AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I look up from the book I’m reading, and Beth is standing on the other side of the table, hip popped, chin raised defiantly. Her eyes are hardened steel. She’s beautiful, of course, her blonde hair braided and pinned into a crown, lips painted blood red. The library is empty tonight, but the very stacks themselves seem to hold their breath when the two of us face each other.
“Well? Did you want to see me or not?” she demands.
“Will you sit down a second?”
She rolls her eyes, and I figure she’s going to refuse…but then she pulls out a chair, the legs screeching on the stone flooring, and sits heavily opposite me.
“Rocking the side shave, I see. How edgy of you,” she mutters.
I laugh stiffly. “Yeah, well. They tend to get a little trigger happy with the clippers when you go in for brain surgery.” The scalp was patchy as hell when I first got out of the hospital. Since then, Lani’s tidied it up for me. She did her best to tame it into some kind of style, but in the end, she resorted to buzzing the left side of my head. It’s far from a professional job, but I reckon I’m rocking it.
Beth pouts, choosing not to respond to that.
“I know you’ve been waiting on this,” I say, tapping the envelope sitting next to my textbook. I’ve already given one just like it to Sebastian, and another to Ash. I’ve been waiting to give this one to Beth, because…well, I’ve been conflicted as hell about talking to her if I’m being honest.
Beth’s gaze darts quickly to the envelope, then away again.
I slide it toward her, knowing she isn’t going to reach out and take it if I don’t; she waits a second before casually collecting it. I watch her open it up and slide the check out, her eyes scanning the details of it, and then she swallows, sliding it away again.
Most people would react if they saw that many zeros on a check, but not Beth. No, she’s a master of concealing her emotions. “Is that all?” she asks.
“No, actually, it’s not.” I sit back in my chair, dropping my pen onto my notebook, letting out a long breath. “I wanted to thank you first.”
“Whatfor?”
“You agreed to stay on at Toussaint until I was better. You’ve had a million opportunities and plenty of reasons to leave over the past couple of years, but you didn’t. And I—well, I appreciate it.”
Beth gives me a shrewd sidelong look. “Being loaded has it’s perks, I guess. I couldn’t go until you were well enough to sign that check. Your executor was pretty clear about that when she set this whole thing up.”
My executor, Marylin Bishop, was my mother’s best friend from high school. My parents left detailed instructions regarding the money that would be bequeathed to me in the event that they should die. The house was to be left to me, and Marilyn was to safeguard my inheritance until I turned twenty-one. In her wisdom, Marilyn apportioned out a percentage of my money and used it as an incentive to persuade Beth, Ash and Sebastian to stay on here at the school to help me while I recovered. She hadn’t stipulated how long they’d have to stay. Just thatIhad to sign the money over, and to be able to do that, I had to be of sound mind and body. It was a tricky play on her part, but the girls and Seb were the ones who took the deal. They chose to stay for as long as they did.
I do not feel good aboutanyof it.
“Regardless. I’m grateful to you. Thank you.” I imbue my voice with as much sincerity as I can muster. “I know how badly this whole thing must have sucked for you guys.”
She snorts, as if that is the understatement of the century.
“Secondly…I wanted to apologize.”
Beth’s attention snaps back to me.
“The things I said in the hallway, when I came back here this time around—”
“Stop.” Beth shoves her chair back, rising. “I have no interest in rehashing—”
“I should never have said those things, Beth. I remember you telling me about that stuff a very long time ago. You told me in confidence. And I know how—how conflicted—”
“Can we justnot?” she hisses. “I don’t wanna talk about it.”
I’m not surprised. Beth’s liaisons with her father’s business partner started an age ago. It was an abusive situation that I regret not saying something about back then, but I’d been young. Beth had bragged about the whole situation. Said it was kinky and made her feel good. I wasn’t old enough to realize how badly she was being manipulated, or how very wrong it was that her father would watch her. I have no idea if it’s still going on or not, but I definitely don’t want to pressure her into talking about it if she doesn’t want to. I hold my hands up in a placating gesture.
“Okay. All right. I’m sorry. But please know…I wasreallyconfused, Beth. My head wasso…” I can’t even explain where my head was at. I could try, but it still wouldn’t make any sense to her. “I would never have normally said that stuff, though. I hope you know that. Things were weird between us before the accident, but I’d never have said—”
“It’s okay. I know you wouldn’t have. We’re good. I’m not holding it against you.” Beth inhales, looking around the library. “I can’t tell you how glad I am to be getting the hell out of here,” she says. “But…it’s weird. It feels like home now, doesn’t it?”
I survey the library, seeing all of the things she’s seeing, too. We’ve spent so much time here. Learned. Struggled. Suffered. Grown. “It does,” I agree.
“I hear you’re moving back to Sumner. Back into your parents’ old place tomorrow,” she says abruptly. “You and Theo.”
