Chapter 18

After what can only be described as the longest shift in the history of the world, I step out of the skating rink and toward my bike. Only my bike isn't there. Jonah left ten minutes ago, so I can't ask him for a ride. I turn to Jace, who's locking up the rink. I almost ask him, but at this point, I'd rather stick a blunt knife up my nostrils. I grab my phone and headphones from my backpack just as Jace says, "Your bike's in my van. You're not riding home, and there's no fucking way I'm letting you walk." He's already opened the passenger's door, and he's looking at me, puffing out an impatient breath.

I should fight him on this, but I have a feeling he'll just drive beside me the entire way home. I'm hungry and agitated and tired. So tired. I just want to go home, eat, shower, and crawl into bed and hopefully wake up and realize that today was just a dream.

A nightmare.

I start toward him, saying, "At some point, you need to stop telling me what to do."

Staying silent, he waits for me to get in the passenger's seat and buckle up before closing my door. We've barely made it a minute down the road before my phone rings. Dad's face flashes on the screen, and I answer it quickly, begrudgingly. "Hey, Dad."

"He showed up to your work?" he almost yells.

I tap my head against the window. "How did you know?"

"Jace told me."

My eyes snap to Jace, sitting behind the wheel, looking clueless as always. "How does he even have your number?" I shake my head. "Doesn't matter. Did he also tell you he chased him away with a baseball bat?"

"Be grateful it wasn't me with a shotgun."

"Dad…"

"Dad, nothing, Harlow. You should've been the one to tell me! Not Jace! Christian is a grown-ass man going after?—"

"Dad!" I snap, cutting him off. The only sound in the car is the road noise from outside, and the way Dad's yelling, I have no doubt Jace can hear every word he's saying. "We'll talk about it later." I hang up, my anger brewing, and let the awkward silence fill the space around me until we pull up to my house.

I'm quick to get out, to take my first full breath out in the open. Jace doesn't leave, though. Instead, he follows a step behind me, backpack in one hand, baseball bat in the other. He follows me all the way to my front door, and I unlock it but don't push it open. When I turn to him, he shrugs. "Your dad asked me to make sure that fucker didn't break in while you were at work."

"He's a cheater, not a criminal."

"Last I checked, pedophilia is a crime, Harlow," he deadpans.

I scoff at the thought. "I'm not a hopeless child. I was seventeen, legal age of consent in the state of Texas FYI. And in case you're unaware, it takes two to do what we did. He didn't just trip and have his dick land in the abyss. My legs were right there, spread open for him."

No reaction. No emotion. Not even disgust. "He took advantage of you."

"Again, not a child."

His voice kicks up a notch, lacing his words with anger. "He took advantage of your grief, Harlow. You'd just lost your brother, and he knew that. He found you at your weakest and played you for it, over and over. And I'm sorry if you don't want to hear that, but it's the truth. You were nothing more than his prey. His victim."

I'm not sure when I stopped breathing. Stopped thinking or defending, and started listening. At no point during or since Christian had I ever thought of myself as a victim, and I still don't. I was there too, not really lucid thanks to grief, drugs and alcohol, but still. I was there, and I participated in the chaos, knowing damn well I had nothing to lose, and what little I had wasn't worth clinging to. There were times, though, when I'd wake up in the middle of the night, and the only thought that consumed me was what if Harley could see me now?

I wondered if that's why I was so adamant on losing control—so that my big brother could show up and save me like he'd done in the past. Like he always did. But Harley was dead, his body buried six feet under. He'd never cloak me in his jacket again, never tell me I was better than the way I acted. And yet, I continued to chase that feeling, those moments in time when I actually believed him.

My throat closes as a single tear falls from my lashes, and I'm quick to swipe it away, to hide my emotions and bury them deep. Instead, I push open the door, step to the side, and murmur, "You're messing with my head, Jace."

He enters my house, the bat held at his side. "Trust me," he says, "the feeling's mutual."