They looked really happy together.
“Lane!” Kale smiled when he spotted me in the parlour.
I smiled too and got up to hug him, and then I hugged Drew in greeting because it was the polite thing to do.
“How are you?” she asked.
I nodded. “Fine, and you?”
She beamed. “I’m better than ever.”
She shared a secret look with Kale and grinned at him, while he seemed uncomfortable as he kept flicking his eyes in my direction. He cleared his throat and called out to Lochlan when he spotted him. He looked relieved that he didn’t have to stand with Drew and me any longer.
I excused myself and moved to the back of the room, my mood turning sour. I wished I had Lavender to hang out with, but she had left the party half an hour ago so she could get home to Daven, who lived with her in our old apartment. After the attack, I’d moved home and considered dropping out of university.
I didn’t want everyone on campus staring at me, whispering behind my back or, worst of all, pitying me. My father and uncle met with the chancellor of my university, and I was granted permission to attend class online, which meant I could finish my remaining two years and get my degree. I must have hugged my father and uncle every time I saw them for a week straight after I got the good news.
“Lane?”
I turned when my uncle’s voice called me.
I walked over to him and smiled. “Yes, birthday boy?”
He snorted. “You don’t look very happy – is everything okay?”
I didn’t want to put a downer on his night, so I smiled and said, “It is, but I’m just really tired. I don’t think I’m able to keep up with you old-timers.”
My uncle cracked up before getting pulled into another conversation, which I was thankful for.
I turned and my eyes, as usual, found Kale. He had his arms around Drew, and his head was tipped back as he laughed. I didn’t want to look at them so I headed up to my room, where I changed into pyjamas. I went into the bathroom to clean my face, and tied my hair up in a bun.
When I exited the bathroom, I came face-to-face with Drew Summers.
“I want to talk to you,” she said firmly.
Uh.
“Can it wait?” I asked. “I was just about to go to sleep.”
“It can’t wait,” she said. “I want to talk to you now.”
I gestured her into my bedroom. I closed the door behind me and folded my arms across my chest, standing across from her.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“You hate me,” she said confidently.
I blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
She grunted. “You. Hate. Me. I know you do.”
I scratched the healed cut above my eyebrow. “I don’t understand what is happening here.”
“I saw you downstairs, watching Kale with me, and you looked angry.”
I was more sad than angry, but I tried to downplay it and said, “I’m just tired—”
“Don’t lie,” she said, cutting me off. “You hate me. Admit it.”
She wants to have this talk? my mind hissed. Fine.
“I don’t hate you,” I grumbled, “but I don’t like you either.”
That was a white lie. I did kind of hate her.
“Why?” she pressed. “I’ve never done anything to you.”
She was right; she hadn’t.
“I know you haven’t, Drew,” I sighed.
“Then why don’t you like me?” she asked. “Is it because I rang Kale after you were attacked?”
“No, I know you were trying to help that day, Drew,” I sighed. “But part of me wishes you hadn’t told him.”
“Why not?” Drew asked, exasperated.
“I didn’t want Kale, or anyone else, to look at or treat me differently, but now they do. Everyone treats me like a china doll.”
It pissed me off.
Drew frowned and folded her arms across her chest. “Would you rather Jensen had gotten away with it? He didn’t get to rape you, but what about the next girl who might not have been so lucky?”
The lump that formed in my throat kept me from replying.
“Once you have time to think on it, you’ll see having Jensen sent to prison was the right thing.”
“I know it was the right thing to do, and I’m over it,” I said. “You were right to do what you did.”
She frowned. “Then why do you hate me? Is it because of Kale?”
She must have read something in my expression because her face turned murderous.
“I knew it!” she snapped. “I knew you liked him. I have always had a suspicion, but Kale assured me you were just best friends.”
“We are just best friends,” I confirmed.
Drew’s gaze didn’t stray from mine. “But you want to be more?”
I rubbed my suddenly throbbing temples. “What does it matter? He’s dating you, not me. You.”
Her jaw set. “I don’t want you around him anymore. I refuse to let you ruin us.”
I blinked. “You’ve got to be fucking joking me. I’m not going to do anything to ruin your relationship. If that were the case, I’d have done it years ago. I’m not that fucking bitter.”
“Are you sure about that?” she questioned, her eyebrows raised.
I scowled. “Yeah, I’m sure.”
“Well, I’m not sure,” she stated. “I don’t trust you around him.”
Oh, for God’s sake.
“You’re the human version of Monday morning in my everyday life – I hope you know that.”
Drew blinked at me. “Flat out saying you hate me would have been less bloody hurtful.”
I hated that she was so nice. This was the first time she had ever been angry with me, and even then she wasn’t being half as mad as I would be if our roles were reversed.
“Sorry,” I said with a roll of my eyes.
I knew I was being horrible, but I just couldn’t help it. My feelings for Drew were petty, childish and completely out of order because she was quite possibly the nicest human being on the planet, but it was what it was.
She’d saved my life; any good person would be extremely nice to her, but I was a miserable twit who couldn’t get past her being Kale’s girlfriend.
