Chapter 34
Thirty-Four
Colin
18 Years Old
Prom was a terrible idea.
The music was too loud. The crowd was too loud. Everything was so fucking loud . Colin could barely think, let alone remember his own name. Even the slow song he had all but suffered through to dance with Scarlett had felt like a ticking time bomb for the out-of-control feeling taking over his body. He had sworn to himself he would last at least an hour so Scarlett could have the night she deserved. It had only been fifteen minutes, and he had gone completely nonverbal in the first five minutes under the harsh flashing lights, loud voices, and uncomfortable amount of bodies touching him even on the outskirts of the mob of dancing high schoolers.
“Are you okay?” Scarlett’s voice called out to him, but he kept trying to piece her words together to make any sense and couldn’t come up with anything remotely coherent. It felt like he was hearing the auditory form of hieroglyphics, shapes and symbols and emotions and noise dancing around in his head and never letting up. He was pretty sure his body was shutting down. A lesser version of going into shock. “Colin?”
Again, Colin couldn’t respond, so he let his shaking hands wrap around himself, as if he were trying to hold in all the broken pieces of his consciousness. Warm hands cupped over his ears, creating a sort of echo chamber around the muffled sound of someone speaking. The loud sound came back a second later when a new warmth on his arm yanked him off his feet. He stumbled off in the direction he was being pulled. His heartbeat was everywhere all at once, in his ears, bouncing around in his skull, and wreaking havoc on his stomach.
The sound was finally gone a few seconds later, but nothing about his body’s reaction had changed. His still-spiking heart rate and the tightness in his chest made him feel like peeling his skin off.
“Close your eyes,” Scarlett’s voice whispered. “Breathe in and out.” Her hands found his ears again and blocked out any remaining sound. He wasn’t sure if he had heard her at all or if his body just always responded to hers the way it should, but he shut his eyes. Slow breaths loosened the vise grip on his chest until it didn’t feel like he was having a heart attack anymore. Then again, maybe that was what it was. He reached up and prodded at his face on both sides to verify there was no loss of feeling. This wasn’t the first time this had happened to him. Noise hadn’t been the cause of every one of these meltdowns, either, but he always felt the need to check if he was dying of a stroke. His eyes slowly squinted open.
“I-I,” he stammered. “Shit. Sorry.”
“It’s okay.” Scarlett’s soft, soothing voice floated into his ears, and he could now feel her hands clinging to his arm. He had no idea how they had ended up in the hallway sitting on the floor, or how he had ended up half lying on her, but his body was starting to come back into its own.
“I’m sorry,” Colin murmured again. “I can’t do it. I thought I could handle it.”
“It’s really okay,” she said. “We came. I got to wear a pretty dress, and you bought me a corsage. We danced.”
Colin covered his face with his hands, groaning. “We danced for one song.”
“That counts. It was loud in there, even for me.”
He peeked out from behind his hands. “Your dress is really pretty, Red.” She was wearing a shimmering emerald green number with a ribbed bodice that dipped at her cleavage. That was what he should have been focused on. Maybe if he had just stared at the soft pillows of her chest in the ballroom, then they wouldn’t have had to leave.
“Thinking of me naked?” Scarlett bumped her shoulder against his.
“Yes.” He nodded. “Since the second I picked you up.” Barring the interlude of sensory overload, that was true. He had thought about unzipping her dress and sucking one of her breasts into his mouth so many times in the car that he felt like he should have gotten an award for even making it to the dance after he dropped Piper off at the front and they went to park.
“What do we think about the shoes?” Her foot kicked out from under her dress, and Colin smiled down at her white Converse.
“Practical. My sister is wearing crazy heels that she can’t walk in. I like that you’re sensible.”
“No one can really see my feet under the dress, so I didn’t think it was necessary to wear heels. Someday I want to get customized ones with the little embroidered flowers.” She leaned into him a little more, a comfort he freely accepted, his hand finding hers and slotting their fingers together. Normally, Scarlett would start to tell a long story, but there was an occasional moment after orgasm or times when he was mentally spent that they would just sit in silence. Colin could stay like that, huddled together with her for hours, ignoring anything outside the comfort of her touch, and disappearing into a quiet peace.
They must have been near the bathroom because as they sat in silence, a few people meandered in and out of the ballroom and around the corner before returning to the dance floor. Colin barely paid them any mind until a loud couple of boys stumbled out of the doors, laughing loudly. His old chemistry lab partner Rick, whom Kashvi had read to filth, and Piper’s douchebag of an ex-boyfriend were shoving each other and clearly drunk. Scarlett scrambled to her feet, adjusting her dress to cover herself more when both drunks looked in her direction. Colin followed suit, rising beside her and internally hoping the intruders would leave the hallway sometime soon so he could have his quiet peace back.
“I’m gonna take a whiz,” Rick said, sauntering off to the bathrooms.
Harden pulled a metal flask from the inside pocket of his black suit and started to screw the cap off. “This where the freaks hang out?” If the chaperones were smart, Colin thought, they would have done pat-downs of the attendees before they entered the hotel where the dance was being held. Neither he nor Scarlett answered the slurred question. “Oh, you’re still mute? I thought now that you’re hanging around the redhead you’d be more talkative. Tell me, does the carpet match the drapes?”
