Royal’s quiet for a minute, his thumb stroking my hair as he cradles my head in his hand. “I don’t trust you, either,” he says. “But it doesn’t change anything.”
“Because I’m still yours, even if you don’t want me.”
“I didn’t say I didn’t want you,” he says. “I said I didn’t want it to be true. But it is. We’re part of each other now, Harper. There’s no out.”
“And if I agree to that, to being yours, no matter what you do to me, can you forgive me?” I ask, gripping the front of his shirt. “If I stop fighting it, will you try to understand why I betrayed you and forgive me for it?”
He stares at me in the near darkness, so I can only see a glimmer of light reflected in his eyes, the sculpted shape of his jawline that makes me want to cry it’s so perfect. “Yes,” he says at last.
He leans in and presses his lips to mine, and this time, he doesn’t make me speak. He moves on top of me, inside me, and I hold onto him, and I feel tears leaking out the corner of my eyes, but I don’t know why I’m crying.
Maybe it’s relief, that I can finally let go, let someone else take charge, be responsible for me. Or maybe it’s because I know it’s not enough, just like his apology wouldn’t have been enough for me. I needed him to show it, not say it. I needed him to do the things he did, even when I didn’t know I needed them. He loved me enough to do everything he could to heal me until I was able to forgive even without him saying he was sorry.
He needed me to say I was sorry, to apologize, before he could forgive. But even now, when things are right between us, I know that he hasn’t healed. Maybe he never will.
nine
Crystal Dolce
“She’s down,” Devlin says, stepping into our bedroom and pulling the door closed. “Though I still don’t think it’s fair for you to make me put another man’s child to bed.”
I lay my tablet in my lap and give him a half-hearted smile. “It was your turn.”
“You’re not even going to pretend you didn’t cheat on me with Satan to produce that one?” he asks, padding over to the bed and lifting the blankets to slide in next to me. “Or remind me that I’m the one who wanted a girl?”
“I have to show you something,” I say, watching him carefully. “But you have to promise not to get mad.”
He leans over and nuzzles my cheek before wrapping an arm around my waist and pulling me off the mountain of pillows until I’m flat on my back. He smiles down at me. “Were you picking out houses without me again, Sugar?”
“No,” I say. “I was just wasting time online until you came to bed, and I saw this video. I wasn’t looking for it, I swear. It’s going viral. More than 4.3 million people have already seen it, so don’t worry, no one will notice one more hit from California.”
“What are you talking about?” Devlin asks, his face turning guarded.
I swallow and press the button on tablet, turning on the screen. I lean up on my elbow, and we watch the video together. Fifteen seconds of cafeteria chaos. I can hardly hear anything but the roar of voices, a shriek, and a deeper voice. I can’t tell exactly what my brother is saying, but he’s sitting in a chair, pointing at his lap, taunting someone while he pulls his dick out. Someone blurred out the video footage across his lap before posting, but it’s clear what just happened.
Then Baron shoots up, yells that there’s a phone, and dives for whoever is holding the camera. There’s about ten seconds of shaky, careening footage that makes me seasick as the camera jerks around, but I can see my brothers pulling chairs from under people, throwing them to the floor, and then the blur of someone’s shirt. Then the camera falls, and there’s flashes of movement above it, unidentifiable clothes and limbs moving over it, and then the screen goes black.
I look up at Devlin, my heart pounding.
“Where did you see this?” he asks quietly.
“It’s all over every social media right now,” I say. “I was just scrolling onThe Tea, and it came up. I saw the name of the school, and I clicked on it. That’s my brother, right? I’m not hallucinating?”
“It definitely looks like them,” Devlin confirms.
“I searched afterwards to see if there was anything else, but I didn’t click on anything local to Faulkner, just in case…”
“In case they’re still looking for you,” he says, setting the tablet on the bedside table and pulling me into his arms. He holds onto me like he’s still afraid they’ll find us, tear us apart. I’m just as scared, too scared to even hope that they’ve stopped looking.
“It’s already spawning articles about how private schools let kids get away with murder, and how they cover up stuff like this,” I say, laying my head on his chest. “And the posts on social media are about sexual assault and why girls don’t report stuff, because apparently the school didn’t do anything. They still played in the Homecoming game that night.”
“Sounds even worse than when we were there,” Devlin says. “But I’m not surprised. You remember how it was. That town worships football.”
“And it’s not like he touched anyone,” I say, feeling suddenly defensive of the little brother I haven’t seen in three years. “He was just flashing someone.”
“Yeah, but… Still. We might have done shit, but not like that, right out in the open. They had to know someone could film it. Everyone’s got their phones out at lunch.”
“Preston gave me a milk shower in the middle of the café.”