Unspoken Rules (Rules 2)

I know exactly what he means by that. They want me to go sleep with Bianca as proof that I don’t care about Winter.

“Whatever.” I make my way to the front door, the urge to get away becoming impossible to ignore.

“Haze,” Ryan calls out from the living room.

I turn around. What else could he possibly want? They’re blackmailing me into hooking up with some girl in exchange for their trust. Isn’t that enough?

“Today.”

I feel like I should laugh because there’s no way he’s serious.

“You’re joking, right?”

They avoid my gaze in silence.

“What? Did I become a hooker and nobody told me?”

Ryan ignores my comment and gets his keys out of his pocket. “Here, I’ll drive you.”

“I’ll drive myself,” I say, slamming the door and rushing out of Trev’s house.

Next thing I know, I’ve reversed out of the driveway and disappeared down the street in a deafening roar. I hook my phone to the charging cable I keep in my car and drive with no direction for a few unbearably long minutes.

I wait for my phone to light up. For the screen to show that I have a message from her.

Just one.

But of course, when it does light up, it reveals messages from everybody on the damn planet but the person I want to talk to.

There are four messages from random girls that I don’t even bother opening and a few from Trev, who’s trying to apologize for the group therapy he just tried to pull. I don’t know why I hoped that she’d have contacted me.

She’s gone, Haze. She could be anywhere in the world by now. It’s time to move on.

I turn the corner rapidly and set up the GPS.

Bianca’s place it is.

3

Miles Apart

Winter

“This place is insane.” Will’s voice bounces off the walls of the semi-empty living room as I sit on the couch and glance around the too-good-to-be-true penthouse that lacks any sign of human touch.

It’s spacious and wide but so clean it feels cold. I love the white, modern house as much as the next girl, but I can’t see myself ever feeling at home in a place like this.

Thomas wasn’t lying when he said that he barely ever went to the penthouse. His place looks like an IKEA commercial. An IKEA commercial that the boys will have wrecked before tomorrow.

I look through the draughtproof windows at the distant buildings hovering over the whirlwind of motion in the city. We’re on the last floor of a twenty-story building, so high up the cars and pedestrians are barely visible. I doubt that anyone will find me here.

It took us way longer than expected to get to Thomas’s place. It’s already six o’clock. I finally got a good look at my leg, and all I could do was wince as my eyes flew over the stitches and swelling from the fracture. I’ll have to walk with crutches, and I’ll be in a splint for the next six weeks. Tom said I was lucky, that I should be able to recover from the fracture quickly.

Sure, okay, but what about my broken heart?

I can’t believe I just thought that. This is worse than I thought.

“Anyone hungry?” Will walks in and shuts the door with his foot, his hands full.