Page 72 of The Casualty of Us (Philosophies of the Heart Duet #1)

Chapter Thirty-Six

“Marley!” Hayes knocks on the door with a grumpy look. “Hurry up! We’re late already.”

“Calm down,” I sigh at him, sitting on the couch and staring down at my message to Bethany that she hasn’t replied to. “She’s not going to get ready any faster with you yelling at her.”

I guess I should probably check in on if she wants to move on or not.

O would have my balls for stringing her along, so I made it very clear up front that this thing between us is strictly casual. No strings attached. No commitments.

That’s pretty much been the name of my game this year.

She was totally on board too.

It has been going on for a few weeks now, though. So I guess I should make sure everyone is still on the same page. I don’t want her to get hurt either. Bethany’s nice and funny and I like her, but she’s just not it for me. I can feel it.

“Marley!”

That one is, though.

I just got tired of doing everything right and her still not noticing it.

“Dude.” I scowl up at him from my phone. “You really need to chill.” His gaze jerks my way, and I shake my head with a scoff. “I used to think I was bad about leaving her alone.”

His eyes narrow on me right before he starts biting out for about the fifth time, “That fucker Kyler was way too focused on whether she would be there tonight or not.” He gives me a hard shake of his head in return. “I don’t like it.”

The bathroom door opens and Marley steps out, dressed as a referee and instantly making me have to shift uncomfortably at the direction of my thoughts.

She’s stunning. Plain and simple.

All long blonde hair that flows straight down her back from a high ponytail and a realness to her that just makes me want to dig deeper.

To find out why she never wants to watch the horror movies and what it is that sends her running around the track in the middle of the night.

Not that I’ve ever mentioned that little discovery to anyone.

I drop my eyes back down to the phone quickly, looking for a distraction, as Hayes grumbles.

“Finally.”

“Calm down, lover boy,” Marley gripes. “Ophelia is perfectly capable of looking after herself. Now go get me a shot before we go.”

“Not shots.” Holden finally pipes up, head lifting from the couch with the objection and only going in the first place because O threatened him.

“No shots for anyone!” Hayes lifts his hands. “You can have your shots when I get to my girl—”

“Hold on,” I snap, staring at my phone that now has Graham’s name lighting it up with my heart suddenly racing, and quickly answering it. “What?”

“Oliver,” Lisette’s frantic voice suddenly fills my ear. “You need to wake someone up and get help.”

“What?”

“Ophelia got hurt,” she gasps. “And Bethany, I don’t know what happened, but we’re bringing them up to the admin, and I think she hit her head and there’s blood—”

I’m already gone though, jumping from the couch while shouting at Hayes and Marley. “She’s hurt! Get help!”

Barely catching how the blood instantly drains from his face before he takes off after me as I sprint for the door.

“What the fuck happened to her?!”

Hayes’s shout is the only thing I catch before the sight of O in Graham’s arms has me feeling like the world has quite literally stopped spinning.

Her cheek is red and swelling already with blood that seems to be coming from the back of her head and covering his arm.

It has my heart feeling like it’s about to give out in my chest, unable to even comprehend anyone laying a finger—

“What the fuck happened to her?!”

Hayes’s roar cuts through enough to have me blinking and coming back around as Graham immediately passes her over to him. Unable to stop the way I’m gasping for breath part out of panic and part from how we hauled ass over here, but my heart just keeps clenching up painfully with each one.

“I don’t know,” Lisette cries from next to where a few other people have Bethany, and my stomach churns at the sight of her knocked out too. “Ophelia was screaming for help—”

“Why was she even out there?!”

I don’t even try to stop Hayes from yelling, knowing that he’s being too obvious, but—

She’s bleeding. Fuck. She’s bleeding, and I can’t—

“She had to pee!” Lisette practically sobs.

“Sutton is almost here with help,” Marley announces, gasping herself as she jogs up with Holden not far behind.

But Hayes looks like he’s about to start fucking breaking as he stares down at my sister. “Why—”

“Thomas was out there with them.”

Everything in me stops at Graham’s words, and I fully come back to reality with them, no longer caring about how it seems like my heart is going to burst and zeroing in on him. “What do you mean?”

He glances back, and I follow his line of sight to see a couple of the linebackers from the team standing on either side of the guy in question.

The one who looks shifty as motherfucking hell right now.

“It was sketchy as fuck, man,” Graham starts to whisper. “He says that Bethany was puking and he was helping her, but O was screaming her damn head off for help—”

I’m on him before anyone can stop me.

Taking Thomas to the ground with the sound of shouts all around us, I drive my fist into his face. Needing him to pay for hurting her. Needing to let it all out. Knowing that if something is really wrong with her, then my world will not be okay in any way.

