My eyes snap open again at that. I’d denied it of course. I’d even gone to the trouble of pointing out everything was consensual.
He hadn’t believed me. I’m such a terrible liar, I can’t blame him.
My face floods with so much colour I can feel it pulsing in my cheeks. I can’t think of a way to correct his impression without causing irreparable harm to my psyche. He probably wouldn’t believe me at any rate.
Best-case scenario, I never see the man again.
But it’s Lachlan’s cousin. He probably sees him every time he goes home. He doesn’t deserve to have someone in his close family thinking of him that way.
My skin gets so hot that suddenly, everything itches. It’s like I’m breaking out in a late case of embarrassment hives, but my arms remain clear.
As I stand back from the commercial dishwasher—one time getting my face burned from the steam taught me to keep well clear—my jaw clicks. I press my fingertips into the temporomandibular joint and that makes me think of the ring gag.
I want to believe it was a horror story made up on the spot to frighten me. Surely it must be. Nobody could actually do something that horrendous to another person.
But when I replay the speech in my head, I see the truth lurking in Lachlan’s expression. He wasn’t just talking about some idle threat someone had told him third hand, his eyes were scarred with the reminders of what he must have witnessed.
I can’t believe I ate at the same table as his father. The man had been scary but this? This is a thousand times worse than anything I could have imagined.
My head aches so badly, I swallow a few paracetamol from the work first-aid kit. When I replace it on the shelf, I’m so close to end of shift that the day manager waves me off rather than putting me back to work for the last five minutes.
I trudge away from the restaurant, heading for my bus stop, a thousand miserable thoughts clogging up my head.
I need a better job. Something to keep my attention focused. Replaying the day in my mind’s eye while I clear, clean, carry, and stack dishes can’t be healthy. Most of the stuff is bad enough the first time through, it doesn’t need a repeat.
Once this final year at school is done, I’ll find something better. University hours are more conducive to part-time work. Lectures can be recorded. Attendance isn’t set in stone.
You should apologise.
The idea jerks my chin up and I stare along the street, frowning. Apologise to the boy who humiliated me in front of the school? Sure. Right. Good one, brain. With you on the case, a girl doesn’t need enemies.
Despite my initial recoil, the idea spreads out a few roots, digging ever deeper into the soil.
Lachlan’s actions have saved me from so much torment. He wiped the debt to Creighton and spared my father, spared me, whatever horrors he had planned for us that first night. The picture of his companion skitters across my brain like a grotesque spider. I don’t want to think of what that man might have done to me once beating my father got him nowhere.
And today, paying out for the gang who wanted me held. Even if the reality isn’t as horrifying as the picture he painted, it must land somewhere along that same scale. Thinking of the ways a teenage girl might earn back their lost funds makes me shudder, my stomach convulsing with dread.
I’m a girl who thought bumping into Patrick in a dimly lit room was terrifying; anything worse is too devastating to consider.
Lachlan saved me from all of that and how did I say thank you?
By rejecting his advances, spurning his offer, and throwing his generosity back in his face. No wonder he humiliated me in front of everyone; I humiliated him first.
I like to think I’m a better person than that but today I wasn’t. He did something incredibly generous, and I came at him from a place of pain and fear.
What makes it worse is that I know how it feels to do something momentous for somebody else and not earn so much as a thank you. My father’s continuing silence as he tries his best to avoid me at home is a constant source of pain.
Yet I did the same thing to Lachlan.
No wonder he’d looked so puzzled when I jerked away from him. So confused and sohurt.
The bus stop on my side of the road will take me home. The one opposite will take me back past Kingswood College. Back to where Lachlan will be in his room.
It’s probably a silly idea. I don’t know his room number. I’ve never been in the boarders’ residence so I’m not even sure if there’ll be someone I can ask.
Worse, if Kari catches me there, she’ll think I’m ignoring her warning. I don’t know what she would do to me but, judging from the cold glitter in her eyes every time she looks my way, it’ll be distinctly unpleasant.
He cleared at least forty k of Dad’s debt. Maybe more.
