Page 17

CHAPTER

TWELVE

CORTLAND

Maya’s arms are around my neck, her thighs straddling me. I grip her neck, bite her bottom lip. She whimpers, pulling back, her hands on my chest.

“Don’t,” she says quietly, staring up at me through her long lashes.

We’re both sweaty from our practices, and she walked back with me to the house.

I only wanted her here to fuck her. I’ve avoided hanging out with her most of the week, but Fridays we have a class across the hall from one another that lets out at the same time.

Me, history for my undeclared major, and her, ethics, which is kind of fucking hilarious considering she’s the least ethical person I know. She’s still in her cheerleading skirt, orange and black for Ely’s colors, a tiger across her chest.

Her underwear is on the floor of my room, my door closed at her back.

“Don’t what?” I glance at the clock on my nightstand. Dad wants me over for dinner. Tristan’s texts have been despondent, and he’s not yet back in school. I don’t like him spending so much time alone, by himself.

I rush into the room at the hospital. Dad is coming as fast as he can.

Mom isn’t even here. She called 911, and she’s not here. She’s working.

Tristan is sipping from a straw, his face pale, but he grins at me when I walk in. Then he sees it.

The panic etched into my own face.

His expression falters.

He flips his arm over, so I can’t see the inside of his wrist.

His broken glasses are on the table he sets his drink on, refusing to meet my eye.

“I didn’t want to die,” he says softly, as if to reassure me.

I stop, a step into the sterile room with that medicinal smell every hospital on earth seems to have.

“I just…” His eyes close tight, his face screwed up like he’s in pain. He brings both hands to his eyes, covering his embarrassment.

My chest hurts, my throat is tight.

I take a step toward him.

His narrow shoulders shake. “I just wanted her to want me, Cort,” he whispers, and a choked sob leaves him as his entire body is wracked with grief.

“I don’t want you to be rough,” Maya whines, bringing me back to the present, my hand still on her neck, the other parked on her hip.

“Then get off of me,” I tell her.

Her mouth drops open, then her eyes narrow. “What the hell is wrong with you?” she snaps, sliding her hands down to my bare chest. “You’ve avoided me all week aside from lunch, blew me off after the game last weekend, and the weekend before, you just fucking disappeared. Storm said you’d be back.”

I roll my eyes, dropping my hands by my side, not touching her. “Get off me.”

Her brows hit her hairline. “Is this… is this about Remi fucking Ocean?”

Is it that obvious? I can’t get her out of my head. She’s taking up valuable space that should be occupied by my brother. My dad. Anyone but her. The girl who fucked me over and almost ruined my life.

I can’t stop thinking about her. Those cuts on her wrist. I don’t know if I want to hurt her. Fuck her. Help her. I don’t know.

And I see her, everywhere .

Maya promised she never did, and maybe I’m just looking for her, but I’ve watched her walk across campus with some dude that looks like a pothead wannabe artist. I’ve seen her head toward the cemetery with him, disappearing beyond the treeline.

I remember watching her back in high school at the graveyard in Aben, where her mom is buried.

I assumed she went there to talk to her, but nope.

She just likes graveyards.

Crazy bitch.

There were so many layers to her I never got to peel back, because she fucked us up before I could.

And this past year, I’ve always wondered what she regretted most. What the hell she wanted from me that night. Why she didn’t try to stop it. I never stop dreaming about her.

In some of my dreams, I almost kill her.

In others, she almost kills me.

“No, Maya. It isn’t. Get. Off.” I clench my fingers into fists at my side, that familiar wave of anger sweeping through me. I’ve lived with it for over a year now. Anger at myself. My friends. Her.

It still haunts me. Did I do the right thing? Of course not. But it wasn’t as bad as she said it was.

The legal system agreed with me. But we all know how fucked that is, her most of all. It was four against one, our word against hers. She was a cheerleader and her stepdad is wealthy, sure, but his business is international. He doesn’t work in the community.

My mom does. Chase’s dad owns half of the fucking state, running the largest privately-owned auto dealership company in the nation. A rich redneck that inherited all of his wealth from his father, it doesn’t matter that Greg McGowan can barely string a sentence together.

Brinklin’s dad is in politics, and Storm, well, I don’t even know what the fuck Storm’s family does, but I know they’ve got more money than they know what to do with. Storm doesn’t touch it, which is why he’s my roommate, but still. They helped him out when he needed them.

But that’s not why I got off, was it?

It’s because I’m not what she said I was. I’m not a monster. But now, I kind of feel like I’m turning into one.

“It is her,” Maya insists, and her face turns red with anger. But she doesn’t budge, crossing her arms over her chest and staying in my lap. “What? You want to fuck with her?” she presses. “Your mom told me to tell her if?—”

I stand then, and she nearly falls to the floor. But she rights herself, stumbling back in her bare feet, tugging down her skirt, her eyes wide.

“You’re talking to my mom?” I ask her quietly, my pulse ticking in a vein in my neck. I can feel it. My chest hurts, too, my heart pounding too hard.

Maya snatches up her underwear, yanking them up her legs, averting her eyes. She’s scared. She should be. She knows what happened to Tristan.

“She wanted me to keep an eye on you,” she mumbles, pulling on her socks, standing on one foot for each one.

