by Patty Blount
“You going to Miranda’s after practice?” Kyle shouts to Zac, who shrugs.
“Maybe. If nothing better comes up.”
“We should head to the woods, forget Miranda’s.”
“That’s better. We’ll hang, wait for Russell to finish his housekeeping.”
“Text him. He’s not here today.”
“He’s not?” Zac turns to face Kyle and lets a ball slip by him.
The whistle blows. Coach Brill shouts at Zac to get it together, but Zac ignores him.
“Too hungover,” Kyle confirms.
The look, the exact expression I’ve been trying to shoot, crosses his face when he turns to stare up at the second-floor window exactly where I should be. I press the shutter button, my hands shaking, and pray I get it. With this, I can show everybody the truth about Zac McMahon.
“McMahon, are you here to play or work on your tan?”
“Sorry, Coach.”
“Bring it in, guys!” The whistle blows, and I start the perimeter trek back to the school. I sneak along the trees to the parking lot, dart between parked cars, stick to the shadow of the building, and slip through the heavy steel door. I rush up the stairs to the second floor and skid to a stop.
Ian’s sitting on the floor, back against the lockers. “Where you been, bright eyes?” he asks—for what reason, I have no idea because the ice in his voice tells me he already knows.
Chapter 16
Ian
Whoa.
Grace looks hot. Smokin’ hot. My mouth waters at the sight of her. Her hair’s down and smooth, and my fingers itch to touch it. She’s wearing no makeup—no Cleopatra eyes, none of that goth lipstick. Her cheeks are red—probably from that black op she just executed. Even her clothes are different. Doesn’t notice me until she’s a few feet away. Doesn’t know—or maybe hopes I don’t notice—she’s wearing a shit-eating grin when she runs up those stairs.
It disappears when she finds me here. She shuts it all down, tosses hair over her shoulder, and lifts her eyebrows. “You still work here?”
New look, same attitude. Yeah. Definitely should have stayed home and gone back to bed because, because…aw, hell. She almost had me with that I like you, do you like me routine, but I know what she’s really doing with her fancy camera. She’s just another Zac conquest, another in a string of them who can’t stand knowing she’s just another hump-and-dump.
I stand up, walk to the utility cart, grab a can of cleanser, and toss it at her. She tries to catch it, fumbles. That’s when I snatch the bag off her arm and fish out that big-ass camera.
“Hey!” She grabs for it, but I dodge her hands. Does she think I didn’t notice that she disappears every day? Does she think nobody sees her sneaking around the lacrosse field? I power on the camera, scroll through the images stored on the card.
“Ian, please. That’s a five-thousand-dollar camera somebody donated to the school paper. It’s not mine.”
“Yeah. I know. What I don’t know is why you’re filling up a memory card with pictures of the guy you claim raped you.”
I’m baiting her, but she’s not biting. Instead, her shoulders fall. “You wouldn’t understand.”
Got that right. “Oh, I get it, Grace. You let Zac do you, then got pissed when he didn’t stick. What’s not to understand?”
She flinches like I kicked her in the stomach but recovers fast, ready to brawl. “And where were you today?”
“Hungover. Zac and I had a party last night. And a nice long talk. You know what he told me?” I scroll through more pictures. “Oh, look! Here’s one of Zac leaving Miranda’s party. And one of Zac blocking a shot. And another one of Zac. And another. And another.” I shove the camera at her. “He told me you got so trashed that night you could hardly stand up straight. He said you and Miranda had a fight and you left. He said he was worried about you. Followed you like any friend would. Said you let him kiss you, take off your shirt, and do you.” Another flinch, but I’m in too deep to back off now. “He said you never told him no.”
She looks at me, bright eyes wounded but dry. No tears from Cunning Collier. This whole sweet-faced girl thing? Yeah, no. Not buying it anymore. “You believed him?” she finally asks, her voice wobbling, but I’m immune now.
I shoot her a look. “I’ve seen his pictures, and now I’ve seen yours, so yeah. I believe him.”
