It feels like I’m walking to the gallows when I enter the gym. Twenty-eight pairs of eyes bore into me, some of them resentful, some of them confused, some of them outright incredulous. I wanted to keep myself occupied when I decided to rejoin the team. Keeping my mind busy meant less time for me to brood and stew over Ben. I wasn’t looking for this kind of responsibility, though. Most of the team worshipped Jake like he was a god amongst men. They rallied around him, spending the night outside the hospital, boycotting his arrest after he tried to kill Silver. I put a bullet in their glorious leader, and not a single one of them looks impressed by the fact that I’ve now stolen his role as team captain.
Well, actually that’s not true. One player seems amused by this bizarre turn of events.
“Hope you’ve got health insurance, bro,” Zander says, slapping me roughly on the back. “I’m gonna say the odds of you making it out of this practice session alive are pretty low.”
Zander’s been really, really fucking wrong in the past. He was just about as wrong as he could be when he made the call not to tell me about his connection to my father. This time, though, it kinda looks like he might be right.
He grins his frustrating grin at me through the grill of his helmet. “After you’ve been such an outrageous prick, I should let the wolves have at you, Moretti. Don’t sweat it. though. I got your back.”
20
SILVER
“Oh my god! What happened to your face?”
The library’s closed at lunch for some kind of faculty meeting, so I’ve reluctantly had to settle on eating in the cafeteria. I nearly topple off my chair when I spot Alex walking across the loud cafeteria with a loaded tray in his hand and a vivid, massive purple bruise developing on his jaw.
He grimaces as he sets down his tray on the table, seating himself opposite me. Before he can explain how he ended up with such a huge welt on the side of his face, Zander arrives dressed in a ridiculous preppy sweater and chinos, brandishing a tray of his own. He sets it down next to Alex’s, and my jaw drops even lower when I see the black eye and the split lip he’s sporting. “The football team tried to dethrone their new ruler,” he says, his tone way too chipper given that his lower lip is still oozing blood. “They don’t seem to like him for some reason,” he adds. “God knows why.”
I drop my plastic fork, slumping back into my chair. Alex’s expression confirms Zander’s outlandish comment—yes, he really has been made captain of the football team. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Coach Foley is insane.” Alex glares down at the enormous mountain of food in front of him. “She said it was the only way I was getting accepted into college. Clearly, she wants me dead, though.”
Wow.
Just…wow.
“Hey, Silver. Alex. New guy, whoever you are. Mind if I sit with you?” Suddenly Halliday’s standing next to me, clasping a brown paper bag in her hands, looking a little anxious as she eyes the open space on the bench next to me. A moment of uncomfortable silence hangs in the air where I just stare up at her, so stunned that my brain ceases to function. When that moment because too uncomfortable to bear, I snap out of my daze and shunt over on the bench, making room for her. “Oh. Uhhh. Sure. Yeah. Why not.”
She exhales, her shoulders relaxing, and I realize that she was nervous. She thought I was going to say no. “Cool. Thanks.” She sits, unwrapping her lunch, and Alex’s dark gaze punches holes in the side of her face the entire time.
I kick him under the table. When he looks at me, my meaningful stare passes along a stern message: Hey. Be nice.
“It’s okay. You don’t need to rein him in,” Halliday says quietly.
Damn it. I didn’t think I was being that obvious.
“I was…fucking horrible to you, Silver.” Halliday struggles with the words. Her guilt feels like a fifth member of the group, looming over our table, demanding all of the space and leaving none for the rest of us. “I was a bad person. I know that. Things should never have gone the way they did. Kacey was…well, she was Kacey. And I was so selfish. I let myself fear her more than I loved you, and that was…that was…” Her eyes are shining, and the end of her nose has gone pink. I know from experience that it only ever does that when she’s about to cry.
She didn’t apologize for the way she treated me when she asked if I would visit Zen at the hospital with her. I didn’t expect her to, somehow. When she spins to face me, remorse all over her face, her hands fiddling fretfully with the tassel on the zip of her purse, and she says the words—
“I’m so sorry, Silver. I know saying sorry’s never gonna be enough to make up for the way I was…but I am, okay. I’m really sorry. And I missed you. I missed my friend. I don’t deserve it, but I hope we’ll be able to be friends again. Proper friends. The way we should have been before.”
—I find that I can’t bear the sincerity or the cautious hope flickering in her eyes. I want to run away from it all as fast as humanly possible and pretend that it isn’t even happening. “It’s okay. It’s fine, Hal. You don’t need to apologize.”
“Like hell she doesn’t,” Alex growls, stabbing his fork in her direction. “She loved you. She trusted you, and you let every single person in this school believe she lied about being raped, when you knew for a fact that it was true. You could have told the truth. At least some of the assholes in this school might have given her story credence if you’d come forward and told Darhower what you saw that night.”
A pit of agony burns in the center of my chest, spreading out, out, out, making it hard to breathe. I love Alex for what he’s doing; he’s standing up for me when no one else would, and I could hug him for it. But I also really, really need him to stop. I can’t do this now. I can’t do this here. “Alex—”
“No, he’s right,” Halliday says, nodding firmly. “I know what I did was worse than Zen and Melody. I found you covered in blood. I saw the state you were in. My statement could have made a difference, but I was a coward. It’s a little late, but I’m figuring out how to not be a coward now. High school makes us into the worst versions of ourselves, but I’m trying to do better.”
“I say you forgive her,” Zander says cheerily, popping a fry into his mouth. “Looks like she means it. And she’s so pretty. I hate to see a pretty girl cry.”
Alex pivots on the bench, glaring at the guy sitting next to him. “Why can’t you ever just shut the fuck up, dude? For real. This has nothing to do with you.”
Halliday looks like she wants to crawl under the table and die quietly, where no one will be able to see the life wilt out of her. I get where Alex is coming from. I’m not going to be able to just snap my fingers and forget everything that’s happened since Jake dragged me into that bathroom. I’ll never be able to forget it. But I think…I think I will be able to forgive Hal. Maybe not today, or tomorrow, or next week even. But a day will come, probably soon, when I don’t look at her and only see all of the times she sneered at me over Kacey’s shoulder as the Sirens shoved past me in the hallway. I’ll see the silly, quirky, sweet girl I used to burn around Raleigh in the Nova with. I’ll be reminded of all the good times we’ve had, instead of all the painful, sad, angry moments, and the hurt of the past year will eventually soften. Until then…I’m willing to try.