Chapter Thirteen – Wren
Sloane keeps her promise. She accompanies me to my appointment at the campus health clinic, where she pays for everything.
The checkup, the birth control, all of it.
I am beat-red the entire time; you’d think, by now, after doing what I’ve done, I wouldn’t get so embarrassed when talking about sex and stuff, but I still do.
That’s just a quirk of being me, I guess.
After the appointment, we stop by the union to grab lunch, and although it’s busier than it was the first time we met, I can’t help but flash back to last fall, prior to the semester starting, when Sloane and I met.
Man, how things have changed.
We decide on sharing a pizza, and once our pizza is done, we find an empty round table off to the side, where we bust into it. “Thanks again for coming with me,” I say. “And for paying. I really don’t know where I’d be if you wouldn’t have reached out to me last semester.”
“You took a chance on me just like I took a chance on you.” She shrugs. “It could’ve blown up in either of our faces, but I am glad it didn’t. It feels almost… normal, talking to you. You know where I come from, and you don’t judge me.”
“It’s not my place to judge,” I say. Besides that, I think growing up around other people with lots of money is the reason she was so judged to begin with. Rich people can be dicks. Then again, most people can be. “Speaking of not judging…”
Sloane lifts a perfectly sculpted eyebrow, waiting.
“Um, don’t freak out, but when you and Elias went out the other night, Logan came to the house.”
Her expression changes instantly. “He what? That rotten asshole. I don’t remember the camera going off.”
“He snuck around the back of the house to avoid setting it off, I think.”
“Guess I need to install more cameras, then.”
“It’s fine,” I say. “I’m not telling you so you can freak out. I just… I don’t know. Everything he said has been weighing on me lately, especially after my date with Reese.” I’d be a liar if I say I haven’t thought about Logan since his declaration.
Her feelings on Logan are abundantly clear, and yet she still asks, “What did he say?”
“Short version: I’m all he can think about, supposedly. He wants me. I make him weak. That sort of thing.” My voice quiets when I add, “He said it way better at the time, and I… I believed him.” That last part is difficult for me to admit.
“Believed, as in past-tense? You come to your senses when it comes to that guy since then?”
I take a slice of pizza and bite into it.
“I don’t know. A part of me knows I can’t really trust anything he says.
I wouldn’t put it past him to lie through his teeth just to get what he wants from me again, but—” Gosh, why is talking about him such a tough thing?
“—at the same time, I’ve never heard him that raw before.
If none of that was true, then he’s the world’s best liar. ”
Sloane only eats, watching me like she knows there’s more I want to say.
“Do you think a guy can change? I mean, really, do you think anyone can change? Someone who’s used to the life he used to have—I don’t fit into that kind of lifestyle. I don’t want to.”
She says, “I used to think people can’t change.
I still don’t know if they really can, but if something can change them, it’s probably the desire to be with someone else.
I used to think no one would ever love me the way I am, but then I met Elias and everything did change for me.
Everything changed, and at the same time, nothing did. ”
“That’s confusing.”
My roomie chuckles softly. “Yeah, I guess it is. So, let me ask you this: if you still have feelings for Logan—which I don’t know that I support, by the way—where does that leave Reese?”
A good question, and I don’t know if I have the answer. That says nothing about the masked man I met at that party the other week and how electric things were between us. I never told Sloane about that, and I don’t think I will.
“I don’t know,” I whisper. “I think I still like him, too. Is it bad to like two guys at once?”
Sloane hums. “I’m not the best person to ask about something like that.
I never really had any sort of feelings for any guy until Elias, but if there’s one thing I know and accept, it’s that you feel what you feel.
Your heart wants what it wants, even if most other people would think it’s wrong.
Most people would never see Elias and I as a couple that should be together. ”
I’m dying to know why. She’s mentioned it a few times now, and every other time I’ve let it be, figuring she wanted her privacy and that it was none of my business. But now, well, she knows pretty much everything I’m going through, and she just said I’m not judgmental, so why not try to ask?
“Why?” I ask quietly. “I mean, if you still don’t want to tell me, you don’t have to. I’m just curious.”
She cocks her head at me, letting her long blond hair fall in front of her face.
“You might think of me differently once you know. Then again, you did take the whole serial killer father thing in stride, so maybe not. Fine. Are you sure you really want to know? Once you know, there’s no going back. ”
Oh, dear. The way she’s saying all this makes me wonder if I should tell her never mind. At this point, I don’t know what she could say that would freak me out, but I’m also so curious it’s burning a hole through me.
I mean, really, how bad could it be?
With a nod, I say, “Tell me.”
“My mom and Elias’s mom…” She pauses as she squints her eyes, as if she’s still unsure whether or not to tell me. “Sisters.”
It doesn’t hit me right away, what she said or what it means. It takes a good sixty or so seconds of me staring at her, of my mind putting it together, for me to realize what that means. If her mom and his mom are sisters, that means…
Holy crap. They’re cousins?
“Estranged sisters. It isn’t like we grew up together or anything,” she goes on with a shrug, as if it’s no big deal.
And to her, I suppose, it isn’t. “I didn’t even know he existed before we met, and he had no idea about me.
It wasn’t like we planned on it or anything.
It just… it happened. Something pulled us together. ”
Not knowing about each other might make it a little less weird, I guess.
There are probably a lot of people out there who’ve never met some of their cousins, and dating a cousin is way less weird than dating, say, your own brother or sister, so it could be worse.
