7. Lilah #2
“No idea. You want me to go ask him?” Her face was set in a mask of determination.
I grabbed her arm. “No, definitely not.” I scanned the area for a path of escape. One look back at him and the last of the buzzy, warm feeling soured. “Do you see Mason?” I glanced around, teetering on the verge of full-blown panic.
Calder spotted me. His head tilted to one side. Without hesitating, he pushed the brunette off his lap and pulled out his phone.
The urge to flee overwhelmed me and I pushed through what felt like a thousand people to get the hell away from him.
Paige and I ended up in the kitchen and I tried to keep my heart from slamming its way out of my chest. “We need to leave.”
“Deep breaths, Lilah,” she said, eyes full of concern and she rubbed my arm. “You don’t have to run from him.”
“But if Calder’s here…” I licked my lips, throat dry.
“Mason isn’t here. Even if he is, this isn’t a Hawthorne Prep party. What’s he going to do? I have friends here too.”
“Yo, Paige, you need a drink.” A guy with deep-set dimples, a puka shell necklace and a pink polo shirt walked over and slung his arm over Paige’s shoulder with a cup in hand.
“Not me, Dylan, but she does.” Paige took it and shoved it at me.
“Paige…” I lifted the cup, staring into the red contents.
I had run every day since the school year started.
Every chance I had, when I wasn’t trapped in a classroom, I fled the second I could.
How long would I keep doing that? Eventually, I had to stand up for myself or Mason would get the satisfaction of cracking me.
“Drink it—you need the sugar so you don’t pass out.”
I shot her a sideways smile, appreciating her attempt to get me drunk and make me forget all about Calder. “That’s not how any of that works.”
She tipped the bottom of the cup to my mouth, forcing me to drink it or spill it. “Doesn’t matter.”
I downed it in three gulps, rivulets flowing down my chin and dripping onto Paige’s shirt. I jerked and splashed even more on the top, then searched for water to clean it up, alcohol-blunted panic rushing through me.
“Your shirt.”
“Don’t even worry about it. It’s a party.” Paige pulled me out of the kitchen with Dylan Dimples tagging along.
The buzzy feeling roared back to life. And for a split second, I wished Mason was there for me to tell him exactly what I thought about him. Only I wasn’t even sure if I knew. The chaotic ball of stress was turning my brain into mush.
Paige grabbed my hands and danced with me. One song flowed into another and moving was easier. My whole body loosened up and I couldn’t stop smiling. A little lightheaded, I closed my eyes and swayed. I didn’t even care about Calder.
Nothing mattered. Only dancing with Paige, the music and—
A fog layered over everything, drowning out sights and sounds. Feelings turned to weight, heavy all around me. A dream? Then a voice. One I knew. Mason. I flinched away. He’d visited me this way before. Always ending with his same cruel glares.
Instead of viciousness, there was a warm hand on my cheek, gentle words, and arms around me. I sighed, relaxed.
Then the fog collapsed into a black curtain.
Beeps and pings registered in the dark. My eyes wouldn’t open. I scrunched my face, trying to break the glue lock on them, and squinted. Light poured into the room, stabbing at my eyes. Not my sofa bed in the living room, but a hospital room.
Fear coursed through me, tightening my chest as panicked breaths escaped. I jerked upright in the bed.
My head swam, dizziness clouding my vision and flipping my stomach. I shot out a hand to grab onto anything to keep me from falling, even though I was sitting.
I flopped back against the squishy, noisy mattress. There was an empty second bed in the room. The strong smell of single-use plastics and industrial cleaners turned my already queasy stomach. My fingers tightened around the plastic bed railings.
A sharp pain stabbed in the back of my hand. A large bandage covered the spot like I’d had an IV in. Panic heightened until my own choppy breaths blotted out the noises from outside the open door. My head throbbed, but bringing my hands up to hold it felt too hard.
A body filled the doorway. I struggled to adjust my eyes against the shadows and light while it felt like my eyeballs were being squeezed inside my skull.
The figure got closer, and I squinched my eyes closed and reopened them, trying to reset my brain.
“You’re awake,” Rye rushed in, set a pitcher down on the tray beside my bed, and scooped up my hand. His voice and warm hand helped push back the building panic, but did nothing for the confusion.
My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth.
“Rye, what’s going on?” My words tripped and tumbled from my lips.
“Relax. Relax.” He touched a spot at the side of my head. “You have a concussion.”
With all the off-kilter feelings flooding me, the bandage above my ear hadn’t even registered. “A concussion? How?”
“You fell at that party you went to without telling me.”
“Because you tell me every time you go out.” My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. “Is it bad? Did they have to shave some of my head.”
“No, only three stitches. Hair intact. They’ll get rid of the big bandage when you’re released.” He dragged a chair closer to the side of the bed.
I cleared my salt-flats-dry throat. There were probably deep, craggy grooves in my tongue like drought-stricken land. “What happened?”
“You don’t remember?” He dipped his head, searching my face.
I searched my memories. They were there one second—me dancing with Paige at the party, seeing Calder—and then a switch was flipped and the blur with a Mason-shaped figure and then darkness descended.
Vague feelings, a murky image or two, but nothing I could separate into distinct events.
Then there was a new twist on my recurring nightmare, although this time it felt more like a dream.
“No. I fell? And hit my head?”
“That’s what Paige said. You were in a room and hurt yourself.”
“How’d I get here? How’d you even get here? What time is it?” Throbbing increased behind my eyes.
Rye shot up and closed the blinds against the early morning sunlight. It had to be at least eight a.m. “Paige called me from your phone once you were here.”
“Paige brought me here?” How the hell had she gotten me here? Where was she?
“And I have a concussion? They don’t knock you out all night.” I gingerly touched the bandage, careful not to poke too hard. I didn’t need any extra head pain. My brain was cotton-ball fuzzy.
“You were…sedated.” His mouth twisted, then his whole face softened. “A hit to the head, nasty enough to score you a concussion. That’s supposed to be my job.” His brittle laugh echoed in the too-large room. He didn’t meet my gaze but petted the back of my hand. He was scared.
The urge to reassure him surged forward. “Can you help me sit up?”
He hit the button on the bed and put a hand on my shoulder. “Your dad came by earlier, but he had to leave.”