“You laughed,” she said quietly.
“Iwhat?”He flung his arms out.
“You heard me.”Nowshe found the fire to put behind her words. “You laughed when I finally found you.”
His cheeks flushed as his voice grew louder. “You came running to me in your gym clothes. I thought you were injured. I thought somebodyhurtyou.”
She surged to her feet. “Youhurt me! And then you laughed!”
He stood too. “Because I was so relieved that you weren’t bleeding from a stab wound or something!” Her mouth worked, but no sound came out so he kept talking. “But you ran off before I could figure out what was going on, and once I did, I got to a computer lab and deleted it. But then you never spoke to me again. You avoided me, presumably blocked my number. You never let me explain.”
She clenched her teeth at his injured tone. Was he seriously trying to make himself the victim? “Of course I avoided you! My text was posted from your account. What was I supposed think?”
His glittering eyes bored into hers. “You were supposed to know me better than anybody else in my life. You should’ve trusted that I would never do that to you when all I ever wanted was—”
He blinked rapidly, choking on the words, and silence stretched between them until Finn spat out, “Fucking Dylan.”
“Fucking Dylan.” Tom forcefully agreed. “I take it he never had the balls to tell you he was behind it all?”
She shook her head, her brain churning as she processed this new information. OfcourseDylan. His selfishness had bothered her from time to time when they were together, and then she’d become horribly aware of his cruelty after they’d split up and he’d mounted a campaign to ostracize her during the last week of high school. But even then, all she’d been able to see were Tom’s face and name next to that vile post that haunted her. The betrayal she never saw coming. The cruelty that had hurt the most.
But it was Dylan, not Tom, this whole time. She pressed a hand to her churning stomach as she struggled to make sense of the new villain in her life.
“And?” Tom asked.
She shook her head in confusion, so he clarified. “Dylan. Are you still pissed at him?”
The sharp question threw her. “I broke up with him, didn’t I?”
“Sure, eight years ago, but are you pissed at himright now?” He stepped closer, so close she could smell the soap from her shower on his skin. It made her head spin, and she spoke in a rush.
“Honestly, I don’t give a shit about Dylan.”
His voice dropped. “Then I don’t understand why you’re still pissed atme.”
She wanted to tell him that was ridiculous, that she’d gotten over her anger ages ago, because holding on to it for all this time was unreasonable. Yet when she opened her mouth, the truth spilled out. “Iamstill pissed. You were the best guy I knew.”
His mouth flattened. “But he was the one you were dating.”
“Well, you were datingevery girl in our class!”
“Only because the girl Iwantedwas dating my best friend!”
They were standing toe to toe now, yelling again, and for a moment the only sound was the rasping of their breath as the realization of what Tom had said coursed through her body like fast-moving lava. Her skin heated, and the blood pounded so hard in her temples that the air around them flickered and her eyesight started to fade.
Wait, that wasn’t her eyes. That was the electric grid. They both glanced up as the overhead lights blinked off, then back on for a millisecond before flickering off again, plunging the room into darkness.
Eight
Tom’s heart thundered in the sudden blackness.
Fuck. He hadn’t meant to shout his deepest secrets at her, and he’d seen understanding click in her brain right before the lights blinked out. He might as well have fallen to his knees and announced how much he used to love her.
Next to him in the dark, Finn exhaled slowly. “Tom, I… I didn’t… I never…”
Her voice sounded small after the volume of their fight, and his heart plummeted every time she started a sentence but didn’t finish it.
“You seriously had no idea how I felt?” He matched her hushed tones, the darkness making the question easier to ask. He couldn’t see her, so he wouldn’t be distracted by her big brown eyes. Wouldn’t have to watch her let him down easy.
