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Collin made an annoyed face and sighed. “Poor, poor Hadley. She’ll never get married, or have children. All because her big sister didn’t care enough to try to protect her.”
My arms and body hung uselessly, and my vision was almost completely black by the time Collin let me slowly slide to the ground, but his grip on my throat never loosened.
The last thing I remembered was his voice saying, “I’ll let you think this over.”
I WOKE UP to the sound of hoarse screaming, and soon realized it was mine. The realization came seconds before the pain did. My head felt like someone was taking a jackhammer to the back of it, and my body felt like it was being pricked by thousands of needles. I automatically tried to move from where I was, but froze at the sound of Collin’s menacing voice.
“Do not move.”
Even though I’d thought my eyes were open, it took force to get them to, and then it was only halfway. I was on the ground in the shower, and Collin was sitting outside it with a gun aimed right at me.
He waved the gun at the rest of my body. “You took too long to wake up. So I thought I’d do it for you.”
It was a few moments before I felt like I could look away from the weapon in his hand; I was worried what would happen the second I did. When I finally managed to tear my eyes from it, I sluggishly looked down, and my eyebrows pulled together. I was covered in ice cubes . . . so much so that I couldn’t see my body, and water was coming down on me from every angle in the shower. After a few seconds I realized I couldn’t feel the water coming down or the ice, and I didn’t understand why I wasn’t shaking.
“You know,” Collin said laughing, “the guy at the gas station asked if I was having a party when I bought all the ice. For some reason that was hilarious to me, because I was planning on announcing your pregnancy at my parents’ anniversary party this week had your appointment gone differently this afternoon. That won’t be happening now. But I guess this is kind of a party, too, if you want to count it as one.”
“H-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-how . . .” I didn’t try to get anything out after that, and it was then that I realized that I was shaking. I was shaking so hard my teeth were actually rattling.
Collin studied me for a few seconds, but then it was too hard to keep my eyes open. “How long have you been out?” he asked, trying to guess my question. “About an hour. How long have you been in the ice shower? About ten minutes, and you’re almost done.”
What felt like seconds later, I was waking up much like I had before. Screaming. This time in agony. The water was hot. Scalding hot. There was still some ice on me, but Collin was pulling me up, and the water felt like it was burning me.
“Don’t show your pain, Harlow,” he reminded me with a gentle voice.
I tried to clench my teeth together, but soon I was screaming again. I didn’t understand why the pain wasn’t stopping. I thought Collin had been pulling me up; I thought I’d been getting out of the shower . . . where had he gone? The hoarse screams continued for a minute before they slowly started dying out, and soon they were gone. I gradually became aware of the fact that my face was pressed against the shower floor, which was now clear of ice, and that I was choking on water . . . but I didn’t care anymore. I wanted to go back to sleep again.
Everything in me hurt. Everything in me ached. Everything in me screamed.
“Good girl, don’t show your pain,” he whispered. The water shut off, and Collin picked me up off the floor again, but I couldn’t stand on my legs, so he pulled me up into his arms. “Let’s get you in bed.”
Collin laid me in the bed without a towel, and wrapped the sheets and comforter tightly around me until all that showed was my face and wet hair. He sat on the edge of the bed as he ran his hand over my hair a few times, and leaned down to kiss my forehead. Without leaning back, he whispered against my skin, “Before you woke up the last time, a friend of the family who works at your doctor’s office called me back. I had her check your records. She backed up your story that you don’t have a prescription for birth control, and that you’ve never had any procedures to prevent a pregnancy.”
I was glad I didn’t have the strength to show a reaction to what he’d said. If I would’ve known that there were family friends in the office, I would’ve never risked getting the implant done there, but I was so grateful for whoever had left it off my records.
“Hadley is safe, too.”
My body relaxed and I felt myself drifting again. “Thank you,” I mouthed before sleep claimed me.
Chapter 11
Knox
Present Day—Richland
I GLANCED AT my phone to check the time again, and finally broke down to call Harlow. She was an hour late. Normally I wouldn’t have waited that long for anyone, and normally I would’ve called if the person I was meeting was a little late, but I already knew how much it scared Harlow to have the phone I’d bought for her. I didn’t want to continuously scare her by reminding her of it every time I started worrying about her.
Tapping on her name, I brought the phone up to my ear and tried to calm the shaking in my arms and legs.
Fall 2010—Walla Walla
I COULDN’T STOP shaking as I waited for her to pick up her phone. The entire last three months had been more of the same: constant bouncing knees and shaking hands; but it was all about to be over soon. Within minutes, I was going to have the girl I’d been waiting for. As soon as I heard her answer the phone, I looked up at her dorm and couldn’t hide the wide smile that spread across my face.
“KNOX, I’M SO sorry. I didn’t mean for this to happen,” Harlow whispered into the phone a couple of minutes later.
Didn’t mean for this to happen? The girl I’ve waited for just told me she didn’t wait for me. She apologized to me, this isn’t a joke—this is actually happening. The girl I love doesn’t love me anymore.
“Say something,” she begged.
