Becca

 

My hands trembled at my sides, slick with sweat. I hated this. Everything about it felt wrong—was wrong. But it was the only way I could protect myself. I knew that now.

I thought I could ignore Kendall and she would go away. But she wasn’t going to, and now she had me right where she wanted me.

Her heavy stare burned into me, and I glanced back, meeting her eyes. Pleading. Don’t make me do this. An ugly smirk cracked over her face, and she motioned for me to get on with it. I pulled out the white note, taking a second to check no one was around and slipped it through the vent on my friend’s locker. When I turned around, twisted satisfaction shone in her eyes and an unspoken message passed between us.

Stage one, complete.

~

“Lilly, what is it?” I jogged up to her as she cut across the grass, eyes raw and puffy. 

“I ...” She sniffled. “Jay ... I think Jay’s cheating on me.”

“He would never,” I said with conviction, guilt swamping me.

“I got a note, but I think it was for him.” 

“A note? What did it say?”

“I-I can’t, Becca. Sorry.” She barged past me, tears dripping down her face, and rushed inside. 

“What was that all about?” Evan appeared, his gaze settled on me. Did he know? Could he see the betrayal in my eyes?

“Lilly, she thinks Jay is cheating.”

“You’re joking, right? He would never ...”

I shrugged, pressing myself into his frame, hiding the shame on my face. Evan’s arms looped around me and he held me. 

“Eli loved yesterday.”

“It was fun.” And it was. Except every laugh, every smile was strained, dragged down by Kendall’s instructions. My first dare. If the four-year-old noticed my agitation as we spent the time at the fairground visiting the next town over, he didn’t let on. His older brother, however … well, I was pretty certain he sensed the change in me. I’d tried to distract him with my touch … my body … my kisses. But from the way he held me now, I wasn’t sure my plan worked. 

“Are you sure everything is okay?” He stared down at me, and I nodded, forcing my best smile. ”You’d tell me, though? If something was bothering you, you’d tell me?”

“Evan.” I leaned up on my tiptoes, sealing my lips to his. “Everything is fine.” 

If I kept telling myself that, telling him that, maybe one of us would believe it.

~

“Come on, babe. It’s bullshit. You know I didn’t do it.” Jay’s voice cracked, the pain evident in his tight jaw.

Lilly’s body heaved with the force of her tears. “The note says ...”

“I don’t care what the fucking note says; I didn’t touch anyone else. It’s lies, all of it. I love you, Lil, only you.” He reached for her, but she reared back, a fresh wave of tears spilling. The whole hallway watched the scene play out, whispering and pointing.

“Shit, shit.” Scarlett came up beside me, and then she was gone, moving toward them. She wrapped a protective arm around Lilly, shooting Jay daggers. 

“Back off, Scarlett. This is between me and Lilly.” 

“Walk away, Jay. She doesn’t need the entire school hearing this bullshit. Go, cool off.”

They stared each other down as Lilly cradled into Scarlett’s arm. Malachi and Vin appeared and managed to drag Jay away. The look of defeat and desperation on his face winded me. Sucked the air clean from my lungs.

“Beautiful, don’t you think?” a voice whispered over my shoulder. I didn’t acknowledge Kendall. It wouldn’t do me any good. But I couldn’t help it when the word why tumbled from my lips.

“Why not?” she said. “They walk around here like they’re untouchable; Scarlett Peters and her merry band of fucking freaks.” Venom dripped from her words. This was personal for her, and she was using me because it made it all the sweeter. “Two down, two to go.”

I didn’t ask what she meant.

I didn’t want to know.

~

“God, I love your neck.” Evan peppered kisses along my collarbone, threading his fingers into my hair, and my body arched into him. 

We were on his bed, making the most of the hour before Ellen returned from the store. I moaned softly when his teeth grazed my ear. Evan rolled on top of me, nestling between my legs, pushing his jeans-covered erection into the apex of my thighs. “What do you want, Becca?”

It was such a loaded question; only he didn’t know that. He didn’t know that I wanted to go back in time and change things. To erase Kane Larson from my life. To make different decisions. But a small part of me, the part of me here at this moment with Evan, knew that if it wasn’t for Kane, I would never have ended up in Credence. I would never have met Evan or Eli or Cindy or Scarlett. I wouldn’t be here tangled on the bed with Evan. 

“Evan, I ...”

The sudden urge to tell him came over me—to share my deepest, darkest secrets. But if he knew, would he comfort me and tell me everything would be okay? Or would he leave me cold and alone? Disgusted by the girl underneath the mask?

