CHAPTER TEN
A
t school the next day, the boys waited in the parking lot.
Quick as a flash, my words to Ralph echoed with startling clarity at the forefront of my mind.
I winced and fantasized about rolling by and finding a different spot, one with less brooding confrontation, but I’d already ghosted them the night before after promising I’d reply.
“I’m sorry,” I blurted out before my foot touched the pavement. My backpack could wait. “Honestly, I meant to check my phone, but I…” Had a huge fight with my mom, and even she sees that I’m a danger to be around. “…passed out.”
Kolton nodded, the first to break formation. “Yeah, we know. We called your house and talked to your dad.”
My breath caught. “You did?”
“Yup.” Hunter drew the word out but offered little else.
“Oh, what’d he say?”
“That you had a big fight with your mom.”
“He called it a heated discussion, actually,” Kolton chimed in, “but we read between the fucking lines.”
“He told us not to hold it against you if you forgot to text us.” Ralph looked at me, his tone as gentle as his expression. Something about the kid gloves made my eyes burn, so I glanced across the parking lot.
“Yeah,” I replied lamely.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
What did Dad tell them? Their expressions gave nothing away.
Tell them the truth, a voice prodded.
I coughed, my cheeks burning. “She thinks I’m a danger to myself and others.”
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding. No way.” Hunter crossed his arms, his jaw squaring. “She said that to you?”
“That I was a threat to myself, yes. She left the ‘other people’ heavily implied, since she mentioned Ralph the breath before that.”
“Because of the arrest,” Ralph stated.
The arrest they were all still waiting to hear details about…
“What kind of fucked up thing is that to say to your kid?” Kolton blurted, pacing. “Oh, hey sweetie, you’re a fucking menace. Let’s lock you up for your own fucking good.” He stumbled, whirling. “Wait, is that what the argument was about? She wants to send you back to Vedault?”
“No!” God, I hoped not. “She wants me to see a therapist.”
In daylight, after a somewhat decent sleep, it made sense if I squinted at it from her perspective.
The problem was, I really, really didn’t want to be shipped back to Vedault, which meant opening up to a certified head doctor was out of the question.
It’d just be fifty-minute sessions of sweating bullets and trying to dodge questions I couldn’t answer.
“Would it help?” Hunter asked, and I could have kissed him for it—all of them, actually. No one flat-out agreed that it would be a good idea.
“Maybe, but probably not as much as it would hurt.”
“Why would it hurt?”
“Because of things I can’t share, not if I don’t want to sound insane.”
Hunter shrugged. “Stalkers are not a new concept. Psychotic, dangerous stalkers aren’t either.”
He didn’t know the half of it. “But why do I have a stalker? That’s the thing I can’t wrap my head around.”
“You’re cute, and you’re on the internet, exposed to all your dad’s followers. It was bound to happen.”
My cheeks lit on fire as I valiantly tried to ignore the fact that he’d so matter-of-factly called me cute. “I don’t think the person trying to kill me would watch my dad’s videos. Call me crazy, but he doesn’t seem like the type.”
In what world would the town’s mayor, a man who wore three-piece suits and schmoozed the on duty nurse to gain illegal access to my room at Vedault, ever run in the same circles as my dad’s fun-loving, redneck off-roading fans?
“Agree to disagree. I’m a guy. I know how guys think. We have some fucked up brains.”
“Hunter, you’re missing the point. I’m saying—” Explaining more might give too much away. I huffed, but short of saying the man’s identity out loud, which might make them march down to town hall and do something overprotective to get themselves arrested, he wouldn’t believe me.
Ralph began counting things off on his fingers. “Okay, look at the therapist this way. You won’t go to the police. You won’t go to your parents. So far, you haven’t talked to us about everything. Who better to dump all this onto than someone bound by patient-doctor privilege?”
“Who worse than a person in the perfect position to write me a one-way ticket back to Vedault and being handcuffed to a bed?” I countered.
“They handcuffed you to the bed?” Kolton asked, tilting his head to the side.
Before I could answer, Hunter thumped him on the back of the head. “See what I mean? Fuck boy brain.”
I blinked. “Uh…”
“Don’t worry about it, Willa.” Hunter turned his glare, instead, on Kolton. “Someone almost murdered her there, and they did murder Ben. Can you focus?”
Kolton wilted. “Damn. Fucking ass. I can never forget that he died. He was my brother. You know what? We’re going to be late to class, and we have Watkins first. This will have to wait.”
“Yeah, later,” Hunter grumbled after checking his watch.