Colin furrowed his brow and looked around. “Where? My bedroom doesn’t have carpeting. Scarlett’s does, but the curtains don’t match. They’re just white lace.”
“Colin.” Scarlett shook her head and clutched his arm tighter. “That’s not what he’s talking about. Let’s go.”
She pulled on Colin’s arm to get him to move, but he was a statue, watching as Harden started to laugh at him. With no context, the anger heating up in Colin’s body was quick to take over. He fucking hated it when he didn’t understand the underlying meaning of something or the tone in which it was said, and he flat-out refused to leave until he knew why some asshole thought he had a right to laugh in his face. Not only an asshole, but one who had gotten his sister drunk when she was clearly grieving. The same guy who had then tried to get in his car and drive drunk, leaving Piper to fend for herself.
“Scarlett, tell me what he means,” Colin demanded.
“It’s nothing.” Scarlett evaded his gaze.
Harden swayed as he chuckled and set one hand on Colin’s shoulder, most likely to stop himself from seeing double. “In this scenario, the drapes would be the hair on top of her head.” Colin jerked away from the touch, almost shivering in disgust. He liked it when Scarlett touched him, but unexpected touching made his skin crawl. Harden slapped his palm against the wall beside him instead, balancing his drunken self against it. “The carpet would then be the hair…” A low whistle left his mouth as he dragged a pointer finger down his chest and pointed to his crotch.
There were moments in Colin’s life where his impulse control was nonexistent, usually brought on by a burst of emotion. The white-hot rage that bubbled up inside him now felt inescapable and desperate to explode from his chest.
So he detonated and swung.
There was a low crack of sound when his fist connected with Harden’s face, and a jolt of nerves lanced up his arm. Scarlett let out a noise somewhere between a gasp and a shout of alarm beside him as Harden crumpled to the floor.
“Ow, shit!” Colin’s mouth dropped open in pain as he cradled his throbbing hand, shaking it out a bit to see if that would help. It actually made it much worse, so he stopped attempting to flick the pain away.
“Colin!” Scarlett all but shrieked his name, her hand pressed over her mouth. Harden groaned and rolled over on the ground, clutching at the side of his face.
“I assume he deserved that?” a low voice asked. Colin jerked his head up to peer down the hallway. Leo Diaz, a junior from Piper’s Spanish class whom she despised, stalked down the hallway toward their altercation.
Colin was slowly coming back into his own body, deeply exhausted from all the exertion. “I don’t know,” he answered honestly. “Punching him might have been an overreaction.”
“Doubt it.” Leo ran his fingers through his curly black hair and looked down at Harden with his nose wrinkling in disgust. “What’d he do?”
“Nothing,” Harden moaned from the floor and tried to get up. “He assaulted me!’
“I didn’t ask you, pendejo,” Leo spat. “Stay down, or I’ll make you.”
“He’s technically right.” Colin grimaced. “I did assault him.”
“Is your hand okay?” Scarlett’s worried tone caught Colin off guard, and he leaned into her a bit, seeking out the comfort of her touch. She obliged and wrapped her arm around his back, and he did his best to not fall on her or make her carry too much of his weight, but his limbs felt so tired, his brain barely capable of stringing two thoughts together.
“It hurts,” Colin managed to say and winced as he lifted his arm to show her. Scarlett took his hand and gingerly started to examine his skinned knuckles.
“You’re going to need to put some ice on it,” Leo told him. “Someone want to clue me in on what the hell happened? I need to assess whether to ruin Harden’s life or not.”
“He wanted to know the color of my girlfriend’s pubic hair,” Colin said flatly. Scarlett froze beside him, and he realized that this might be one of those scenarios she wanted to keep between them. Leo didn’t need to know all the details.
“I would have punched him, too.” Leo shrugged. Harden groaned something under his breath and moved to get up again, but Leo glared at him, and he stalled his progress.
“I don’t think he was asking to learn about melanin levels in hair growth on different parts of the body,” Colin noted. “He was just being crude.”
The corner of Leo’s mouth quirked up. “Astute observation.”
“Thank you.”
“I’ll take care of this. It doesn’t look like there are cameras in this hallway, so I’m willing to say that he fell and hit his face on the ground. It helps that he’s clearly drunk.” Leo smiled down at Harden. “You should really be more careful.”
“Colin,” Scarlett whispered. “We should go before someone comes out here.”
“I have a hotel room upstairs,” Colin said. “I was going to tell you before it got too loud in the ballroom. You brought all your stuff, right?” She nodded. “Can you pretend you’re at Kashvi’s?”
A shy smile formed on Scarlett’s face, and she nodded. “I’ll text her.”
“I have to call my uncle and make up a reason why I’m not coming home. Piper told me to say I was with a friend or make someone up.”
“Your uncle knows who I am,” Leo butted in. “Tell him you’re with me. I’ll vouch for you.”
“Piper really hates you, so I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Colin said.
“Oh, I know.” Leo smirked. “That’s why I suggested it. I take out the trash,” he pointed to Harden, “and you piss off your sister for me. An even trade.”
“Why do you want to piss off Piper?” Scarlett narrowed her eyes at Leo.
“It’ll give her a personality other than the sugar plum fairies and butterflies for once,” Leo said. “Basically, I think she’s annoying, and I want to get a rise out of her.”
“She is annoying sometimes,” Colin agreed.
Leo grinned. “Then it’s a deal.”