I’d almost killed someone. 

Until Dad arrived, I’d thought for sure Kane Larson was dead, lying unmoving and twisted at all angles, blood seeping from his head. Blood. There was so much blood. 

“Becca?” Evan nudged my cheek with his nose, coaxing me back to him. “What is it?”

I leaned up and kissed him, quieting the noise and the memories I wanted nothing more than to erase. He held back at first, resisting my advance. I looped my arm around his neck, splaying my fingers against his shoulder. ”Kiss me; you have to kiss me,” I murmured. Begged. Kane Larson was like a stain on my soul that only Evan’s touch could erase.

“Talk to me.” His lips found my skin again, and I knew what he was doing. He was trying to coerce me into talking. I clamped my legs around his hips, arching into him, trying to ease the throb I felt. 

“We can’t keep doing this,” he whisper-moaned.

He was right. We couldn’t. But when we stopped, so would this thing growing between us. I pressed my head back into the pillow, staring up at him. “You have your secrets, and I have mine, remember?” I threw his words back at him.

“No more running, remember?” His brows furrowed.

“I’m not running. I promise.” I wasn’t, but he didn’t need to know what I was doing either. Not yet. I would play Kendall’s game and hope that, in the end, she would back off. And in the meantime, I would cling to Evan, holding on with everything I had. 

“Shit, time really flies when you’re having fun,” he grumbled.

“No.” I gasped, arching my body into his. He couldn’t stop now, not when I needed him to calm my nerves.

“Thirty-five minutes, max.”

I brushed my nose along his jaw, following with a kiss. “We can be quick.”

“Becca.” His hands gripped my shoulders. Not forcefully, but with enough bite that I knew he would stop. “I want you so much, but we can’t keep doing this.”

My head rolled to the side.

“Becca …”

“I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“Talk to me, please.”

“There’s nothing to say, Evan. I wanted to spend what little time I have with you, alone, close to you. Is that such a crime?”

His hand palmed my cheek, urging me to look at him. “No, it isn’t. But I know you, Becca. I know something is going on with you. Is it Kendall? Is she—”

I pushed Evan away, wriggling out from under him until I was sitting on the edge of the bed. “It has nothing to do with Kendall.”

Liar.

He shuffled behind me, kicking his legs on either side of me. His arms went around my waist, his chin dropping to my shoulder. “So what is it?”

“My mom, she …”

Liar.

“I’m right here.” His lips connected with the skin just below my ear.

“She’s riding me hard about you. Giving me the ‘you don’t have time for boys’ speech. I think she’s just worried about my grades and college applications.”

LIAR.

That was more like a half truth. She was worried. But it wasn’t the reason I was worried.

“She doesn’t think I’m good enough for you.”

I flinched at the defeated tone in his voice. “Evan, I … That’s not it.” Shit. This wasn’t the conversation I wanted to be having right now. Not when I had to leave so soon. I twisted my body, sitting in his lap. “Don’t think that; it’s not about you, I promise.”

“You’re making a lot of promises lately.”

I frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing, Becca. It means nothing.”

God. I hated this—the distance, the secrets between us.

“So what if she does think that, and I’m not saying she does. I. Don’t. Care.”

He leaned in closer. “Maybe you should.”

I leaped up, running my hands down my sides. “I’m going to go before one of us says something we’ll regret. I’m fine, Evan. You have to believe me. It’s just normal senior stress. My mom has all these ideas about the ‘senior experience.’ She doesn’t get it; she doesn’t get Credence. Don’t worry about her, okay?” I reached out for him, relieved when he slid his hand into mine. “Don’t let her be another thing to come between us.”

Evan stood, tugging me into his arms. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I overreacted. Maybe she should officially meet me?”

Meet him? That would not be a good idea, but I found myself nodding because what else could I do?

“Thanksgiving is coming up, so maybe then? We could go out, get food or whatever it is you’re supposed to do with your girlfriend’s parents.”

“Girlfriend, huh?”

We still hadn’t had the ‘chat.’ It seemed unnecessary—labels didn’t matter to me or how I felt about him. But I couldn’t deny it felt nice hearing the word.

“Well, you are, aren’t you?”

“Am what?” I was teasing him now.

“My girlfriend?”

“Maybe.”

He captured my lips, showing just how much his girlfriend I was. When I was breathless, he pulled away. “You’re mine, Becca. Get used it.”

His.

The word sunk into me, filling me with hope and happiness and all those good feelings normal people experienced when they were in love.

Crap. I loved him. Somewhere along the line, I’d fallen in love with Evan Porter.