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“You heard me, Shaw. Now, can you get out of my way? I need to grab my book and get to class. I don’t need to give my parents yet another reason to extend my grounding.” Shocked, she stepped aside. “Thank you.”
I finally made it to our locker, but it took two attempts before I could get the lock undone. My fingers shook so badly I messed up the combination, but I wasn’t sure if the shaking was from everything that had taken place over the past several days, lack of sleep, or if I was close to having a total breakdown.
No, I thought as I jerked the locker door open. I would not fall apart completely. I was stronger than that. I had to be strong. I just needed to take a deep breath, and I would be fine.
Boyfriends cheated on their girlfriends every day. They got through it, and so would I.
“Vi…I don’t know what to say,” Shaw said from behind me.
“Don’t say anything. It happened. We broke up. There’s nothing left to talk about.” I grabbed my book and left the door open so she could get her own. Without looking at her, I turned in the direction of my first class. “I’ll see you at lunch.”
“Vi, I’m sorry,” she called after me.
I stopped and turned to face her. “Don’t be. Nothing that happened this weekend was your fault.”
“If I hadn’t taken you to that party…”
“It would have happened eventually, regardless,” I told her with a careless shrug, but that small movement felt like it took the last of my energy. “Megan warned me, remember? She warned me, and I didn’t listen.”
But I should have.
Chapter 23
Violet
By lunch, I knew I was probably going to have to get stitches in my lip. It kept reopening, and I’d had to go to the bathroom to clean up the blood that continued to pour out of my mouth.
When it happened for the second time in the same class, my teacher sent me to the nurse, who took one look at the wound and called Dad. I was sitting there waiting on him when the door opened and Remington walked in.
The nurse glanced at him and shook her head. “Back again, I see.”
“You know I can’t go two hours without seeing your lovely face, Nurse Brenda.” He gave her a charming smile and winked.
“Have a seat, Mr. Sawyer. I’ll be with you shortly.” She waved him over to the cot beside where I was sitting and walked into the back of the small clinic-like area that was her domain.
Remington did as he was told, and his eyes fell on me. “What are you in for, Stevenson?” he asked with a small smile as he dropped down onto the cot.
“I keep reopening the cut on the inside of my mouth,” I said with a lift of my shoulders. “Apparently I need stitches.”
His face darkened. “How did it go with your parents? I noticed Baby Cage wasn’t in homeroom this morning.”
“Yeah, well, don’t expect to see him anytime soon. Aunt Dallas and Uncle Axton shipped him off to some hard-core military school or something. I’m not really sure.” Talking had made my lip start to bleed again, and I grabbed a tissue to wipe my mouth.
“Good for them. Not many parents these days would have punished him since boys will be boys and all that bullshit.”
“They’ve been threatening him with it for years.” I grabbed another tissue when the first one got too saturated. “What about your parents? Would they have shipped you off if you were to do something like Cannon did?”
His face tensed for a moment, then he shook his head. “I don’t know. They died twelve years ago. It’s just me and my grandfather. Now, he’s one of those with the mind-set of ‘boys will be boys.’ He’s an asshole and a total misogynist. Sons can do no wrong in his eyes. I would have gotten a stern ‘Don’t do it again, Remington’ in public and then a pat on the back behind closed doors.”
Despite my numbness, I felt a wave of pain when he told me his parents were dead. I couldn’t imagine losing either my mom or dad, even though I’d been so scared it would happen when Dad had donated part of his liver to Uncle Drake. “I’m so sorry,” I told him. “I had no idea you…”
“That I’m an orphan?” He laughed. “I don’t go around making it public knowledge, Stevenson.” I had to get a third tissue, and his face clouded over. Standing, he came over to crouch in front of me. Taking the tissue from me, he dabbed at the corner of my mouth. “I should have hit that bastard harder. He butchered your mouth.”
“Shaw mentioned you may have knocked a few of his teeth loose with that punch.” I found myself actually smiling at him, only to have more blood spill out of my mouth.
His lips twitched in a ghost of a smile as he mopped up the fresh blood. “Wish I’d broken his jaw.”
“Me too.”
