He tries to crowd me by moving even closer, but I don’t budge. I’m not about to surrender an inch of ground to him.
“You remember what I told you last semester?” he demands. “Saint knew you before he ever met you. That would be an immediate red flag to any sane person. Plus, let’s not forget all the humiliation you’ve suffered at his hands. Or does that kind of thing get you off?”
“Don’t start with me, Liam,” I warn softly. “We’re friends until you force me to stop wanting to be.”
Anger flashes across his bronze features, and he grabs my shoulders and shoves his face close to mine. “There are people at this school that actually give a shit about what happens to you,” he insists. “People that don’t want to hurt you but want to protect you and not see you fall on your fucking face.”
I open my mouth to counter that he’s never protected me from Saint, but my words fall dead on my tongue when his mouth suddenly descends on mine. His kiss is furious and desperate, just like him. I shove against his chest with all my might, ripping my lips away to snap, “Stop it!”
“He can kiss you after everything he’s done, but I can’t?” His gaze is narrowed and his fingers spasm on my shoulders.
“Let me remind you of something, Liam,” I snarl, shoving at him again. He finally lets me go. “Saint may have tormented me in countless ways, but you just sat back and watched him do it for weeks and never did anything to stop him. Don’t pretend you’re somehow the good guy, here, just because you haven’t directly hurt me. At least Saint doesn’t pretend to be something he’s not.”
It’s clear he didn’t expect me to snap back like that. His brown eyes are wide as he stares me down in silent shock. Good. I’m glad I’ve stunned him. Hopefully, I’ve opened his eyes to his own hypocrisy, but honestly, I couldn’t care less.
Fury still burning through me, I turn from him before he can recover his power of speech and rush from the room. Whipping out my phone, I decide to finally answer Saint’s texts so that he backs the fuck off. I type out a message saying that I’ll see him when I’m ready to see him and not before.
Then I hit send and return to my room.
25
Somehow, I end up unintentionally taking Jenn’s advice for the next week when I do everything in my power to avoid Saint. He wasn’t a fan of my one and only response to his onslaught of texts and upped his game by stalking me around campus. Whenever I run into him or see him in class, I can read his rage in his features, but it doesn’t deter me from pretending he doesn’t exist. I don’t look at him when I can help it, and the few times he’s swallowed enough of his pride to shout out my name, I kept walking.
I just want to finish my year and get the hell out of this school.
Thursday morning, as I’m eating breakfast with Loni, I finally get a sliver of good news that makes things seem a little less bleak.
Loni’s phone suddenly buzzes, and she grabs it to read whatever message just came through. Her eyes go wide as she looks from her phone to me and back again.
“What is it?” I ask, frowning.
“Apparently, they’ve figured out what caused the fire last semester,” she murmurs. “Jesus, girl, you need to follow Miranda Flanders’s Instagram. She’s hateful as hell, but she always knows what’s going on before everyone else.”
I draw in a stuttered gasp. If it’s been proven to be arson, I’m fucked, no matter how innocent I am. The police haven’t let me go as a suspect in that incident, especially now that Jon Eric is still missing.
But when Loni looks up at me, her smile bursts with relief. “They said it was faulty wiring.”
The air leaves my lungs in a rush. Oh, thank God! It was an accident, and there’s evidence to prove it.
“Are you sure?” I ask. Because my luck is never that good.
Her head bounces up and down. “Positive. I can message Miranda and see if she’s seen the official report if you—”
“No. That’s not necessary, but I appreciate the offer.”
At that moment, while I’m actually feeling good about something, someone knocks me in the back with their elbow. I lurch in my seat and spill the hot tea I’d grabbed with my breakfast all over the table.
Loni and I both whirl around to find a girl glaring down at us. I recognize her from among Laurel’s minions.
“Seriously, Rachel?” Loni snaps.
The girl shrugs. “Oops. Sorry.”
She doesn’t look sorry at all as she flips her hair and sashays away.
Loni’s glaring daggers at her back. “That bitch. I should go after her and—”
“It’s all right, Loni,” I shrug as I begin wiping up the mess with my napkins. “Don’t sink to her level.”
Looking back at me, Loni furrows her brow. “How do you put up with it, Mallory? I’d lose my shit.”
I put up with it because I have to, but the harassment has remained fairly tame compared to what it was before everyone realized Saint kind of gave a shit about me. They’re all so afraid of him that they only do things to me when they know he’s not around, and they still try to disguise their bullying as accidents like that girl did just now. It’s irritating, but bearable.
“I just keep telling myself I don’t give a shit what they think of me,” I reply. “They don’t matter to me, so why should I care if I matter to them?”
She shakes her head and looks impressed. “You’re a stronger person than I am, that’s for sure.”
I smile and shrug, but I don’t tell her the only reason I’m strong is because life has forced me to be. I’ve had to fight for survival most of my life, and that hardens a person on the inside. It’s why I don’t trust easily, and why, even though she’s been nothing but supportive and loving, I can’t let Loni see all my cracks and broken places.
There’s only one person who’s seen all my flaws and learned my deepest secrets, but only because he smashed through my defenses against my will.
Saint.
“Well, forget that cunt and my satanic bitch of a stepsister,” Loni says with a dismissive wave of her hand. “What really matters is there’s definitive proof you didn’t start that fire. The police should get off your back about it now.”
They should, but only about that. Jon Eric’s still missing, and the cops still think I had something to do with it. I keep that to myself, though, because I don’t want to ruin her mood.
Smiling, I nod and reply, “Yeah. Thank God for that.”
That Friday and the rest of the weekend pass in relative peace. I’m given some reprieve from Saint’s insistence that we talk because he has some family thing that weekend and is away from campus. For once, I actually have room to breathe and think, though by class on Monday, I’m still as twisted up and confused about him as ever.
He doesn’t appear to pay much attention to me throughout the day, which I tell myself is a good thing. Maybe he’s finally getting the message and keeping his distance until I say otherwise. Even as I think that, I know it’s ridiculous because Saint Angelle doesn’t give up control to anyone.