Grayson must have seen the change on my face because his gentle touch turned bruising, his breath heavy.
“What?” he growled. “Tell me.”
“Earlier today…” I didn’t know where to start, or how to get the words out. I’d been trying to bury the night, and West shone a spotlight on it. “West taunted me with the night of the masquerade and I felt… I don’t know what I felt. He reminded me that he came inside me—”
Grayson went rigid, stepping off me.
My back was cold without him.
“Don’t ever feel bad about that night, Snitch. It’s my fault.”
“It’s not, though. That night—”
“I should have pulled him off you. I thought it was my punishment, I thought I deserved it, and because of that…This is all my fucking fault, that’s the end of it.”
It wasn’t.
There was this feeling inside of me, this briar. I didn’t know how to tell him. I don’t even know where to start.
I feel…twisted.
“But—that night…the night I slept with West—”
“Was my fault,” Grayson cut me off.
My brow furrowed. It wasn’t his fault, not by a long shot. “It wasn’t your fault, Grayson.”
“I pushed you to that point. I shoved you into his arms, and I didn’t drag you out.”
“But—”
“My. Fault. Move on.”
The silence that spread between us grew sticky, like old oil. I rubbed my arm. White sun drenched the hallway in slats. Out the window, you could faintly see the garden…
“Oh! Oh my God!”
Grayson looked to me, brows lifting.
“Um…I think I know where the coin is.”
As my smile grew, so did his, and I felt like my limbs had been filled with melted butter. His smiles are so rare, too rare.
“I think my uncle might have been talking about the graveyard. There are so many poems out there…and it’s the perfect place to bury something. I didn’t tell West, but how are we going to search without him?”
“Didn’t tell me what?” West’s voice was ice water down my spine.
Grayson’s gaze slid over my shoulder, cold.
I didn’t want to tell West.
I tried to think of anything else I can tell West.
“About…” I squinted my eye, thinking. “How I talked to the triplets.”
He exhaled a sigh. “I’m disappointed, I thought we were a team, Angel. So, you think the coin is in the graveyard?”
“If you heard me, why did you fucking act like you didn’t?”