“Oh, Asher, what a mess.” Mom offered me a sad smile. “We should probably get you home and take care of this.”
Mya slowly released my hand, her fingers lingering as if it pained her to let me go. “I should probably go,” she said so quietly it cut right through me.
“That’s probably a good idea,” Mom replied, sounding more like my dad than she ever had before.
“I never meant for this to happen, Mrs. Bennet.” The vulnerability in Mya’s voice coaxed me to look at her. She looked so broken... so defeated. I wanted to wrap my arms around her and tell her everything would be okay. But before I could get out the words, Mom ushered me away.
“Now do you believe me?” my father said as we approached him.
“Not right now, Andrew,” Mom brushed past him, leading me to the car. I noticed Jason’s dad talking to the police officers, no doubt smoothing things out with them.
Mom climbed into the car, but Jason jogged up to me, shoving his hand against the door. “What are you doing?” he asked, his brows knitted in confusion.
“Leave it, Jase.”
“No fucking way, man. I didn’t just take a beating from that punk so you could walk away from Mya with your fucking tail in between your legs.”
“It’s complicated.” My teeth ground together.
“Looks pretty simple to me. She’s shaken up and you’re running.”
“I’m not...” I let out a weary sigh. “Jase, please, drop it.”
My eyes went to my dad and then found Mya across the parking lot. Her breath hitched, unshed tears glistening in her eyes.
“Asher, Son, it’s time to go.” Dad’s tone was final, the coolness in his voice making me wince.
“There’s something you’re not telling me, isn’t there?” Jase asked.
“I’ll talk to you later, okay?” I yanked open the door and slid into the car, slamming it behind me, the sound reverberating deep inside my chest.
My father climbed in a second later, the temperature turning subzero.
“How is your hand, sweetheart?”
“I’m fine, Mom.” I clutched my bloodied hand to my chest, staring out of the window as Bell’s grew smaller behind us.
“Those boys were—”
“Gangbangers, Julia. Those young men were gangbangers and thanks to Asher’s friend they have tarnished the team’s victory and our son’s reputation.”
“Lay off it, Dad,” I grunted, the adrenaline finally subsiding, giving way to the pain radiating deep inside my metacarpals.
“I’ll lay off you, Son, when you do the right thing and end it with the Hernandez girl. She is nothing but trouble. You saw her. She knows one of them; intimately might I add.”
“Asher,” Mom glanced back, “Is it true? Did she... have a relationship with one of those... those men?”
Mom was visibly shaken by the night’s events, but I didn’t like how easily persuaded she was by Dad.
“Jermaine is Mya’s ex. It ended badly,” I admitted, hating that I was proving my father right. “But it’s over and she’s here to escape that life. He wasn’t supposed to know she was in Rixon.”
“See, Julia. She’s dragged her gangbanger friends into our lives and now none of us are safe.”
“For real, Dad? Don’t be so melodramatic. It was a fight. It was hardly a gang war.”
“No.” He caught my eye in the rear-view mirror. “But what happens now? Do you think he’s just going to go on his way?”
I didn’t want to think about it. I wanted to go back to earlier, before I ever laid eyes on him. When I was thinking of how badly I wanted Mya. When I was foolishly making idle plans for our future once graduation was out of the way.