by Lyla Payne
“Drop it. You and I both know I asked for it.”
The tired confession made me sick to my stomach, so I changed the subject. “You were only drunk and stoned on weed? You’re not into heavier drugs?”
Not that an alcohol problem was anything to sneeze at, but hearing she was clean of the kinds of brutal, life-stealing shit that had destroyed my brother—namely crack and heroin—flooded me with relief so potent my limbs felt like jelly.
“I’ve tried about everything, but I drink to feel something. The heavier shit, the things it makes you feel are manufactured and fucking nuts. I’m not going to lie, it felt good, but I don’t want to feel good. I want to feel real.”
It was the most she’d said about her reasons for acting the way she did, and it felt as though she’d passed me something precious, something that I could smash without even realizing it.
“Why do you think being drunk makes you feel things?”
“Dr. Porter says it’s because alcohol works the same on defense mechanisms as it does on inhibitions. Drink enough and they just melt away. Sex helps, too. With the feeling.”
“But why do you want to feel bad things?” I ran a gentle finger over the taped-together cut alongside her eye, pleased when she didn’t pull away.
“That’s what’s real. Bad is all I’ve got.” She hesitated, her eyes wandering back to mine. “Except when I’m with you.”
A knock on the door interrupted us before I could follow her down that rabbit hole. I wanted to hear more about how she felt with me, but hearing even that tiny scrap gave me the confidence Emilie had clung to with Quinn. Kennedy liked me as much as I liked her. She needed time. That was all.
After hearing the story of how she lost her family from Ruby, along with what I’d researched online about post-traumatic stress disorder, I suspected Kennedy had never come out of the numb, hopeless feeling that was normal after her experience. She was a pretty classic case, although nothing about her seemed average to me. It made me feel better to put a name to her issue, but it didn’t change anything. Everything online said the person had to recognize they were avoiding the process of getting better before they would begin to heal.
I opened the door to find a nervous-looking Blair. She peered around me at Kennedy, her eyes widening in shock.
“Fuckbuckets, Toby.”
“I didn’t do it, Blair. Someone else did it and then dumped her in my room. Who knows what would have happened if I hadn’t gotten home when I did.” I narrowed my eyes, unsure that Blair herself might not have had the bright idea of letting me clean up her roommate’s mess.
“Is she going to be okay?”
“Yeah. They’re releasing her early on Saturday.”
“I can’t deal with this shit anymore. Seriously. I can’t wake up every day wondering if she’s going to be dead.”
“I can hear you,” Kennedy rasped from the bed.
I moved outside and closed the door behind me. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying I’m going to file a complaint with the university and get her moved or whatever. This is not my responsibility. She belongs in a goddamn psych ward with padded walls and the prescription kind of drugs.”
“You’re not being fair. If you complain to Whitman they could expel her. She’s seeing a therapist and she’s trying.”
“She’s not trying at all, Toby. Tell me you’re not that blind.”
“She wants to. I’m going to convince her to try.”
“Well, you’d better convince her to stay with you, too, because I’m done. We’ve been roommates for nine months, and do you know how many trips I’ve made to the hospital? Seven. Seven.”
“I’ll talk to her, okay? She can come home with me if she wants to, and if she doesn’t, I’ll figure something out. Do not report her. Deal?”
“Fine. Here.” She shoved a duffel bag into my chest. “Clothes and toothpaste and shit.”
Blair turned and left. I slumped against the door, feeling tired and like I’d grabbed more than a bag full of clothes—I’d taken a huge load of responsibility and it weighed a ton. The knee-jerk instinct to give it back rose up inside me. I was a kid. Hardly older than when my parents had thrust the responsibility of getting Trent back at me, and my heart sped up. It was hard to breathe. I bent over, dropping the duffel and putting my hands on my knees, panting through the panic.
This was a chance to do the right thing, I reminded myself. To help someone who needed me. To not fail.
The semester would be over in about five weeks. I had few plans except studying for finals and working on some side writing projects to pitch to the film department for their senior film next year, so spending time monitoring Kennedy’s progress shouldn’t add a huge burden.
