“You know what people said aboutyou, Ivy?” she snarls. “That you were a slut and a whore, and you stole my fucking boyfriend! And that you turned into some fucking deranged zombie when he tossed you out like yesterday’s trash! Peoplesawyou walk away with him that night! You’re a fuckingliar!”
Her words hurt more than the current state of my face, and I stumble to the door, out of the apartment, and into the freezingnight air, desperate to leave her and the memories behind. All the fight, all the anger, all the venom drains out of me, and I feel lost. Regretful. Afraid. I don’t have my jacket, but I thankfully have my phone. I pull it out of my back pocket with shaky hands, fingers fumbling to find Wes’s contact information.
I dial without hesitation, and he answers on the first ring.
“Miss me already?” he teases. I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. Only my labored breathing. His voice reappears, this time more urgent. “Ives?” I don’t answer. “Ivy, are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I manage, but my words come out twisted and wobbly.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, his voice deepening with urgency. “You sound off.”
I swallow. “Is it—would you—can I come over? I’m sorry.”
“Of course you can come over,” he says immediately. “Do you need a ride?”
“No,” I say out of habit. But then reality sinks in, and tears well in my eyes. I blink them back violently. I have no car keys, not that I could drive after the amount of tequila I’ve had, and I have no jacket to protect me on the twenty-minute walk to his house. My voice comes out as a squeak. “Maybe. Is that…would that be okay?”
“I’m already heading out to the car. Where should I pick you up?”
“I can meet you in the library parking lot,” I tell him. I need to keep moving. Need to keep walking. Because if I stop and stand and wait, not only will I freeze to death, but my own panic might suffocate me, and I can’t think of a less desirable end.
“Okay, hang tight. I’ll be there in ten.”
I hang up the phone and continue putting one foot in front of the other even though my eye throbs, and my chin burns, and my skull aches from where it cracked against the wall. My skin’s numb from the cold or the tequila…or maybe from adrenaline,my heart pump, pump, pumping, so I won’t collapse from the absolute tragedy of it all.
I beat Wes to the library, which is closed at this hour, and scan the dimly lit lot for the first sign of headlights. My mind is racing, my breathing jagged as I try to gain control of my pulse, and the numbers that usually calm me down aren’t coming out right in my head.
Ten. Six. Two. Nine. Three?—
Everything’s jumbled, my thoughts especially, and when the silver SUV turns into the parking lot, I feel relief that I have something solid to focus on. Something real.
I squint against the lights as he parks in the spot closest to the building, shielding my eyes and my face. I’m still hiding when he cuts the engine, only now because I don’t want him to see the damage.
It hurts like hell, so it must be bad.
The car door opens and shuts, Wes’s footsteps hurried across the sidewalk. “Ivy, are you okay? Where the fuck is your jacket? It’s freezing out here.” I keep my head down, my hair acting as a curtain to shield it from view. “Ivy,” he says more seriously, and his feet stop inches from mine. “Ives. What happened?”
I have no choice but to look at him then, so I do, letting my hair fall back. His eyes widen, scanning over my face in disbelief, before they harden and flash with a fury I’ve never seen in Wes. “What thefuck?” He reaches out as if to touch my face, but then freezes, thinking better of it. A muscle in his jaw ticks. “Ivy. Whodidthis?”
But I can’t answer. The corners of my mouth keep twitching down, determined to break my composure, and I’mthis closeto losing it. I shake my head, staring down at his shoes again, back where we started.
“Let’s get you into the car, okay?” He reaches out hesitantly. When I don’t flinch, his hand settles against my back, guidingme carefully down the sidewalk and over to the passenger side. He opens the door and eases me in, before shutting it gently and coming around the front.
Once he’s settled, he starts the engine and cranks the heat, leaning across the interior to turn all the vents in my direction. Then, he looks at me again with hard eyes. I don’t like them on Wes, I decide, and I feel guilty for being the one to make them that way.
“What happened?” he asks, his voice low and urgent. I suck in a wobbly breath and shiver, the chill in my bones finally registering after walking around for so long in nothing but a tequila blanket. Despite all the shots I took, I feel dead sober now, and I can’t tell if the shake in my hands is the comedown from the alcohol or the fight. “Please tell me,” he implores quietly when my silence lingers.
"I…got into a fight,” I begin, in disbelief that these words are coming out of my mouth, “with a girl I knew in high school.”
“Ivy—” he starts like he doesn’t believe me.
“I did. She punched me. And clawed her nails down my face.”
He sucks in a sharp breath, reaching out to take my shaking hand between his two much larger ones. “Fuck.”
My throat clogs up, and I blink back tears. Crying is not going to do anything good for my eye right now. “Is it bad?” I croak.
“It’s…” He hesitates, squeezing my hand. “I mean, Jesus, Ivy. It’s notgood. We need to ice that eye pronto. And put some disinfectant on those scratches.”
