The Help (Kings of Linwood Academy 1)

My entire lower body is a little sore, and I feel… empty somehow.

Like I was full—whole—for just a little while, and now that I know what that feels like, the absence of it makes me feel hollow.

When a soft tap comes on my door, I don’t even respond. I don’t have the energy to try to guess who it might be or what they might want.

But it’s Mom, and when she sees me in bed with the lights off, she crosses to sit next to me, brushing her hand over my forehead. “Low? You okay? What’s wrong?”

“I’ve got a… headache,” I mumble, hating that it’s one more lie between us.

I could tell her what happened. She’s not prudish about sex, and she had me when she was nineteen, so she has a pretty realistic view of what teenagers get up to. She’s the one who took me to get a prescription for the pill when I turned fifteen. So she wouldn’t judge me or make me feel like shit for having sex.

But even so, I can’t. I can’t bring myself to tell her what happened—because it wasn’t just sex. It was a mess of fucked up emotions that confuses and terrifies me. It’s a web of secrets and lies that spreads wider than I ever imagined.

I don’t want her to know I’ve gotten myself in way over my head.

“Oh, I’m sorry, sweetheart. Can I get you something? Did you take anything for it?” She continues to stroke the hair away from my face, her touch feather-light.

“I think I just need sleep,” I say, my throat constricting around the words. “Thanks, Mom.”

“Of course.” Her brows are still pulled together with concern, but she smiles down at me.

“How was coffee?”

“Oh.” Her smile shifts, lifting up higher on one side than the other, the way it does when she really thinks something is funny. “It was… good.”

I squint up at her. “That’s loaded.”

She chuckles. “No, it really was good. It was nice to see her. She’s doing great. She’s got a huge house on the other side of town, her husband is some kind of day trader, and they vacation in Belize two months out of the year.” Then she shrugs, tilting her head as she gazes down at me. “It all sounds great, but it just made me realize—I’m glad it’s her life, and not mine. Because I like mine just the way it is.”

Reaching up, I grab the hand that’s ghosting over my hair and squeeze it gently, bringing it to rest near my heart. “I love you, Mom.”

“Love you back, Low. Get some rest, okay? I’ll come check on you again in a bit.”

I nod, pressing back the tears that burn my eyes.

She probably does come check on me later, but I miss it. A short while after she leaves, I fall into a deep sleep, where I dream of agony and ecstasy, of love, betrayal, and murder.

I’m incredibly nervous to see Lincoln the next morning. So much so that I’m almost late meeting him downstairs. Only the fear of a repeat of the time he walked in on me naked forces my feet down the stairs at 7:25 a.m.

He’s waiting for me by the door, and his gaze scans my body almost like he’s checking for something. Hickeys? Bruises, maybe?

They’re there, but nowhere anyone can see them.

He doesn’t say a word as he turns and leads me through the house and out to the garage. Only when we’re in the car does he say in a voice that’s carefully neutral, “River came over last night. We’re working on a plan to get some kind of lead on who the man in the mask was. To figure out what the cops know.”

Yeah, I know River came over, Mr. King of Campus. He saw me naked from the waist down with a pile of ripped clothes in my arms. I’m surprised he didn’t mention it to you.

And I really don’t think he did. If River had told Lincoln what he saw, I’m almost positive I’d know it.

“Okay.”

It’s all I say. I can’t muster up the energy to feel either interested or angry about whatever new plan Lincoln and his friends are cooking up. If there was an emergency stop lever on this runaway train I find myself on, I would’ve pulled it a long time ago.

But I don’t think there is.

He must hear some of what I’m feeling in my voice, because his gaze flicks to me. “We’ll see if we can figure out who knocked Iris up.”

The clear implication is that he wants me to know it wasn’t him. And grudgingly, almost against my will, I do believe that. I still hate that he kept their past hookups from me, but I don’t doubt the truth of what he told me when we were screaming at each other in the foyer yesterday.