RYAN
I park the Jeep behind Chris’s truck and hop out. I’ve got to find Beth and I need to find Gwen. I’ll hand Gwen homecoming. I’ll tell her that Beth and I will drop out, as long as Gwen keeps Beth’s secrets. Chris and Logan lean against the tailgate and smile when they notice me. Today could be a nightmare for Beth and I’m going to need their help. “Have you seen Beth?”
Both of them shake their heads.
“Have you seen Lacy?” asks Chris. “She was supposed to meet me here.”
I scan the parking lot and spot Lacy bolting out the side doors. “There she is.”
Chris straightens as he watches her hurry to us. “Something’s wrong.”
She bypasses Chris, reaches out, and slaps me across the face. The pain sucks, but the worst part is the tears streaming down Lacy’s face.
“How could you?” she chokes out.
Lacy’s never hit me before. She’s never hit anyone before.
Chris places himself between me and Lacy while Logan yells at the people loitering to witness the show to keep moving. “Lace, what the hell?” Chris says.
Lacy shoves Chris and the shoves turn frighteningly close to hitting. “What the hell?” she screams. “What the hell is wrong with you? You were supposed to be her friend.”
From behind her, Logan pulls her hands to her sides. “Slow it down, Lace. Tell us what’s wrong.”
Tears overflow from her eyes while she stares at me. “You promised me you wouldn’t hurt her. You promised she was no longer a dare.”
Beth. She means Beth. “She wasn’t. I mean, she was, but you know I called it off.”
She jerks her arms out of Logan’s grasp, but he stays near in case she decides to attack again. “Everyone is saying Chris and Logan dared you to sleep with her. They said you won when you took Beth into the woods during the last field party. They said you slept with her and that she told you about her past. Everyone knows what happened to her in Louisville. Everyone knows.”
Gwen. I smack my fist into the side of Chris’s truck. “Have you seen Beth?”
Lacy shakes her head. “Tell me you didn’t do it. Please.”
Chris hesitantly touches her cheek. “No, baby. The dare ended the night Ryan fell for her.”
She wipes the tears from her face. “Someone wrote whore on her locker.”
Logan runs both hands over his face while Chris swears. The nightmare has already begun.
* * *
I search the hallways for Beth and I come up empty. The first warning bell rings and from the opposite end of the hallway Lacy shakes her head. Dammit. They can’t find her either. Logan taps my shoulder. “She just walked into class.”
Finally. I take off down the hallway and step into class right when the tardy bell rings. Lacy, Chris, and Logan trail behind me. Chris claps my back and the three of them head for our seats. Someone shushes the whispering and laughing as everyone watches me. I study Beth. She’s reclaimed the seat in the corner of the room instead of the one she took next to me weeks ago.
Just like the first day of school, Beth’s hair hides her face and she doodles in her notebook. My ribbon no longer graces her wrist.
An adult I don’t know clears her throat. We must have a sub today. “Do you mind taking your seat?”
Beth glances up at me, then immediately looks back down. It’s as if I swallowed knives. She’s heard the rumors and she believes them.
Perfection. It’s what everyone expects from me. Take my seat. Do my work. Go to practice. Play ball. Keep everything bottled up and let your insides rot as long as the outside looks perfect. “Beth.”
She keeps her head down and the substitute steps into my line of view. “Either find a seat or find yourself in detention this afternoon.”
“Ryan,” Chris says, “the game.”
The game against Northside. I promised Chris I wouldn’t miss another game and detention would bar me from keeping that promise. Reluctantly, I take my seat and turn to stare at Beth, willing her to look at me.
“We’ll catch her after class,” Chris whispers to me from across the aisle.
* * *
The bell rings and it’s a race of who can get out of their seat faster. Beth is out the door first and her size makes it possible for her to duck and weave through the mass of bodies crowding the hallway. My next class is in the opposite direction of where she’s headed, but I don’t care.
She runs down the history hallway and I grab her arm right before she enters the safety of the classroom. I lean in and look straight into her eyes. “You know I love you.”
Her eyes search my face and she appears as broken as she did two days ago at the hospital. “Did you fuck me to win a dare?”
I fight the urge to shake her. “I didn’t fuck you, I made love to you. Don’t do this, Beth. Don’t take what was beautiful between us and make it ugly.”
Water fills her eyes and my heart slices into a million pieces. Beth isn’t a crier and I’m making her cry. I thought making love would prove how much I loved her. Prove that she could trust me, and it’s killing me to know that one act could be what’s tearing us apart. “I gave you my word that the dare was over. When have I ever lied to you?”
“On the front steps of Scott’s house you promised me I wouldn’t be a secret.”
I’m standing here breaking the PDA rules by holding her close to me. How can she believe I lied? “I’ve told everyone at school. I’ve brought you to games. I’ve taken you to parties.”
“Tell me you told your parents. Tell me that when your parents confronted you about us, you told them we were a couple.”
My grip on her loosens and she jerks her arm away. How could she know that? Over Beth’s shoulder I spot Gwen skulking at the end of the hallway. She glances at me, then immediately averts her gaze. Dammit.
Beth kneads her eyes with her hands. “I fell for the jock again. The worst part is I told you how to play me. Convince me you love me and I’ll fall into your bed. I’m so fucking stupid.”
The warning bell rings and I watch in shock as Beth turns. No. She can’t believe that. “I do love you.”
Beth pauses in the door frame and I pray she’ll say she believes me. “No, you don’t. You don’t want to feel bad for winning the dare.” She walks into class and the tardy bell rings.
Beth’s second-period teacher assesses me. “Get to class.” Then closes the door in my face.
Feeling numb, I turn in the direction of my next class. I made love to Beth and I lost her. I swallow as my own eyes sting. It was too soon. She didn’t trust me enough. What we did together, it was too much, too fast. I run a hand over my head and try to comprehend how everything blew out of control.
“Ryan!” calls Gwen from behind me. “Ryan! Please wait!”
Rage shoots through my veins as I spin in her direction and tower over her. “Are you finally happy, Gwen? Congratulations, you’ve bagged homecoming. I hope it was worth it.”
Her eyes widen and she steps back. “I didn’t do it for homecoming.”
“Then why? Why would you hurt me like this?”
She blinks. “Hurt you? I’ve said nothing about you.”
“If you hurt her, you hurt me. I love her.”
Gwen’s face pales. “You only think you love her. I just…I just told a few people. Just enough so word would get back to you, because I knew you wouldn’t listen to me. I didn’t know that they’d call her a whore. I didn’t know about the locker. I swear, Ryan. I feel awful. I do. I had no idea it would go down like this.”
When I angle my body away from her, she tries to reach out to me. “Please, you have to believe me. Ryan…”
I move out of range and her fingers hover in the air for a second before dropping to her side. “She’s all wrong for you. I thought if you heard it, maybe from other people, you’d see what she really is and then you’d…”
Nausea crawls up my throat. “What? What did you think I’d do?”
Tears pool in her eyes and she shrugs. “Come back to me.”
I pop my neck, trying to relieve the tension, but find the act did nothing to help. “We were over long before Beth came to this school. If you can’t understand that, try this—I love her, Gwen. I love her.”
I turn my back and head in the direction of my next class. This school isn’t that big and, because of that, Beth won’t be able to hide from me for long.