“Then you’re an ass.” The wobble is gone, and poof! she morphs back to Kick-ass Grace, lips sneering. “I went to that party for you, you jerk. I got dressed up because I wanted you to notice me, not him. I broke up with him after two days, Ian. Two. Know why?”
She gives me no chance to tell her I don’t give a shit and just plows on ahead.
“Because he’s not nice, Ian. The first time I noticed it, I thought it was me. Maybe I misunderstood, so I gave him another chance. But it wasn’t me. He just doesn’t care about anybody but himself, and you guys, you don’t care about his character as long as he’s good in the net.”
I huff out a laugh at that, circling her while she scrolls through the pictures to make sure I didn’t delete any. If she knew anything about our team, she’d know how totally untrue that is. Coach Brill is all about building honor and character and respect. Says he’d rather lose the whole season honorably than win a single game by playing dirty. He benches players for things like—well, like cursing at him. Zac made sure I got home safe last night. When Jeremy and Matt and I all needed math help, Zac was the one who tutored us after Coach Brill said we couldn’t play until we passed.
“When I told him I wouldn’t go out with him again, you know what he said? He got pissed off, cursed me out, said there were half a dozen chicks hotter than me lining up to…to do him.” She sneers, and I figure what Zac had really said was a hell of a lot more descriptive.
It’s also true. A guy who can bang anybody he wants—anywhere, anytime—doesn’t need to force a girl.
“Here’s what I didn’t know about Zac McMahon. He’s a sore loser, Ian. The biggest sore loser there is.” She meets my gaze without blinking. “I was drunk and pissed off, and I thought he was being nice and trying to comfort me because of how we left things. But I was wrong. God, I was so wrong. He was plotting revenge. He had to prove to me that he never loses. This look, this expression—it’s the last thing I remember.” She jabs a finger at the camera, turns it so I can see the image.
All I see is Zac in the zone.
“I’ve seen this face before. You have too. On the lacrosse field every time he gets a penalty.”
I’m shaking my head, but I can’t look away from the image on the camera. Even frozen in bits and bytes, the sneer on Zac’s lips, the way his jaw is clenched, the way his eyes fixate on his enemy—it’s feral, the way a lion stalks prey.
“Now I see it every time I shut my eyes.”
A chill crawls down my back, and I shove the camera away. “Proves nothing.” I pace a few step away.
“It proves everything,” she snaps back. “Why do you defend him? You know I’m right. Remember the game against Holtsville High School? He put one of their attackers in the hospital, Ian.”
Shaking my head, I pace back. “It was a clean hit. That kid turned at the last minute.”
She throws up her hands. “Fine. You believe what you want. I’m done.” She shoves the camera in her bag, hikes the bag over her shoulder, heads for the door. “I cleaned all morning alone. You can clean all afternoon.” She stalks to the stairs and turns back for one last shot. “I thought you were different.”
That one draws blood, and I turn my back so she won’t see. The door slams downstairs, and I move to the window, watching her stalk across the lot like the pavement offends her and must now die. She crosses the bus lane, and that’s when Jeremy and Kyle catch up to her. My gaze whips to the field. The team’s on a break. Coach Brill’s got out the clipboard. He can’t see Jeremy and Kyle through the circle of guys watching him map out a play.
Zac’s swilling water, Matt’
s rolling his shoulders to work out kinks. Nobody notices one big guy and one not-so-big guy flank one girl. Nobody sees Kyle touch her or her wriggle away. Nobody sees Jeremy pump his fist in a rude gesture that would get his fucking ass kicked if he did it in front of one of my sisters. Nobody sees. Nobody hears. And I can’t help thinking of a stupid riddle—if a girl’s attacked in the forest and no one’s around to see it or hear it, did it really happen? Even from here I can see the terror in her bright eyes that she tries so damn hard to hide behind tough talk and too much makeup.
I see.
Muttering curses, I slide on the rail down the main stairs, shove open the door, and catch up to Kyle and Jeremy just as Grace plants her knee in Jeremy’s gut. He doubles over, gasping for air. I grab one of my friends in each hand and muscle them off. “Get the hell away from her.”