I stood up, shouldering the bag. Breathing felt normal again. Easy.
Spending time with her had intrigued me for weeks. Every time we touched it felt electric, like it shocked me alive, and I wanted us both to feel safe enough to explore whether or not it would last. I wanted to finally have someone to share my feelings and secrets with, and for some reason I truly couldn’t explain, she made me feel like I wanted to trust her.
I had not felt that way since sixth grade. At the end of that school year, on my twelfth birthday, my brother came home high off his ass. I let him crash on the floor in my room after cleaning up a bathroom full of vomit, and hadn’t said a word to my parents. The next morning, when they found packets of coke on the rug, Trent said they were mine.
I hadn’t defended myself, but from that moment on, my big brother disappeared. We’d shared everything—he’d told me about boners and masturbation and boobs and sex, had let me drive the golf cart on vacation when our parents weren’t looking, and let me eat ice cream until I barfed whenever he was in charge—but he’d been replaced by this shell, this guy who didn’t care about anything but his next fix.
I knew I should be prepared for the same thing with Kennedy. But now, I had hope.
Chapter 13
“Toby, wake up, man. I need to talk to you.”
The male voice startled me out of a dreamless sleep and I landed on the floor, my limbs and back screaming after sleeping in a chair for two nights. I could have gone home—Kennedy asked me to more than once—but I didn’t want to leave her. Partly because the thought of leaving her alone infected me with jittery nerves, and partly because of my well-founded fears that she would yank out her I.V. and escape before we could figure out where we went from here.
I blinked several times to wet the contact lenses stuck to my eyeballs, and eventually made out Sebastian’s smugly handsome mug. After I managed to get back on my feet and check to make sure Kennedy still slept, I jerked my head toward the hallway.
Sebastian followed, shutting the door behind him. I had a vague idea what day it was, but as far as the time, it was anyone’s guess. Still, my batshit crazy frat brother looked as put together as ever in dress pants, a vest and button up, and a coat. He had a coffee in one hand, which he handed over to me, and a newspaper tucked under an arm.
It was hard to hate someone who brought coffee, but the memory of him smiling with restrained glee as a burly senior kicked my ass last year helped.
“What are you doing here?” The coffee, some kind of expensive South American roast, tasted like heaven.
“I thought you’d want to see this.” He slapped the newspaper into my chest, then went on calmly. “You know I’m in charge of public relations issues at the frat, so we can work this together if you want…”
His words faded into the background as the headline and accompanying photographs assaulted my eyes and trickled into my brain.
Battered Whitman Co-ed Recovering
Senator Wright’s youngest son denies involvement
The pictures of Kennedy’s sleeping, battered face and the article, complete with quotes from a certain not-so-anonymous nurse, made it clear that the reporter assumed me guilty. Hell, if I was looking at her face and the facts, I’d ass
ume I was guilty.
“My father is going to hit the fucking roof,” I mumbled, still trying to process.
“Oh, he’s broken through the roof and is headed for the clouds. Your phone is dead. He’s been calling the house. His communications director is on her way here now.”
I groaned. Miriam was a huge pain, and she wasn’t going to be any happier than my dad. At least he wasn’t coming to yell at me himself. “Okay. I’m sure she can handle it.”
“If you can get Crazy Eights in there to make a statement that it wasn’t you, that would be best—the reporter who wrote this story will write a follow-up if we ask him to.”
“Don’t call her crazy, Seb. And I’ll see what I can do, but you and I both know we can’t force her to do anything.”
“On the contrary. I’m guessing by the looks of her that you’ve discovered that she rather enjoys at least the illusion of being forced.”
I had him slammed up against the wall, coffee discarded and leaking all over both of our clothes, before I realized what I was doing. He would make me pay, but we were here now, so might as well let it fly.
“Let’s get one thing straight. I’m not like you. I don’t hurt girls, even if they ask me to, and I especially didn’t hurt that one. She’s…I don’t know what exactly she is to me, but from now on, you check with me before you so much as look at her. Got it?”
