Page 33

CHAPTER

TWENTY-FIVE

REMI

Cortland

I’m sorry for being a dick. But I meant what I said. I can’t stop thinking about you.

I’ve gathered that.

Cortland

Smart ass.

Not very smart since I’m hanging out with you.

Cortland

I don’t want you to see anyone else. Until we figure this shit out.

I think about his words from hours ago in the cemetery. We aren’t dating. That’s not what this is. I know that. And he is a dick. But his anger... it kind of matches mine. Angry at the same thing, on different sides of the table.

But once again, his possessiveness from earlier, it makes my sick heart feel… good. It can’t be one-sided, though. That’s not enough for me.

What about you?

Cortland

What about me?

I glare at my screen in the dark, listening to Sloane’s soft snores. Finally, he texts me again when he must realize he pissed me off.

Cortland

For now you’ve got me, pretty baby.

“Were you up late last night?” Sloane asks as she fluffs her hair in the mirror on our door.

I stretch my hands overhead, yawning, then roll over, slapping a pillow over my face so the morning sun doesn’t hurt my eyes. “How can you tell?” I ask, speaking loudly so she can hear me.

She laughs. “God, one day we’re gonna get coffee together again. I thought I stayed up late, texting with Asa.” She smiles when she says his name. I can hear it in her voice. “Who are you texting? Is it that boy in your history class?”

I think about Cortland’s words last night. “Someone called you babe.”

I’d seen the texts I’d sent to Van and Sloane the night he took me back to his house. The night he claims he saved me. But maybe he sent those.

My face flushes under my pillow and sweat forms on the back of my neck. “No one,” I mumble. “I was just scrolling through the news.”

“You don’t even like non-fiction,” she shoots back, which is a direct quote from me.

But I start laughing over how ridiculous that is and sit up, my pillow tumbling down to the floor as I rub my fists over my eyes. “Sloane. It’s the fucking news,” I say with a laugh.

She doesn’t return it.

I drop my hand and meet her gaze, but when I see where she’s looking, my stomach drops.

Fuck.

I swoop my arms under my comforter, my face flushing hot.

Her eyes travel up to mine. “You okay?” she asks quietly. “Looks like you got attacked by a cat.”

My pulse thrums too fast in my chest and it’s suddenly hard to breathe.

Just go, Sloane. Please don’t press this.

I swallow, holding her gaze, my mouth already dry from the morning but worse now with her insinuation.

Only Cortland knows this.

Only he can deal with how messed up I am.

“I fell,” I lie to her. “Those bushes outside of the gym?” I laugh, balling my hands into fists under my blankets. “I tripped. My shoes were untied.” I close my mouth, because the more someone talks the guiltier they are.

Sloane arches a brow. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

I shake my head, like she’s the crazy one. “Because it’s embarrassing, that’s why.”

She crosses her arms over her body, jutting out one hip. Biting her lip, she looks down. “Look, Rems, if you?—”

“I fell.” My tone is flat, a bit of a bite beneath my words, and I know that’s not fair. I know I’m being the shitty friend.

But I can’t tell her this.

I can’t tell anyone.

She nods, her gaze coming to mine. But I see her shift from foot to foot. “Okay,” she finally says, shrugging. “You want to meet me for a late lunch?”

“Yes,” I lie. “That’d be great.”

She offers me an uncertain smile, glancing again at my arm hidden under my comforter. Then she pulls open the door, adjusting her purple backpack on her back, and she walks out, the door falling closed behind her.

I hear her lock it, and only then do I let myself breathe again.

I fall back on my bed, my hands over my temples as I stare at the ceiling.

I can still smell him. Still feel him.

What am I doing?

I’m going to be late to class, that’s what I’m doing.

I sit up fast, flinging my covers off and hopping down from the bed.

I head to the closet, thinking to wear my usual jeans and hoodie, but I pause, thinking of Cortland’s words. “God, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about this. About you.”

My phone vibrates on my desk and I turn to grab it, seeing his name on the screen.

Cortland

Good morning. I’m still thinking about you.

My pulse flutters as I hold my phone, but before I can respond, another message comes through.

A picture.

My heart jumps to my throat as I blink, squeezing my thighs together. It’s him, without his shirt on, his tan six-pack on display, his gray sweats pulled down low on his hips so I can see that deep V.

His lips are in the photo, his tongue just over his lip ring, but I can’t see his eyes. Nothing above his mouth.

My stomach flips as I realize his hand is under the waistband of his sweats.

I bite my lip, then run my tongue ring over my teeth.

Why are you so fucking hot?

But before I embarrass myself completely and actually say that, he sends another text.

Cortland

Send me a picture.

Then another, right after that as heat flashes through me and I start to get annoyed.

Cortland

It can be anything, I’m not picky. I just want to see where you are.

My heart beats too fast in my chest.

I set my phone down and turn toward my closet.

Then I get dressed.

A few minutes later, after I’ve washed my face and brushed my teeth, I pull up my fishnet stockings. I run my fingers through my fading orange hair, smiling at myself in the floor-length mirror on the back of the door.

An outfit I bought over the summer with Sloane on one of the few outings I’ve taken. I just never worked up the nerve to put these clothes on.

It’s still mild outside, but I think this will work. I’m in a dark blue, plaid skirt, black combat boots, and an off-the-shoulder gray, knit sweater. Light, cute, and showing off the studs in my black bra.

I think about wearing it next weekend to Grim, too, and maybe even joining Van in his partying.

I kneel down, retie one of my laces on my combat boots that came undone, and just as I finish, ready to take photos before I head to my British Lit class, my phone buzzes on my lofted bed, made up nice and tidy.

Old habits die hard, and if I didn’t make my bed back at home, it just gave my stepdad another excuse to belittle me.

