Be smaller.
Take the deal.
Save the boy.
Slide the whole thing back into the dark where men like this prefer girls to stay.
It would be so easy to find the right person, say the right words, and fold myself into exactly what he needs. And it would help Rowan, because there’s no doubt that Patrick Cross can cause him problems, but then I think about Rowan and me in the pool and the weeks since.
He’s the last person who would want the Halden Girl to come back.
And I’m not about to decide what he can survive one more time.
“No,” I say.
Patrick blinks.
“Hey.” Ivy plants herself next to me, glaring daggers at Cross. “Are you okay?”
“She’s fine,” Cross says, not looking at her. “We’re nearly finished.”
That’s what does it. Not the offer of a deal, but the flick of his attention past Ivy: one more girl told that this doesn’t concern her. Because this moment —allthese moments — concernsallof us, and I refuse to let another guy like this get away with it.
So I don’t lower my voice, and I don’t back down.
“Mr. Cross offered me a deal,” I say. “I publicly call myself a liar to protect his son from consequences, or he makes sure the future of the person I love falls apart.”
The people nearest us stop talking, heads turning.
“Sloane,” Cross says, very quietly. “You’re making a scene.”
“Yeah. I am.”
“This is not the place.”
“It’s exactly the place.” I bare my teeth in something that isn’t a smile. “You picked it.”
Ivy settles at my left shoulder, chin up. She doesn’t step in and she doesn’t say a word. She’s letting me have the moment, even though she’d go to war the second I ask her to, and I love her so much for it.
So I turn so the room can hear me.
“When I was eighteen, I sent private photos to a boy and he passed them around. And when it blew up, the adults decided the problem wasn’t the boy but me for trusting him. So they made me the cautionary tale, shipped me three states away, and told me to be quiet.”
My voice is steady, and louder than I’ve let it be in a year.
“I came to Halden and I made myself small, pleasant, and easy to be around. I smiled on cue and never took up too much room, because I had already learned what this world does to a girl who takes up too much room.”
As I speak, the circle around us pulls closer and closer.
I turn back to Cross. “And your son dragged it all back into the open to humiliate me and get at Rowan. That’s why he’s suspended.” My voice cracks, and I let it. “And now you—” The word won’t come, and I don’t chase it. “I know this part. I’ve lived it. You make me the unstable one. The one who exaggerated, who made a scene, who’s the problem.”
He holds up a hand. “That’s enough. I?—”
“I’mnotfinished.” I’m shaking worse now, and it’s fine. “It’s the same play they ran on me at eighteen. And you’re running it right now, right here.” A breath. “So I’m not taking it back, and if you go after Rowan, now everyone in this room knows why.”
He doesn’t lean in, and he doesn’t raise his voice. “You’ve made this a great deal harder than it needed to be,” he says.
I hold his eyes. “Good.”