His brown eyes held a lazy expression, but it had an edge to it. Like a snake getting ready to strike, it didn’t mean he wasn’t paying attention, or plotting my demise. I let him go after he nodded.
Seb spent several deliberate moments straightening his clothes. The tension in the air didn’t dissipate one bit. “I’m going to let that slide, because your life is a fucking shitshow. But if you ever put your hands on me again, I’ll chop them off and feed them to you like cheap-ass flank steak.”
“Understood.”
He left without another word, leaving me alone in the hallway. Shit. I did not need my parents on my ass right now. Whether or not this story was true, it didn’t look good.
Kennedy was awake and sitting up when I went back in the room. She eyed the coffee stain on my pants with a raised eyebrow, but didn’t ask.
“Morning. How are you feeling?”
“Enough with the chipper act, Wright. I saw Sebastian Blair out there. What’s the deal?”
I sank into the chair by her bed and reached for her hand. It wasn’t to comfort her, either, but more of an instinct to comfort myself. She wrapped her fingers around mine instead of the other way around, concern popping out in the barest of wrinkles between her eyebrows.
“There’s a story in the paper. Makes it look like I put you in the hospital.”
“Oh, crap. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, this is exactly why I never wanted to put you in this position, I—” Kennedy trailed off as I stood and moved to the edge of the bed, keeping her hand but raising it to my lips.
“Stop. I’m not mad. My dad’s sending his press secretary to deal with it, and everything’s going to be fine.” This next part needed to be handled in the right way, but I didn’t have much idea what that meant. “Blair was here, too. She left you a bag of clothes.”
“And?” Her eyes were clear and sharp for the first time since we’d met, and it struck me how alert and perceptive she was sober.
“And she doesn’t want to live with you anymore. I talked her out of going to the university, but you’re going to have to find somewhere else to finish the semester.”
I was trying to make this look like Kennedy’s idea, but the awareness in her gaze said I wasn’t fooling anyone.
“I suppose you have an idea where I could while away the next six weeks?”
One half of her mouth turned up in a smile. I’d never wanted to kiss anything more, so I did. I touched her cheek, ran a finger down her uninjured jaw, and tilted her mouth up to meet mine. She didn’t protest—in fact, the whimper that greeted me the moment before our lips met made me wonder how long she’d been thinking the same thing. Her lips were dry from the cold air, but then again, mine probably were, too. They didn’t taste like strawberries but they welcomed me, parting to accept my tongue.
My body responded—and not just the lower half, though the wet crotch of my pants was dealing with quite a bit of stretching. Every bit of me felt alive, aware of her, in tune with her. It was as though we anticipated each other’s moves, but also managed to gasp with surprise at every turn. We breathed into each other for a while, our hands tugging each other closer while our mouths explored as much as they could. When her tongue darted out, tasting my bottom lip and ending with a gentle nip, I wondered what the chances were of getting caught if I took her right here.
Instead of finding out, I eased back—staying close enough to brush my lips against hers again if I felt like it, but far enough to get a few words out.
“I like hanging out with you,” I managed, feeling like a moron telling a girl I liked her. “I want to be there for you, and not because I think you need help, because this is a new thing for me—wanting to spend time with a girl—and I don’t want to miss out.”
Surprise lifted her eyebrows and dropped her full lower lip, the expression of shock adorable and honest. “You really want me to stay with you until the end of the semester?”
“Yes. But only if you’ll stay sober and go to class. Get treatment, maybe. Talk to me.”
“Well, you don’t ask for much, do you?”
I started to sit back, sure we were about to hit a crossroads neither of us was prepared to enter, but she tightened her arms around my neck until our foreheads touched. Her blue-green eyes bored into mine, flashing and serious, but tinged with pleading. “No rehab, Wright. I’ll stay with you—and not just because I don’t have anywhere to go, but because I think I might actually trust you. You brought me here and you stayed. I’ll go to class, if you want, and try with the drinking thing. But no treatment. I’ve had enough therapists to last me a lifetime. I only deal with Dr. Porter because I suspect they’ll pull my scholarship if I blow him off.”
