I’m still doubtful it’s a fight Sydney is willing to finish, but eventually the other girls will learn. You can’t force someone into seeing themselves as a victim—as a survivor. It has to be something they realize themselves, and even then, the hunger for justice isn’t a universally shared ache.
What Doug did to me was untenable, but the thought of trying to bring him down—legally, officially—makes me physically ill. Maybe that makes me the kind of person who doesn’t stand up for herself. Or maybe that makes the kind of person who does—by acknowledging that it’ll only hurt me more. Because the truth is, the thought of looking back at it makes me tired.
Sebastian was right that day in the garage.
I’m tired of fighting.
I’m still tangled in these thoughts when I hear a knock at the door. It’s so gentle, so quiet, that I almost question if I heard it at all. But who knows? It could be one of the Devils, coming to check on their girls.
So I climb out of bed to open the door.
Sebastian’s leaning against the far wall, head hanging low on his shoulders. His blond hair is messier than it was when I last saw him, a tangle of golden chaos. He’s wearing a heavy jacket that’s opened, revealing his bare chest, hands shoved into the pockets.
When he lifts his head to meet my gaze, it feels like the floor has fallen from beneath me.
“Jesus fucking Christ.”
It was all for nothing.
It’s a horrible, selfish, myopic sort of thought. The kind that I’ll be kicking myself for later. Georgia needed to report Heston because he hurt her. In a way, so did Sydney. It was never really about stopping the fight—not at its core. It was about making sure that there was something on record. Proof that Heston Wilcox is dangerous. A predator.
But seeing Sebastian standing there, eye almost swollen over, face bloody and bruised and battered, I can’t help but think that it isn’t fair.
“Hey,” he says in a rusty voice, slurred with something I’m hoping like hell is just the same exhaustion I saw before. “Should see the other guys.”
Guys? “Plural?” I think he tries to smile. It ends up looking more like a painful twitch of his cheek. “What are you doing here, Sebastian?” It comes out plaintive and quiet, and not at all the way I intend it. What I mean to ask is why he isn’t at the nearest urgent care center.
But he just rests his head back against the wall, staring down his nose at me with those tired eyes. “Showing you something honest.”
The words make every cell in my body come instantly to life. Unwilling to let him see this, I prop a shoulder against the door jamb, ducking my head. “You honestly look like you’re about to collapse in my hallway. Why aren’t you in yours?”
His shrug is a loose, lazy thing. “I wouldn’t be able to sleep,” he says. Even his inhale sounds exasperated with it all. “Not until I told you that it was all bullshit. Every word of it.”
Softly, I reply, “I know,” but even though it’s still nice to hear it like this—said aloud, to my face—it doesn’t take it all away. It soothes the hurt, but deep down, the sting remains.
“I don’t know exactly how to fix it.” He pauses, shoulders sinking impossibly lower. “I just couldn’t let another night go by with you thinking I don’t love you. And I doubt I’m currently in the position to do shit like think, or make promises, or tell you that I’ll do whatever it takes to get you back. Because I think I’m sort of a loser, and not worth it for you.”
“That’s what you think?” I ask, lifting my eyes to see his heavy nod. “Then you’re right.” I watch his face fall, shaking my head in response. “You’re not in the position to think right now.”
His eyes spark, head lifting from the wall in order to watch me closely. “I’m really fucking not.”
I shuffle my feet, taking in his crazy hair and fucked-up face. “Wait here a second.”
Leaving him in the hall, I throw on my coat, reaching under my bed for various supplies. I pause to look at Georgia and Aubrey in the bed, still sleeping soundly. Truthfully, it used to make me a little jealous, how close the twelve of them are. They’re always calling each other their boys, or their girls. Maybe the Devils are some dumb, pretentious, over-the-top secret society, but they’re also so much more. They love each other—sure, in their own weirdo, messed-up ways—but it’s a kind of love, nonetheless.
That’s why I leave a note, quickly scrawled on the back of someone’s old Bio homework:
Off taking care of your boy.
He doesn’t ask where we’re going, even though it should be obvious. Instead, it’s like he just follows me blindly down the stairs, out the door, across the space between the buildings, over to the boys’ dorms. I put in the code myself, letting us inside.
When we get to the fourth floor, something clicks.
He stops in the middle of the hall, eyes cast to the side. “Uh…”
“What?” I whisper, looking nervously up and down the hall.
“It’s a fucking mess in there.”
Pausing, I slowly assure him, “That’s okay,” but when he meets my gaze, his are full of a strange sort of dread. When he pushes open the door, I see why. “…oh.”
He sighs. “Yeah.”
It looks like a bomb went off in here—if there were such things as takeout-beer-laundry bombs. I step carefully over a textbook, face down, pages all crumpled beneath the hard cover. His lacrosse equipment is strewn about the room, and even though the floor looks like a tornado ripped through, every flat surface is oddly clean. It takes me a moment to understand what this is.
I purse my lips at him. “Had a bit of a tantrum, huh?”
He reaches up to rub at the back of his neck. “A bit.”
Nodding, I survey the room, but quickly decide to ignore it. This can’t be fixed tonight. Instead, I nod my head toward the bathroom, waiting for him to follow me. At least in there, I’m relieved to discover, everything is still in its place.
“Sit,” I demand, opening my bag to retrieve the first aid kit.
He doesn’t sit on the toilet like I expect him to. He slides up on the counter, reaching over the sink to crack the window. I don’t protest when he pulls a pack of rumpled cigarettes from his pocket, pinching one between his lips and lighting it.
“My mom’s doc already looked me over,” he says, eyes tracking the way I set out the antiseptic wipes, bandages, and ointment. “No concussion. No stitches. Just some bruises. Superficial bullshit.”
I arch an eyebrow at him. “It’s going to feel a lot less superficial in the morning. Take these.” I hand him two pain relievers, watching as he swallows them down with a handful of water from the tap. “Now stay still.”
The cut on his cheek isn’t deep enough for stitches—the doctor was right about that—but it’s still caked with dried blood and debris. I tear the package to the antiseptic wipes and rub one over the open wound.
“Son-of-a—” he winces back, brow furling. “Jesus, that always hurts.”
I run the wipe over it again. “Then maybe you should stop always needing it.”