His head snaps to the side with my next hit, and I pull my fist back to keep going when arms wrap around my middle.

Lifting me off him despite how I’m trying to reach still and clueing me in that it’s probably one of the linebackers.

Graham’s shouts for me to stop are muffled by the way my pulse is thundering in my ears right before Marley pops up in front of me.

“Oliver!” Her hands wrap around my cheeks with her face pinched up, green eyes somehow still wide as she shouts at me. “Your sister needs you, so stop being an idiot who’s going to get in trouble—”

“What is going on here?!” Sutton suddenly shouts.

Oh fuck.

I push open the door of our dorm, pretty sure I’m on the verge of puking after this night.

Quite literally having gotten everything I wanted only to have it taken away from me seconds later and knowing that the eventual fallout from this is going to fucking suck.

Plus…I feel like an absolute piece of shit right about now.

Especially considering that O is already hurt and now everything with Marley is fucked up too.

Dammit.

Hayes’s door is already cracked and waiting for me to check in on her, making me really wish that I would have come here to begin with. Even if my trip to her dorm had one of my dreams coming true…I would have rather waited for it to end more happily.

I push open the door to find Hayes pretty much pretzeling my poor baby sister.

Every one of his limbs is somehow on top of where she’s tucked into his bed, and his gaze is unmoving on her face.

It has me rolling my eyes even as some of that tension in me eases because it’s so obvious how fucking in love with her he is.

At least when they’re together like this.

They’ve done a surprisingly good job of keeping things chill in public so far, besides tonight’s display in front of the admin building.

It was weird at first…but also good, I think.

She needs him.

He gives her something that I’ll never be able to, and while that was definitely an oddly shaped pill to swallow at first…he makes her happy. I can see that too.

She’s lighter when she’s with him. Not as bogged down by the stuff in her head. Quicker to smile and laugh and less hesitant to just be herself in general.

So who the fuck am I to stand in the way of that?

She could have done worse, I guess.

I drag the chair from the corner of his room over to right up next to the bed, and he finally deigns to look up at me.

“Hey.”

The quiet greeting lets me know that he’s not trying to wake her anytime soon, and I drop down into the chair with a sigh, trying not to think about where I just came from by finally voicing something else instead. “You really do love her.”

He gives me a tight nod, gaze moving back down to her before joking, “Just don’t tell her that.”

“Can’t have her taking a book to my face, I guess.”

A soft sound of amusement leaves him, and he runs a finger over her nose before looking back at me curiously. “Where have you been, by the way?”

“Things took longer than I expected, then I went back out there to find her phone.” I drop my head down while pulling her phone from my pocket and placing it on his nightstand.

Not mentioning that Marley was actually the one to go back and get it for her.

“You know she’d lose it if she woke up in the morning and realized it was still at the Ruins. ”

I look back to find a curiosity lingering on his face, but he gives me a nod after a second. “You’re right,” he scoffs. “She totally would.”

Letting me get away with the lie if he notices.

“My mom texted by the way.” I offer the one piece of good news that’s come since I left O’s dorm twenty minutes ago. “She said that my dad got the head of the goddamn board up and that we at least have until next semester before Thomas might be allowed back.”

“Thank fuck,” he seems to gasp, which I get because I don’t know how I would have been able to function with him on campus still either. “I swear to God we’re going to have to move schools if they let him come back.”

And his words have me tossing out the observation that surprised me the most tonight.

“I didn’t know you could be like that.” Even if it does make me feel slightly better about him seemingly appointing himself her protector.

“That shit with Thomas,” I clarify when he gives me a confused look.

“I mean, I did, I do, but that was pretty dark.”

“Darker than saying you were going to kill him slowly?” He lifts his brows at me.

Ah shit. “Fair.” I nod before shrugging. “Still surprised me, though.”

“I think…” he starts slowly, eyes immediately dropping back down to O while continuing to trace the shape of her face. “That one of the most honorable things in life is protecting the people we care about, yeah?” His gaze comes back to me briefly. “There’s nothing dark about that to me.”

“Really?” I snort. “There’s nothing dark about asphyxiation?”

“Okay.” His mouth twists with a smile, but he doesn’t look away from O. “Maybe, but she’s mine, Ollie.”

I frown, automatically wanting to correct him and say that she’s ours, but—

He drops a gentle kiss to her forehead, obviously not giving a fuck that I’m here, and she gives a happy little sigh in her sleep, somehow easing my anxiety at his statement because…I guess he’s earned it. Her.

Goddammit.

“She’s still my twin,” I grumble, reaching for one of her hands. “You have to share.”

Possessive asshole.