“Who will?”
“The trust.”
Her entreaty warmed me from the middle. We stared at each other for a few minutes, the novelty of this entire thing—sitting with a girl I had no desire to run away from, or even stop touching—filling me with a strange wonder.
“I like you, Wright. You sort of get me. Even if you are too nice for your own good.”
The return of my bumbling affections made me grin with relief, and the idea of earning her trust, of helping her figure out the root of these troubles, made my blood sing in my veins. I knew, though—knew—that agreeing to let her try to kick this on her own was a bad idea. It hadn’t worked for Trent. In fact, I knew the statistics and it hardly worked for anyone.
Having her proved too great a temptation, though, and I leaned down to press a gentle kiss to her lips. Her mouth relaxed in a sigh at my silent acquiescence. Despite the thrill coursing through me at breakneck speed right then, a dark, ominous weight snuck in around the corners. I felt as though I had won a small victory today, but the darkness on the horizon promised a very, very long war.
Chapter 14
Miriam Reynolds, the communications director my dad kept on staff, arrived about an hour before Kennedy’s discharge papers. I’d kind of hoped to deal with her alone, but there could be an issue getting out of the hospital and back to campus if reporters were lurking outside, so overall, her appearance relieved me.
She barged into Kennedy’s room in a smart gray suit, unruly brown curls wrestled into a bun. The skirt landed at her knee, a red blouse with a bow on the front the only nod to her femininity. Miriam’s gray eyes, magnified by trendy glasses, snapped to Kennedy’s face for the briefest of seconds before pinning me until I wanted to squirm. She was barely older than me—late twenties or early thirties, I’d never been able to get it out of her—and pretty enough that I’d spent a good part of high school fantasizing about what might be und
er her suits while I jerked off.
I hoped she didn’t know that, but suspected she did. Miriam missed nothing, which is why she’d been able to keep my father’s image squeaky clean for the past six years—including sweeping my brother’s drug problem under the rug.
“Stop looking at me like you’re afraid I’m going to spank you, Toby. It’s not that bad. Everyone knows the media has nothing solid. They’re waiting for us to fuck up, but since you did not physically harm Miss…” she paused, waiting for me to supply a name, but Kennedy beat me to the punch.
“Gilbert. And I’m not an idiot, so please don’t talk about me like I’m not here.”
“Christ, Toby. You finally get involved with a girl and you pick one with opinions. I’d like to say I’m surprised.” Miriam gave me a smile that said the insult might be a compliment in disguise, and held a hand up to quiet Kennedy. “Miss Gilbert. It’s not my job to be your friend or say all the things you’ve ever wanted to hear. It’s my job to make sure no one thinks Toby got you drunk, fucked you too rough, and landed you in the hospital. We good?”
I coughed, trying to cover a shocked laugh, and Kennedy nodded, her eyes huge and round.
“Excellent. Now, let’s get our facts straight.”
“Don’t you want to know what happened?” Kennedy asked, finding her voice again, even though it sounded more incredulous than pissy.
“No. I’m going to tell you what happened, then you’re going to sign a statement and a non-disclosure agreement, and we’re going to sweep the two of you past the press out front and back to school. Then I can get back to D.C. and stop cleaning up college messes.”
“Geez, Miriam. Ease up. This wasn’t my fault.”
Her expression softened. “I know that Toby. I’ve known you for years, and you’re a good kid. It doesn’t change how we handle things. Or the fact that you need to be extra careful for the rest of the semester. Election year, you know.”
“You don’t have to remind me.”
She reached out and squeezed my hand for the briefest of moments, then her business attitude settled back over her like a cloak. “I really think it’s best if we say the two of you are friends—I don’t care if you are or aren’t, if you’re just shacking up or you hate each other. It doesn’t matter. If you’re dating and this happened to her, you either look guilty or like a pussy for not going after the guy. Neither is good. So, your friend Miss Gilbert came to you after an unfortunate incident at the hands of an unnamed perp, you brought her into the E.R. and stayed by her side, because that’s what good friends do.”
