Chapter 2

two

LOLA

I fought the awful ache in my chest as I practically sprinted out of Bullseye.It had been two years since I'd seen Hendrix Hunt. Two years of missing him and hating myself for what I'd had to do to him. Twelve years of loving him—I shut down the thought fast.

There was zero point in dwelling on things I couldn't change.

I crossed the brightly lit Bullseye parking lot and threw myself into the passenger seat of Kyle's waiting Honda.As soon as the door slammed shut, he pulled away, tires screeching like the hounds of hell were chasing us.

He glanced in the rear-view mirror before the little four-cylinder launched over a speed bump with a whine.

"He's not chasing you, Kyle."

"They're coming out of the store." He sped toward the exit, and instead of stopping at the red light, he swerved onto the busy highway.

If there was one person who avoided my ex-boyfriend even more than me, it was Kyle. Though our reasons were very different.I didn't want to be confronted with a barrage of emotions. Kyle didn't want his ass beat.

The seatbelt cut into my shoulder when he nearly rear-ended a rusted pickup. "Jesus Christ, Kyle."

The puff of his fake inhaler sounded. Then sounded again and again. The only reason I didn't snatch it away was that his mom had told me it was nothing but air and it helped his anxiety.

"Will you calm down and drive like a normal person?" I turned on the overhead light, then pulled the stolen tampons from my shirt and shoved them into my backpack.

We were a couple of miles down the highway before Kyle's shoulders relaxed. "Mom's off work tonight," he said.

Guilt knotted my stomach. Sandra, Kyle's mom, said she didn't care how long I stayed on their couch, but I hated inconveniencing her. It had already been three weeks since I'd aged out of foster care, and I still hadn't found a place I could afford to rent on the crappy tips I made at work.

The click of Kyle's blinker sounded before he turned into his neighborhood. "Want to watch Netflix in my room?"

"You should watch a movie with your mom, Kyle. Can you drop me off at the park by Old Man's house?"

"Why?" He stopped at a four-way and frowned at me. "Where are you going?"

"I'll stay at a friend's."

His brows furrowed. "Whose?"

"You aren't my only friend, Kyle." He was.

I'd burned every bridge I'd ever had in this town. I went from having a makeshift family with my little sister, Hendrix, and Zepp, to having nothing and no one. Kyle was all that remained.

The car behind us honked, and Kyle pulled off, looping around the block to let me out.

I stared through the dirty window at the condemned house on the corner. In the dark, it reminded me of something I'd expect to see in a horror movie. Peeling paint. Collapsed roof. Waist-high weeds.

Growing up, Old Man used to let us play in the woods behind the house. It had been condemned long before he had died, but now it was as though Mother Nature was trying to reclaim it.

"I'll be fine, Kyle." I kissed his cheek, shouldered my backpack, and left the semi-air-conditioned car.

The miserable summer heat wrapped around me like a thick, wet blanket as I started through the weeds.

I made it halfway through the yard before I turned around and glared at Kyle, his car still idling at the curb. Sighing, I pulled my phone from my pocket and sent him a text.

Me: It's fine, Kyle. Go home.

Kyle: Where are you going?

If I told him where I was really going, he'd never leave. I stared up at the star-filled sky and took a breath.

Me: I told you, to a friend's house. Go!

Kyle: Why couldn't I drop you off at the friend's house?

Kyle: What if you get murdered?

Shaking my head, I waded through the tall grass again as I shot off one final text telling him to go home, hating that I had to lie to my best friend.

I'd made it halfway around the side of the abandoned house before I heard him pull away. A few steps more and I stopped at the dark treeline of the back lot. Moonlight danced through the limbs of the single oak tree nestled amongst the tall pines, playing over the silhouette of the treehouse Hendrix had built for me when we were ten years old.

I swept my fingers over the initials carved into the rough bark of the trunk. LS it would be the innermost circle of it.

Kyle puffed his inhaler as we headed toward the entrance. "I hate this place."

"It's just one more year..." I held onto that thought as I stepped inside and into the chaos of people pushing and shoving their way past the metal detectors.

I took in the dicks graffitied across a row of lockers, the words cock master messily painted beneath the shooting sperm.

Kyle went to join a group of band kids huddled together like that would save them.It wouldn't. They were prey here, and they'd be ripped limb from limb, the same as always.

After I found my locker and put away my books, I ducked into the nearest restroom. I just needed a second to pull myself together before I faced the den of vipers that was Dayton High, but unfortunately, I didn't get a chance.

The second I stepped up to the sink, the door swung open, and chatter spilled in from the hallway. The vipers had come to me.

"Oh, look, it's the whore." Jessica Masters.

I watched the reflection of two blondes move behind me. But the only one I paid attention to was Jessica, the girl who used to be my friend. One of my best friends…

I turned off the tap and faced them. "Interesting that I'm the whore…."

"You cheated on Hendrix. Of course, you're a whore. A massive whore."

She was one of the few people who knew the truth—or most of it—of what had happened two years ago, and she'd used it against me. Twisted it until she single-handedly had taken a match to my relationship with Hendrix, to my life.