Jeremy whips around. “Russell, she—”
“Save it, Linz. I saw the way you hassled her. You’re lucky Coach Brill didn’t see, or you’d both be off the team. Get your asses inside and take a piss or whatever you’re supposed to be doing before he notices.” I let go of them, and they back off, glaring, and head inside the school.
I pick up Grace’s camera bag and hand it to her. She takes the bag, studies me for a long moment with a deep frown like I’m some question on a pop quiz she can’t figure out, and finally takes off. I watch her until she’s out of sight.
Somehow it makes me feel better.
By the time I get back inside, Jeremy and Kyle are spitting mad at me. “Dude, what the fuck was that?” Jeremy gets up in my grill, so I lean into his.
“That was me stopping you from being an asshole.” I shove him back a step, then turn on Kyle. “Are you brain dead or something? Did you really think she’d let you two get away with that? You’re lucky she didn’t go straight to Coach Brill.”
“And tell him what? We were just talking.”
Rolling my eyes, I slap Jeremy in the head. “Just talking. You always talk with your right hand?”
“Jeez, relax. It was a joke—”
“It wasn’t just talk, and it wasn’t just a joke. You circled her. You surrounded her. You put hands on her, and then you said shit to scare her. Why?”
Jeremy’s eyebrows jump. “Why?”
“Yeah. Why?”
He looks at Kyle, but Kyle scrunches up his face and looks at Jeremy.
“Um—”
“Kyle, if anybody tried that with Val or Claudia, what do you think I would do?”
He scrubs his head, but his Mohawk isn’t there anymore, so he drops his hand and looks away. “Go bat-shit crazy on their ass.”
“Damn right.”
“Dude, I would never act like that around your sister,” Jeremy assures me.
“Then why would you do it around Grace?”
They exchange glances that tell me they think I’ve been sniffing orange cleanser for too long. Probably right.
“Because Grace is a—”
I snap up a hand. “Grace is a girl. That’s it. You want to slap on any other names, knock yourself out. But don’t ever forget she’s a girl first, and we don’t treat girls like that. Feel me?”
Jeremy’s hands come up, surrender-style. “Yeah, yeah, okay.”
Tension thickens as the three of us stare down. I’m waiting for one of them to say it, to ask the obvious question, but both of them are too pissed off at me to say it and expose me as the hypocrite I am. Since when?
While they return to the field, shooting me glares over their shoulders, I pick up the can of cleanser and scrub lockers so hard they’d bleed if they were my friends’ skin.
Chapter 17
Grace
I run from the school like the entire lacrosse team is chasing me. I look over my shoulder for the twelfth time, but Jeremy and Kyle aren’t there. Neither is Zac.
And neither is Ian.
I’ve never seen him like that—so cold and hateful. A shiver skates up my spine, and I pick up my pace. He knows what I’ve been doing with the school’s camera. I wonder when he’ll spill it to Zac. Zac will probably have me arrested for stalking or harassment or something. Oh my God, how is this happening? Pressure builds in my chest, rises like molten rock under a volcano. I didn’t do anything wrong! Why do I always get punished? I rub the pain in my chest that’s been growing steadily for the past two weeks from all the people hacking at it with rusty blades. I wish I were home. I wish I could just blink or snap my fingers and be off the streets, where every sound is a threat.
A cold wind blows, and I burrow deeper into my jacket. I don’t know when I made the choice to come to my dad’s house—he’s still at work—but here I am, standing in front of it. The lush green lawn, the sculptured flower beds where the spring flowers are already in bloom, the basketball hoop over the garage—it all makes me want to vomit all over the perfectly paved driveway. I don’t belong here. I know this, but here I am anyway.
“Grace?”
I spin around, and my mouth falls open. There’s my dad in Dockers and T-shirt, rake in his hands.
I don’t know why he’s home in the middle of the day, but I’m glad, so fucking glad. All that pressure, all that emotion boils up and out of me in a single sob. “Daddy.”
