you’re a regular Sherlock Holmes,” he mutters. “Anyway. We…you know. We’re together. Or we were. I don’t know now. Benton is bisexual, for one. And I can deal with that. It’s not like he’s really with Mikaela, despite what she may believe. But he just cares so. Fucking. Much. About what everyone thinks. When it’s just us, everything is fine. Perfect, even. But then once he spends time with his older brother or his douchebag friends, it’s like a switch flips. He’s cold, distant…hateful. The day that we fought in the hall?” he asks, looking over at me before turning his eyes back to the road. “He was flirting with you to piss me off. The night before was the first night we hooked up, and the next day, it was like he wanted to punish me for it.”
Sounds all too familiar.
“I can’t even pretend to know how hard it must be to not only admit to yourself, but your family and friends that you’re gay, but he can’t treat you like that, dude. It’s bad enough being someone’s dirty little secret,” I say, thinking back to my conversation with Pierce. Sometimes secrets are necessary.
“I’m just so sick of giving a shit about what anyone thinks. So, to, I don’t know, prove a point or something, I decided to do something I’ve always wanted to do,” he says, gesturing to his new look. “My parents hate it. My mom doesn’t even want my grandfather to see me. Benton really hates it. But I don’t care. I’m fucking free.”
“Such a drama queen,” I tease.
“Guilty.”
“You know when Benton lashes out like that, it’s not about you, right?” I add more seriously. “He hates himself and takes that out on you.”
“I know.” He nods somberly. We pull up to my yard, and Christian lets out a low whistle.
“Damn, Remi. There’s a lot you haven’t told me.”
I gasp as I look up to assess the damage, and my stomach instantly drops. I expected more beer cans and trash, but this is so much worse.
The yard is full of broken chairs, discarded beer bottles, and Lord knows what else, but what’s really concerning is the broken screen door—lying on its side, completely detached from the frame—and my front door that’s cracked open.
Inside is even worse. The table is flipped over, and the glass still sits scattered across the floor. Alcohol containers, cigarettes, and empty pizza boxes cover every surface. My feet stick to the tile floor, and it smells like straight death in here. It’s as if Ryan hasn’t been home in days. That thought sends a shiver down my spine, and I internally panic about something happening to him. But I push the fear aside. This is Ryan. He’s invincible. The only one who could hurt him is himself, and if there’s one thing I can say for sure about Ryan, it’s that the boy is a survivor. Always has been.
I scan the rest of the house, looking for anything missing or broken. The bathroom mirror is shattered, but other than that, the other rooms seem to be mostly untouched. Thank God.
I walk back to the kitchen, ignoring the way my shoes stick to the floor with every step, and grab the trash bags from under the sink. I take one out, toss the box to Christian, and start sweeping stuff off the counter and into the bag.
“Spill it,” Christian says, bending over to pick up the bigger pieces of glass.
“It’s a long story.” I sigh. “I don’t even know where to start.”
“Look around, Cinderella. We’ve got time.”
“I called you Friday night,” I start. “You didn’t answer, so this whole thing is basically your fault,” I tease, but my smile doesn’t reach my eyes. “Long story short, Ryan had a party. I caught him doing drugs, and I don’t mean smoking weed. I called him out. He pushed me into the coffee table. I needed to get the hell out of here.”
“Shit, Rem. I’m sorry I didn’t answer. Benton—”
“It’s fine.” I shake my head. “Mr. James had given me his number. He knows how Ryan can get. So, I called him. And he came to get me.”
“No fucking way.” Christian grins like the cat that got the canary. “Tell me he came up in here all Captain Save a Hoe.”
“He totally did. If I hadn’t been so upset, it would’ve turned me on.”
Christian cocks a brow at that.
“Okay, so I was a little turned on.”
“Obviously. Proceed.” I take a deep breath before continuing. Saying this out loud makes it real. Part of me wants to gush, but a much bigger part feels protective of our secret. If I have to tell someone, Christian is the best bet. He’s got too many skeletons of his own to go around exposing mine.
“He took me to his boathouse. We kissed. A lot. But he doesn’t want it to go any further than that. We spent the whole weekend together, but then this morning, it was like he wanted nothing to do with me.” I tie the full bag of trash and toss it outside the front door, then come back to fill another one. I don’t tell him about the classroom incident from today. Hooking up in class is probably the worst thing we could’ve done.
“He’s probably spooked. I don’t exactly blame him either, Rem,” he says unforgivingly.
“Whose side are you on?”
“Yours. Always. But he could lose his career. His reputation. He could go to jail. What do you really have to lose in this situation?”
Everything. I’m already in too deep. And that’s what I’m afraid of.