Total pages in book: 126
Estimated words: 122030 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122030 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
“You know I’d do anything—” His voice cracks slightly, “—for things to have turned out different for us.”
My anger blooms out of the despair like a flower opening after a rainstorm. The quickest cure for depression is the rage Fenn induces in me when he so carelessly proves he’ll never understand what his lies of omission do to me.
“You’ll do anything? Do you not realize what bullshit that is? It’s been weeks and you still won’t admit what happened at prom. Because you’re selfish, Fenn. Covering your own ass even if it means hurting someone you claim to care about. So like I said, I don’t want an apology.”
Once again, he rushes to keep step with me while I round up the dogs and make it clear this is me walking away from him.
“Casey, stop.”
“No. I’m not falling for your traps anymore. You say you want to make things right. You’re ready to be honest. Then you dump me over text like an hour before we’re supposed to meet up and talk. You’re a coward. And I’m not going to be the butt of the joke anymore.”
“You’re not a joke,” he insists.
“Honesty isn’t that hard,” I say bitterly. “Just grit your teeth and bear it. It’s simple.” And then I sort of black out, or at least that’s the only explanation I can come up with for what happens next. My mouth goes on autopilot as if my brain decides I should sit this one out. “Like this: I hooked up with Lawson last night.”
For several seconds, he stands there staring at me. Unblinking. He’s an engine that won’t turn over. A dead battery. Stalled out and clicking. Empty.
My pulse shrieks in my ears as I watch his face for any sense of recognition. As I wait for a reaction. For anything.
Then his synapses start firing. Without a word or even the slightest flinch, he turns on his heel and walks away.
Any righteous fury I’d felt in coming clean is immediately doused by the weight of Fenn’s devastation.
I guess honesty isn’t always the best policy.
CHAPTER 42
LAWSON
I FIND MYSELF INEXPLICABLY STONE-COLD SOBER TONIGHT. ALONE in my room. Warm in the glow of an early-career Keanu action flick on TV. For the first time in, shit, half a decade, I’m not in the mood for a chemical disruption. Even turned down the joint offered to me by the guys a few doors down, which is possibly the first time in my adolescent history I’ve passed on getting high.
It’s a shocking turn of events I might’ve shared with my therapist if he hadn’t fired me for getting a handjob from his niece.
Still, despite the day’s unencumbered self-reflection, I’m feeling unsettled.
Even Keanu on a surfboard can’t calm the seas inside my head.
RJ bursting through my door doesn’t help either.
“You free tonight? I need a wingman,” he announces. He’s wearing black cargo pants and a black hoodie featuring the logo of some band I’ve never heard of.
“Did we dump Sloane and need to pick up chicks?” I spare him a glance before gazing back at the lo-fi beauty of Southern California in VHS-quality film grain.
“No, we did that yesterday,” is RJ’s inexplicable response. “The fights are tonight. Need you to go with me.”
“Yeah, about that. Why the fuck did you reschedule them to Sunday? Dudes need a buffer day for the swelling in the eyes and jaw to go down.”
“I didn’t reschedule shit.”
“Nuh-uh. Mass text from Carter said the king had spoken.”
RJ rakes both hands through his hair, looking like he wants to yank it out from the roots. “All I said was that I had plans last night and—you know what, forget it. Doesn’t matter. Fenn’s AWOL and I’m not asking Silas, so you’re it. Let’s go.”
I raise my eyebrows. “You gonna fight?”
“No, I’m going to abdicate.”
“What the hell does that—”
“Let’s go, Lawson,” he growls.
Then he exits and leaves the door presumptuously ajar, completely assured in his confidence that I’ll join him.
And despite my firm plan to not leave this room tonight, I find myself following him across campus like the perfect Pavlovian specimen.
I’m not quite sure what the fuck just happened.
“You seem weird,” he informs me while we trudge through the overgrown grass beyond the alleged limits of where students are permitted to traverse.
The groundskeepers don’t bother to maintain the lawns out here, hoping that will serve as a deterrent, but it doesn’t even slow us down as we head for the perimeter of the surrounding forest. It’s an especially dark night thanks to the cloud cover that hides the moon and makes the occasional divot or protruding tree root especially hazardous. Even the animals and insects seem reluctant to emerge tonight.
For some reason, that feels like a bad omen.
“I seem weird,” I echo.
“You haven’t said a word since we left. It’s not like you.”