A second later I’m folded up in his arms, crying for what? Everything, I guess. I reached the breaking point. I can’t do it anymore. I can’t be tough anymore.
“Honey, what happened?”
I shake my head, unable to form words even if I could find the right ones.
“Come on. Come inside.” With an arm around my shoulder, he guides me up the walk, but I hang back.
“It’s okay, Grace. Come inside. It’s cold.”
In minutes he’s got me tucked under a blanket on the sofa in the family room, a box of tissues on the table in front of me. Kody’s LEGO blocks are spread all over the floor next to Keith’s video game. Pictures of the boys adorn the walls, the shelves. Pictures of Dad with Kristie perch on the end table.
There are none of me. I’m invisible—unless you want sex. Then I’m low-hanging fruit.
“You ready to talk now?” He brushes the hair from my eyes, smiles for a second.
When he smiles, I can see why my mom and Kristie fell for him. Like I fell for Ian. “Guys are jerks.”
The smile drips off his face. “Which guys?”
“All of them.”
He laughs once. “Yeah. But which guys specifically?”
I take a deep breath and tell him everything. “Zac’s friends hassled me today. The team’s doing lacrosse camp this week. I kicked one because he said stuff to me and touched me. Well, he tried to anyway.”
“Good girl. The way I taught you?”
Nodding, I grab another tissue. “Right in the solar plexus. I remembered at the last minute that he was probably wearing a cup so I just, you know, recalculated.” I smother a grin. “He turned as red as his hair.”
His arm, still draped around my shoulders, squeezes in approval.
“Dad, I don’t get this whole slut thing. Don’t sluts like sex and sleeping with everything that breathes? If I were really like that, I should be the most popular girl in school, not the least.”
He shifts his hand to my hair, pets me. “Is that what you want?”
“No, no, I just want them to leave me alone. I don’t get why they need to surround me and call me names and threaten me, you know?”
“How did they threaten you?” The hard edge in his voice is kind of nice. It makes me feel…safe. For the first time in weeks, I feel…almost good.
“Zac’s friends. Jeremy Linz and Kyle Moran. They circled me like vultures, took turns trying to cop a feel. Every time I batted one away, the other moved in. Kyle said girls like me aren’t worth dating. Then Jeremy said he thinks I’d look good with his—” Oh, God, this is my dad, and I can’t say it. I can’t say those words to him. So I show him.
He makes a choking sound and sits up straighter.
“Why do guys thi
nk this is okay?”
He’s quiet for a long moment, staring down at his hands. They’re no longer around my shoulders. Now they’re clenched in tight fists. “Gracie, some boys think sex is a contest. A competition. A sport. Girls are just points to collect. And some girls—” Abruptly he slaps his hands to his legs. “Well. That’s all you were to Zac.”
“Daddy, he—”
He holds up his hand to cut me off.
“What really happened doesn’t matter, Grace. It can’t be proved. The police won’t arrest Zac. The school won’t expel him. You can’t do anything about him. All you can do is control how you respond.” He scans my body and smiles. “I think this is a great start. Dressing like a nice girl—”
My eyes snap to his. Did he really just say that? “Whoa. What the hell does that mean?”
“Well, honey, you wear a lot of leather and spikes and tight clothes, and that just tells boys—”
“Tells them what? ‘Here I am, boys, come and get it!’?”
“Uh, I wouldn’t put it that way.”
“How would you put it?” I toss the blanket off, stand up, and cross my arms. “You think this is my fault. You actually think all of this is my fault, don’t you?”
“Damn it, Grace, you made it easy! You were out at night in the woods, drunk, and dressed like…like—”
“Like a slut.”
His lips clamp shut.
Oh my God. I stare at him. I have his eyes, his DNA, his blood, and he’s ashamed of me. Before I can say anything, before I can breathe, the front door opens, and tiny feet pound into the room. “Daddy!” “Hey, Dad!”
Kody and Keith tackle their dad—
Their dad.
I press my hand to my chest because the pain’s back, and it’s brought company.
