“I had no reason to tell you!” I growl in a near whisper “I didn’t even know if I liked you anymore that first day! And I definitely had no reason to trust you. You were a snotty, little brat, and you know it. Why did you lie to me?” I scowl. “Why did I think, for seven years, that you were strong and fucking nice? Someone who has balls and stands up for herself?”
Her shoulders shake, and little gasps escape as she struggles to breathe. I quickly look around, angry and guilty at the same time. Seeing an inhaler on her desk, I grab it and hand it to her, but she knocks it out my hand.
“I lied about the people in my life and the parts of me I fake for others,” she explains. “Everything else was true. The movies and the music, my ideas and my dreams, everything else was true. The rest wasn’t important.”
“I trusted you, too,” I point out. “I believed in you.”
“I’m everything I said I was.”
“You can say whatever you want,” I retort. “Doesn’t make it true.”
Her head falls, and she inhales shaky breaths through her nose, clearly trying to calm herself and get her body under control. The inhaler lays on the floor. I wish she’d just take the fucking thing. She’s making me nervous.
“I was the real me when I wrote you those letters,” she says quietly. “I was everything I wanted to be.”
And I can understand that. There are definitely some minor things I haven’t told her, because I wanted to be free with her, like I can’t be at home. But she has to know that, even though what I did was crazy and things got way out of hand, it hurt me, too, to be tricked. To find that the person you care about and hold on a pedestal is shallow and mean to the rest of the world.
“And when you would write me,” I ask her, “telling me to stand up to my dad, believe in myself, stay true with no regrets… Why would you tell me those things when you didn’t follow them yourself?”
She looks away, but I don’t back off. I stare at her, holding her hostage. Why preach to me all the things you didn’t have the courage to do yourself?
“Hmm?” I prod, dipping my head down to meet her eyes.
“Because…” she whispers, avoiding my eyes. “Because you want good things for the people you…”—she breathes fast, barely whispering—“love.”
I suck in a sharp breath. God, what is she doing to me?
I’d give anything—anything—to have her in my arms right now.
I reach for her, cupping her face, my mouth less than an inch from hers. “Ryen, please…”
The tears and quiet sobs start again, and I try to comfort her, but she pushes me away. “Oh, God, get out,” she cries, holding up her hands to keep me away. “I can’t look at you right now. I can’t wrap my head around this. I feel sick.”
“Ryen, please,” I beg, feeling the ache in my chest spread. “I love you—”
“Oh, God!” she cuts me off. “Get out!”
I wince, my eyes burning with tears. I feel like my heart is ripping apart.
I watch as she buries her head in her hands and stands there, breaking in two.
There’s no way I can go back and change this. While she may have been vile to others, she was always a good friend to me, and I can’t say the same. She aggravated me and pissed me off, but I broke this. I’m responsible.
I bend down and pick up the inhaler, putting it on the desk in case she needs it.
And then I climb back out through the window and head back to the Cove. I’m not going home.
I’m not going anywhere until she’s mine.
“Where were you this morning?” Ten asks, a hint of worry in his voice. “Lyla said you skipped practice.”
I walk down the hall at school with him beside me, having left myself barely enough time to hit my locker and race upstairs to Art before first period starts. He walks at my side.
“I was tired.” I pull my baseball cap down a little farther to shield my red eyes.
“You slept in?” His tone is confused. “Coach is going to make you run laps for that.”
I’m sure he’s right. But I can’t bring myself to care right now.
While I showered, blew out my hair, and put on make-up this morning, my brain kept drifting back to Misha, and I started tearing up again. I couldn’t keep mascara on, so I gave up and grabbed a hat.
My eyes burn, and my lids just want to close forever. I blink hard at the shot of pain digging into my skull between my eyes and clutch the strap of my bag tighter, hoping against hope that he isn’t here today. If I can’t think about him without crying, I certainly can’t look at him.
Veering toward my locker on the right, I spot a group of students ahead, some pausing to read something on the wall and some taking pictures of it. I look up, immediately recognizing the Eminem lyric.
Needles prick my throat, and I look away. He can go screw himself. He doesn’t like that rapper, and even though I do, quoting his songs isn’t going to get on my good side.
“Well, well, well,” Ten muses. “I thought he got caught or something. He’s been slacking on the messages.”
I walk up to my locker and start dialing in the combination. Ten follows, fiddling on his phone.
“‘Love the Way You Lie’ by Eminem,” he says. “Hey, he’s speaking your language now.”
I force a little smile for Ten’s sake. He’s the only one in my life who’s easy, and I don’t want him to know anything is wrong. Our friendship is uncomplicated.
And in all honesty, he’s been good to me. I may not be sure where his loyalties truly lie, but he’s here now. I’m grateful for that.
I empty my bag, stuffing in the books I took home over the weekend and pulling out what I need for the morning. I haven’t seen or talked to Misha since our fight, and I’m still in shock. I’m angry, but I’m sad, too. I would’ve thought that the reality of Masen being Misha would’ve set in by now and crystallized into hatred.
But it hasn’t. I’m hurt.
“Are you okay?” Ten asks, hovering close, his eyes on my face. “You look like you were up all night, not sleeping in.”
“I’m fine.”
I finish getting my things and close my locker, Ten and I walking farther down the hall. But then I glance up and notice more writing on the wall.
Everything was real.
I suck in a small breath, feeling my chest shake with a sob. It’s in large black paint, surrounded by messy paint streaks of blue—my favorite color—and purple. I stop and stare at it, my shoulders feeling heavy.
He broke into the school this weekend and did this.
“What’s wrong with you?” Ten whispers, this time sounding more concerned. “Tell me the truth.”
I wipe away a tear before it has a chance to fall. “Nothing,” I say, forcing my voice to stay even. “My sister’s just harassing me about mixing whites and colors in the wash again, so you know…”
He scoffs, but I can tell he doesn’t buy that excuse.
I make a quick right into the stairwell. “I’ll see you at lunch, okay?”
“Ryen?”
But I keep going, jogging up the stairs and pausing briefly when I see yet another message written on the wall, reading it as I pass by.
I didn’t mean to lie, but I meant every kiss.
Damn him. I break into a run.
I shouldn’t have come to school today. I hoped he’d gone back to Thunder Bay, but he must’ve painted those messages last night. There are too many people in the school over the weekend and too much of a chance the staff or janitors would’ve gotten all of it taken down by this morning if he’d done it earlier than that.
No. He was still in Falcon’s Well last night.
I want him gone. I can’t help my heart and what it wants despite the pain, but I can help what I do with those feelings. Everything I told him—about Misha and how he didn’t like my music and the stuff at the drive-in and all the things he wanted to know that were true—he already knew all of that shit from my letters. What a kick, to sit there and humor me to get my clothes off.
I approach the door and arch up on my tiptoes, peering in the window. He’s sitting at his seat, one earbud in his ear while he twirls a pen in his fingers and stares at a notebook.
I slump back down.
Great. You would think he could back off, at least for a while. It’s not like he needs to be at school anymore anyway. Misha had written me last fall and told me that he had enough credits to graduate early, so if he didn’t come here for me, then why the hell is he playing student when he doesn’t need to?