I didn’t think that…
She loved me.
Me.
I never thought… I never thought that she could dream of me. That she could want me like that. I never understood the depths of her feelings and I should have.
I should have.
Because she had shown me, hadn’t she?
She’d shown me time and time again that she was different. She was more. She was mine.
And I hurt her again.
I fucking hurt her and put her through my bullshit again.
Coming out of my furious thoughts, I look at Reed. “Are you speaking from experience?”
A troubled look enters his eyes before he waves it off and shrugs. “I wouldn’t know what to do with a pretty girl.” Then, rather quietly, “Except to ruin her.”
I chuckle then.
I didn’t know that I had it in me right now but still.
“You know I always wondered why Callie chose you,” I say. “Why after multiple warnings, numerous lectures about you, she still fell for you. I think I have my answer now.”
His eyes are narrowed. “And I’m on tenterhooks, waiting to hear it.”
I chuckle again. “It’s because you’re like me.”
“What?”
“You are.”
“Is that supposed to be a compliment?”
“Fuck no,” I say much like he did a few minutes ago. “I’m an asshole. And her name is Bronwyn.”
His eyes flare with interest, with recognition. “Fae’s friend.”
I’m not sure if I like the fact that he knows my Bronwyn but I’ll allow it for now. “Yeah. People call her Wyn.”
Amusement lines his features. “What do you call her?”
A wallflower.
My wallflower.
And she calls me thorn. Her thorn.
So again as I promised to her at St. Mary’s this morning, I’m going to her.
And I’m going to give her what she wants.
If she’ll still have it.
If she’ll still have me.
I look myself in the mirror.
I’m wearing yet another pink ball gown. This one is more off-shoulders than strapless but like the one I wore at my dad’s birthday party, it hugs my body.
My chest to be specific.
Although it’s not for other men or guys.
It’s specifically for Robbie.
Because he’s visiting from college and he’s expressed a desire to meet me. To forget my bad behavior from that summer and give me another chance.
My parents are extremely ecstatic about it.
And about the fact that I can’t say no now.
Despite telling them, just recently, that I would. That I would say no to the things that I didn’t want to do. That I was done. I was free and that I was finally taking control of my life.
But it’s okay.
I don’t want it. I don’t want the control. I don’t want to be free.
Especially when my freedom is so expensive.
When it comes at the price of his freedom. His reputation. His well-being.
I don’t want my freedom if it hurts him.
If it gets him… arrested.
I press a hand to my stomach at the thought. Because it looks like I’m going to throw up again.
Even though I haven’t eaten much all day – actually I don’t think I’ve eaten at all ever since my father told me what he did to Conrad yesterday afternoon – I’m still throwing up constantly.
After Poe told me about what she’d found out, about some men accompanying Conrad out of St. Mary’s and that they looked like cops, I knew. I knew it had something to do with my dad.
And Helen.
And that it was worse than what I’d been thinking and dreading yesterday morning. I thought Helen would report me and Conrad to the principal but she did something worse.
She went to my dad.
So I rushed over to the principal’s office where Principal Carlisle already knew why I was there. She let me call my dad and he sent a car over to bring me back home.
I expected a dire atmosphere when I reached. Like it was the night I vandalized my dad’s car or even on the day I expressed my desire to go to art school. I fully expected to be screamed at. I fully expected to be condemned and called names in loud voices.
But there was pin drop silence. My mother didn’t even say a word and the voice that my father used was soft and polite and so business-like.
“I want you to give up this crazy, irrational idea of going to art school,” my dad said, looking me in the eyes, appearing every inch the ruthless lawyer that he is. “You will of course have no contact with him now or in the future. You will not try to see him or call him or get in touch with him in any way or form. Principal Carlisle has assured me that he’s quit his job and that’s the only reason, I’ve decided to let you take your finals. But you will stay here; you’re not going back to the dorms. You will stay here and you will behave. You will act like every inch the daughter we’ve raised you to be. If you promise me these things, I will make this go away. I will let him go free. No harm will ever come to him. There will be no rumors. It will be as if this never happened.”