“She wants to make sure you don’t wind up in prison, Cort.

” She stuffs her feet into her sneakers, finally looking up at me, her ponytail falling over one shoulder.

“And if you keep fucking around with her ,” she sneers that word, and I think about watching Maya drop Remi in the gym and my blood heats. “That’s exactly where you’ll end up.”

I jerk my chin to the door. “Leave.”

She laughs, running a hand over her hair, smoothing it back. A nervous gesture. I can see it in her eyes, the fear. She doesn’t want this to end. She doesn’t want the idea of becoming Mrs. Adler snatched away from her.

But I’d never marry her even if Remi wasn’t currently taking up too much of my brain.

Maya was a defense. In high school, she was a distraction.

We were supposed to be together, and besides that, I didn’t much care how my mom belittled her.

She was a bitch. So was Mom. They could deal with each other.

But now… “Seriously. Leave.” I point to the door, wanting to shove her out of it.

“You’re being ridiculous,” she snaps. “We’re going to that party together?—”

“I’m not going anywhere with you and if you know what’s best for you, you won’t fucking go either. Get the fuck out of my room.”

Before she can move, the door flies open from the outside, and Storm stands there as Maya spins around.

He’s got his shirt off, and I take in the tattoos all over his torso, his arms crossed as he leans against the doorway, his eyes lined with red like he just smoked a joint.

I smell the marijuana trailing into the room and I feel a stab of envy that I’m not currently high.

Might be a hell of a lot easier to deal with Maya, and Remi in my head, if I was.

“Careful, Maya,” Storm says softly, his light blue eyes locked on hers as she crosses her arms tighter over her chest. “Cortland has a really bad temper these days.” His gaze trails over her body. “I’d hate it if you broke something while you were in my house.”

She glances at me, looking for me to save her.

I’m done saving bitches.

I just stare right back at her, then she finally stomps out, skirting around Storm as much as she can.

We hear her clomp down the stairs, slam the door shut behind her so hard the house shakes.

I curl my fingers into fists.

Storm meets my gaze. “You wanna fuck her.”

I blink at him, thinking he’s talking about Maya. “I beg your pardon?” I ask him, my voice hoarse. “I could’ve done just that?—”

He clears his throat to interrupt me. “Not her.”

My heart picks up speed in my chest.

“Remi.”

I open my mouth to deny it, but he cuts me off.

“Probably shouldn’t do that,” he says lightly, straightening from the door, the hoop in his nose catching on the dying light from the sun streaming in through the window by my door. “Let’s go out tonight. You can find some other ass that isn’t gonna put you in jail.”

I shake my head, even though I planned to do just that. “Since when do you want to go to college parties?”

He shrugs. “Since I see you thinking about a girl who almost ruined both of our lives.”

I don’t say anything and instead I think about those cuts on her wrist. Did we ruin hers, too?

“I’ll be waiting downstairs. Hurry up.” Without another word, he turns and walks down the hall.

I stare after him a second, listening to his footsteps grow quieter. Then I hear my phone vibrating from my nightstand, and I snatch it up, swiping my finger across the screen to answer Tristan’s video call.

A second later, my baby brother’s face appears, sleepy gray eyes like mine, a lighter shade of hair fluffed on his head, he looks tired.

“Hey, buddy,” I say with a smile, taking a breath and sinking down to my bed.

I hear my dad in the background before Tristan speaks. “You coming for dinner?”

I tense with Dad’s words, guilt coursing through me as I think of Remi’s cuts. Of my brother.

“It’s okay if you can’t,” Tristan says quietly, stifling a yawn with the back of his pale hand. “I’m tired anyway.”

I hear my dad laugh but there’s a nervous edge threaded through it. “Buddy, you slept all day.”

My heart sinks but I flash my brother a smile, cradling the phone in my hand like it’s fucking precious. “You going to your appointment next week?” I ask him quietly.

If Remi had sent me to prison, who would look out for him?

He doesn’t answer at first, and the background blurs around him.

He’s walking away from Dad, down the narrow hall of the small house he rented for them to get away from Mom.

It’s just a separation, and I don’t know if my dad will hold out.

I’m not convinced he’ll do what it takes to get custody, and file for a divorce from Mom.

But it’s a step.

“Yeah,” he finally says, sinking down onto his bed. “I’m going.” He flops onto his back, holding the screen up so I can take him in. His white T-shirt, the shadows beneath his eyes. “I don’t wanna go but…” He shrugs, glancing away from the screen for a second. “Guess I will.”

My brows draw together, and even though it’s hard, I offer him what I can. “I’m going too, to an appointment. Next Thursday, actually. Probably around the same time as you.”

He blinks. “Really?” he asks, a slight smile kicking up at the corners of his lips. He’s just thirteen, and his voice breaks with the question which makes us both laugh.

“Really,” I assure him. “I’ll call you after? We can discuss how it went?”

He grins, and it seems real. “Yeah,” he finally says, nodding. “Call me after.”

“All right, buddy. I’ll talk to you tomorrow, too.”

“Bye, Cort.” He ends the call first, disappearing from the screen. I drop my phone on my bed and run my hand over my hair. He didn’t even ask why I was going to therapy. I’m sure he knows.

But I think of those cuts on her wrist and wonder just how much I don’t know.