The Ruins

Chapter 1

ONE

HARPER

Caleb’s fingers trace lazy circles on my bare shoulder blade, and I’ve never felt safer in my entire life. More home.

We’re tangled together in his bed. Our bed now. The place where everything changed.

Finally, I think I’ve stopped feeling like just the broken girl from the trailer park.

Because I’m his.

The sheets are soft against my skin, still warm from what we just did. What we’ve been doing for hours, really, like we’re trying to make up for lost time to erase the last two days from existence.

“I can’t believe you came back,” he murmurs into my hair.

His chest rumbles beneath my ear with each word, and beneath that, there’s his steady, soothing heartbeat. “When I saw you running up the driveway—”

His voice breaks, and I feel it—the way his arms tighten around me like he’s afraid I’ll disappear again if he lets go.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper against his skin. He smells like cedar and soap and Caleb. “I’m so sorry I left. I thought—I thought it was the right thing. For you. For your mom—”

“Shh.” His lips find my temple. “You’re here now. That’s all that matters.”

I tilt my head back to look at him. The lamp on his nightstand casts golden light across his features—those sharp cheekbones, that perfect jaw, blue eyes so mercurial in the dim light. He’s looking at me like I’m something precious.

How did I ever think I could walk away from this?

“Your mom—” I start again, but he shakes his head, pain flashing across his face.

“Not right now. Is that okay?” His thumb traces my lower lip, and my breath catches.

“Of course.” I nod quickly.

It’s enough that I’m here, in his arms.

It’s enough that he’s taken me back.

He kisses me with a tenderness that makes everything in me go liquid. “We’re going to fix this. We’ll get your dad the best lawyer. We’ll prove he was protecting you from a setup. We’ll—”

His voice gets rough with emotion, and he stops, forehead pressing against mine. We breathe the same air for a moment, inhaling each other’s exhale.

“I love you,” he says, and it sounds like a vow. “God, Harper, I love you so much. When you left, I couldn’t—”

“I know.” My hand slides up to cup his face, feeling the slight stubble on his jaw scratch against my thumb.

I imagine I’m pressing my phantom fingerprint there, claiming him as mine forever. “I know, baby. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere ever again.”

His eyes search mine, vulnerable in a way that makes my chest ache. “Harper, I need to hear you say it.”

Then his gaze drops, dark lashes shadowing those deep blue eyes.

“But only if you feel it for real,” he finishes in barely a whisper.

I’ve been such a Goddamned idiot. Why have I been so scared to give this moment to him?

The words have been sitting on my tongue ever since he rescued me from that horrible party, then held me through the night, offering such complete, unselfish comfort.

Or hell, maybe since the very first day I walked into that classroom and saw this beautiful boy with his color-coded binders and his careful rules and his wounded eyes.

It felt like the first time anybody had ever looked at me and actually seen me.

The words that could change everything hover at the tip of my tongue.

Words that could make this real.

“Caleb,” I breathe, and his name tastes like everything I’ve ever wanted but never dreamed I could have. “I love y—”

“Oh shit, wake up, babe!” comes a thunderous voice in my ear. “Get dressed. We gotta get outta here before they find us.”

The voice is wrong. Rough where it should be gentle. Loud where it should be tender.

No no no no no—I blink and Caleb’s face fractures like glass.

“What the fuck!” I shout, jerking upright.

The golden lamplight is gone. The soft sheets are gone.

Caleb is gone.

Instead, above my head are the water-stained ceiling tiles of the lowest-rent motel room. The reek of stale cigarettes and cheap air freshener cling to the inside of my nose. Beneath my arms, a scratchy comforter feels like sandpaper against my suddenly too-aware skin.

And in front of me: Z’s bare ass as he yanks on his boxers and baggy black jeans.

My stomach drops through the floor.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.” He tosses me something—my clothes?—and I catch them on instinct. “But we really gotta bounce. I don’t know how long before housekeeping makes rounds.”

I look down at the floor beside Z. At my clothes—my jeans and my bra and underwear—crumpled like they were discarded in a hurry.

Wait, if my bra is down there—

Oh shit! Horror smashes into me. I look under the comforter. My tits are bare.

“Oh my God.” The words come out strangled.

