Every single year of being in college, I’d felt safer and safer. Like I was further and further away from the hellish place that high school had been for me. I had started to feel like I could actually live my life, free of bullshit gossip and teasing and knowing that other people were saying things behind my back.
And now, all at once, that feeling was coming crashing back down like a fucking meteorite from space.
I was paralyzed.
And in that moment, all I knew was that I had to get out.
14
Brody
I’d been able to keep the rage suppressed inside me as I left the house. I didn’t want Logan to see how angry I really was. How much I wanted to strangle whoever made comments about Logan online.
Logan, for God’s sake. One of the sweetest people I’d ever met. A guy who wanted nothing to do with gossip of any kind. He’d practically tried to blend into the shadows at that party, and yet somehow, just by association with me, he was the talk of the town this morning.
It burned a fire through my chest that I hadn’t felt so strongly in a long, long time.
Logan didn’t deserve this.
Nobody deserved it.
I practically ran down the steps of the house and out the door. I’d all but forgotten about the snow we’d had the night before, and I trudged my way out into the pristine white piles of it. The last of the flakes seemed to be falling, but it held none of the magic it had last night.
Last night had been another world. Just me and Logan, with the snow falling all around us.
Today I was out for blood.
I made my way to the frat house in record time, heaving the front door open and walking in. It smelled like bacon and maple syrup inside, and it looked like wreckage after a crime. There were plastic cups strewn all over the floor. Students still sleeping on any surface they could find—couches, beds, the floor, and from what I could tell, someone was actually asleep on top of the beer pong table from last night. I poked my head into the kitchen and saw Vance, Mike, and a few other guys huddled around the small table in there, kicked back in their sweats and drinking coffee as Charlie fried up the bacon on the stove.
Charlie turned and gave me a grin. “Bryant. Didn’t expect you back here this morning.”
I took two steps toward him and grabbed the front of his shirt in my fist.
“You’re coming with me,” I said, my voice stern. I tugged him back away from the stove and the spatula he was holding clattered down into the pan.
A couple of guys at the table hooted and hollered as I pulled Charlie away into the backyard. Luckily nobody was out here, and the fire pit from last night was now surrounded by a layer of snow.
I let go of his shirt, staring him dead in the eyes.
“Why did you do it?” I asked.
“Do what?” he said, his eyes wild.
“I know you posted the pictures, Charlie,” I said. “And I want you to take them down. Now.”
“Posted pictures where? I don’t even know what you’re talking about, Bryant, I—”
I ran my fingers through my hair. My head was swimming, and I had so much adrenaline coursing through me now that I was sweating under my clothes, even out here in the freezing weather.
“What happened, Brody?” Charlie asked. “What is going on?”
“Photos of Logan were posted online, and now the fucking gossip mill is having a field day about it. I’m pissed off.”
“Yeah, I can see that,” Charlie said, giving me a long glance. “But I’m telling you, I didn’t post shit. I don’t care about Logan, or you, or whatever the two of you are—”
“We’re roommates,” I said quickly.
“Right, right, of course,” Charlie said.
Vance appeared at the back door of the house, closing it behind him and walking over to us.
“Bryant,” Vance said.
“Vance, go back inside,” I said, my voice more exhausted now than anything. The adrenaline was slowly fading into disappointment, realizing that the situation was already so far out of my hands. I wanted to fix everything, but I knew it was impossible.
I just wanted to snap my fingers and make everything okay.
“I came out here to make sure you’re not pounding Charlie into the dirt, because you looked like you were on the war path, buddy,” Vance said. “What is going on?”
Charlie cut us both a look and disappeared back into the house, shaking his head.
“I know you’ve probably seen it,” I told Vance now that we were alone. “The absolute bullshit from this morning on the Dirty Dig?”
Vance and I both checked the gossip sites more than we should. We’d laughed about it and gotten pissed about it together in good measure—especially when people speculated that the two of us were somehow romantically involved.