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This makes him stop pacing. He moves forward. “Do you like him, Briar?” I feel like there’s an inherent choice in that question even though he didn’t outright give me one. Do you like me? Or do you like Lex?
“I don’t know,” I say honestly.
I don’t know if it’s because I tilt my chin in the air afterward, but Reid swears again, then he tells me to get fucking dressed. Even as he says it, he goes to my closet. He flips through the different outfits hanging up, then takes one out and throws it down on the bed next to me, the dress covering my bare ankles. I stand up, my legs still a little weary. I went from being the most turned on I’ve ever been to now. Reid Parker had a mouthful of my breasts. His finger pumped inside me.
I see his toes next to mine before I look up. He cups my cheek. “I don’t share, Briar Page. You got that?”
I nod.
“Did you—?” He looks away. “Did he fuck you?”
I shake my head. “We didn’t even kiss. Once maybe.”
“Oral?”
My jaw hardens. I don’t want to say. This is less about me and Reid now or me and Lex. Reid seems genuinely angry. I’m worried for them, for their friendship, even though I don’t know why Reid would be this mad if I was just an easy opportunity. “On me,” I say. “That’s all.”
“That’s all?” he asks, his eyebrow sharp and his eyes fierce as he stares straight inside me. “That’s notall, Briar. That’s too fucking much.”
15
The drive to school is filled with tension. I don’t know what to say or do, but the amount of anger seeping out of Reid seems catastrophic.
“It’s not Lex’s fault.”
“Don’t talk to me about my friend. I know what is and isn’t his fault.”
I shake my head. “This is utterly ridiculous, Reid. At least Lex fucking likes me. I’m just some game to you. You didn’t care about me until you saw me as a charity case. Until you could somehow be a fill-in for Brady, and let me tell you, you’re a poor stand-in for my brother. You think he’d want you to touch me like you just did?”
A growl rips through the car. “Stop fucking talking.”
“No,” I growl right back. “You think these clothes will somehow make me feel normal again. They’ll make me forget the huge hole I have in my heart. You think if I dye my hair back, I’ll go back to being the person I was before Brady died… Well, I fucking won’t. I won’t ever be the same again. It’s nice that you can just continue on with your life like nothing fucking happened, but that’s not me.”
The car swerves to the side of the road and the brakes lock. I brace myself on the dashboard. Reid throws the car into Park and glares at me. “You think I’m the fucking same? You’re not looking close enough. It’s not all about you. Yes, you were his sister, but I was like his fucking brother. All of us were, so don’t act like you’re more broken up than me, Briar. I just knew I had to grow the fuck up and realize he wasn’t coming back, and even though I want to bury my head in the sand, even though it sometimes kills me to pick up a fucking football, I know I have to do it because not doing it isn’t going to bring him back.”
By the time he finishes, he’s shouting. My skin sprouts in goosebumps.
“He’s gone,” Reid says, his voice lowering. It’s half disbelief, half resolute. It’s like we know it, but we also can’t believe it at the same time. “Making your parents work extra hard to try to comfort you isn’t helping anyone, Briar,” he says. All of the hardness has left his voice. “Running away won’t help. Making other people worry won’t help.” His hands turn to fists on the steering wheel. “I’m just trying to get you to see that you can be the same person you were and the world won’t end. It doesn’t matter if you go to school wearing black with dirty hair or if you try to make yourself feel nice, your brother still won’t be there at the end of the day when the last bell rings. I get all that. But one way, you feel good about yourself, and the other, you’re just…depriving the rest of us of that light we’re so used to seeing, even if you don’t see it inside yourself right now.
“One of the things I hate most about not having Brady around is seeing the change in you.” He shakes his head. “It infuriates me,” he spits. “It makes me want to yell at someone—anyone—for seeing this. And no, I’m not your brother or your parents. I’m not going to coddle your ass.” He turns back toward the road and puts the car in Drive. He pulls away from the side of the road a little less abruptly then how we got here, but he still swerves.
Tears track down my face. I’m angry at Reid for yelling at me. I’m angry at Brady for dying. I’m angry at myself.
When we pull into a parking space by the school, I step out of the car and start walking away. “That’s great, Briar,” Reid calls out after me. “Keep running away.”
I walk faster, my bookbag banging against my back as I go.
“I’m still going to be there when you turn around, and Brady still won’t be.”
My foot catches on a loose crack in the pavement, but I keep going. I want to put as much distance between Reid and myself as possible. When I get inside, I head toward my locker only to find Lex there. He cocks his head when he sees me. “Are you okay?” He doesn’t wait until I get to him, he pushes off the lockers. “You didn’t answer your phone.”
I swallow, trying to get my bearings. All I can choke out is Reid before we hear the culprit behind us.
“You motherfucker.”
Lex’s head snaps up. “Dude, why the fuck is Briar crying like this?”
Reid comes up and pushes Lex into the lockers beside us.