“What the hell happened earlier?” Tate sat rather aggressively in his chair and slammed his elbows onto the desk. “Cade? I’m asking you, in particular.”
I clicked my tongue, crossing my arms. “What are you referring to?”
“I’m referring to Journey and how she nearly clawed some girl’s eyes out.”
Oh, so he doesn’t know she stole something from his office. Good.
“Well, did you ask said girl what happened?”
A ragged sigh flew from his mouth. “Yes, she said Journey was crazy and needed to go back to the psych ward because she attacked her for no reason.” He raised an eyebrow as my rage kicked up a notch.
“Surely you don’t believe that,” Isaiah said, taking the reins because he could likely feel my heart beating from across the room.
The headmaster rolled his eyes. “If I did, you two wouldn’t be in here right now. I need the full story, and I don’t want to distress Journey and have her thinking she is going to be leaving this school again.”
I stepped forward. “I will personally strangle someone if they try to take her away again. She does not belong in a psych ward, Tate.”
The headmaster’s eyes crinkled at the edges. “Why do you say that?”
“Do you not agree?” I countered.
Isaiah raised his hand like he was in the middle of class. “May I speak?”
Tate and I looked down at his nonchalant expression as he lowered his hand. He cleared his throat, speaking anyway. “Journey did not try to commit suicide. According to Cade, she was attacked, and those were not self-inflicted wounds.” The headmaster’s brows deepened as he threw his hands up in complete bewilderment. I was pretty sure I heard him mutter a few curse words under his breath, as if he couldn’t say them out loud in front of the pair of us. “Now, earlier…there was a rumor, a lot of whispering and shit about Journey and Cade, and a group of girls went up to Journey and started to ask her about the rumor, and one of them pulled her sleeve to see if she had the scars that matched the”—Isaiah paused as he used air quotations—“suicide attempt.”
Tate sat back, his chair squeaking beneath him. “Okay…uh… And then what?”
“And she freaked out because she said, for a moment, she thought she was back at the psych ward with someone coming up behind her as she tried to run away.”
There was a punch to my tense stomach, as if someone had taken the air from me. A replay of some man coming up behind her to put her back into her room while she tried to escape made me sick. Protection ran thick in my veins from watching my father protect Isaiah’s father and their legacy. It was all I’d ever known, and when that unyielding protection gracefully moved to Journey instead of what I was taught to protect, everything changed.
I hadn’t been the same since.
The headmaster suddenly appeared very fucking tired. He ran his hands roughly through his hair and pulled on the ends, dropping his head low as he leveled his breathing. The room was quiet besides the crackling of the nearby fire, and when he looked up again, his face said it all: What the fuck?
“I don’t even know what to say,” he started, rubbing a hand over his five o’clock shadow. “So, someone attacked her? Are you sure?”
Isaiah peered over his shoulder at me. I cleared my throat and looked down at my lacrosse shoes as they left a puddle of melted snow on the floor of the headmaster’s office. “Positive.” I ground my teeth together. “She doesn’t know who.” I didn’t want to allow the next confession to come from my mouth, but I did anyway. “She thought it was me who attacked her. Or, at least, she wasn’t sure.”
Isaiah turned all the way around this time with his heavy browline deepened. “Why would she think that?”
I glanced away at the roaring fire. “Because I was the only person who knew where she was that night.” Fuck. Here came the truth, catching up to me as I tried to outrun it. “I told her where to meet me, and then I stood her up. I didn’t fucking show.” My gaze stayed level with the fire, my eyes burning from the heat floating up to hit me in the face.
“Explain.”
Black dots danced in front of my vision as I kept my eyes open, as if blinking was going to keep me from feeling the immense amount of guilt that I’d been pushing away since the moment she left.
“Cade. Fucking speak up.”
I snapped on the inside. “Because I had been getting threats for months before she left. Warning me to stay away from her.”
Both of their heads dropped in defeat, and mine did, too. I was man enough to admit that it hurt to say it aloud. The guilt that I thought was overpowering was now coming at me tenfold, and I leaned back against the wall, hoping it would hold me up so I didn’t completely lose it.
I should have been out there that night.
“And you have no idea who was threatening you?”
I met Isaiah head on and breathed out through my nose in rushed breaths. “No fucking idea. I wasn’t sure if it was from our father’s shit outside of St. Mary’s or someone from here.” Pushing off from the wall, I began pacing back and forth, just like the other night when Journey left me alone in this dull office. “I waited, watched. Nothing. Except for Bain and how his eyes would follow her every so often. But I didn’t understand. He’d never tried to pursue her or touch her. It didn’t make sense. That was why I got so pissed about the rumor from earlier. If it was someone from our father’s business that was targeting me from before, if they got wind of me having a child with her? If they wanted to get back at either of us for fucking the entire business up?” A sarcastic laugh left me as I ended my thoughts, knowing they fully understood.