Page 64 of Cocky Brutal Sinner

“Did you know you purse your lips when you concentrate?” Ryan howls. “Because Brinley did. She wrote all about it.”

Beau just stands there. He doesn’t laugh with the guys, but he doesn’t cross the room. He doesn’t snatch my diary out of Luke’s hands. He doesn’t put himself between me and them, shielding me from my own vulnerable worlds they’re hurling around like weapons.

He just puts his hands in his pockets and rolls his eyes. “Hey, stop. Luke, come on. Don’t be a dick.”

Casual. Mild. Like he’s suggesting they change the channel, not watching my heart get destroyed.

It’s not like I expected him to put on some big display to protect my honor, but he could have said something. Something to remind them that I’m a person, not a carnival act. Even if he doesn’t like me, even if he only sees me as some annoying little girl, Beau’s a good guy. Would he really just stand by why they humiliate me?

Apparently, yes. He would.

Because I’m nothing to him.

In that moment I know with terrible clarity that I’m not worth the risk of protecting. Not to Beau. Not to any of them. I’m the expendable one—the permanent audience member who wandered onstage, and they’re putting me back in my seat where I belong.

The texts were never from Beau. He looks exactly like someone who just arrived, not someone who planned this—but it doesn’t matter. He’s here. He sees what’s happening. And his version of helping is muttering “don’t be a dick” in a completely indifferent voice.

The tears come all at once, dropping down my cheeks. My vision gets blurry because I’ve never cried with contacts in. I hate that I’m crying. I hate that I’m giving that to them.

Luke’s smile gets smaller when he sees the tears. “Brin, it’s just a joke. Lighten up.”

Nothing about this is a joke, I want to scream. That diary was the most real thing I had and they turned it into nothing. Rage makes me stomp across the room and yank the diary out of Luke’s hands. I shove him back against the table with all my strength, and he falls back a step, knocking over glasses. That wipes the smile off his face.

“I hate you.” My voice sounds raw. Wrecked. “I hate you and I never want to speak to you again.”

I mean Luke. I mean all of them, all his horrible, miserable friends. My eyes sweep the room and land on Beau last. I hold his gaze for one searing second. I want him to see what he did by doing nothing. I want him to carry it.

Then I spin on my heel and rush toward the door with the tattered fragments of my dignity.

The contacts blur my vision, tears and saline and lenses I put in for a boy who let me burn. I rip them out and throw them down on the sidewalk. Thank god I put my glasses in my purse, just in case. I put them back on with shaking hands.

By the time I get back to my room, the grief is already calcifying into something harder. Something with edges. I fall to my knees on the floor. Then I open the diary and rip out every page about him. I shred them to pieces with my bare hands. I sit on my bedroom floor, surrounded by confetti that used to be my heart.

I think, with a coldness that surprises even me, I’m going to get them all back. I don’t know how yet. But I will.

22

BRINLEY

Ibarely remember how I get home from the St. Regis. The whole process of ordering a car and climbing inside disappeared behind a glaze of tears and swirling thoughts. The tears fade through the drive back to my place, but it still feels like the world is a million miles away, only reachable through a thick gray haze.

Beau knew.

He knew about Peppermint for months, and he kept it from me.

My relationship basically ended without me even knowing about it.

When I open my front door, I find Eden slumped on the couch, scrolling through job listings on her laptop. She’s wearing a truly massive camo-print hoodie that she probably stole from one of her brothers.

“Hey!” she chirps, only glancing up from the screen briefly. “It’s a miracle. I found two jobs this morning that are actually vaguely within my field. What have you been up to?”

I don’t answer, because I have no idea how to speak without crumbling to the ground like a kicked sandcastle. Eden looks up again, and I know from her crestfallen face how wrecked I must look.

“Oh, Brin,” Eden says softly. She closes her laptop and sets it on the coffee table. “Let me get you some tea.”

I sit down on the other side of the couch, hugging my knees up against my chest staring vaguely at the wall. In the kitchen, Eden bustles around, the clank of the tea kettle the only thing filling the silence.

After a while, a cup of tea gets shoved into my hands. The fresh scent drifting up to my nose almost makes me laugh.