Page 38 of Riot Act

But…hold the fuck up a second.Whatthe hell did Wren just say?

“I didn’t touch that girl at the party.”

My friend’s laughter is scathing. “You abso-fucking-lutely did. I saw you grinding up against her. You had her pinned against a tree, naked as the day you were born.”

I sit bolt upri—ahh, ahh, ah, Fuck, fuck, fuck, that hurts.“I didnot!”

“Dude. I know what your bare ass looks like and it was practically glowing in the moonlight. If you didn’t fuck her, then you got damn well close.”

I groan, throwing myself back onto the mattress. What thefuck? Now that he mentions it, I do remember making out very aggressively with someone at the party. I have the faintest recollection of boobs.Greatfucking boobs. I had no idea they belonged to Chase, though. I fucking scraped the girl off the sidewalk less than a week ago. I gave her CPR. I had a full-length, very annoying conversation with her at the hospital, right before I kissed her. And now I have no clue if I slipped her my dick before any of that happened? And she saidnothingabout it?

“Anyway.” Wren’s smirk wouldn’t look out of place plastered across the Cheshire Cat’s face. “Presley’s besotted with you. Elodie told me. Carrie confirmed it. So there you go. Presley…”

“Maria Witton Chase,” I grumble.

He gives me a dismissive flick of his hand. “…would mourn you if you died. There’s at least one girl who’d care. So? Are you?

“What?”

“Dying!”

“No, I’m not fuckingdying. Meredith. Meredith’s dying. She has cancer. I donated my dumb bone marrow to her against her wishes.”

He goes silent.

Great. Just what I didn’t want: an awkward as fuck moment with a friend who doesn’t know what to say about my sick mother. He doesn’t look super awkward when I flick a quick glance his way. He looks…thoughtful.

“So, she mightnotdie, then?”

“Can we actually just…not?” I fled from the hospital and came home so that life can get back to normal, and seeing this pensive, somber look on Wren’s face is making me feel fucking weird. “If you’re not gonna beat the shit out of me for lying about the shoot, then maybe you could hand me that Xbox controller and leave me to murder things in the dark. Thanks.”

Wren hesitates. He looks down at his feet, brow furrowed, thinking, but then he chucks the controller onto the bed. Before he closes the bedroom door behind him, he says, “Let me know if you need anything, yeah?” and a growl builds in the back of my throat. Wren’s always been so fucking hard. His complete lack of empathy was one of the things I liked most about him. Ever since he started seeing Elodie, something’s shifted in him, though. He cares now. Cares way too much.

He shouldnotcare about me.

I’m perfectly capable of looking after myself.

16

THREE DAYS LATER

“Why do you do this? What does it even matter? No one knows. No one’s ever going to find out. And even if they did…they couldn’t prove it…”

“It’s a shame Jonah had to go home. I’m glad he doesn’t know about any of this, though. He’s a worrier. He would have canceled his flight and stayed indefinitely, and I couldn’t do that to the guy. No sense in his summer being ruined because of any of this.”

Dad grabs my bag from the trunk of the car and sets off up the path toward the house. He waits by the front door to make sure I’m following (I think he secretly thinks I’ll bolt the moment he lets me out of his sight), and only when I arrive behind him does he open the front door and let me inside.

There are still boxes everywhere. He hasn’t unpacked at all since I was admitted to the hospital. After that first disastrous visit, he did come back and see me every day, but he was much calmer. Much more even keeled. Whatever Dr. Raine said to him in her office must have struck a chord with him, because he tried. I saw how hard he was trying, which only made the guilt worse.

This wasn’t supposed to happen.

None of it was supposed to happen.

“I’ll make a couple of calls later on tonight.” Dad sets his keys down in a dish on the mail stand, turning slowly around in the hallway, as if he was about to do something but can’t remember what. “I’ll speak to Principal Harcourt and have someone pack up your bedroom. I can either drive up there tonight to grab everything, or we can do it tomorrow morning on our way over to the restaurant—”

I wrap my arms around myself, narrowing my eyes at him. “What are you talking about?”

Exasperation colors his voice. “I told you, Presley. I’m not letting you out of my sight. You’re going to live here from now on. I’ll pick you up and drop you off at school, and—”