I kind of wanted to have it out with him about those pictures, but I wasn’t in the mood yet.
“I can’t talk right now,” I told him. “I’ll call you later, though.”
“Why are there pictures of you online?” he barked, cutting me off. “Pictures of you with him?”
“What are you talking about?”
“At the Throwback last night!” he yelled. “There’s footage of you two kissing! People were taking pictures! Did he make you do it?”
What? Pictures… I don’t…
And then I remembered Will and I were dancing, Damon came up behind me, we started…
People were everywhere. All around us.
And my shoulders fell.
Winter Ashby sent Damon Torrance to jail for statutory rape, and now she’s crawling in bed with him, of age, and here was proof she was totally willing this time.
“How could I be so stupid?” I murmured.
In front of everyone.
But it was going to happen anyway, right? It was a small town. Eventually people would know we were together, and we’d have to deal with reactions, given our past.
“What is the matter with you?” he snapped like I was a child. “You had to know people were watching! You sent him to jail for rape. People were going to remember that. And now you’re making out with him? It makes you look…”
Like a liar. Yeah, I knew exactly how it made me look.
Sometimes I longed for the time where everything wasn’t recorded and broadcast for the world to see. Of course it looked bad.
And now the people who always maintained his innocence were emboldened more.
“He knew what he was doing,” Ethan continued. “How could you fall for it? Why would you let him touch you? Did you not know it was him again?”
I could hear the disbelief in his voice now.
Again.
“Some people were willing to believe you the first time, but now…” he said. “They’ll never believe he fooled you twice. I knew he was smart. I just didn’t think you were so dumb.”
I hung up on him, refusing to listen to it anymore. I didn’t do anything wrong. We didn’t do anything wrong.
We had a fucked-up start years ago, and we both spent years paying for it, but we were doing this. We wanted this.
I loved him.
And Damon didn’t plan that last night. He didn’t know they would take pictures. He wouldn’t have done that.
But part of me wondered.
Part of me doubted. He wouldn’t have done that, right?
He hadn’t said he loved me? He got me to say it. Twice.
Why hadn’t he said it back?
Damon