In the hallway, Tobias pauses. I can feel his heart speeding in his chest against the wet skin of my face. I feel his hesitation because we’re not friends, yet I’m turning to him for comfort. We’re not confidants, and yet he finds himself in a position where he needs to ask me for information that is difficult for me to deal with and talk about.
The pause is only for a second, and then, as though he has decided something important, he strides to the stairs. The sound of the party only recedes slightly, but when we get halfway up, River shouts from below, “Tobe, what the fuck’s going on?”
Tobias doesn’t stop, and the thud of River’s feet against the stairs behind us lets me know that he’s following. At the top, I begin to struggle in Tobias’s arms, wanting to be put down so I can return to my room, lock the door, and hide until Kyle and the rest of the people downstairs have disappeared into the night. But Tobias isn’t letting me go, and by the time I raise my head to tell him to put me down, we’re standing in his room, and River is closing the door behind us all.
“What happened?” River asks as Tobias finally releases me, and my feet touch the floor. My stomach roils, the shock of seeing Kyle and the release of all the previously trapped feelings hitting me with full force. I stumble back and drop to the mattress, my face in my hands, sharp, fast breaths hissing between my lips.
“Hey,” Tobias says. He kneels on the floor in front of me, resting his big capable hands on my shoulders. “Cora. Talk to us. Tell us how we can help you.”
Help me?
“You can’t,” I say.
“Tell us,” he says again. “Tell us what you need, and we’ll do whatever we can.”
For the first time, I raise my head to look at him in disbelief. The last time we really looked at each other was on the night that I saw him naked on my bed with that girl, and he thinks he’s going to be the one I’ll confide in? But instead of seeing amusement or derision in his eyes, I see real concern. My eyes flick to River, who’s standing with his hands in his pockets and a deep furrow between his strong brows, worried eyes fixed on me. The door rattles, and Mark’s voice rumbles from the hallway. “What’s going on?” he asks.
I start to panic, my breaths are coming faster, and River must notice because he unlocks the door and steps into the hallway. Tobias’s hands cup my cheeks in their rough warmth, bringing my face up so my eyes are forced level with his. “Cora, breathe, honey. In, out…that’s it. Slowly. Breathe.”
And for reasons I cannot fathom, I do. I inhale and exhale to match his rhythm, and my heart starts to thump slower in my chest. My throat burns at the tender way he’s gazing at me, at the quick way he stepped in as soon as he could see I was in trouble. He’s big and brutish, and we’ve never exchanged even a pleasant word to each other, but I believe he’d move mountains to stop me from feeling like this.
At the thought, another tear leaks from the corner of my eyes, but before it has a chance to cool on my cheek, he wipes it away with the pad of his thumb.
“Did something happen down there?” he asks softly. “One minute you were taking pizza, the next you looked like you’d seen a ghost.”
“I did,” I say on instinct. “I mean, I saw someone I haven’t seen since...”
He blinks slowly, and I can tell he’s thinking carefully about the next words he wishes to say, fearful that he’ll disrupt my confession. “Who?”
I close my eyes because even trying to get my mouth to form his name feels painful. Even thinking about him yanks me out of this body and flings me back to my younger, more vulnerable self. It’s like an out-of-body experience, seeing myself in such a visceral way.
“Kyle Christopher,” I whisper, raising my lids to see his response.
“Kyle?” Tobias’s neck straightens, his eyebrows raising in question. “How do you know Kyle, Cora?”
Blowing out a long breath, I swallow around the razor blades in my throat and clench my hands, trying to pull my fractured pieces together. This feels like such a huge moment. I never imagined I’d come face to face with that awful man. I never imagined I’d have to face up to what happened or consider telling another human being about it. When it happened, I didn’t tell my mom. I didn’t tell my friend, Kyle’s sister. I just stuffed it down deep inside myself and vowed never to go anywhere near him again.