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It takesme forever to fall asleep after Malice leaves, and since the party was on a Thursday night, I have classes the next morning. My alarm goes off at its usual time, and I drag myself out of bed, feeling hungover not just from the booze but fromeverything.
My face is puffy from the lack of rest, and I have the beginnings of a black eye and a bump on the back of my head, but I’m not staying home. I refuse to let what Colin did put me behind in classes.
After spending a good amount of time in front of the mirror applying coverup to the bruises and some concealer under my puffy eyes, I tug my hair into a messy ponytail and scramble to catch the bus on time. All I have to do is keep my head down and try to get through the day, and hopefully I won’t even see him.
As I head to my first class, I pass by a group of students standing in a tight cluster, talking in hushed voices. I don’t think anything of it until I hear Colin’s name, and my heart lurches as I slow my footsteps so that I can listen.
“Yeah, it’s fucked up,” one of them says, shaking his head. “He got jumped last night. He’s in the hospital.”
“What happened?” a girl asks, sounding horrified.
“Somebody mugged him, I guess?” the first guy replies. “Kicked his ass real good. I heard every finger on both hands was broken.”
My stomach twists when he says that… because I know what happened to him. I know who did that, and it wasn’t just some random mugger.
I’ve basically slowed to a complete stop as I eavesdrop, and one of the girls in the group turns and sees me standing nearby. I recognize her as one of April’s cronies, and she gives me an unfriendly look.
“Hey, Willow. Didn’t you leave the party last night with Colin?” she asks.
My heart pounds at the implication. I don’t think anyone saw us on the golf course together, so no one knows what went down—either then or afterward—but all the students around her turn to look at me with interest as they wait for an answer.
“Um, yeah,” I reply, nodding. “But we separated before too long. I have no idea where he went after that.”
The girl seems suspicious, and the whole group of them look at me like I’m something foul. If possible, it seems like they dislike me even more now, as if they suspect I had something to do with Colin getting jumped.
I try to ignore them, turning away and continuing on toward my first class, but I feel sick inside. Especially when I think back to last night, when Malice left and I didn’t even try to stop him.
Is this what some part of me hoped would happen? Is this who I am? Someone who wants violent retribution to fall on anyone who hurts me?
But at the same time, just like the guy who almost raped me when he followed me from the bus stop, Colin is a man who would have taken whatever he could from me if he got the chance. Should I really feel sorry for either of them?
The pounding in my head starts to fade by the end of my second class, and by the time I leave my third class, I feel mostly human again. As I’m walking across campus, someone falls into step with me.
Just like before when Malice came to my classroom, I know who it is before he even speaks, just from the way he feels.
I turn to look, and sure enough, it’s Ransom.
He slides his hands into his pockets and glances over at me, taking in the bruising on my face.
“How’re you holding up?” he asks. “After last night.”
So he knows, then.
“I’m fine,” I tell him. “My head hurt a little this morning, but it’s better now.” I glance around to make sure no one is close enough to overhear. They aren’t, but I lower my voice anyway. “Malice shouldn’t have gotten involved.”
Ransom shakes his head, the bronze highlights in his hair glinting in the sunlight. “Of course he should have.”
“Why?”
He looks at me, and something passes over his face that I can’t quite decipher. “Because you’re our responsibility. And we don’t let people hurt what’s ours.”
It reminds me of what Malice said last night as he touched the bruises and cuts on my skin.
Our business.
Our responsibility.
