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I open my eyes to find his flickering between mine. “Then I would wonder why you deny yourself. But no matter what, I would still support you. I want to know what’s going on in your brain. I wanna get in there too, because it’s lonely being out here on my own.”
“You’re so dramatic.” I try to pull back, but in true Gunner fashion, he holds me in. “I withhold alcohol because… well…” I blow out a noisy breath. “Because I was once a girl all alone in boarding school. I knew of certain girls that went there, obviously, and their father was the entrepreneurial type.”
Gunner’s eyes narrow.
“You remember the sour-sisters, right?”
“Right,” he growls. A literal growl vibrates up his throat. “You were friends with them?”
I scoff. “No. But we both know I knew them, and we both know we were all shuffled off to the same school for girls. Truth be told, I wasn’t friends withanyone. I was alone most of my adolescence, which is exactly what I wanted. I studied, I watched TV, I kept to myself. I got new roommates over the years, because that school always made us share. The sour-sisters were entrepreneurial like Hayes, I guess, because they were bringing product into our school for years.”
“Where are they now?” he asks. “The bitch sisters, where are they?”
“Honestly? I think they were still hanging around at college up until Hayes was eliminated. It was an easy life for them, and the cost of tuition was just a fraction compared to the income from selling product to desperate students.”
Gunner’s eyes narrow dangerously. “They were peddling their father’s products to the very people who were supposed to one day run our country?”
“Yeah, well…” I shrug. “Cocaine sure can be an upper when someone has finals to cram for.”
Gunner’s eyes widen when the pieces finally fall into place. “Libby… did you–”
“Yep.” My voice cracks and forces my gaze down in shame. “I did. A lot.”
“Babe?” Sliding a finger under my chin, he pulls me back up. “You took their product?”
I nod, and loathe the way the backs of my eyes itch. “Not theirs directly, because I’m way too proud to ask them for a damn thing. But any product in that school started with them, so technically, yes. But in my mind, I was buying from a dealer further down the chain.”
“Who was the dealer?”
“My newest roommate.” I swallow, and when he loosens his hold, I twist away and out of his reach, and cross the dark room so I can trail my fingers in the still-cool water. “My roommate, coincidence, or by design, I don’t know, was sweet as pie and convinced me I’d finally found someone I could trust again. Darcy; she looked so fucking innocent and kind. At first it was just like… ‘So I tried this stuff, you should give it a go’. I said no. In fact, I said ‘Fuck no,’ because I knew what it was, I knew where it had come from. I knew everything about that white powder, because I grew up in the Bishop empire. She didn’t push too hard. She was passive about it, leaving things out, hanging out around our room while she was high, calling me to pick her up if she was out and needed a ride. She was giggly and silly and nothing like the meanness I had grown up knowing.”
I lift my hand from the water and watch the droplets break the surface when they drip down again. “She was so giggly and happy, and I missed you so fucking much, Gunner. I was sixteen, and everyone around me was meeting boys. Funny,” I force a laugh. “It was an all-girl school, but everyone was still meeting boys. Darcy lost her virginity, and she said how wonderful it was. How it didn’t hurt, how special it was, and how sweet he was.” I turn to him, lean against the tub, and fold my arms. “And I spent all those years hugging a fucking sweater. Even while she was talking to me about this stuff, I hugged your sweater. I begged the universe to bring you back. But so long had already passed. You were gone.”
I shake my head when, with brooding eyes and hunched shoulders, he stalks forward and reminds me of that lion I met in the gym only a matter of weeks ago.
“Exams were coming up, everyone around me was having fun, and there I was, a loner, in love with a sweater and a ghost.”
“So you tried cocaine?”
I nod, and when a single tear pops from my eye and slides over my cheek, I swipe it away. “Yup. I didn’t try it with her. Or anyone else, for that matter. Like I said, she always left her shit out. That should have been my first red flag; it’s not like cocaine is cheap. It’s not something people hand out like candy. I suspect the sour-sisters had it put there on purpose, the exact same way their daddy, Abel, put it in front of Kane and Jay so often. I’ve read reports the last couple years that speak of the amount of cocaine those boys were forced to endure while working.
“Part of me thinks our daddies were trying to eliminate us, because we weren’t playing the games they wanted us to play. The sour-sisters had joined the family business, so they were immune, but I was refusing to go home for the holidays, I refused to acknowledge that world’s existence, which essentially made me a loose end that needed tying. Kane and Jay became cops, they thought they were deep undercover, but they had no clue Abel knew who they were. Instead of calling them on it, he played back. He fed them coke and nearly had them both killed.
“No one could accuse the sixteen-year-old version of me of being smart, because I fell for their game. I tried the cocaine, and it felt good. I didn’t wake up sick. I woke up energized, and for the first time… well… ever, I woke up with a smile on my face. I snuck some more the next time she left it out, and the next time after that. Before I knew it, I wasn’t alone anymore. I sought out the parties that Darcy went to, I hung out with the boys she did. I even attended parties the sour-sisters attended.”
“Babe…”
“I lost my virginity, and I don’t even remember it. I don’t remember with who, I don’t remember where, but I remember waking and up and thinking that I liked it. Then I remember taking myself to the clinic immediately after, because, like I said, I didn’t remember the act. I had the tests done, because it’s the only way I could stop feeling gross.”
“Is that when you stopped?”
I stare into his eyes and shake my head. “Nope. I was on that train for a little more than two years. I used to be fat. Then I was scarily thin. If I was hungry, I used. If I was stressed, I used. If I had exams coming up, I used. If I was horny, but didn’t want another strange man in my bed, I used, and hugged your sweater while I touched myself.” I let my gaze drop to the floor. “I was in a fully-fledged relationship with a dead boy, and on a fast spiral down into the blackest of blacks in an attempt to forget the bad.” I bring my eyes up and meet his. “The only good my life ever had was one hour sitting outside with this boy that was so sweet. He was funny, and silly, and a total asshole all at the same time. He teased, he said my knees were chubby and that I was too short. But he also made me feel safe, and he let me talk about the future like it was something I could really achieve. He spoke about how cool it would be to become the nextWalker, Texas Ranger. He was there, he made promises, and when he was gone and those promises were taken from both of us, I couldn’t cope. I sat in my hell for years and years, and then Darcy came along, she dropped a new – and completely ironic – coping mechanism at my feet, and I fell for it.”
“They set you up, Lib. They put you on that path.”
“I know. And now I’m clean. I go to the gym so I’m neither chubby nor too skinny. And I abstain fromeverything, because that’s what I need to do to be able to control my world. I refuse to trip again.”
With intense eyes that blaze with desperation, Gunner stalks forward and stops in front of me so our shoes touch, and when his hands wrap around my arms, I let out a burst of oxygen I didn’t know I was holding in. “You’re so strong, Libby.” He presses a gentle kiss to my forehead. “So brave.” He presses a kiss to my cheekbone. “You stood up when everyone else in your world wanted to put you on your ass. I ran away, I gave myself a new name and completely hid from the world, and when you called me on it, I gave you shit like I was the brave one.”