Thinking the call must be Van or Sloane because they’re the only people that call me, I snatch the phone up and answer it without looking at the screen.

“Hiiii,” I say, drawing out the word, smiling as I do. It’s like seeing Cortland again, facing the monster, it made me stronger. He already did his worst, anyway. All the other shit he throws in my face, nothing could be as bad as that night. The days afterward.

“Remi.”

My stepdad’s voice erases my confidence, and my throat feels tight. My posture stiffens, hand fisting at my side as I glance at my dorm room door, making sure the lock is flipped. Like he’d ever bother to come here.

That basement lock on my memories is getting weaker. It always does at the sound of his voice.

“Y-yes?” I whisper, trying to breathe.

There’s silence on the other end of the line and I think back to how I answered the phone. Like an idiot. Can’t you do anything right?

I stare at the poster taped up over my desk; my gift from Van. A reminder. A way to put into perspective all the other monsters in human skin. It’s the same reason I like reading and writing.

Getting all the big, bad wolves out on paper makes them seem… a little less powerful.

“I need you to look at a calendar,” Silas says, and I try to breathe. Try to remember he’s only human as I stare at Dawson’s Beach over my desk. Silas can’t hook me over the phone.

But at his words, I frown, surprise breaking through my fear. He never calls. Ever. But he also never asks me to look at a calendar because he doesn’t care what I’m doing today. Tomorrow. Next year. The rest of my natural life. Not anymore.

“Why?” I ask, regretting the word as soon as it spills from my mouth.

He sighs, and I tense again, every muscle in my body locked tight. “Do you own a calendar? That isn’t in the device attached to your head?” Condescension drips from every word.

I glance at my black backpack on the floor and squat down, unzipping it, holding the phone between my shoulder and my cheek as I work the zipper with both hands. I pull out my matte black planner.

“Yes,” I whisper, plucking a pen from my desk drawer beside me, the planner poised over my knee.

“Open it.”

I do as he asks, going to today’s date.

“Go to the thirteenth day of October. October thirteenth, ” he adds, speaking slowly, as if I can’t understand him otherwise. “Are you there?”

I grit my teeth, my face heating. A little before that, I’ll be twenty, on the first day of fall. He knows that, but of course he doesn’t mention that date. Tears sting behind my eyes, but I’m not going to cry. He’s not even here. “Yes,” I answer through clenched teeth.

“Do you have a pen in your hand?”

“Yes.”

“Make a note in your calendar,” he talks down to me, “on the thirteenth day of October, this year,” that pressure behind my eyes grows stronger, “and write, however your brain will remember it, that you are to have dinner with me and Crystal, at seven. 45 th Street Diner, in Raleigh.”

Crystal? I rack my brain, then I remember something vague. About him dating someone. He told me over the summer, through an email.

As if I care. Why does he even want me there?

Silas’s responsibilities to me ended the day my mother died. I used to think it was guilt that kept him financially providing for me.

But then that glass shatters in my head.

His steps on the wooden floors in the foyer echo in my mind.

It wasn’t guilt at all.

I flex my jaw, my pen jammed against the date on the calendar, nearly ripping a hole through the pages, ink bleeding on the line. “Raleigh?”

“You are capable of driving a few towns over, are you not?”

It’s a four hour drive.

I’m capable. I just don’t fucking want to.

It’s in about three weeks, and it’s the last place I want to spend any time at all. With the last people on earth I want to be around. I’ve never met Crystal, but I know she’s twenty-one. I remember now looking that up after he gave me her name in his email.

Twenty-one, and fucking my stepdad.

I’m not judging her. I’m judging him.

“Why?” I ask, not bothering to keep the disdain out of my voice. And even when I’m met with silence for a long moment, I don’t care.

“Crystal, for some reason unknown to me, would like to meet you. I expect, when you arrive, you’ll be wearing a modest dress, and you’ll be on your best fucking behavior.”

I press the pen harder against the white square, and it finally rips through the page.

“You’ll return home immediately afterward.”

Fuck you. “Great.”

He laughs, and it makes my stomach churn. “You will not mention the disgrace you brought upon me last year, and you will not discuss the fact that Cortland Adler is back at your school.”

I feel faint, dizzy with his words. He knows. He doesn’t care.

“And Remi?” His tone is even, but it’s a question, and if I don’t answer him, I risk worse than his cutting words.

“Yes sir?” I hiss.

“If you’re seen in the company of that boy again, I will cut you off, and you can figure out how to fuck up your life on your own dime.”

He ends the call without another word.

I stare at my phone, then throw both it and my planner across the room. I pull my sweater off, shove down my skirt, kicking out of my boots, yanking off my stockings.

I don’t know why I thought I could do this.

Why I thought I was stronger. Why I thought I could be seen.

I rip apart my stockings with my bare hands, my heart hammering too hard in my chest, anger clawing its way through my fingertips.

I’m fucking stupid.

I. Am. Fucking. Stupid. A momentary satisfaction warms through me as I shred my clothes, fisting the skirt in my hands next.

But it won’t rip.

I yank as hard as I can, only in my bra and underwear as I sink down to the floor, tears blurring my vision.

I can’t tear it.

My hands hurt, as hard as I’m yanking on it.

Nothing.

I clutch the fabric to my chest, bowing my head, letting the tears fall as I cry all over my new clothes. At the girl I wanted to be —want to be.

My shoulders shake, my chest caving. Fuck you, Silas.

Fuck. You.

But he’s not here, and he doesn’t care.

Just like Cortland didn’t that night, when I couldn’t say the right words to him. When I couldn’t get him to stop breaking my heart into pieces in those woods.

No one is around.

No one cares.