I clenched my fists at my sides, using every ounce of restraint I possessed not to smash her face into the sink right then. "You know I didn't cheat on him, Jessica."

"That's not what everyone else said." A sick smile spread across her red lips. "And poor Hendrix. He was so heartbroken."

Yeah, so heartbroken that he eventually fucked her desperate ass. The thought made me sick, but I refused to let her see how much she got to me.

I may have been gone for two years, but I was still Dayton through and through… "I owe you a world of pain, Jessica. The next time you corner me in the bathroom like the bad little bitch you think you are, I'll make that bird nose of yours even more crooked." I flashed her a nasty grin. "That's a promise."

Before she could respond, I shoulder-checked her hard enough that she stumbled into the trash can, then I made my way out of the restroom.

I just needed to keep my head down, finish my final year, get my little sister out of foster care, and move on with my life. No matter how much I wanted to go in there and bleed her of every drop of retribution I was owed, I couldn't afford to get arrested.

I rounded the corner and walked right into someone.

"Shit." I crouched to collect the books that had scattered the floor, glancing up at the underclassman guy wearing an American flag shirt. "Sorry."

"It's okay."

I passed the books over just as Kyle hurried up, his glasses slightly skewed as he tapped the guy on the shoulder. "If you value your life," he whispered, "run."

"What?" The guy frowned at Kyle, and I got it. Kyle seemed extremely dense right then.

The chatter in the hallway dimmed like birds quieting in the presence of danger, and I tensed. I knew exactly who that hush hailed.

"Run!" Kyle whisper-shouted before shooting past us toward the men's restroom.

The guy glanced over his shoulder, then took off, too. People in the crowded hallway fell over themselves to get out of Hendrix's way.

I'd been too shocked at seeing him last night to really take him in, but as his gaze homed in on me like a lion selecting a wildebeest from the herd, my heart thumped out a broken beat in my chest, limping and wounded. The boy who used to be mine was more devasting than I remembered. Taller and broader and, if possible, even more beautiful.

The litany of tattoos that crept beneath the sleeve of his black T-shirt was old, but the ones winding their way up one side of his neck were new. Thick and black, like the taint of Dayton had leached into his skin, spreading like a disease

But the thing that really punched me in the gut was the collection of ratty bracelets decorating his left wrist.

Ten to be exact.

I'd given him one for every birthday since we were six, outside of the last two I'd missed, and the fact that he hadn't cut them off hurt in the sweetest way.

The five-minute bell rang. People darted to class, but Hendrix kept coming, his attention solely on me.

A tiny shred of panic rose within me. I'd never been on the receiving end of his hatred, and I didn't want to be, which was why I ducked back into the empty bathroom.

The door had barely swung shut before the noise of it cracking against the cinder block wall had me whirling around.

Hendrix loomed in the doorway, his wild, blue gaze aimed right at me as he took a step forward, then another.I didn't realize I'd backed away from him until my back hit the wall.

The scent of pine and citrus invaded my lungs as he trapped me against his hard body. My thighs pressed together at the memory of us together like this in a hundred different ways. Clothed, naked, him holding me, fucking me, but this wasn't that. There was nothing sweet or sexual about this. He was angry.

"I miss you , too?" He inched closer, his warm breath teasing my face. "Really, Lola?"

Before I could respond, he slapped a heavy palm against the wall beside my head.

"Why the fuck would you write that?" His gaze burned into me like he could see every raw emotion, every sordid lie lingering between us. Everything. Except for the truth.

"Because I do." I missed the version of him I'd loved. The version that didn't so clearly hate me. "I miss the boy who wrote on those walls."

"You don't get to miss him." His voice boomed in the small space, startling me into silence. "That boy you claim to miss wasn't good enough for you. Remember?" His jaw ticced. "You didn't even tell me good-fucking-bye after everything you did to me."

But the thing he didn't realize, everything I had done had one purpose. To protect him. And it had backfired.

One minute I was in Dayton, and the next, the state had dragged Gracie and me into foster care. There was no room for goodbye, and even if there had been, after the lies I allowed him to believe, I wouldn't have known how to say it.

I fought past the lump in my throat. "You were everything to me, Hendrix."

His arms dropped to his side with a cynical laugh. "Everything, huh?" He took a step back, his gaze sweeping over me with disgust. "But you fucked another guy. And you didn't even know who that baby belonged to."

It took everything in me not to flinch at his words. Not to sink into the memories I'd spent years trying to forget.His pain burrowed beneath my skin like a parasite, igniting my own.

There was nothing I could say. No lie that could soothe the ache. "It was complicated," I whispered.

"I fucking loved you, Lola." Silent seconds ticked by before he inhaled a heavy breath. Then he turned and launched his fist into the dirty mirror, sending pieces of shattered glass scattering to the sink and floor. "Goddamn it! I fucking loved you, and you shit all over everything." He went to the door, and with one final, hate-filled glance over his shoulder, he shoved it open. "You stay the fuck away from me!"

Tears broke free as the door swung closed behind him, and I slid down the wall. I had loved that boy with my entire being. I still did, and that was the only reason I allowed him to think I'd betrayed him.

The truth would destroy him as much as it had destroyed me. Maybe more…