I don’t even know my own sister.
“You don’t do that to a person you love. You don’t hurt them like that. And he’s hurting. Arrow’s…hurting.”
You killed my heart…
My own heart writhes in pain and I have to let out a gasp.
No wonder he’s been so angry and sochanged.
Nowonderhe believes he’s empty and that love brings nothing but pain.
“How do you know he’s hurting?” she asks, her voice gone all thick and accusing.
“What?”
She jerks my arm, digs her manicured nails into my flesh. Even through my thick, chunky sweater, I feel like she’ll break my skin.
“He’s supposed to be just your soccer coach, right? How do you know what he’s going through? Besides, aren’t you a little too concerned about a guy you don’t even like?” She narrows her perfect golden eyes at me. “You don’t like him, isn’t that correct? You’d leave the room every time he’d enter. You wouldn’t even talk to him. Wouldn’t go near him. So since when do you call AArrow? Or maybe you’ve been lying too.”
My heart, in all its witchy glory, jumps in my throat.
The tear tracks on my cheeks burn and blaze, under my sister’s shrewd eyes.
“Maybe you’re so concerned about Arrow because you like him yourself,” she taunts. “I can see that. He has that appeal. Girls throw themselves at him all the time. Why wouldn’t you? Do you like him, Salem?”
I shake my head. “I… I don’t… It’s not about that.”
She bends down and grips my arm harder. “You do, don’t you?”
I squirm in her grip, my body burning in shame. “Sarah, let me go.”
Her eyes shine with maliciousness and her nails almost draw blood out of my skin. “I want you to listen to me, okay? If you have any ideas aboutArrow,you should take them out of your stupid little head right now. He’s mine. He’s a little angry right now because the wound is fresh. But we have eight years together. That’s what you told me, right? Eight years of love. Eight years of history. One mistake can’t erase that. I won’t let it. We belong together. He has to come back to LA sometime and when he does, I’ll be waiting for him. And if that’s not enough to make you understand and end your foolish fantasies, then let me tell you something else. He’llneverbe interested in someone like you. Someone so aimless and ambitionless. An embarrassment. That’s what you are. Even Mom was embarrassed by you. She wouldn’t show it but I knew. How could she not have been? You’re an anomaly. Someone who shouldn’t have been born in our family. A big, fat stain. And you’ll be something else too, if you evendareto make a play for him, formyboyfriend. Something far worse. You’ll be a whore, okay? Because that’s what they call a girl who goes after someone else’s man.”
Chapter Thirteen
Iwait for him under my window.
At the spot where he smokes and at the spot where they were talking, him and her.
Sarah left a little while ago. I don’t know what she said to Leah, but she packed her bags and called a cab to the airport. Leah went to sleep then. She has to fly out for a conference early tomorrow morning and she said she’d take me back to St. Mary’s before she leaves.
Meaning my time’s almost up.
In the morning, I’ll go back to all the rules and schedules and structure. I’ll go back to detention and trigonometry and missing my bike.
I don’t care about that though. I wasn’t even expecting to get this much of a reprieve. Especially when I don’t have the privilege yet.
But he got me out.
He sprung me out of that concrete fence like I was a bird trapped in a cage. So I can’t sleep. I won’t.
I’m waiting for him.
My emancipator.
It feels like he’s been gone for ages. Chances are that he probably went back to his motel where he’s staying.
So he won’t be back.