“So Watkins? Ouch.” Ralph winced in sympathy.
“Yeah.” Kolton grabbed me by the backpack like he was steering a toddler as we headed for the main entrance. “That old douche already has it out for her. You should have seen him Monday.”
“You’re being dramatic,” I replied with a frown, attempting to yank my strap free from his grip. He tightened it.
“Well, you don’t get a fucking vote, Wordsmith. You said the same thing about your actual, real-life murderous stalker.” He’d hushed near the end since we arrived inside the school. “From now on, we’ll be the fucking judges of the men in your life.”
“Including you three?” Three. It took me a second to realize Hunter hadn’t followed us inside.
Ralph noted I was searching, a smile crooking his lips. “He has ICE the first two periods. He does it at TJ’s so he can earn school credit and get paid.”
“Oh. Right.” When his amusement failed to dim, I asked, “Why are you smiling like that?”
Ralph bopped my nose. “Because you do care about us.”
I shook my head, still being tugged through the rapidly thinning crowd. A shiver of unease settled in. We’d talked longer than I thought. My steps picked up until I was dragging Kolton along.
“This is my stop, guys. Good luck with the tyrant!” Ralph called cheerfully.
“Yeah, fuck you too!” Kolton quipped, earning a sharp reprimand from a teacher lingering in the hallway. He waved her off with a grin and a wink.
I renewed my struggle to free my backpack from his hold.
“Will you quit squirming, Wordsmith? You’re like a fish on a hook.
You and I both know you won’t escape my hold.
I may just be a running back for the team, but when the situation called for it, I faced off against guys twice my size.
Ben…” He trailed off, swallowing hard. “Well, never mind that, but yeah, just accept your fate. Hold your head high with some dignity while you still have the chance.”
“Why should I?” I shot back. “You’re treating me like a hyperactive kid at an amusement park, the ones on those toddler leashes.”
“That’s not a bad fucking idea. We should invest in one. Don’t want to lose you in the crowd. You’re fucking short.”
I wasn’t, but it wouldn’t help my “not a child” image by arguing the fact. “There’s no crowd now.”
He smirked and gave a quick tug that made me stumble into him. “Yeah, but I’ve grown fond of having you at the end of my leash.”
Devilish. That was the word for the expression he flashed me before he ended up releasing me.
Fifteen feet separated us from the history classroom when someone stepped up and blocked our path.
It took me a second to recognize Urena beneath the red-rimmed, swollen eyes and lack of makeup. “So,” she began, her voice a little broken, “it’s true then? Ben was cheating on me? With… With her?” The disbelief came through loud and clear when she shifted that haunted gaze to me.
Kolton laughed. “You’re fucking busted if you think you and Ben were anything but a convenient tumble in the sack, and not even that since sophomore year.”
As a piece of my soul healed at the confirmation, Urena’s shattered. “That’s not true. We were taking a break from each other!”
“No, he told you that because you wouldn’t stop stalking him when he broke up with you. I’d fucking know. I was the one who had to listen to him complain for hours about how to get you to take a fucking hint without hurting your delicate feelings.”
She stood there, her lips parted and eyes brimming with tears. “No, that… that can’t be true. Ben wouldn’t—”
“Listen, he would, and he did. We’re going to class now.” Kolton wrapped his hand around my arm, likely to ensure I didn’t stay behind on my own.
Urena’s gaze zeroed in on the action. “You always wanted his sloppy seconds.”
“Fuck that noise. Willa’s not sloppy seconds. She was his girlfriend—his actual girlfriend. They dated all summer.”
Her teeth clenched as she swept another reassessing gaze over me, looking very much like she’d love nothing more than to cut me open and spill all my secrets.
“And second,” Kolton continued when we were beside her, “I don’t always go after his sloppy seconds, as is evidenced by you. Is that why you’re so fucking mad?”
If I had expected some dramatic teen movie shriek after such an inciting statement, I’d have been disappointed. Urena stilled, growing so silent that I wondered if time stopped. Her teeth clicked shut, and she spun on her heel.
I glanced over my shoulder as she marched away. She didn’t once return the look, but somehow, it felt like I’d been placed in her path.
That wasn’t the last I’d be hearing from her, I was sure.
We made it to the doorway just as the bell rang.
Mr. Watkins’s beady, less than impressed gaze landed on us. “Mr. Keiser, ah, and Ms. Walker. Why am I not surprised?”
A rush of whispers sounded, rekindling the rampant rumors that’d had free rein after math class yesterday.