I yank the comforter up to my chin, suddenly feeling more exposed than I’ve ever been in my entire life.

Z sits on the edge of the shitty hotel mattress and reaches for me. His hand finds my bare hip through the thin comforter, fingers stroking in a way that makes my skin crawl.

I jerk away from his touch, pressing myself against the headboard.

“Easy, babe. You okay? You were really out of it last night.”

“Did we—” I swear I can’t breathe. “Z, what happened last night?”

He tilts his head, studying me with those dark eyes that suddenly look nothing like Caleb’s. “You really don’t remember?”

“I—” My head is pounding. I press my palm against my temple, trying to think through the fog. “We were watching TV? And you had that bottle of Jack—”

“Which you went at pretty hard.” He says it gently, no judgment, but I hear a voice shouting in my head anyway: This is your fault, Harper. You drank too much. Just like your whore mother. Drinking and fucking and ruining everything!

Flashes come back in fragments. The burn of whiskey down my throat. The way everything went soft and blurry at the edges.

Crying—I remember crying, don’t I?

Z’s arms came around me, holding me while I sobbed about—

About Caleb.

I was crying about leaving him.

About how I’d made the biggest mistake of my life.

“You kissed me,” Z says softly, and my blood turns to ice. “Right here on the bed. You just—you pulled me down and kissed me, and I thought—”

He runs a hand through his hair, looking almost embarrassed. “Fuck, Harper, I thought you were finally ready. That you finally wanted—”

“No!” The word rips out of me. “No, I didn’t—I wouldn’t—”

But even as I say it, there’s this horrible, sinking feeling.

Because I don’t remember. After a certain point, everything went black.

Wine before beer. Black out on Jack.

Everybody knows that. I would’ve fucking known that before I grabbed the bottle from Z.

Oh my God. What the hell have I done? The past few days as Z and I hitch-hiked south, all I’ve been thinking about is how I’ll get back to Dallas and explain everything to Caleb so I can make it right.

But now—

“Hey.” Z’s voice goes softer, concerned.

He reaches for me again but stops himself this time before actually touching me.

“Harper, babe, I’m not—Oh God, I didn’t take advantage of you. Is that what you think? You have to know I wouldn’t do that. You do know that, right?”

He’s starting to sound a little panicky, and my immediate impulse is to comfort him.

“Of course, I do,” I respond immediately, putting a hand on his arm. But he still must be freaked out, because he keeps going.

“You told me— You said you’d been thinking about it. About us. That you realized leaving with me was the right choice because we’re meant to be together.”

“I said that?” My voice sounds hollow. Like it doesn’t belong to me.

“Yeah.” He smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “You said Caleb was never going to be able to give you what I can. That he’s too tied to his perfect life. You said—”

He pauses, like he’s deciding whether or not to continue but then does, anyway. “You said you loved me.”

The room tilts.

“No,” I shake my head, hard enough that pain spikes through my temples. “No, I didn’t—”

“You did, Harp. And I said it back. I’ve been waiting so long to hear you say that.”

His hand finds mine through the comforter and squeezes. “It’s always been you and me. Since we were kids. You and me against the world. Two peas in a pod.”

I can’t breathe. Can’t think. Can’t—

I jerk my hand away and scramble off the bed, clutching the comforter around myself like armor. My bare feet hit the stained carpet and I nearly trip, but I catch myself on the dresser.

The TV is still on, the volume muted. Some early morning infomercial selling kitchen knives. The bottle of Jack sits on the nightstand, mostly empty.

Evidence.

All of it.

Evidence of a night I don’t remember.

A night where I apparently climbed on Z and acted like I always used to act, using sex to numb the world out—

“I’m gonna be sick.”

Still clutching the comforter around me, I stumble, barely making it to the bathroom before I’m retching into the toilet.

Z is there immediately, gathering my hair back from my face, rubbing circles on my back just like Caleb used to do for his mom after her chemo treatments—

I sob, dry-heaving now into the bowl.

“Shh, I got you.” Z’s voice is patient. Understanding. “It’s okay, babe. Just let it out.”

But it’s not okay.

Nothing is okay.

Because somewhere back in Dallas, Caleb is waking up alone. His mom is still dying. Silas is probably still in jail. His whole world is falling apart.

And I’m here. In this shitty motel room.

