Chapter 30
thirty
The elastic of the goggles snapped against the back of my head as Cole pulled them on me and I winced.
“Too tight?” Cole asked, his mouth twisting into a frown. I couldn’t help but smile at the concern.
“Nah,” I said. I reached up to just adjust how they were sitting on my face while Cole grabbed his own goggles to put on too.
When he turned back to face me with them on, I couldn’t help but snort.
“You know, it’s probably a good thing we don’t go to school together.
I never would have been attracted to you if we had chem lab together. ”
Cole gasped, one gloved hand flying to his chest in mock offense. “How dare you?”
“Picture it,” I continue. “You, in one of those safety goggles that never quite fit right. Trying to light the Bunsen burner and somehow setting off the fire alarm.”
He leaned closer, peering at me through his goggles. “First of all, if I ever set off the fire alarm, it would be on purpose.”
“And that,” I said, poking him in the chest with my index finger, “is why you always end up in detention and I never do.”
“I’ll bring you over to the dark side one of these days, Imogen Novak,” he promised.
Then he ducked forward to kiss me. Even though we both looked insanely dorky and were in public, I instinctively deepened the kiss—something I immediately regretted when a plastic water bottle was thrown at my head.
“Get a room!” my twin sister yelled. I flipped her off and she laughed.
When Cole suggested we go to a rage room after I came out of my Dad’s flat with tears streaming down my face, I’d initially thought it was a joke.
Instead, I got him to drive me home and did something I’d been avoiding for months—I told my family the truth.
Not all of it, not the parts that would have dragged Lavender into the mess, but enough.
I told them about the visits to Dad’s flat, about how I’d wanted to get him and Mum back together, about Hilary and the baby and the moment I finally realized he wasn’t going to choose me.
I told them I’d stopped trying. There was a lot of hugging after that, the kind that makes it hard to breathe but easier to stay upright, and a fair amount of crying that wasn’t just from me.
And so when Cole finally came over to meet the family later that week—officially this time and not when he’d just woken up from a sleep in a treehouse—and he suggested the rage room as an activity, we’d all jumped on it.
Even if Cole suggesting it did raise some eyebrows from the family members who still weren’t totally convinced he didn’t go to juvie.
Cole reached up and adjusted my goggles again, this time deliberately tugging the strap just a little too tight.
“Hey,” I protested. “You literally just asked.”
“Quality control,” he said solemnly. “Can’t have my girlfriend losing an eye in here.”
“My hero,” I said dryly.
He leaned in, lowering his voice like he was sharing a secret. “You know, if we did go to school together, I totally would’ve let you copy my homework.”
“Liar. You would be copying off my work.”
He reached for my gloves, tugging one of the straps snug around my wrist. His thumb lingered there, absentminded, like it always did when he held my hand.
“You ready?” he asked.
I nodded. “Heck yeah. You better keep up, though.”
“Oh, I plan to,” he said. “I’m very competitive when it comes to destruction.”
“All right, let’s get in there!” Sebastian yelled. He stretched his arms out in front of me and tilted his head to each side like he was trying to crack all his joints. I laughed but followed the group—Sebastian, Nora, Dean, Lavender, and Ainsley—into the room, Cole’s hand holding mine.
In the far corner, Sebastian, already swinging a bat at a stack of plates like they’d personally wronged him. Ceramic exploded against the far wall in a satisfying crash, shards skittering across the concrete floor.
“Yes!” Lavender yelled. “Get it!”
The rage room was loud in the way that made your chest vibrate—metal on metal, glass shattering, people yelling without anyone telling them to keep it down.
The air smelled faintly of dust and sweat and something sharp, like broken electronics.
It was chaos, and for the first time all night, my head felt quiet.
I grabbed a hammer. Cole grabbed a bat.
“Winner buys milkshakes?” he asked.
I raised the hammer, smiling despite myself. “I’m not sure that rage rooms really have winners, but you’re on.”
I swung first, and when the printer cracked under the impact, Cole whooped louder than anyone else in the room. I hit it again. Harder. The third swing felt good.
Each hit shook something loose—images flashing behind my eyes in no particular order: Neon orange nail polish from forced manicures with Hilary. The taped air mattress. The gurgling fountain next to me as I waited in the cold outside for Dad to show up for a five minute visit.
I screamed and slammed the hammer down again. Glass shattered somewhere to my left. Someone laughed—wild, unrestrained. It might have been me.
Cole stepped up beside me, handing me a baseball bat without a word. He didn’t ask if I was okay. He didn’t tell me to calm down. He just made space. I took it.
The impact sent a shock up my arms. Glass exploded outward in a glittering spray, catching the harsh fluorescent lights before raining down around my boots.
“Yes!” Ainsley yelled. “Imogen, holy—do another!”
She didn’t need to tell me twice. With every swing, the tightness in my chest loosened. I shouted—wordless, furious sounds tearing out of me—and no one told me to stop. No one flinched. My siblings just cheered louder, feeding the fire instead of smothering it.
“This one’s for Mum!” Sebastian screamed, smashing a monitor so hard it toppled off the table.
I laughed. A real laugh. It felt like my ribs might crack with it.
I spotted an old wooden chair in the corner, one leg already broken. I dragged it into the open, ignoring the way my arms burned, and brought the bat down across the back. The chair splintered. I hit it again. And again.
“I wanted you there!” I shouted, the words ripping free with the swing. “I waited!”
The chair collapsed in on itself, pieces skidding across the floor. I stood there, breathing hard, bat hanging loosely from my fingers. My goggles were fogged, my hair stuck to my face with sweat, my throat raw from yelling.
Cole stepped in front of me, careful but close. “You good?”
I nodded, then shook my head. “No. But…” I exhaled shakily. “Better.”
He smiled, soft and proud. “Yeah.”
Across the room, my siblings had devolved into pure chaos—Sebastian and Lavender of them tag-teaming a filing cabinet, Ainsley jumping up and down every time a drawer came loose. They looked feral. Free.
I’d spent the last five months fighting tooth and nail to get even the smallest amount of attention from my dad. I’d accepted crumbs where I used to get feasts, convincing myself that it was all just temporary, that once my family was whole again, it would all be worth it.
But now, as I looked around at my family—my true family, made up of both siblings and friends—I saw what I hadn’t been able to these past few weeks: that somebody who loved you didn’t make you feel like you had to fight for space in their life.
As I paused in my smashing and just let myself look around at this room full of people who I loved more than anyone in the world, I felt Cole come up behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist. I leaned my weight into him, happy, safe, and completely, ridiculously, utterly seen.
My siblings were laughing, shouting, swinging bats like maniacs, and I realized I wasn’t chasing anyone’s approval anymore.
Not my dad’s, not anyone’s. For the first time in months, I could just be me. Cole leaned down to kiss me gently and his lips brushed mine.
And that was the moment I knew that I was exactly where I belonged.