I think there are some states out there where you can legally marry your cousin.
Sloane says, “We just connected. We both have a little bit of the rot in us. Nobody else really understands.” Those emerald eyes of hers zero in on me. “Well? Regret asking now?”
I’d be lying if I say I’m not shocked—them being related was not at all where I was thinking this would go—but in the grand scheme of things, does it affect me in any way?
No. If Sloane and Elias are happy together, then that’s all that should matter, even if the majority of people would look at their relationship as taboo.
“No,” I say, though it does take me a little while. “Thank you for telling me. It just wasn’t what I was expecting.”
Tilting her head, she asks, “What were you expecting?”
“I don’t know.” And isn’t that the truth?
It wasn’t what I was expecting, but I also didn’t know what I was expecting.
All I know is, my love life isn’t the most complicated anymore.
Even if I do have feelings more multiple guys at once, I’d still say Sloane and Elias have me beat.
I don’t know what the future holds for them, but I don’t know that Sloane would ever really care about the world or what anyone thinks.
She’s got enough money to pave her way for the rest of her life.
Heck, she and Elias could move to the middle of nowhere and no one would ever be the wiser. I don’t see her becoming a lumberjack or anything, but stranger things have happened.
“Are you going to think of me differently now?” she questions.
“No. I mean, it is a little strange to me, but as long as you two are happy then that’s all that should matter, right? I could never imagine dating one of my own cousins, but like you said, you didn’t grow up with him. I would imagine meeting someone when you’re older would be different.”
Sloane then says something that makes me nearly choke on the bite of pizza in my mouth: “He killed for me, you know.”
“What?”
“It was a home intruder. He came home and saved me. It was violent, bloody, and he was so angry—but it was perfect.” Sloane smiles, though that smile is mostly to herself.
I don’t know anyone who could talk about murder and smile so softly like that, like she’s talking about getting the sweetest Valentine’s Day present.
“When they’re willing to do anything for you, that’s when you know it’s real. ”
The more she says, the more insane she sounds. I don’t think I’d ever want a guy to kill for me, but the thought, in a weird, psychotic way, is a little sweet, I guess. Hmm. Maybe Sloane is rubbing off on me too much, because I can honestly say that’s a thought I never would’ve had a year ago.
Then again, the me from a year ago definitely would not have been able to peer into the future and see where I am now. Things have changed. I’ve changed.
We finish eating our pizza, and then we return to the house. Elias isn’t home; he’s in class, so the house is quiet. Sloane stops me just before I walk into my bedroom and says, “Don’t, uh, tell Elias I told you about us. I’ll let him know. He can be a little touchy when it comes to that subject.”
“No problem,” I say. “Your secret is safe with me.”
She smirks somewhat. “And so is yours.”
It takes me a while to remember that I told her about liking more than one guy. With the weight of her truth, I completely forgot.
“If I were you, though,” she goes on, “I would figure my feelings out. See if you like one more than the other, if one feels more real.” She must sense where my mind is going, because she adds, “And if the feelings for both of them are real, well, you only live once. Why not have fun with both?” With that, she twirls and walks away from me, sauntering to her room.
Have fun with both. That suggestion swirls in my head as I enter my bedroom and shut the door. It almost sounds like an illegal thought. Strange as it is, it never really occurred to me to keep going, to see where things end up, with both.
The problem is I don’t know if my heart can handle it. Logan made me feel so… so awful last semester. Reese makes me feel amazing with none of the drawbacks. When I look at it like that, Logan shouldn’t be in the running.
But I can’t just pretend that I don’t still care about the jerk. I do. Somehow, somewhere along the way, I started to fall for him, and I think that’s why I was so devastated last semester when he never reached out again.
The rest of the day goes by in a blur. I’m caught in my own head for most of it, which is why, when it’s time for bed and I yank my sheets down, I don’t see the folded piece of paper until I’m seconds from crawling on top of the mattress.
I blink. I don’t remember putting anything beneath my sheets. Hmm.
Grabbing it, I go to the small lamp on my desk and turn it on, illuminating the darkness of the room enough so I can see what this folded paper is for.
My fingers work on opening it, and I see a short note written in simple handwriting.
My heart skips a beat when I read it over, and I have to read it a few times before I realize who it’s from.
The masked man from the party. Has to be. And what does the note say?
Saturday. Midnight. Cemetery.
Just three words, but those three words are enough to make my head spin in a whole new way. I stare down at the note as my heart pounds wildly in my chest, and no matter how many times I read it over, I can’t seem to calm myself down.
Am I excited? Am I nervous? Should I even go? The note was in my bed, beneath my sheets, which means he was here, in our house. That’s kind of creepy, isn’t it? Like, illegal.
But, all that aside, I also can’t deny the electricity between us, if this note is from that masked man.
I’d never let a stranger touch me like that, but the thing was…
that guy didn’t feel like a stranger. It felt like I knew him, like, if I had to take off his mask, I wouldn’t be surprised by the face I saw beneath it.
The old me definitely wouldn’t go meeting anyone at the cemetery at midnight, alone. She wouldn’t have even thought about it. It would’ve been an easy dismissal, and she probably would have called the cops and given them the note. It’s evidence of stalking or something, right?
The new me… as nervous as she might be, the new me isn’t going to ignore the note. No, the new me will go.