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“How is she?” We stood awkwardly in Evan’s hallway while Eli crashed on the couch. He had literally bound through the door, hugged his brother, and declared, ‘Nap time.’
Evan clutched the back of his neck and looked at the floor. “She’ll be okay. She’s sleeping it off. The doctor gave her some strong pain meds.”
“Good. That’s good.”
The silence between us was almost unbearable.
“I—” We both went to speak, and I stopped to let Evan go first.
“Thank you. I know I keep saying it, but it means a lot.”
I pressed my lips together; my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. Things weren’t the same anymore. I felt… I felt awkward and out of place and like I shouldn’t be here.
“Becca…”
“It was no problem. He’s just a kid. It’s fine.”
“Well, thanks. I appreciate it.”
I nodded, the huge lump in my throat preventing me from saying any more.
“Listen, I wondered if—”
“I guess I should go.” I cut him off. “I’m glad your mom’s okay. When Eli wakes up, tell him I had fun.”
Evan’s eyes narrowed, searching my face, but I forced my lips into a smile and turned for the door. My hand curled around the handle only for his voice to stop me.
“I want to fix this, Becca. I want to—”
“Goodbye, Evan.” I yanked it open and slipped through the gap, closing the door behind me.
I couldn’t do this. It was still too raw, too soon, so I kept walking, fighting the urge to look back. It was better this way. If I kept him at arm’s length, he couldn’t break down my walls again. He couldn’t hurt me anymore. Because today had made me realize something—Evan and I, we were a disaster waiting to happen. He still hadn’t tried to explain his things with Kendall, and I still hadn’t come clean about what really happened back in Montecito. In a strange way, we were even.
And maybe it was better that way.
CHAPTER6
EVAN
Standing across the hallway,I watched Becca. If she felt me, she didn’t show it as she walked to her locker to trade some textbooks and headed for her next class. A couple of guys nudged one another, blatantly staring in her direction. Fuckers. I hated that she was still the talk of CH.
In a regular high school, kids could be mean, but in a place like Credence High, kids could be downright vicious.
After her reaction to being outed by Kendall and discovering the truth about Scarlett and me, I’d half expected her to run, like Ami had, but I should have known better. Becca was a fighter. People might have thought her ‘don’t give a crap’ vibe was a front, but I knew it wasn’t. She really didn’t care. And that scared me. When people reached the point of feeling like they had nothing left to lose, things could turn to shit pretty quick.
“So?”
I turned to find Scarlett beside me.“So what?”
“So what happened on Saturday?”
I didn’t feel entirely comfortable being this out in the open with Scarlett. It wasn’t that I didn’t like her, I just didn’t let many people in. In fact, Becca was the first person I had truly opened up to. And look how that turned out.
“You were right.”
“I was?” Confusion clouded her eyes.
