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But she didn’t know him like I did.
I’d heard the sadness in his voice. He hated treating her like shit, but he knew if he didn’t, I’d make good on my threat. He had a half-sister at Coventry Prep. He just learned about her last year. He had no way of knowing if she actually knew about him, though. He’d overheard his father talking to his old mistress in his office while his mother was gone.
It was a fucked-up situation, and I was a shitty friend for taking advantage of it, but I did what I had to do. He thought if he didn’t go along with my little plan, his sister would suffer at that school like we’d made others suffer here.
Truth was, I might threaten it to be a dick, but I never would have done it.
He didn’t need to know that, though.
That being said, Asher still fought me this whole time. I found it rather interesting he’d so readily jumped on board. Maybe he’d finally learned she was too damn good for him, too. God, I hoped. We needed to get her the fuck out of Crestview. I wanted to win the bet, but at this point, it was a lot more than that. More than I wanted to admit.
“Whatever,” Wilder said. “Times like this, it pisses me off even more that I can’t just be with Justin.”
She started to turn away, and both Asher and I looked at one another before looking back at her.
“What the hell does that mean?” Asher asked.
She looked over her shoulder. “None of your fucking business. The two of you saw to that. You’re not even capable of being my friends, let alone anything else, so you have no right to know anything about me or who I talk to.” Nothing stopped her that time as she turned and stormed out.
I couldn’t have stopped her if I wanted to. My hands were gripped on the edge of the table like I’d fall to the floor if I let go.
Justin fucking Blackwell, huh?
We’ll just see about that.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
TEMPERANCE
By the time I walked in the entrance of my dorm building, the headache I fought all weekend returned. What thefuckwas that? Not only Damian, which shouldn’t have been a shock at all, butAsher?
While he’d had his moments, Asher had never been outright cruel for no reason. In the rec gym, I believed he was mean because he was embarrassed, or maybe he felt betrayed in some way with the way I felt about Damian and certainly by the things I’d said to him.
In that cafeteria just now, however,thatwas completely and totally un-fucking-provoked. That was coldness and rudeness for no damn reason other than to be a shithead. And a shithead he was. A girl could get whiplash talking to those two.
No, notany girl. Me.Icould get whiplash—because I was theonlygirl they treated like that regularly. They were jerks to everyone every now and then, but I was the only lucky recipient of their attention on such a large scale.
Lucky me.
As I stepped off the elevator and headed toward my apartment, my fists balled at my sides. I wanted to hit something. I still hadn’t gotten the key to the gym back from Asher, and I needed to. Only, that would require talking to the fucker, something I hadnoplans of doing any time soon. I needed to hit something, but I guessed it was a good thing I didn’t have the key since strenuous activity wasn’t good for my head right now.
Even the psychologist had told me to take it easy when I went to my initial appointment on Saturday. He told me I should have rescheduled, but I was absolutely not about to do that. I needed help, and I needed it fast.
Unfortunately, it went about as well as I imagined it would.
“Tell me about yourself, Temperance,” he’d said.
Yeah, okay, sure. I’m eighteen. I’m a Gemini. Love the beach, but never been. Pizza is my favorite food. My parents and 137 other people were brutally murdered by gun or blown to bits right in front of me, but I don’t remember any of it. I was the sole survivor, and it looks like my phone might have been cloned to involve my mom, who wasn’t supposed to be there. People might still be after me, so I have to hide out in a school full of assholes who haze and torture me daily. A raging psycho named Lily is after me, and I haven’t eventriedto look into her because I’ve been too busy dealing with the aforementioned assholes. I let the worst of those assholes finger me in the hallway because I couldn’t resist. I want to fuck his best friend. I also want to fuckmybest friend. All three together would besplendid.I’ve discovered a love for edibles. And I love to read.
It didn’t go like that, however. It was just as I knew it would be. “I’m eighteen. I was in a terrible car accident in early June that claimed the lives of my parents and almost killed me as well. Police are still investigating the crash. I don’t remember much, but I remember seeing both of my parents’ bodies at the scene. It was gruesome—terrifying. It was the last thing I saw before I woke up after surgery, after nearly dying from blood loss due to a liver laceration.”
One lie led to another to another to another. What was worse than the actual lying, which I hated, was the fact that heknewI was lying.
“I can’t help you if I don’t know the truth,” he’d said.
I sighed. “I understand that. However, I can’t tell the truth. What Icantell you is I really did see my parents die in a horrific way. I almost died that day, too—andyes, it was from a liver lac. I have nightmares every night. I wake up screaming sometimes. I have panic attacks just walking down the hallways at school. The only thing that seems to keep me from panicking is either pure fucking rage or sexual tension, and I have both of those in spades there.”
He'd smiled and nodded. “There we go.ThatI can work with. If you don’t trust me with specifics, we can work on that. Just be honest where you can, and we’ll work from there. Tell me about these nightmares. We’ll start there.”
