I nod. “Yeah.” My voice comes out a touch raspier than it was before. “I knew who he was, Cam. I should have stayed away.”
“Why?” she asks, pushing up from her knees and pulling herself up onto the white table behind her. “Because of Tyler?” She places both hands between her legs, curling her fingers over the edge.
She catches on quickly.
I nod again, flicking my hair to the opposite side and pulling the sleeves of my hoodie over my knuckles. Leaning over farther, I push my elbows deeper into my thighs and my fingers trace over the line of my lips.
“Tyler doesn’t have any say in who you choose to spend your time with, Cherry, and Harlen may be an asshole, but he is the good kind.” She is laughing again, shaking her head, her eyes focused on her fingers. “If there is a good kind.”
“Not as good as you think,” I mumble.
Her icy eyes lift, and I watch her throat bob as she swallows what looks like pain, a truth she hopes not to hear. She curls the hair that hangs in front of her face behind both heavily pierced ears, then says, “Talk to me.”
“He was there,” I say with no hesitancy, and italmostfeels freeing.
She jumps off the table and drops back to her knees, and I feel the nerves in my teeth tingle when I see those shredded bones find a place on the ground in front of me.
They remind me of what Laney’s looked like.
“What does that–”
I cut her off. “He was the one who pulled me out of the lake.” More tears trail down my cheek, my eyes finding hers. “He’s the reason I’m still here.”
“So, what happened?” She catches my tears, smoothing them out before holding my hands.
I swallow hard, dropping her hands and brushing the rolling rivulets away myself, a little too firmly.
I fucking hate him.
“He left me there.”
She stands up and runs her hands through her hair, and I continue to speak,while I have the strength. “We spent time together, Cam. Fuck, I even told him about my parents, and you know I don’t do that easily. There was something between us, and I tried so hard to fight it, but it felt so fucking right, and he turned his back on me when I needed him most.” I recline my head and sigh. It’s deep and guttural, from the pit of agony. “AllI remember is the sound of sirens, and his back as he walked-” I cough. “Ran away.”
Cameryn doesn’t reply, and I lower my head to see her still in front of me, only her ass is on the ground and her hands are balled into fists over her knees. She is a picture of anger,for me.
Loud, echoing voices have us snapping our heads toward the closed door, and as we both stare at the white paint, I whisper, “He saved me, just to kill me.”
“If you fucking hurt her-”Tyler’s growl ricochets off the walls around us, and before I can take another breath, Cameryn is pushing up from the ground and pacing toward the door.
Fuck.
Tyler had Harlen pinned to the concrete, their foreheads pushed together in rage as Cameryn’s strides ate up the ground in front of her.
I attempted to follow her, but I wasfrozen.I couldn’t quite register what was going on until she flew past Tyler and both of her hands met Harlen’s solid chest, shoving him right back into the concrete wall he’d just taken a step away from.
He went willingly.
“You piece of fucking shit!” she growled in his face before that curled fist at her side connected with the sharp, tense line of his perfect jaw. Harlen took the blow,openly,almost like he knew it was coming, like he had expected it.
He fell back into the wall and saidnothing.
Radio fucking silence.
He didn’t look at Cameryn as she threw her hands against his chest again, shoving him hard. His eyes stayed right where he wanted them,on mine.
The. Entire. Time.
Tyler was close behind her as she spun around and moved back toward me.
