Page 11 of Embrace

“So…what?” I blurt. “I help you graduate, and you help me shed my crappy reputation? Just being near Kian Ishida keeps the creeps away?”

His head snaps to me. “Exactly.”

“You can’t be serious.” There is no way he wants to help me.

“I’m so fucking serious,” he says. “Think about it. Meet me at the library tomorrow and we can talk.” That’s when I hear him slur the tail end of his sentence. And that tiny, tiny glimmer of hope that came alive extinguishes completely. He’s drunk.

What am I doing?

As desperate as I am to erase that girl, the solution isn’t going to be in the form of a charming, tattooed, six-foot-two hockey player. Let alone one on mydad’steam.

Before I can answer him, Kian’s pulled into the hallway by his friends. That’s when I spot Sierra searching for me in the crowd.

“Si!” I wave her over.

“Where’d you get laundry detergent and a new shirt?” she asks, eyeing my new tank top when she approaches.

“I used to be a Beta Phi sister, remember? Where’d you go? I thought you were behind me when I came inside.”

Sierra’s got a plastic smile on her face that doesn’t fool me. I know she found and confronted the guy who spilled my beer all over me.

“Oh, um. I was…”

“You yelled at the guy who bumped into me, didn’t you?” The girl has a serious problem with fighting my battles. She’s always done it for me, and I’m so grateful that I have her as a best friend, but not standing up for myself is the exact reason I’m in this position.

She concedes and tells me about some IOU she extracted from the guy. I laugh and stuff my damp shirt in my purse. I’ll have to take it to my parents’ house on laundry day.

I don’t let Mac ruin my mood. I promised my best friend a good time, and I want to make that happen.

Sierra’s still in her head. So I drag her to the beer pong table, where she opts to watch me absolutely bomb and get more drunk than I planned. But that all feels unimportant when we’re on the dance floor, singing our favorite song to each other.

It isn’t until a few songs in, when she’s starting to enjoy the party, that I notice her freeze.

“Hey, what’s wrong—oh.” That’s when I see him. The world’s biggest asshole and Sierra’s ex-partner, Justin Petrov. “Want me to throw my drink in his face?”

That’s the least of what I’d do to him. For the past year, I’ve had dreams of tripping him on the ice and watching him cry.

“Not before I throw my fist,” Sierra mutters.

When Justin comes up to talk to her, I just want to get Sierra as far away from him as possible.

As a kid, I never wanted to see the people I loved hurt. But then I grew up with my mom crying over Victor, and nothing made sense anymore. Why would someone hurt the person they love?

So when Justin dropped Sierra on the ice and left her there like it was nothing, I could barely handle it. The guy has stood there andlet me curse him out more times than Sierra will ever know. I’ve even written him angry letters that I hope made him cry.

“Wait. Si, we should talk,” Justin says, gripping Sierra’s arm.

“No, you shouldn’t,” I bite back.

“But—”

“I don’t have anything to say to you.” Sierra’s voice shakes, but I hope I’m the only one who hears it. With that I pull her away, and for the next few minutes I try to get her mind off him. We talk to a few of my sorority sisters, but I keep glancing at her to make sure she’s okay.

They chatter about our time together, but all it does is make me relive who I was back then. A girl I can barely stomach now. The feeling makes it harder to breathe, and that’s when I turn to find Sierra already saying something.

“I’m the worst, and I’m sorry, but—”

“Let’s go. The music sucks and the drinks aren’t even good,” I cut in.