I breathe in and out, gluing pearl after pearl, and still smell her with every breath. Why do I still smell her?
Why do I still feel her weight on me like I did the other night when we woke up to her parents fighting? She fit so perfectly in my arms, and I didn’t want to move from that spot, even if a dozen tornadoes were headed our way or a bomb dropped. I would’ve died there.
Macon was right. I would never have been the one to stop it.
I hate this feeling. I hate that maybe I finally understand a little of what my mother felt. I don’t want to understand. That kind of despair is pathetic.
I close my eyes, pushing away the tears again, but then I hear the back door slam shut, and I blink.
I lift my head from the worktable in time to see Callum Ames stroll into the room. My muscles tense, Milo and two others from our class—Bailey and Keagan—following Callum in.
Everything inside me tightens, alert.
“What are you doing in here?” I demand. “Get out.”
Callum approaches, and I twist in my stool, about to jump off, but he leans in as the others take up position around the table.
I glare at him. “Don’t touch me.”
“I will never touch you unless you want me to,” he says in a low voice. “And you will want me to.”
I look around at the boys, the sun low in the sky outside the windows, and I take my phone out of my jeans pocket, tapping away.
“I’m calling my brothers,” I tell him.
“Do,” he replies. “You’re not in danger.”
I meet his eyes.
“I guess I’ve never understood rapists and roofies.” He laughs to his friends. “What fun is it to win something that you have to steal?” He lowers his voice, husky. “I want things you don’t know you want to give me.”
Oh, please.
“Kiss me,” he says. “Kiss me and I’ll go.”
Is he high?
He pulls off my sunglasses, and I jerk away.
“Have you ever kissed a man?” he asks.
“Have you ever kissed a cow?”
He laughs under his breath as if I’m just so naïve. How many times have people asked me that same stupid question? As if I need to try everything to know for sure that I don’t want it.
He inches closer, and I press my back into the table, still holding my phone.
“Did you know my father is appraising your land today?”
I stare at him.
“Did you know his plans include demolishing the old lighthouse?” he asks. “They’re building cabanas in that spot.”
His friends draw closer, ever so slowly, and he raises his eyes to meet mine.
“Did you know that they’ll break ground by the end of the year?” Callum taunts.
The lump in my throat grows, but I don’t falter.
He’s lying. That’s too soon.
“Did you know that a structure can be deemed a historical landmark and cannot be destroyed after it reaches one-hundred years old?” he tells me. “And while fucking for me will get you Mercutio, fucking me will get you a meeting with Raymond FitzHugh to push through your petition to protect the lighthouse? And, in effect, your land?” The corners of his eyes crinkle as he pins me with a look. “Fucking me good guarantees it, in fact.”
I squeeze the phone in my fist.
“And did you know—”
“Shut up.” I clench my teeth, steeling my spine.
He cocks his head.
“Just shut up.”
And did you know…? And did you know…? I should keep my mouth shut, but the anger is spilling over the side. I’m full.
“Everything in the way you act tells me I’m supposed to be scared,” I say. “Showing up here with your boys. Uninvited. When I’m alone.” I gaze around the room at all of them. “What happens when you find out that the one thing you want is something you will never get? You will never feel like a man, Callum.”
That’s why he does this. Because hurt people hurt people. He doesn’t want me. He doesn’t want Clay.
I know what he wants.
“You’ll never take enough from people to erase him and how he fucks your stepmom and fucks your stepsister and hates you.”
His jaw flexes. “You think you know—”
“There’s nothing else to know about you,” I bite out. “You’re not in control. You’re a bottle of Jack Daniel’s away from slitting your wrists.”
The threat of four bodies surrounding me vibrates off my skin, and I don’t want to antagonize him and risk myself, but I’m tired of them making me cower.
And cry. Do your worst, you fucking asshole. I don’t think I can feel any more pain than I already do today.
I turn, slide my phone into my pocket, and start gluing again, feeling them all behind me.
I wait for the pushback. For the grab. The yank of my hair.
But it doesn’t come. The bodies in the room start to filter out, the back door opens and closes, and I glue more pearls, still feeling him behind me.