He couldn’t hurt me anymore.
Between classes the following Wednesday, I received a text from Cory asking to meet her for lunch in the gardens outside the cafeteria.
I ran through every excuse in my mind, the botched-up story I couldn’t quite get right, knowing she was never going to believe me. But it wasn’t as if I could avoid her, and I knew she’d heard about the engagement party.
The only difference between college and high school was that people found better things to do than gossip much quicker, but they’d still do it.
Under a willow tree by a pond with a tiny bridge and a statue of a moss-covered frog, Cory waited at a wooden set of table and chairs with her laptop open.
“Hey.” I dropped into the bench seat across from her, but I didn’t bother unwrapping my burger.
“Now, it could be just a rumor, and by god am I hoping that it is, but supposedly”—her computer was slapped closed, revealing wide, searching eyes—“you got engaged. To your tormentor slash teenage obsession.”
“Ex-obsession,” I clarified.
“You’re not exactly doing a great job of convincing me this shit is real, you know that?”
“It is,” I said, leaning forward. “Unfortunately. Look, I can’t explain it. I’m not allowed…”
“Not allowed?” she practically screeched, then glanced around before looking back at me with concern. “Fern, is the asshole pulling another outrageously evil prank on you? You need to tell me. I’ll help you—”
“He’s not.”
She kept going. “We can get you out of this, screw him. I’ll come over this afternoon, and we can move you into my apart—”
“Cory,” I snapped, shocking us both. “I’m fine, and we’re getting married, and there’s nothing you, him, or I can do about it. The wedding is in two weeks.”
She reared back, blinking profusely. “Sorry, did you just say two weeks? Fern, you’re eighteen.”
“Nineteen in a couple of months,” I muttered as though that’d help. Then because I was a god damn idiot who wanted to get this off my chest, I said, “You’re not allowed to come, and I hate that so much, and I’m so sorry. But it’s not like it’s…” I stopped myself from saying more than I should. I had a feeling this meetup was already a big mistake. Jude and I should’ve set this in motion a lot better as soon as I moved in. We should’ve made it at least somewhat believable to those who knew us.
Cory blinked some more, then puffed out a breath. “Wow.” Staring at me for a moment that dragged into a minute, I saw the change in her eyes when confusion turned into all-out suspicion. “Hold the fuck up. You’re getting married, and I’m not invited? And to the guy who ruined your senior year?”
I nodded, biting my lips so I didn’t say anything else.
“Something’s wrong here,” she said. “So wrong that I can feel it crawling over my skin, and why do I think Silas…” She must’ve read the panic in my expression, for she leaned forward and hissed, “You know something about that, don’t you?”
Heading downstairs the night before our engagement party, I’d stopped on the landing when I’d overheard Silas talking to Jude about his parents and Cory. I hadn’t heard much, but his regret and anger were enough to piece together what he’d meant when Cory had said they had made him do it.
He’d had to destroy his relationship in order to initiate, and I was willing to bet that his parents were behind the orchestration of it. Not just because they didn’t like Cory but because he was still refusing to go home.
No matter what I’d figured out, I had to keep my mouth shut, which officially made me the worst friend ever.
I squeezed my eyes closed. “Cory, please.”
Her hands captured mine, and my eyes snapped open. “Fern, spill. Right now.”
“I can’t,” I said, dragging out the words. “I want to, please believe that, but I honestly can’t.”
Releasing me, she sat back, her brows drawn tight. “You can’t tell me something that concerns my own boyfriend?”
I rolled my lips between my teeth. I didn’t know enough about Silas. Only that he’d cheated on her during, or for, his initiation. It didn’t change the fact that he still did it. He had the choice. Initiate or don’t. He’d gone ahead with it.
Telling her it was all because of some fucked-up secret society wouldn’t help her anyway.
“Kay,” Cory eventually said, packing away her things. Grabbing her laptop bag, she rose from the bench seat and slung it over her shoulder.
She left, and I battled the urge to cry and run after her while silent laughter fell from my parted lips. It wasn’t funny. Nothing about any of this was remotely funny.
But it was ironic, how the things we wanted most could end up destroying us, piece by piece at a time.
Jude
“Engaged?” Alana, a pretty little blonde thing who’d taken to sitting next to me during American literature, repeated at a wince-inducing volume.
“Yep,” I said, then continued on my merry way from the old room. I was a lover of libraries and historic buildings, but too much mildew in the air was not for me.
Informing her I was off the market hadn’t seemed to work. What good was being engaged if you couldn’t use it to opt out of unwanted conversation? Outside, the sun beating back the graying clouds, Alana grabbed my arm on the cobblestone path. “I’ve never seen you with someone.”
“So?” I said, pulling my arm away.
Her light brows lowered, pink lips twisting. “I guess I just feel kind of bad.” Her tongue snaked out, running over her teeth. “Since we’ve been hanging and all.”
My brows rose at that, and trying not to laugh, I just stared at her for a moment. She was gorgeous, sure. I’d been tempted when she’d first taken a seat next to me after I’d broken up with Marnie, sure.
But that temptation was born from a place that hungered for revenge and the need to rebel. To beat at the box I’d been kicked into with such stunning force.
A glimpse of fiery hair across the quad saved me, and I hollered, “Oh, Red!”
She glanced over, about to keep walking until I gestured for her to get her ass over here.
I wasn’t sure why she humored me. I was just relieved she did.
Alana scurried down the path before Fern even reached us, and I made a show of looking at her ass even though it wasn’t much to look at, and I really didn’t give a shit.
“You’re a pig,” Fern said. “New plaything?”
“Pig? Funny, I thought I was all you had.” She glared. I smirked. “And no, I was just telling her about my lovely fiancée, actually.”
Tucking some of that wild hair behind her ear, she glanced at the students rushing by to their next class. I noticed then she wasn’t wearing her engagement ring. I knew she had one. Looking back at the times I’d seen Fern since she’d moved in, I realized I couldn’t remember seeing it. “Speaking of… Where’s your ring?”
“Gone.”
I cursed. “Seriously?”