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“What doyouwant?” I ask after a stretch of silence.
He meets my eyes, his dark gaze searching mine. “I want you to love me. Can you still do that?”
The tears on my lashes spill down my cheeks, and I lean across the seat, sliding a hand over his cheek and bringing his face to mine. “That’s what I want too,” I tell him, and I press my lips to his.
For the first time since he moved here, I kiss him. He tastes like cloves and tobacco, but I remember his kiss, the way he moves, the way we fit. After a few minutes, we climb out of the car. I hold up my dress as I grip his hand and lead him up the stairs to my room.
I never chose the boys who stormed my life like a hurricane hitting the Atlantic coast, leaving behind nothing but devastation in their wake. I survived them.
Once, I chose a boy who made me feel like summer sun, a boy who made me shine, who made me bright and warm for a moment. But he chose someone else, and I survived that too.
This is what I have left.
It’s not nothing.
As I lie under Rylan, I search for a connection, for the threads that tied me to this boy for so long, the glimmers of golden light that warmed my heart when I thought of him all these years. But I can’t feel anything, and I hate the Dolce boys for it, and I hate Colt for it. And most of all, I hate myself for it, for what I let them do to me, what I let them make me. For the choices I made so I wouldn’t be a victim, and the ones I made so he wouldn’t.
Rylan doesn’t hurt me tonight, so when he asks if I finished, I tell him I did. He lets me kiss him, and I tell myself it’s enough.
It doesn’t feel like a choice, but it doesn’t feel like devastation either.
And that’s enough.
It’s enough because it has to be.
thirteen
Rumor Has It… The Bye Week Halloween Party is tonight! Since what happens during Bye Week stays in Bye Week, you’ll have to be there in person to get the Tea!
Colt Darling
I’m halfway out the door when Dad’s voice stops me. “Colt? Can you come in here for a minute?”
I find him at the bar in den, as usual. “What’s up?” I ask, hovering in the doorway.
“Where you off to?” he asks, looking me over.
“You know you don’t have to ask me that anymore,” I point out. “I’m eighteen.”
“I just like to know,” he says, finger-combing what’s left of his hair. “In case…”
“In case the Dolces bash my head in again,” I finish for him. “Well, you’ll be happy to know it’s Bye Week, which means I’m allowed out of exile and can rejoin society for the night.”
“And that’s how you’re dressing for the occasion?”
I smile and gesture at the hideous costume Dixie chose for me. “Don’t worry. I’m going to a Halloween party, not wandering the streets looking like a total tool.”
Dad doesn’t know all the illegal shit I get up to on the other side of town, and I’m fine with keeping it that way. A party is a good excuse to be out all night, and a costume makes it believable. I could just leave like an asshole, but I’ve cost him more than enough pain and worry along with the expenses of my surgeries. The least I can do is put his mind at ease so he can drink his gin and tonic and pass out for the night.
“Will the Dolces be at this party?” he asks.
“The Dolces are at every party,” I point out. “If I wanted to avoid them, I’d have to stay in my room like usual. This is the only time I get to do normal shit. But seriously, Dad. Don’t worry about me. Even the Dolces honor the tradition of ignoring social status and clique membership during the team’s free weekend.”
“You thought they were honoring your agreement with them last year too,” he says, giving me a stern look.
“Yeah, well, I was a dumbass who pissed them off last year by messing with Royal’s girl. I have my own girl this year. I’ll be okay, Dad. I promise.”
We both know I can’t make that promise, but we pretend.
