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Chapter Four
I stretched out on the lawn chair, the cool air making me shiver. Tucking the throw blanket around my legs, I leaned back and stared at the glowing stars. The sun was beginning to rise, peeking over the trees.
I drew in a deep breath, letting the cold air nip at my lungs, waking me up further. I spent all night trying to recenter myself after the little bomb Paxon and Toby dropped on me. The support they shared for me.
The warm excited emotions they invoked within. And the confusion that came with it.
My phone slipped onto my lap from my loosened grip, and I picked it back up, the lock screen lighting up to the alerts of the unread messages from Dad.
There were a couple of them. He had to go back to Nevada for work. And I had managed to talk myself into believing that he wasn’t going to come back. He left before. No matter what my therapist said, he could easily be gone from my life again.
No matter how much he promised he’d be back. I couldn’t believe him. And I was too chickenshit to read his messages. To either be disappointed or to read false promises.
I didn’t want either of them. I wouldn’t be able to handle it. I could feel that. Once he broke one of those promises he seemed to so easily give me, I’d shatter. I wasn’t so sure I’d be able to come back from that again.
“You seem to be thinking really hard right now.”
I jumped and turned to see Paxon coming out with his own blanket. He settled into the seat next to me, wrapping himself up.
“You should be sleeping,” I said, looking back up at the sky.
“Same with you. Here.” He held his black beanie out to me. “It’s too cold out. Your ears will get cold.”
“Do you sleep with these?” I asked, stretching the soft hat over my head, pulling it down far enough to cover my ears. They were cold. I hadn’t noticed.
Paxon leaned forward and adjusted it until my ears were fully covered. “They’re a comfort. Otherwise, my hair is a bit wild.”
I hummed and went back to staring at the sky.
“What’s on your mind?” he asked.
What’s on my mind? A million and one thoughts with no idea what to do with them.
“What you did to Benji wasn’t right. You basically obliterated him.”
“It needed to be done.”
“And all the things you said afterward?”
“Cadence, every last word we said, we meant. It isn’t their business and they need to realize that. They’ve already gone too far. More than once. We couldn’t just leave it.”
“He’s your teammate. And was one of your friends.”
“It’s because he used to be my friend that I can’t let it go. So I’m going to handle him. Before he goes too far and before he hurts you.”
“You truly think it’d get that far?” I asked in a lower voice.
“If you had asked me that question before last weekend, I would have said no easily. But then someone at our school decided it was a brilliant idea to send those guys after you. Just thinking about it makes me want to throw up. That someone was that…I don’t even know. That they wanted to be that hurtful. And why?”
I could feel him spinning out of control as he talked.
“Paxon?” I grabbed his thigh and squeezed, hoping to get his attention.
He grabbed my hand, entwining our fingers together. His touch was reaffirming and comfortable, grip strong. When Paxon finally met my eyes, his were haunted, a dark stormy grey. It scared me seeing him like that, like he was standing at the edge of something and I wasn’t so sure I’d be able to pull him back from it.
Paxon was practically whispering when he spoke. “Knowing what I know about people and what they’re capable of doing. Seeing what they have done to my own brother. To Justin. To Bryan.” He paused. “To you.” He swallowed. “I won’t risk it. You’re important to me. They aren’t. There’s been too much fuckery in our lives for me to act like a blind dumbass who doesn’t think about repercussions. All I think about are repercussions.”
My grip tightened as I blinked furiously, this conversation way too real for me. His blinders were pulled off long ago. When was it? When he realized what his own mother and her friends had done to his little brother? When he saw Justin nearly beaten to death in the hospital?
