Callie ditched Trent for a moment giving me a tight hug before tucking herself back under his arm. “We’ll see you at school on Monday?”
I smiled and nodded. They all said goodbye, and I watched as they passed by Trent’s car and wandered out onto the street before disappearing around the corner. As soon as they were gone, I turned and walked in the opposite direction that would lead me through the school grounds heading in the general direction of home.
“Meyah!” Ham called as I stomped down the pathway between the gym and the school office block tripping on my six-inch heels and almost face planting onto the concrete path. I caught myself, grabbing my sheer lace dress in my fists and hiking it higher so it wouldn’t hinder my large, angry strides. “Meyah, get back here!”
The sharp order had my spine steeling, my body freezing on the spot. It was pitch black. There were no lights within the school grounds, but that just made the view of the street even more spectacular. It was lined with cars, loud thumping music, and the laughter of three hundred teenagers filled the streets of our small town as we celebrated our senior prom. Our big send off. Our ‘this is it’ moment.
A couple of weeks left at school and then after this summer, we’d start dispersing across the country, attending colleges, relying on scholarships to pay for our dorms, and living on ramen and anything else we could microwave. For most of us, it was a rite of passage, one that a lot of teens before us had taken on their journey toward adulthood. One that I was looking forward to, more right in this moment than it had been just a few hours ago.
Leaving Athens was a decision which had haunted me for the past year. I’d spent months fighting with myself about where I should go to college, driving myself crazy with pro and con lists. The college of my dreams was in Arizona, a six-hour flight away from home, from my mom, the club, andfrom him. Those were the cons. They made me sad, and scared. They made me reconsider whether I was ready for that.
The pros though?
I would be a six-hour flight away from home.
From my controlling and overbearing mother.
From the club and the danger that seemed to follow them.
And from him—the boy standing so close at my back right now, so close I could feel his hot, angry breath on the nape of my neck.
He was pissed, I could tell from the feeling of his energy which surrounded me. And you know what? I just couldn’t find it in me to fucking care right now.
I spun around dropping my dress, so it swished around my feet and met Ham eye to eye. Well, almost, given that over the past year or so he’d grown to over six-foot, and was no longer the boy I remembered. “What are you even doing here? What do you want?” I snapped, narrowing my eyes and trying to swallow back enough emotion to hold off the tears. I was sick of crying in front of him and sulking and telling him all these problems like I was some little girl. I wanted to be stronger.
“I want you to stop stomping away from me like a damn spoiled brat, and fucking listen to me,” he growled, reaching out and grabbing my wrist tightly.
“Don’t talk to me like that,” I ground out through clenched teeth. “Don’t speak down to me like I’m a child.” I tried to pull my hand from his grasp, but all he did was come closer with every tug. I soon found myself backed against a wall, tucked into the shadows of an entranceway which would usually lead to the corridors of the science department, but the doors were locked tight.
He took my hands and pinned them above my head dipping his mouth, so it brushed against my ear. “Then maybe you should stop acting like one.”
There were voices, laughter, students with the same idea as we’d had—leave early, go and party somewhere else, where there weren’t teachers and rules.
I struggled against Ham as they seemed to come closer, deep voices, and the light chatter of girls mixed with the clip of their heels against the road that was no more than twenty feet from where we were standing, but we were shrouded in darkness. I doubted they could see us as they passed by, but with the way my heart was thundering, I swore they’d be able to hear it drumming against my chest.
His lips found my neck, and I gasped. The group of people stopped and looked over at us. I wanted to run, my cheeks burning, knowing if they came any closer we’d be caught out, dreading the rumors which would spread through the school within hours.
Ham, though, kept his body pressed against mine, not allowing any movement or escape, his mouth slowly tormenting me as his lips danced over my thrumming pulse. He had me pinned, and with the anger rushing through my veins at that moment instead of me wanting to push him off and clock him in the nose, I was getting hot, my body betraying my mind.
The teens soon brushed off what they had heard and continued down the road to the parking lot on the other side of the school. With the immediate danger subsiding, my self-preservation kicked it.
“Are you done?” I hissed, wiggling my hips.
“Not even fucking close,” he retorted darkly in my ear. My body shuddered in response. “You almost got in a car with a drunk driver, Meyah.”
“I wasn’t—”
He let go of one of my wrists slamming his palm against the brick wall behind me, causing me to stand a little taller. “Don’t fucking bullshit me,” he warned, the tone of his voice one that screamed at me not to argue. “If I hadn’t been there, you possibly could have gotten in that car and then who fucking knows what could have happened.”
I finally tugged my other hand from his grasp and shoved hard against his chest with enough anger to force him to take a step back. “But you weren’t there. You fucking disappeared. No word. No nothing for days.” I couldn’t stop the tears now. But they weren’t woe-is-me tears, they werefuck youtears. “Maybe the last couple of weeks didn’t mean shit to you, but they meant something to me.Youmean something to me. So how dare you think you can just up and leave, and then appear out of nowhere and expect me to respect and listen to what you have to say. Respect goes both ways, Hamlet.”
I refused to let another person hold me down or treat me like I wasn’t worthy of having an opinion or a choice. He was meant to be different, he was meant to hear me, to push me to be who I wanted to be. He was meant to have my back.
I didn’t even have time to brace myself before he came at me, his hands going straight to my ass and lifting me off the ground before forcing my back against the wall with a thud. My arms hooked around his neck, and my legs tightly gripped his waist, not exactly happy about the idea of landing on the hard, concrete ground. I should have been scared, the darkness in his eyes telling me maybe I’d pushed him too far. And when he spoke, I suddenly knew why.
“I lost two people who mattered the most to me in this entire fucked up world because some guy decided to have one drink too many and drive home.”
My heart instantly hurt. Like someone had shoved a dagger straight through it, and I was at that moment well aware of what had brought on this anger and emotion. I could feel the pain in his voice, the anger and frustration he was feeling toward my ignorance. And holy shit, it was a hard pill to swallow. I quickly pulled him close, my fingers diving into his hair and holding his forehead against mine. “I’m s-sorry,” I whispered, my voice cracking.
I wasn’t going to let him get away with what he’d done. Later he would hear all about how angry I was. But right then, I felt like what mattered the most was pulling him back to the present and helping him to see that I was here, I was okay, and I was fucking stupid for that mistake which could have destroyed him.
“That moment, it stole everything from me.” His fingers dug painfully into my ass cheeks, and he pressed his hips forward pushing hard against me. “Do you have any idea how fucking much it hurts to think about losing you to that shit, too? You think I could handle losing one more person I fucking love to that shit?”
Love?
I wasn’t sure how much more I could cope with right now, so I leaned forward and pressed my lips to his. “I’m right here,” I told him, gripping his long hair between my fingers. “I’m right here. In one piece. With you.”
“Prove it.”