What was a tiny, sneaky suspicion when I saw the police lights has evolved into icy dread.
“It’s just me and Melissa’s room, isn’t it?”
It’s rhetorical.
I already know Abigail’s going to nod her head before she does.
What the hell triggered Kai to do something like that?
Her face drains of what little color it had left, and she presses the back of her hand against her mouth. “Oh, God,” she moans, her eyes squeezing shut. “I think I’m going to be?—“
I hurry away before I can hear the rest. Melissa’s trailing a finger down Thatcher’s chest, despite the angry frown on his face. She wasn’t kidding about getting arrested.
Tucking the black pumps Melissa lent me under my arm, I make sure no one’s watching me, and slip out the front door.
Rain patters down on my hair and face as I splash down the street. It’s drumming so hard on the road and the houses I pass that I can’t hear anything else—a solid wall of water and sound that makes me feel like I’m all alone in an alien landscape.
Or it could be the booze.
I shield my eyes with a hand as I jog down the sidewalk, squinting across the street to see the Greek letters nailed aboveeach front door. I spot a dark-blue door, the letters NEX in white above it.
Thanks, Thatcher.
I stand shivering for a long moment, dredging up some courage.
What the hell will I say to him?
Hey, I know you wrecked my room, what the fuck is your problem?
Avoiding him hasn’t worked. Forcing him into sexual servitude only made shit worse.
If we’re going to be in each other’s space like this all the time, then we need to work out some kind of compromise.
A truce.
I won’t spend the next few years of my life at war with my best friend.
Myex-best friend.
Maybe it’s the alcohol talking, but despite all the rage and hurt, I still see traces of the boy who’d do anything to make me smile. Who’d painstakingly separate the green M&M’s from his candy and give them to me…after he made me arm wrestle him, of course. If that Kai still exists, surely we can figure out some way to coexist without destroying each other.
Fuck, maybe this is exactly what needs to happen.
I take a breath, wipe hair and rain out of my face, and run across the road.
A car horn blares.
It’s so close, so fucking loud, it’s like it’s inside my fucking head.
Headlamps paint the rain, casting a bright cloud around me. I can’t tell from which direction the light is coming. I nearly slip in my hurry to stop, in case I’m runningintothe path of the car.
Should have kept running.
When I turn, the car appears through the curtain of rain, speeding toward me at a million miles a second. The brakes lock with a demonic screech, and the car shudders as its tires try to grip the wet road.
Death should have been swift.
Done and dusted in a millisecond.
