I was afraid that you all would send me away.
—Jase
Where is she?
Where the hell is she?
Adrenaline pumps through my veins. Mae doesn’t know where Zoe is. No one does. Katie thinks the last time she saw her was when she sent her to get something from the prop room, but she wasn’t there. She’s not in her room either. Or in the practice studios.
Fuck, Zoe has been missing for hours. She’s not answering her phone. Something must have happened or she never would have disappeared without a word. She would have told me.
My heart is racing on the way to my room, as I pull my phone out of my pocket to try calling her again.
“Jase.” The familiar voice makes me look up. Fuck, what is Caleb doing here? And why does he look like he wants to burn the whole world to the ground?
I tense as a dark foreboding fills me. There’s only one reason that Caleb would be here.
“Where is she?” My voice is hard. Cold. Controlled.
“At home.”
“Is she okay?” The question is clearly unnecessary. She’s not okay; otherwise, Caleb wouldn’t be here. Otherwise, she would have come herself.
“No.” His hands clench into fists, and he looks so angry that I almost flinch.
“What happened?”
“It was Reed.”
I freeze. I don’t understand. And at the same time, I’m afraid I know exactly what he means.
“What?”
“It was Reed,” he says again, desperately. His voice is shaking, and the meaning of his words registers. I understand them, but—Fuck!
“What did Reed do?” Rage boils up, burning in every cell of my body, and swallows me whole. He has to say it very clearly. I need to hear it. Even if I don’t want to.
“Reed . . .” Caleb gasps for breath. “Reed was the one who raped Zoe. That’s why you have to come with me now and—” he breaks off as I whirl around and run.
Reed raped her.
I’m going to kill that bastard.
* * *
Caleb catches up with me as I’m running across campus. He’s faster than me, which is probably unsurprising, considering he’s still a football player. He grabs my shoulder and yanks me around so hard I stumble.
“You won’t be able to find him,” he says. “He ran away. I have no idea where he is.”
I pull away from him with a jerk. My heart is pounding so hard against my ribs that it hurts. “I really don’t give a shit right now. I don’t want to see Reed.”
Caleb’s shoulders slump. “You want to see Zoe.”
I don’t bother to respond, because he knows it’s true.
“Come on.” He puts a hand on my back and leads me toward the parking lot.
His parents’ car is parked right at the entrance, diagonally across two parking spaces. But I know Caleb wouldn’t give a shit even if there were someone else here to complain.
We get in the car, and he silently leaves the parking lot and guides the car into the Saturday evening Boston traffic.
“How . . . how did you find out?” I say, breaking the silence.
Caleb shrugs, his eyes on the road ahead of us.
“It was a dumb coincidence. Zoe heard Reed and Charlotte talking in the theater. They were arguing about it. I don’t know any more than that.
She . . . she didn’t say much, and . . .
” he falters, clutching the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles turn white.
“And what?” I say, because it’s clear a piece is missing.
“She was hiding. In the theater. I have no idea how long. I called her about something else, and she was . . . having a panic attack.”
This is all so unbelievably wrong. It makes me sick. She was hiding in the theater while I was there. Shit, I was right there, and I didn’t find her. I must not have been looking hard enough.
Why didn’t I keep searching for her? Why couldn’t I have found her?
My head is spinning.
Fuck fuck fuck.
“Fuck!” I blurt out. Caleb is silent and lets me vent.
This can’t be real. It can’t. But it is. It’s fucking reality. Reed raped Zoe. Reed, who has known her for years. Who she grew up with. Reed, that miserable bastard.
“I’ll kill him,” I hiss, my hands shaking.
A grim smile appears on Caleb’s face. “Get in line.”
I shake my head. “We can do it together.”
Caleb gives me a quick, uninterpretable glance. “This thing between you is serious.”
I don’t answer, because it’s not just serious. It’s everything.
* * *
Ceara and Ethan are sitting in the dining room with glasses of whiskey in front of them. I think I need one too. They look up when they hear us, and a weak smile appears on Ethan’s face, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. Ceara is crying silently. I can’t get a word out; I just nod at them.
“She’s upstairs,” Caleb says.
I hesitate briefly, expecting Zoe’s parents to stop me. I wouldn’t blame them. But they do nothing of the kind, and finally I start up the stairs. Every step is hard and heavy.
I need to see her. Fuck, I need to see Zoe so much that everything hurts.
At the same time, it scares me shitless.
The door to her room is ajar, but I knock anyway before I go in and then stand there awkwardly, because I don’t know what she wants. What she wants me to do.
She’s sitting on the bed with her legs drawn up and her arms wrapped around her knees, staring into space. She’s white as a ghost, her tangled hair falling around her narrow shoulders. She looks more fragile than I’ve ever seen her.
“Hey, Pixie,” I say softly, letting her know I’m here.
I want to hold her close and never let go again. But I remember how she tensed up when I touched her in the first pas de deux lesson. Even now, after everything that’s happened between us, I have no idea how she’ll react.
She looks at me silently. Her eyes gleam with tears, but she’s not crying. Then she whispers my name, and it sounds like a prayer.
“What can I do?” I ask her. I’m still standing much too far away, even though my instinct urges me to go to her.
But I can’t just do that. Not now. This is different. Different from every other time that I touched her or held her.
She rubs her face, wiping away tears that aren’t there. “Can you . . . can you just hold me?” Her voice is quiet. Thin and cracked, and my heart angrily skips a beat. I order it to be calm and force my thoughts to remain in the here and now, with Zoe.
I smile. “Anything you want, Pixie.”
I kick my shoes off and sit on the bed next to her, pull the quilt up around us, and take her in my arms at last. Her whole body is trembling, and her skin is cold.
She lays her head on my chest. I’m sure she can hear my heartbeat, just like I can feel hers at my side.
I hold her tight as she begins to cry, and my heart breaks into a thousand pieces.