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“I should have known. You’ve been sneaking out every night, I just thought you were out for a smoke,” Kendall says, coming up to me and hugging me. “Oh, Noah. I’m so sorry this happened.”
“Bryce is going to die.”
“No, he’s not,” she says sternly, grabbing my face roughly. “We’re going to get the police involved like rational adults, but first, we need to deal with this.”
“How are we going to deal with this?” Patrick questions, eyes wide as he bites the corner of his lip. “I…I don’t know what we can do.”
Kendall huffs and takes a step back. She paces in front of us with her fingers resting on her temple until she snaps them in the air. “Let’s give the parents a second to cool off. Once they do, I’ll go out there and explain the situation. Jarred didn’t know that was going to happen. I’ll make them understand.”
“I don’t think they will,” I whisper, dropping my face into my hands. “This is too much for anybody to understand.”
The doors to the kitchen fly open as Mary and Parker come tumbling in. Mary immediately races up to me, almost knocking me over as she wraps me in her arms. “Oh my God!”
“Mary,” I choke out, clinging to her with remorse. “I’m so sorry—”
“What?” she questions, baffled when she pulls back. “It’s not your fault! Obviously, that was filmed without your consent.Youhave nothing to apologize for.”
“I turned that shit off,” Parker spits, shaking his head with disgust. “Nobody needs to see what you and my dad have. It’s none of their fucking business.”
“Have you seen him?” I question desperately. “Where is he?”
“He was running to the cabin the last time I saw him.”
I rip myself away from her. “I need to see him.”
Jarred’s panicking. He’s going to have a panic attack. He’s going to feel so alone, so humiliated, so betrayed, and I need to be there for him. I promised him I’d be there no matter what, and this is that exact situation. He needs to know that he’ll have me through anything that could hit us.
Kendall shakes her head. “He needs his space—”
“No! I have to see him!”
I shove past them before they can stop me, and they do try. I ignore the looks from the parents who are obviously putting two and two together and coming up with the fact that I was the one in the video with Jarred. I couldn’t care less what they think. The man I love is all I care about.
There are some parents already outside, ushering their kids to the cars. It’s chaos and frenzy, but I don’t care.
Jarred. Jarred. Jarred.
I reach his cabin and nearly face-plant against the door when I realize it’s locked. “Jarred!” I cry as I bang on the door. “Jarred! It’s me! Let me in!”
I have to knock ferociously on the door a couple more times and stumble when it swings open. Jarred is the first thing I see but then I notice the mess surrounding us. He’s ripped up the entire cabin. All the artwork on the walls is scattered on the ground. The sheets are torn in half like he did it with his own bare hands. Dishes are broken, knick-knacks are destroyed, and I have to believe it looks exactly like how Jarred feels.
“Jarred, babe, holy shit,” I say, wanting nothing more than to pull him into my arms. I take his trembling hands in my own as I pull him toward me. “It’s going to be okay. Trust me. We’ll get through this.”
“No.”
“What?”
I pull away from him and he takes a step back. He distances himself like a wounded animal would from a vicious predator. His face is nothing like I’ve seen before. All that anger and all that shame has made him into somebody I don’t recognize. “Don’t you see what this is? God is punishing us.”
“No, he’s not,” I argue, scoffing with exasperation because fuckingGodhad nothing to do with this. “It was Bryce. For whatever reason, he did this.”
“Goddid this,” Jarred says, pulling at his hair as he kicks over his dining room chair. “I knew what we were doing was wrong, and I didn’t seek forgiveness.”
I throw my hands up in the air, begging him to see reason. “Because there’s nothing to forgive! Babe, God had nothing to do with this! We need to deal with the situation!”
“No. What you need to do is leave.”
“Fuck that. I’m not going anywhere.”
