“I would not.”
“What do you think you’re doing right now?”
“You know I’m gonna kick your ass, right? And when I’m done, Dash is gonna finish you off.”
“Have at it, dude.” I groan. “Can you just, like, wait a couple of weeks, though? I feel like hammered shit already.”
Evaluating my pathetic, curled up position on the bed, he arches an eyebrow. Bemused doesn’t even begin to cover his expression. “You wanna tell me what this is all about?” He nods to where my shirt has hitched up, exposing the gauze dressing on my side—evidence of my evil, uncharacteristic act of benevolence. “And why I just spent ten minutes on the phone, assuring someone called Remy that you’ll go to the hospital for a checkup in a week’s time? He was rambling about all kinds of meds and stretches and shit. What have you done to yourself? Are you fucking dying?”
I rub my hand against the top of my head, biting back another grin. “Would you be sad if I was?”
He tosses my phone so that it lands next to me on the bed. “For at least a day.”
“Gee. Thanks.”
“Nothing personal. Funerals bring me out in hives. And school’s annoying enough without all of the girls going into fucking mourning.”
I’d laugh if I didn’t already know just how much pain that would cause. “For me? I’m pretty sure the female population of Wolf Hall would throw a kegger in honor of my demise.”
“Bull.” He throws himself down into the chair by the window, not bothering to sweep the pile of clothes off it first. “You’re like catnip to every girl in a fifty-mile radius.”
I yawn, risking the tiniest of stretches. “Impossible. I treat them all like trash.”
“That’s why they like you. I know of at least one girl who’d gladly sell her own soul for a night with you. Wait—” Wren narrows his eyes. “Didn’t you already fuck Pres? At the last party. Before…”
Before our psychotic English teacher tried to murder a bunch of us? Before either Wren or Dash officially shackled themselves to their girlfriends? Ahh, the good old days. It just goes to show how much time Wren has been spending with Elodie if he’s calling Presley ‘Pres’ instead of by her full, obnoxiously long title.
And surprise, surprise. Here the troublesome redhead is again, cropping up like a bad penny. Why is the universe so dead set on bringing up Presley Maria Witton Chase every opportunity it gets? Haven’t I had enough of her to last me a lifetime already? I should fucking think so.
God? All-powerful, All-seeing Universal Being? Whoever’s fucking listening. No more suicidal redheads, please. Thanks.
But…hold the fuck up a second. What the hell did Wren just say?
“I didn’t touch that girl at the party.”
My friend’s laughter is scathing. “You abso-fucking-lutely did. I saw you grinding up against her. You had her pinned against a tree, naked as the day you were born.”
I sit bolt upri—ahh, ahh, ah, Fuck, fuck, fuck, that hurts. “I did not!”
“Dude. I know what your bare ass looks like and it was practically glowing in the moonlight. If you didn’t fuck her, then you got damn well close.”
I groan, throwing myself back onto the mattress. What the fuck? Now that he mentions it, I do remember making out very aggressively with someone at the party. I have the faintest recollection of boobs. Great fucking boobs. I had no idea they belonged to Chase, though. I fucking scraped the girl off the sidewalk less than a week ago. I gave her CPR. I had a full-length, very annoying conversation with her at the hospital, right before I kissed her. And now I have no clue if I slipped her my dick before any of that happened? And she said nothing about it?
“Anyway.” Wren’s smirk wouldn’t look out of place plastered across the Cheshire Cat’s face. “Presley’s besotted with you. Elodie told me. Carrie confirmed it. So there you go. Presley…”
“Maria Witton Chase,” I grumble.
He gives me a dismissive flick of his hand. “…would mourn you if you died. There’s at least one girl who’d care. So? Are you?
“What?”
“Dying!”
“No, I’m not fucking dying. Meredith. Meredith’s dying. She has cancer. I donated my dumb bone marrow to her against her wishes.”
He goes silent.
Great. Just what I didn’t want: an awkward as fuck moment with a friend who doesn’t know what to say about my sick mother. He doesn’t look super awkward when I flick a quick glance his way. He looks…thoughtful.
“So, she might not die, then?”
“Can we actually just…not?” I fled from the hospital and came home so that life can get back to normal, and seeing this pensive, somber look on Wren’s face is making me feel fucking weird. “If you’re not gonna beat the shit out of me for lying about the shoot, then maybe you could hand me that Xbox controller and leave me to murder things in the dark. Thanks.”
Wren hesitates. He looks down at his feet, brow furrowed, thinking, but then he chucks the controller onto the bed. Before he closes the bedroom door behind him, he says, “Let me know if you need anything, yeah?” and a growl builds in the back of my throat. Wren’s always been so fucking hard. His complete lack of empathy was one of the things I liked most about him. Ever since he started seeing Elodie, something’s shifted in him, though. He cares now. Cares way too much.
He should not care about me.
I’m perfectly capable of looking after myself.
16
THREE DAYS LATER
* * *
“Why do you do this? What does it even matter? No one knows. No one’s ever going to find out. And even if they did…they couldn’t prove it…”
* * *
“It’s a shame Jonah had to go home. I’m glad he doesn’t know about any of this, though. He’s a worrier. He would have canceled his flight and stayed indefinitely, and I couldn’t do that to the guy. No sense in his summer being ruined because of any of this.”
Dad grabs my bag from the trunk of the car and sets off up the path toward the house. He waits by the front door to make sure I’m following (I think he secretly thinks I’ll bolt the moment he lets me out of his sight), and only when I arrive behind him does he open the front door and let me inside.
There are still boxes everywhere. He hasn’t unpacked at all since I was admitted to the hospital. After that first disastrous visit, he did come back and see me every day, but he was much calmer. Much more even keeled. Whatever Dr. Raine said to him in her office must have struck a chord with him, because he tried. I saw how hard he was trying, which only made the guilt worse.
This wasn’t supposed to happen.
None of it was supposed to happen.
“I’ll make a couple of calls later on tonight.” Dad sets his keys down in a dish on the mail stand, turning slowly around in the hallway, as if he was about to do something but can’t remember what. “I’ll speak to Principal Harcourt and have someone pack up your bedroom. I can either drive up there tonight to grab everything, or we can do it tomorrow morning on our way over to the restaurant—”