Mom grabs my shoulders and pulls me back, grimacing. “Or… honey… he could just be a dick. You know my ‘this kid’s a dick’ senses have been going off since you met him. I know it’s more hurtful, but it might be time to consider that maybe I’m right about him.”
I swallow, knowing she might be right, but desperately wanting her to be wrong.
Especially because the only scenario I can conjure where she’s right is a really mean one, and it makes me feel really stupid.
In the darkest moments as I sat there on that stupid bridge and waited for him, as I sat on the couch afterward and tried to focus on the movie but my thoughts drifted to what could explain why Hunter would do this to me, a darker idea occurred to me.
What if I’m seeing the side of him I’ve heard about, but considered myself safe from? What if Hunter has been playing me all along? What if he was making it seem like he liked me, luring me in and making me like him, just so he could humiliate me?
What if he does like Valerie, and they thought it would be funny to make an absolute fool out of me? I never thought Valerie hated me, but she could take issue with my standing by Sara after she socially dismissed her. I don’t know.
It would be so mean and so unnecessary, but how many movies have been made where the jackass popular jock plays a trick on the nerdy girl he never noticed before? Maybe it does happen. Maybe he was playing with my heart out of cruelty and not actual interest. Maybe all of our interactions leading up to this moment were just build-up. He needed to get me to agree to go out with him; he needed to soften me up and convince me to break all my own rules to sneak out and see him, then he left me hanging, and he and Valerie are holed up somewhere together laughing about it right now.
In that case, yes, Mom would be right.
I desperately hope she’s wrong.
I expect her to ground me, even though I’ve never been grounded before.
I guess she thinks I’ve suffered enough, because rather than punish me, she gives me more hugs and support before finally going to bed.
I turn out the lights and climb into my bed. My heart aches, and the more time passes without so much as a text from Hunter, the more my imagination works to convince me I got played.
Hunter didn’t know me that day we met on the bridge. We’ve gone to the same school for ages, but we were strangers. Maybe when he started all this he didn’t feel bad about toying with my emotions because it was what Valerie wanted, but now that he’s actually gotten to know me… maybe he’s conflicted?
Does it matter if he is, though? If everything has been a lie up to now, then we’re still strangers, and we’re better off that way. I don’t want to know someone who would do something like this to someone for no reason other than sick amusement.
His own mother thinks he’s a bully. Maybe I’m the fool for thinking he’s not.
Chapter Nine
I’m not asleep when my room suddenly brightens. I look over at my nightstand where I plugged my cell phone in to charge. It’s all lit up and I can see a notification on the screen, but I can’t tell what it says.
I swallow, reaching for it and tilting the screen so I can read it. My heart falls when I see Hunter’s name.
His message reads simply, “Are you awake?”
Are you serious?
I don’t send anything back for a minute. A long minute—it feels like forever that I stare at the phone, unsure what to do.
Finally, when I can’t take it anymore, I unplug my charger and hold my phone up in front of my face. “You stood me up,” I send back.
“I know,” he answers, causing my heart to fall even more with the admission. “I’m sorry,” he adds.
“Why did you do it?” I demand.
“Is your mom awake?” he sends back, instead of answering.
“I don’t know, and it doesn’t really matter. I’m not sneaking out to see you again.”
I stare at the screen, waiting for a response. It takes a while, but I finally realize one isn’t coming. I lay the phone down on my chest for a few minutes, telling myself he’s not going to answer, but secretly hoping I’m wrong and my phone will buzz.
Eventually, I give up for real. I reach over and plug my phone back in, then I curl up on my side and hug my pillow. My mind is even more preoccupied now, but I try to clear my thoughts so I can get some sleep.
I’m just about to drift off when I hear the tapping on my window. At first I think it’s the weather. The rain has stopped, but it’s still windy. I’ve been hearing the gusts of wind hitting the house, so it’s not impossible a tree branch could be causing the noise.
I hear the knock again. It sounds decidedly like knuckles rapping glass, so I sit up and take a look.
My heart stalls at the sight of a human-shaped figure standing outside my window. The panic is just a knee-jerk reaction—I know who it is. As soon as my instinctive first response recedes, anger swells up inside me. I whip back my blankets and climb off the bed, going over to my window so I can open it and give Hunter Maxwell a piece of my mind.
I unlock the window and push it up, mean mugging him through the glass the whole time.
“You’ve got a lot of nerve,” I tell him as soon as I get the window open.
“I know,” he says. “Can I come in?”
“No.”
Ignoring me, he grabs onto the windowsill and starts to climb in anyway.
“Excuse me. I said—” The rest of my words get lodged in my throat as he easily climbs through my window and turns to face me.
My eyes are already adjusted to the dark since I’ve been lying here trying to fall asleep for thirty million years, and standing right here in front of my window, there’s enough moonlight streaming in that I get a good look at him.
“Oh my god, Hunter, what happened?” I ask, dropping my attitude and reaching up tentatively to touch his face while I frantically look him over and realize he’s hurt. His lip is split open and swollen. His eye is starting to swell, and there’s a gash on his head frighteningly close to his temple.
“Got in a fight with the asshole,” he grumbles, letting me touch his face even though it might hurt. I keep my touch light, trying not to cause him more discomfort.
“Stay right here,” I tell him, pointing to the edge of my bed as I make my way to the door. I slip out into the dark hall, checking to make sure Mom didn’t fall asleep on the couch. Seeing the coast is clear, I walk as quietly as I can into the kitchen. After the incident with the bag of corn, I bought a real cold compress to stash in the freezer just in case it ever happened again.
Of course, I hoped it wouldn’t.
I grab a washcloth from the hall closet and wet it with warm water in the bathroom sink, then I go back to my bedroom, my stomach in knots. Hunter is still sitting on the edge of my bed in the dark. I feel terrible for being so mad at him now.
I curl up one of my legs and sit on it, leaning forward and silently cleaning his head wound with the washcloth. I am more than a little alarmed when I pull it away and there’s a bloodstain.
“Hunter… I think maybe you need to go to the hospital.”
“I don’t need to go to the hospital,” he says, surlier than I’ve heard him before.