Metaphorically speaking. I’m no serial killer.
“You slept with like, three of my friends, but I’m not good enough? I’m not hot enough?”
“You mean three of your friends lied and told you they slept with me because they didn’t want to admit to puking all over my carpet and leaving me to clean it up. I told each and every one of them what I’m going to tell you: I don’t fuck drunk chicks.” He untangles the girl’s fingers from his shirt as she cries. “Jesus, you won’t even remember this in the morning.” He swipes a hand over his face like he’s suddenly exhausted. “Leave whenever you want, even if it’s tomorrow. I can give you a ride home.” He turns around and heads for the door so quickly that I’m caught off-guard. My attempts to scurry away are foiled by a potted plant that I end up knocking over, spilling dirt and small rocks all over the floor.
I cringe as I hear Chasm step into the hallway. I’m kneeling down by the plant, holding onto the edges of the pot and wishing I could disappear into the floor.
“What the fuck are you doing in my house?” he asks with a long-suffering sigh, moving over to help me right the plant. We squat side by side, scooping up dirt with our hands and putting it back into the pot. Sorry, plant.
“I wanted to see what you were doing with a drunk and vulnerable girl,” I say, lifting my chin and knowing that my cause was worthwhile, even if I was wrong. More often than not, I’d probably be right to make the same assumption again.
Chasm goes very still beside me, and it becomes immediately obvious that I’ve offended him somehow. I turn back to look at him, remembering the drunk girl from the party that threw her arms around him, the one he disappeared with. Does he do this a lot, rescue drunk girls from parties?
“It’s my business what I do with the girls I like,” he snaps, and it occurs to me that the girl in that room—in what I think is probably his room—is blonde. Pretty sure I recognize her from some of Lumen’s classes, all the fancy, advanced, AP ones that I wouldn’t last a day in. So she’s smart. She could be the crush he was talking about.
“Is that girl your crush?” I ask, and he sighs, shoving that lightning-bolt colored hair away from his forehead with a deep-set frown.
“She doesn’t creep into my house uninvited and spy on me, so yeah, she could easily be my crush. I already told you: she’s the opposite of you.” Chasm stands up suddenly and yanks me along with him. “What did you hear?” he demands, like I’ve encountered some terrible state secret.
I yank my arm from his grip, trying not to think about the way he said fuck it just before he tried to kiss me.
“What are you planning on doing with her?” I demand as he grunts in annoyance and grabs my arm, attempting to drag me toward the stairs. I resist, digging my heels into the wood floor. With a sharp yank, I manage to free myself from his grip again and turn around, scrambling across the floor and bursting into his bedroom with a crash.
The girl in the bed sits up suddenly, her cheeks and forehead red.
We stare at each other as Chasm curses behind me.
“Are you okay?” I ask, because I can’t not check. What kind of person would I be if I didn’t? “Do you need me to call anyone? Or take you home?”
The girl blinks at me a few times before turning her attention to Chasm and then back to me again.
“I’m fine,” she replies, sounding confused but a hell of a lot more sober than she was a few minutes ago. Pretty sure I startled some sense into her. “Just had a bit too much to drink.”
“Little Sister …” Chasm warns from over my shoulder, but I just stay where I am, taking another step into the room. It’s austere as hell, as personality free as my own room was when Tess first showed it to me. Is this really Chasm’s room? Because it doesn’t display a single thing about his personality.
“He didn’t try anything untoward?” I ask, and the girl shakes her head.
“He doesn’t want me, but I hear he’s pretty easy. You can have him.” She smirks at Chas, but then her face sours like she’s going to puke, and she’s scrambling out of the bed and disappearing into what appears to be an attached bathroom.
The door slams shut behind her, and I can suddenly feel the weight of being alone with Chasm like an iron collar around my neck.
“Get out of my room. Get out of my house. Or I swear to god, Little Sister …”
I whirl around on him, my cheeks and tits flaming, my breathing heavy.
“I’m no more your little sister than I am Parrish’s,” I snap back, unsure where the anger is even coming from. “Sorry I found out your secret, but you get why I was concerned, right?”
“You think I’m a monster, I get it,” Chasm spits out, scowling at me again. According to school gossip, I’m the only person he scowls at like that. Everyone else, he’s nice to apparently. “Because I’m the type of guy who’d take advantage of a drunk girl.”
“That’s the persona you put on!” I shout back, unsure why it is I’m shouting at all. The air feels thick and hot between us, and it’s pissing me off. “You could’ve just told me you watch over drunk girls.” His knight-like persona is coming out again. “Besides, it’s not like you’re some innocent virgin either. You’re always bragging about—”
With a yelp, Chasm grabs me and throws me over his shoulder. I’m tempted to bite him, but who knows what I’d catch? He carries me down the stairs like it’s nothing, deposits me onto the back porch, and then slams the door right in my face. I’m still gaping after him when he turns the porch light on and flicks the dead bolt.
And I didn’t even get to confront him about the kidnapping prank.
With a huff, I turn around and shove my fingers through my hair, shaking out the loose waves and closing my eyes tight to get ahold of myself. There’s just something about Parrish and Chasm that gets me frothing. A few deep breaths of the cool Pacific Northwest air, and I remember where I am and who I’m with.
Lumen and Danyella.
Yanking my phone from my pocket, I start to answer Danyella’s most recent text and then pause, lifting my head up and watching the branches of the trees rustling above my head. A prickle starts at the base of my spine and travels up, like the fingers of a skeleton stroking my skin.
It creeps me the fuck out, but I can’t explain why. It’s like that night, that night I thought I was sleepwalking but maybe wasn’t. Ugh.
“Shit,” I murmur, tucking some hair behind my ear and finishing up my text. At Chasm’s house, omw back.
I keep my phone clutched in my hand and hop off the porch step, adjusting the buttons on my blazer. Sometimes I hate the uniform—lack of self-expression and all that—and sometimes I like it because it feels like I’m in an anime or something. That’s what I focus on as I start the walk back down the hill. It isn’t far; I can already see the lake and the small shapes of my new friends in the distance.
About halfway down, I swear that I can hear someone creeping in the bushes beside me. I spin quickly, glaring into the growing shadows around me and frowning.
“Chasm, for real,” I snap, feeling that hot, itchy anger take over me again. The thing is, this time it’s underwritten with a cold fear. A person acting all sus in the bushes? Never a good thing. I wait there for a moment, hoping that I’m right, that it really is Chasm … but knowing instinctually that it isn’t.