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“You need to be able to cope without a human crutch,” Queenie explains.
Lavender goes into a full meltdown.
All I can do is watch it happen, knowing how much worse I’ve made things for her.
I want to save her from her demons, and me from mine. But they always catch up. No matter how hard we try to outrun them.
Something dark settles in my gut. Anger I’ve never felt before bubbles up and mixes with despair, because I finally realize what everyone else seemed to know already: Lavender is better off without me.
Chapter Eighteen
Live with Your Choices
Kodiak
Present day
“HOLY FUCK, MAN, check out that ass,” says some freshman jerk-off, who’s had one too many beers, to the guy beside him.
I knew this was a bad idea, but I still let it happen. Maverick wanted one last party before we close up the pool, and then he went and disappeared upstairs to his room with his girl of the month, leaving me to manage things.
It was only supposed to be a few of the guys, but then a few people told a few more people, and it snowballed from there. I’d have to say there are more than fifty people out here. And it’s only eight o’clock. I’m sure Mav will be back down in an hour, but until then, I have to deal with people, and that’s pretty much my least favorite thing to do.
If my house weren’t currently under construction thanks to some faulty wiring that shorted out the toaster oven, and the kitchen weren’t completely gutted, I could leave him with this mess. But since I live here for the foreseeable future, I don’t have much of a choice. On the upside, we’ll have a sweet new kitchen whenever it’s done.
Fortunately, River is out for the night, so I don’t have to manage him glaring holes through me. And Lavender is likely hiding in her room, which is pretty much all she’s done since I moved in after the fire. Her room is directly above mine.
Her bedframe squeaks at night when she’s restless. The hum of her sewing machine is a relentless drone in the wee hours of the morning when she can’t sleep. She sings in the shower all the time. But the worst are the nights when I mutter some heinous comment to her, meant to remind us both what a horrible fucking person I am. And later, I get the confirmation I’m looking for when I hear her fighting for breath. I used to be the one to save her. Now I’m the reason she falls apart. Those are the nights she sews for hours.
As the party rages, I distract myself by scrolling through my messages. My mom called an hour ago to check in on me. I lied and told her I was studying at the library, but that I would call her tomorrow.
“Oh shit.” BJ sets down his beer, which he’s been nursing for the past hour. It has to be piss warm by now. I glance at him, but my phone pings again; IG this time. I’m bored. I wish Lavender would stop hiding so I’d have something to occupy my brain.
“Someone distract Clarke so I can introduce myself.” Freshman Jerk-off knocks back the rest of his beer and slams the plastic cup down on the railing, causing it to crumple.
“I’m on it,” another freshman says. “But it means I get your sloppy seconds.”
“Maybe she’ll be down with tag-team action.”
“Fuck, yeah.” They fist bump each other.
“I would seriously consider shutting the fuck up,” BJ says.
Freshman Jerk-off’s brow furrows. “Why? Look at her—that bathing suit screams bend me over and slap my ass while you ride me from behind.”
“Because that’s my cousin, and if you so much as breathe in her direction, I’ll use your nuts as a bow tie at my next formal event.”
That gets my attention. I follow Freshman Jerk-off’s gaze toward the pool and nearly ram my fist into his face when I realize who he’s talking about. “What in the actual fuck?”
Standing at the edge of the pool, smiling at Clarke—a senior and one of the dirtiest players on the team—as he hands her a shot, is Lavender. It’s bad enough that she’s way underage—although more than half the people here fall into that category—and that she’s wearing a goddamn white bikini, the top of which barely covers her nipples. The bottoms are a thong. Her entire ass is on display, including the strawberry birthmark that very much resembles a heart. I saw it once, by accident, when we were kids. Her butt had been eating her bathing suit at the time.
Obviously I never fucking forgot.
Is she the only girl out here in a thong? Nope. But she should know better than to put herself on display like this. If Maverick and River were here to see, they would lose their goddamn minds. And clearly the responsibility is going to fall on me, considering the way BJ is smirking.
“Lavender, get over here!” I shout.
Her smile widens, but she doesn’t look away from Clarke. Instead, she raises her hand in the air and fires the bird in my direction.
