My anger knocks him back a step. “Please. Just let me—”
“GET OUT!” I launch off my bed and fly straight at him. “GET OUT, GET OUT, GET OUT!” I’m all up in his face, forcing him toward the far side of my room and reaching behind him to unlock my door. It hits him in the side as I swing it open, and I shove at him until he’s in the hall, screaming at him to get out, over and over and over again, until the door is slamming between us. I throw the lock and glare where I’m sure Kale’s face is probably still staring at the other side, knowing the rest of the house is probably already on their way upstairs to demand that I open up and explain. But then I’m at my window, throwing it open and climbing over the sill.
I don’t think. I just jump. And on the ground, my socked feet race desperately across the lawn—into the dark, past houses, past trees, past borders I’ve never crossed.
I run until I can’t run anymore. Until I can’t breathe or think or feel. I run until I’m lost.
And then, I fall apart.
Chapter Twenty-One
I WAKE WITH a gnat trying to crawl up my nose, a rock burrowing into my spleen, and Leti . . . flicking an ant off of the log he’s sitting on, looking entirely out of place in the middle of wherever-the-hell I fell asleep last night.
“This is really not in my job description as third-best friend,” he informs me, his golden eyes utterly serious when they swing to mine. “In case you couldn’t tell”—he gestures at his vintage Thundercats T-shirt, his faded jeans, his hot pink Chuck Taylors—“I’m not exactly cut out for this ‘being one with nature’ stuff.”
I groan and rub my crooked back as I sit up. My face is stiff with sun-dried tears, and my mess of black-and-purple hair is a literal nest, complete with dried leaves and what I don’t doubt is an army’s worth of creepy crawlies. I turn my head upside down and do my best to finger-comb the heebie-jeebies from my scalp. “What are you doing here?” I ask with my nose still pointed at the ground. My voice is hoarse from crying all night, and I hear Leti sigh.
“Coming to your rescue?” he suggests. “I’m pulling a Robin Hood or something.”
My eyebrow is raised even before I turn my head upright. “Robin Hood?”
“Well, I’d love to be your Prince Charming”—an amused smirk sneaks onto his face—“but I believe that ship sailed over the rainbow, Sleeping Hot Mess.”
“Sleeping Hot Mess?”
Leti chuckles as I wipe a smudge of dirt from my cheek. “You’re certainly no Sleeping Beauty.”
I glare at him, and he shrugs.
“Just telling it like it is, Kitterbug. And apparently, I’m the only one who does.”
“What are you talking about?” I grumble. I’m sore, I’m exhausted, and my head is throbbing with each shift in the breeze. I have no idea why Leti is here—or how Leti is here—but trying to figure that out would require thinking, and thinking is the last thing I want to do right now. Last night feels like it was five minutes ago, and even though I try to forget the details, they ambush me one by one.
The way I screamed at Shawn at the table. The way I pushed him out the door. The way everyone just stared at me.
The way my mom said, I saw how fast he ran.
The way Kale said, I told him to stay away from you.
Leti stretches his long legs out, crossing them at the ankles. “I’m talking about all the lies you and everyone else in the world has been telling. I’ve spent all night hearing about the absolute chaos that went down here last night.”
“From who?”
He flutters a hand in the air. “From everyone. Rowan, Dee, Adam, Joel. Mostly from your brother.”
“Did he tell you about the other secrets that came out last night?” I ask, and Leti’s grin answers me even before the contentment in his voice does.
“He did.”
“So you guys are good?”
He nods with that bright smile on his face, and I almost feel happy for them. But my voice sounds of resentment when I mutter, “Glad Kale got his happy ending.”
Especially after he ruined mine.
“Which brings me to why I’m here,” Leti says, his smile slipping away, and I finally bother asking—
“Why are you here? How’d you even find me?”
“Kale found you.” He dismisses me with another swat at a gnat in the air. “But he thought it would be better if he wasn’t here when you woke up.”
I snort, because all that proves is that my twin has half a brain in his head. “So you’re here to get me to go back home? Hate to break it to you, Leti, but I would’ve had to go back anyway. I don’t have my Jeep.”
“If surgeons dissected your head,” he counters as he picks at the log he’s sitting on with a well-manicured fingernail, “do you think they’d discover your skull is missing-link thick? Or full-on cavewoman thick?”
When I glare at him, he smiles.