Having apparently fucked Z while I was blackout drunk.

I know Caleb and Z always hated each other, as much as they tried to play nice for my sake.

Three days.

It only took me THREE FUCKING DAYS to cheat on him.

I guess I was doomed to become exactly what I always feared after all: my mother’s daughter. A whore who ruins everything she touches.

I sob harder.

“Harper.” Z hands me a tissue. “Babe, hey. It’s gonna be okay. This is what we always wanted, remember? Just you and me. No one else getting in the way.”

What? I wipe my mouth with shaking hands and look up at him.

He’s smiling softly. Looking maybe… a little… pleased? Like everything is going exactly according to plan. While my world cracks apart.

“Did you—” My voice cracks. I try again. “Did you want this to happen? Last night?”

Something flickers across Z’s face too fast to read.

“I wanted us to happen,” he says carefully. “I’ve wanted that since we were teenagers, Harp. You know that.”

Did I?

“That’s not what I asked.”

His jaw tightens. “You kissed me. You pulled me down onto that bed and you kissed me like you meant it. Like you’d been wanting it for just as long as I have. Was I supposed to say no?”

“If I was that drunk—”

“We were both drunk,” he interrupts. “But Harper—I wouldn’t have touched you if you hadn’t a hundred percent known what you were doing.”

He stands, offering me his hand. “Come on. Let’s get you showered and dressed. We need to hit the road soon.”

I ignore his hand and pull myself up using the sink. My reflection stares back at me in the spotted mirror—red-rimmed eyes, hair a tangled mess, a hickey blooming purple on my collarbone that I don’t remember getting.

Oh God, a hickey.

More physical evidence.

“I need—” I swallow hard. “I need to shower.”

“It’ll have to be quick. I can help—”

“Alone.”

Z nods, backing toward the door, expression a little wounded. “Sure, babe. I guess we should be safe before anyone really comes checking rooms for maybe another half hour.”

The door clicks shut behind him, and I’m finally, blessedly alone.

I turn the lock, only then dropping the comforter to the floor. I flip the water on as hot as it will go in the shower and step under the spray.

The water is scalding, but I don’t adjust it.

Let it burn.

I deserve it.

I grab the tiny bar of motel soap and start scrubbing. My arms. My chest. My stomach. Between my legs.

I’m not even sore. Which means Z was telling the truth about how much I wanted it. Shame hits sharper than the sting of hot water. I must’ve been incredibly wet if we… and I’m not even feeling it the next day.

I scrub until my skin turns pink. Then red.

If I can just scrub hard enough, maybe I can erase last night. Erase the last three days. Erase the moment I made the worst decision of my life.

I understand why Helen didn’t want to see me after I got Silas, her beloved husband, thrown in prison.

It’ll be Dad’s third strike.

It was one of the reasons I wouldn’t let myself get close to him after he got out of prison last time. I knew if he got into trouble again, he’d go away for more than just a few years this time. Texas law is unforgiving when it comes to career criminals.

But Silas didn’t do it this time.

He didn’t have anything to do with the pounds of marijuana they found in my locker. I didn’t either, for that matter.

I was framed.

But Dad still took the fall.

For me.

The one time in my life the bastard decides to show up for me, and all I want is for him to take it back. Because the truth is—he’d been showing up for me all last year.

Ever since he realized what was happening at Darlene’s with her latest boyfriend, and rode in to rescue me by dragging me back to Dallas to live with him and his new perfect family. His amazing wife, Helen.

And his stepson… Caleb.

Then I came in like a wrecking ball to the entire thing.

And no amount of soap or scalding water can wash away what I’ve done.

I slide down the shower wall, pulling my knees to my chest as the water pounds down on me. For just one moment, I let myself disappear back into the dream.

Caleb’s arms around me. The whispered “I love you.” The moment right before I was about to say it back—those three words I’d been too scared to give him while it still mattered.

I love you.

In the dream, I was finally brave enough to say it.

But here, in this nightmare of reality, I’ve lost the right.

There’s no going back now.

Not after I betrayed Caleb in the worst possible way.

And I can’t help wondering if maybe, deep down, some broken part of me really did want to burn it all down. To destroy the one good thing I’ve ever had before it could destroy me first.

I spin the dial on the water as hot as it will go.