14. Fourteen #3
Or so I thought. Turns out Greer wasn’t done making revelations as he finally managed to choke out a few words.
“What are you gonna do, Michaels? Kiss me or some shit? I remember the shit you get up to in the dark, but I’m not one of those faggot friends of yours.”
In shock, I reared back. While my arm kept him easily pinned down, my brain fought for any words to shut him up, say he didn’t know what the fuck he was talking about.
Instead, I was paralyzed. The fear from that night had never really left me.
Now, here it was, being thrown in my fucking face.
My shock must have registered with him, because even though his voice was hoarse and his face still swollen and red from the fierceness of my grip, he smiled again.
“Or wait, maybe you’ll kill me? Bury me alive? I hear that’s something you’re good at.”
His throat bobbed against the back of my palm.
And finally, I let go altogether. He rubbed the skin on his neck where my hands had been, then straightened out his T-shirt which had been ruffled by my attempts to strangle the motherfucker to death.
Casually, as if nothing he’d said or I’d done had shaken him in the slightest, he bent down and collected his phone, waving it in my face one more time, “Screen’s cracked, but still, wouldn’t want to leave this just lying around where anyone could see those photos. ”
The walls of the office seemed to close in on me as he returned the phone to his pocket and ambled for the door, turning at the last second to give me one more threatening grin,
“Oh, and Cole, next time, you better be prepared to kill me, otherwise, who knows what stories I might tell.”
Then he left.
Earlier today, I’d been wracked with self-doubt.
The hours after my conversation with Michele were spent looking back at my actions with the sour taste of regret on my tongue.
Now, the pictures of Michele, her body pressed so tightly into Bella’s, her cheeks heated in a way they had never been with me, were the least of my fucking problems. These days she looked so fucking happy.
She had a permanent smile as she walked around camp.
Meanwhile, my face had practically forgotten the feeling.
As I collapsed back into my chair, I could admit the shaking in my hands was down to the anxiety and anger brooding my body. Anger’s never rational. It’s gasoline in a dry forest, an electric current sizzling and burning its way through your brain.
When the hockey season ended early, with our team failing to make University Hockey League play-offs, and me as a captain in disgrace, it had been our coach’s idea to take a new approach.
I had one season left at Michigan, one more chance, and he’d suggested trying a sports psychologist to deal with whatever had kept me from scoring goals all damn season.
Months of work, dealing with my anger, learning how to channel it or let it go, all seemed to follow Greer out the door.
This day had been nothing but cursed conversations, each one designed to tempt me into losing my cool.
Greer’s taunts were what finally did it.
The dark screen on the ancient computer in here reflected my face back at me while snippets of the past replayed again and again.
The blisters on my hands caused by burying Nick’s body.
The soft, rushed press of secret touches in the dark.
The more I looked at myself, the more my own reflection made my body tighten until it snapped, and my fist went with it.
Cracking into the glass of the screen. Once.
Twice. Three times. And then, the fissures turned to splintered shards so big that no reflection was left.
I drew back my now-bloodied knuckles. Something inside me eased at the small lines of blood that creased my skin.
A brief sense of calm filled me as I pulled out the first aid kit we kept stored under Abbi’s desk.
There was one in every building around camp, because, put a few hundred kids and a bunch of young adults in the woods and who knew when someone was going to get hurt.
Slowly, I cleaned my hands, before popping a series of bandages over the various cuts and scrapes caused by the glass.
I would worry about getting a new monitor tomorrow.
For now, I needed to put this day behind me.
Flipping off the lights, leaving the mess I’d made for tomorrow, I closed the office door and let the weight of the night press down on me.
Whether it was caused by the pressure of the humid air or of the day’s events, I was drained.
I needed to sleep away everything I’d learned and been reminded of today.
So many secrets, lies, and desires I had thought buried in the past. Only now, I knew they weren’t.
They had followed me, followed all of us to the present.
This was a much bigger game than any of us thought, and Toni, Brennon, Xavier, and I were still playing.
Worse, we needed to play on the same team, or risk losing everything.