I was acting bitter and plain pathetic, and knowing that only made me feel even worse.
“Stay away from Kale, do you hear me, Lane?” Drew said, the venom in her voice not going amiss.
I reared back. “Or what?”
“You don’t want to know what I’ll do,” she said through gritted teeth.
Well, shit, Drew actually looked like she was going to kick my arse if I gave her reason to.
“Whatever,” I said, not really confident that she wouldn’t come at me if I said something to challenge her.
She glared at me hard before she turned and stormed out of my room, pulling my door closed behind her. I shook my head clear and turned off my light, then climbed into bed. I lay staring up at the stickers on my ceiling for an unknown amount of time. Eventually, I heard more voices join the party downstairs, and they were loud as hell.
“Bloody hell,” I groaned to myself, and turned on my side, putting my pillow over my head.
My night certainly didn’t turn out how I wanted it to, I silently grumbled.
I must have fallen asleep, because I awoke to a clicking noise that startled me awake. I sat upright on my bed and rubbed the sleep from my eyes. I squinted into the darkness but almost jumped out of my skin at a loud clank that sounded against my window.
I tiptoed over to my bedroom window and looked out to find someone in our front garden, directly under my window. For a few seconds, I got really scared, but then I squinted and realised who the person was.
I opened my window and hissed, “Kale, what are you doing?”
He put his hands up to his mouth and said, “I want to talk to youuuu.”
He was drunk.
“Damn it, Kale,” I said in a low growl.
“It’s the middle of the night.”
“It’ll take two seconds,” he said, and held up five fingers.
My God.
I shook my head. “Wait there. I’ll be right down.”
I closed my window and carefully crept out of my bedroom and down the stairs, where I turned off the house alarm before unlocking the front door. I shivered and carefully walked out to the front garden in my bare feet.
“I’m going to kill you for this,” I warned Kale in a harsh whisper as I came to a stop in front of him.
I rubbed my hands up and down my bare arms to generate some heat.
“Okay,” Kale chuckled. “You’re mad, but this is very important.”
I’m sure it is.
I sighed. “So talk.”
He opened his mouth to do just that, but his gaze flicked to my eyebrow, then to my left cheek at the purple scars that marred my face. I knew what he was thinking, and it annoyed the hell out of me.
“I’m. Fine,” I said through gritted teeth. “Please stop treating me like a victim. He didn’t rape me. He just smacked me around.”
“Lane,” he murmured.
“He didn’t rape me, Kale,” I said, trying my best to be strong. “He tried to, but I fought. I promise I did.”
His arms came around me.
“I know you did, Laney Baby,” Kale whispered in my ear. “You did good, babe. So bloody good.”
I wrapped my arms around his waist. “I’m sorry. I should have brought you or one of my brothers with me—”
“Don’t do that.” Kale cut me off and pulled back out of the hug, keeping me at arm’s reach as he looked at me through his bloodshot eyes. “Don’t place the blame on yourself. Jensen is a piece of shit who wanted to hurt you and did, and that’s not on you. It’s on him.”
He sounded furious.
I nodded. “I know, but I still feel like I should have known better.”
“Repeat in that beautiful head of yours that you are not, and will never be, responsible for someone else’s actions. People make their own decisions, no matter what the situation. If they do something, it’s because they choose to do it. This. Is. Not. Your. Fault.”
I pressed my face into the crook of his neck.
“I’ve got you, Lane,” he breathed into my hair. “I’ve got you.”
I smelled whisky on him, and it was strong. The scent caused my senses to come alive and my body to awaken for the first time in weeks.
“You shouldn’t be here,” I mumbled, trying to force away the urge to let the scent consume me. “Drew will kill me.”
He grunted. “She told me what she said to you, and you better ignore her. She won’t touch you. She was just in a bad mood.”
Uh-huh.
“Have you had much to drink?” I asked, pulling back from him.
He nodded, his eyes bloodshot. “To celebrate your uncle’s birthday I had some Jack – or a lot of Jack.”
I needed him to leave. “Everyone is asleep, so maybe you should go on home—”
“I love you,” he interrupted.
I blinked. “Excuse me?”
“I said,” he chuckled, “I love you. I love you so much.”
“Stop it.” I frowned at him. “You are drunk. You say and do stuff you don’t mean when you’re drunk.”
“No, I don’t,” he slurred.
“Yeah,” I argued. “You do.”
And I have the broken heart to prove it.
“I’ve been thinking a lot tonight,” he said, smiling.
“You thinking?” I questioned. “That’s always a dangerous thing.”
Kale snorted. “Ha ha ha.”
I shook my head at him, smiling.
“Kale, go home. You need to go to sleep.”
“No,” he stated. “What I need to do is talk to you.”
I couldn’t deal with him when he was like this. “Okay, talk really quick because I don’t want my parents to come down here and see you drunk in the front garden.”
Kale lifted his finger to his mouth and whispered, “I’ll be quiet.”
Why does he have to be so bloody adorable?
