I think of Wes. Wonderful, beautiful Wes. As long as I can find him, I’m safe. As long as I can speak to him, I’ll be okay. I pull my phone out of my pocket with fumbling fingers and open the thread I haven’t used in weeks.
Me:Hey, where are you?
I stare at the message for a minute. Two minutes. Three. He doesn’t answer, and I tuck my phone away again, splashing cold water on my face and the back of my neck. Taking a deep breath, I unlock the door and resign myself to the fact that I’ll have to keep searching.
I don’t get the chance.
The moment I step into Wes’s bedroom, I find myself face to face with Mason.
THIRTY-SEVEN
I don’t havetime to react. Mason invades my personal space, crowding me against the wall with his bigger, taller body. His hand snags my forearm, the grip too tight, and I try and fail to yank it free.
“What the fuck was that?” he demands, and I panic. Words escape me as my body freezes up, because I know by now that it doesn’t matter if your friends are downstairs. There’s always a locked door available somewhere. Always a wall to hide behind, and I walked right into the trap.
His grip tightens. I want to tell him to let go of me, but the words get stuck in my throat. “Are you jealous I gave another girl attention?” he demands. “You want a repeat of last time, Ivy Combs? Is that it?”
He squeezes my arm so tight my bones creak. I will myself to speak. “L-let go of me.”
“Playing hard to get?” His mouth is inches away from my face. I smell the liquor on his breath, and I turn away, giving him my cheek. “What, Wes not man enough for you?”
“I’ll tell him,” I threaten, though there’s no hiding the tremor in my voice. “I will.”
He smiles then. “You didn’t tell him at the beach house, and you didn’t tell him after. I’ve known him since we were eight years old. Who the fuck do you think he’s going to believe? Me? Or some slut he’s been fucking for a few weeks?”
There.
There it is.
The question that’s been holding me hostage for months. The fear of telling Wes the truth and seeing doubt in his eyes. The tiniest bit will shatter me, but I can’t—Ican’t—live with myself anymore until he knows the reality. Not when this man’s hands are on my body for the second time without my consent. Not when it makes me want to scream and kick and claw his eyes out.
The shock wears off, and I see red, my vision shaking with it, my body raging with it, because even though I was too naive and too trusting and too flattered by male attention, he didn’t have my permission to touch me. He doesn’t have permission to touch me now.
I suck in a breath between my teeth, ready to scream at the top of my lungs, but then I hear the footsteps. At the sound of someone approaching, Mason immediately releases me, scurrying back likeI’mthe one who did something tohim.Like I’m the one causing a scene, crying wolf, playing the victim, asking for his hands on my body.
But I’ve never asked for them. Not now. Not then. It was never consensual. It was violating. It was traumatizing.
It was rape.
I wasraped.
“Ivy?” I glance to my left to find Wes frozen in the doorway. My heart sinks to my stomach as he looks between Masonand me in confusion, like he’s trying to draw conclusions in his head but the pen ran out of ink. “What’s going on?” he asks, frowning as he absorbs the scene. His tone’s not accusing, though. Just puzzled, like he genuinely can’t figure out why his childhood friend and his almost-girlfriend are up here, alone, in his bedroom. “What are you guys doing?”
“Go on,” Mason urges, full-on smirking at me now, and my spine stiffens. “You said you’d tell him, so tell him.”
I open my mouth, but no words come out.
Say something. Say fucking anything.
I don’t think I can do this in front ofhim.
“Alright,” Mason says, sighing like he’s taking one for the team, and he looks at his friend. “Ivy was scared to tell you.”
“Scared to tell me what?” Wes asks slowly, his gaze shifting to me. His expression is cautious now, anxiety swirling behind his eyes, and my heart threatens to burst free of my chest.
Mason exhales an exaggerated breath. “Look, man. This is all in the past, okay? We didn’t mean to lie about it, I swear. We fucked a couple years ago. Nothing serious. Just sex. It happened at a party. It’s really not a big deal.”
And Wes, loud-mouthed, always-in-the-mood-to-talk Wes, doesn’t respond. He just keeps looking at me, unblinking, eyes boring into mine. And then his eyes drop to my wrist, narrowing when they notice the angry nail indentations left by his friend’s overbearing grip. When his gaze meets mine again, I watch the pieces click into place. I witness the exact moment he solves the puzzle once and for all.
