Math class ends and I bolt for the bathroom, my nerves shot and breath unsteady. I just need a moment to splash water on my face and pull myself together.
The bathroom is thankfully empty. I step to the mirror and do my best to ignore how I have dark circles under my eyes from another sleepless night.
The door opens. I glance up expecting another girl, hoping it’ll be someone who’ll ignore me.
Instead, it’s about the worst possible twist of events.
Kel comes strolling through with his hands in his pockets and his shoulders relaxed like he hasn’t just wandered inside the women’s restroom.
The little air I have in my lungs vanishes. I can’t bring myself to do anything but stare at him in the mirror.
He’s locked the door and stepped behind me as if this is a planned meetup. Like I’ve asked him to be here.
“Kel, you’re not supposed to?—”
“Aren’t you going to welcome me back?” he asks in interruption.
“Uh… I… actually I have to get to?—”
“I hear you’ve been talking about me.”
I turn around, the sink basin now against my hip, and blink a few times. “I… I don’t know what you’re talking about. Kel, I… I don’t want any trouble, okay?”
He gives off his usual deep laugh. The same one that makes girls giggle and blush. Girls like me who once wished he would simply notice me.
Now it makes my stomach churn…
“Come on, Lana. Don’t play dumb.” He steps closer, blocking any path to the door. I’m trapped between him and the sink, and nobody else is here. Every stall is empty.
“I said I don’t?—”
“Stop lying,” he says. Any amusement has slipped away for the scowl that comes to his face. “Spencer told me all about getting hemmed up in some alley. Some guy asking questions about me.”
“What? I had nothing to do with that. I promise I didn’t?—”
“I hoped this wouldn’t turn into a problem, Lana,” he goes on, ignoring what I’ve said. He leans closer, clearly determined to invade my space and make me as uncomfortable as possible. “I hope you’re smart enough not to make trouble.”
“I… I told you I don’t want any,” I croak.
His hand comes up and I flinch, but he doesn’t hit me. He brushes a butterfly loc back from my face, pushing it over my shoulder. The gesture would look gentle to anyone watching, though it couldn’t feel more menacing.
More threatening as he stares coldly into my eyes and I freeze up, remembering those same eyes from my flashbacks. How he’d looked down at me as he moved inside me, and I was forced to lay there and take it.
I know now with every fiber of my being that there was nothing harmless about it. This wasn’t some confused college hook up where both parties were drunk and clumsy.
I was targeted. I was prey from the moment I was asked to go out that night and handed a fake ID…
“What happened is in the past,” he says. “Be smart and keep it that way. Keep your mouth shut.”
I nod several times, promising him I will. Sounding pathetic as I do.
He grins. “Good. Look at it this way—we had fun. You enjoyed yourself. Don’t ruin it by making this into something it wasn’t.”
Then he’s gone, unlocking the door and strolling out like nothing happened, leaving me shaken and dazed in his wake.
15
SOLANA