I bit down on my lower lip. “Okay, talk, but still be quiet.”
“Okay,” he exhaled, then shook his head like he was trying to stay awake, “what I wanted to talk to you was about us having sex—”
“Whoa, Kale.” I cut him off, feeling my face flush with heat. “It’s best if we don’t speak about that, okay?”
It was less gut-wrenching not to voice it aloud. Just thinking about it hurt enough.
“Why not?” he asked, tilting his head and almost falling in the same direction, until I grabbed hold of him.
He was wasted.
I grunted in annoyance. “Just because.”
“Okay.” He frowned, blinking very slowly. “I won’t talk about it, but I want to talk about what it meant—”
“Kale,” I groaned. “Please, I can’t do this with you. I really can’t.”
“Will you let me finish?” He scowled, swaying on his feet.
I rolled my eyes and waved him on.
“I’m trying to tell you that” – hiccup – “I’ve thought hard” – hiccup – “and long, and I want you to” – hiccup – “be with me, please and thank you.” He thought about what he’d just said and then laughed at himself, hard.
I stared at him in disbelief. “What, Kale?”
“I love you a lot,” he slurred. “Be with me.”
“Do you hear yourself?” I snapped, anger surging through my veins.
He shoved his finger in my face and said, “No, but I know what you’re saying, or what I’m saying.”
He was hurting my head.
“Love you.” He beamed. “Be mine.”
“No,” I snapped, and pushed his hand away. “No, you don’t love me – you love Drew.”
Pain and awareness flashed across his face.
“I love both of you.”
I laughed humourlessly. “Aren’t you lucky having two girls on the go?”
Kale scowled at me, stumbling to the left. “Stop that. Don’t be hurtful.”
“You’re being hurtful!” I retorted. “This is evil what you’re doing, I’m not doing this with you.”
“I love you,” he repeated as if I’d never spoken. “Be with me.”
He’ll wake up sober tomorrow and regret saying any of this, just like he did after we had sex.
I swallowed. “No, Kale.”
He stared at me, his eyes inflamed. “No?”
I nodded. “No.”
He swallowed, and I saw the muscle in his jaw roll back and forth.
“Okay,” he said, his voice low. “Okay.”
I was doing this to protect my own heart, and to protect him from having to talk his way out of this tomorrow morning, but it didn’t make saying what I did any easier.
“We’re best friends,” I whispered. “I’m like your sister.”
That word was like vinegar in my mouth.
Kale almost glared at me as he nodded. “Okay.” He stretched the word out.
I stepped towards him, but he stumbled away from me.
“I’m going to my parents’ house,” he said. “See you later, Lane.”
He turned and walked away from me then, and with every step he took, my legs threatened to run after him, but I forced myself to turn around and go back into my parents’ house. I halted at the top of the stairs and stared at my bedroom door.
I didn’t want to sleep on my own – not tonight. Not after what had just happened. Without much thought, I walked towards my parents’ room and opened the door.
“Mum?” I whispered.
She shot upright in her bed. “I’m awake – are you okay?”
I hesitated in speaking for a moment and then shook my head.
“Can I sleep with you?” I whispered.
“I’ll go into your room,” my father’s voice said as he got out of bed. “Get in beside your mother, darling.”
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He stood out of my way as I walked around to his side of the bed and crawled into it and wrapped my arms around my mother. I hated what I was doing to them. I had slept with my mother a lot after I came home from the hospital, because I was having nightmares, and I knew they both had trouble sleeping because they were so worried about me.
“I feel broken,” I muttered against my mother’s chest.
“It will be okay, baby,” she whispered, and kissed my head. “I promise.”
My father left the room, and I heard a loud bang seconds later as if he’d hit something.
“Do you want to talk to me, or to someone, about what happened?” she asked.
I blinked in the darkness.
She thought I was in her arms because of what Jensen had tried to do to me, but I wasn’t. I was still in a state of shock over that, but I felt like the only damage from that night was the small physical marks he left, and once they were gone, he had no hold over me. He’d scared me straight; I would never again behave the way I did to get myself into a situation like that.
I swore it to myself.
What my mother didn’t know was that it was the person she considered a son who had me so torn up and vulnerable. She didn’t know that he was the reason I used to drink and got lost in different lads. She didn’t know I gave him my virginity and that he didn’t remember a single thing about it. She didn’t know I had been in love with him since I was ten years old, and she definitely didn’t know I’d give up everything to be his.
My mother didn’t know she had raised a complete idiot, and she wouldn’t if I had anything do with it. I was going to change. Everything was going to change.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Day four in York
Lane, are you ready?”
I jumped with fright when Layton’s voice called my name.
“Sorry,” he said, laughing from behind me. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”
I got up from the kitchen table and turned to face him.
“You didn’t scare me.”
My brother grinned. “Aye, that’s why you almost jumped out of your skin then?”
I scrunched up my nose, making him laugh.
“Are we good to go?” I asked.
He nodded. “Nanny is just using the loo, and then we’re heading out.”
I nodded. “Come in and close the door then; I want to speak to you.”