“Since when did you start dating Derik again?” Liliana asked.
Catherine made a face, and sipped from the wine in her red solo cup. “Since school started, but we’re not really dating. We’ve gone out like twice in three weeks.”
“Okay, then why?” Her cousin gave the footballer in question a look from across the room, but Derik didn’t notice. “Because I remember you telling me he was a jerk, and he is.”
“And a pig,” Catherine agreed.
Those details hadn’t really changed much.
Derik was slightly better, but mostly, he was a way out of her house on weekends without one of her older cousins demanding they follow behind. Catherine didn’t regret her choice to start dealing with Andino, and under John’s direction, she simply wished they gave her a bit more leeway. Michel had been able to do whatever in the hell he wanted, with no watchers.
Catherine wasn’t given that benefit at all.
Except when she went out with Derik.
Her parents never seemed to question when she went out with her cousins, though. Usually just Andino. Sometimes Catherine didn’t tell them where or with whom she was going at all. She still wasn’t quite sure if she wanted to continue dealing, or if she wanted to let her parents in on what she was doing.
She didn’t see them being happy about it.
Or proud.
But it was fun. She had control, more than she ever did before. She also was wanted, but by her choice, and entirely unobtainable, also by her choice. Like a game. That was addicting.
The whole thing was addicting.
“I’m going to tell him to screw off soon,” Catherine said.
Liliana hid her smile in a cup of her own. “Shame.”
“Right?” Catherine rolled her eyes, adding, “I was talking to someone in the hall the other day, and Derik had a fit about it. It’s the same shit like before when we did actually date. I’m a possession in his pocket, or something. I’m over it.”
“That someone you were talking to wouldn’t happen to be Cross Donati, was it?”
Catherine wet her lips. “So what if it was?”
“Okay, so Derik is a complete asshole, and how he ever gets laid by any girl who knows him, I will never understand. But …”
Why did there always have to be something else?
“But, what?”
“Like, I’ve been around you when Cross comes over to talk or whatever,” Liliana said, “and it’s not a friendly kind of chat, Catty.”
“We are friends, though. Just friends.”
Who occasionally fucked when they met up at parties, or out somewhere, and neither of them were with other people. But they were just friends.
“He calls you babe,” Liliana pointed out.
Catherine shrugged. “So?”
“Cross literally has a flock of girls that chase him around. They might as well just keep their panties pulled down and their legs spread. He has never called any of them his babe, sweetheart, or any of the other things he calls you. At least, not that I’ve heard. And he hugs you.”
“Again, so?”
“Catherine, I’ve seen him bite one of his guy friend’s head off for giving him a smack on the shoulder. He doesn’t like to be touched by people, unless he invites it. He lets you grab his arm, I’ve seen you tap his cheek when he wasn’t looking at you, and he hugs you, like I said.” Liliana sighed. “He also talks just to you. No one else when he’s talking to you. He doesn’t talk like friends do with you, okay. It’s … I don’t know, like closer? No, like, intimate. Yeah, like that.”
“What are you talking about?”
Cross was just Cross. Catherine was just Catherine. That’s how they were. She couldn’t help that, and she didn’t see anything wrong with it. They were just friends.
“You’re seeing things that aren’t there. Get Aunt Jordyn or Uncle Lucian to get your eyes checked.”
“You know what, you can’t be helped,” Liliana said, flicking her wrist at Catherine with attitude. “Don’t say I didn’t try, though.”
“We’re just friends!”
“I bet you do way more with Cross when you’re just friends than you do with Derik while you’re kind of, sort of going out.” Liliana tipped her drink in Catherine’s direction, adding, “And if you deny that, you’re a goddamn liar. Marcellos don’t lie, Catty.”
“You know what, shut up.”
“Ow, my heart.” Liliana put a hand over her chest, and grinned. “I’m right, though, aren’t I?”
Yeah.
Technically.
“Drop it; Derik’s coming this way,” Catherine muttered.
Liliana cringed. “And that’s my cue to leave.”
“Call me tomorrow?”
“Yeah,” her cousin agreed.
Derik slid in beside Catherine, and snatched her red solo cup out of her hand, only to replace it with a new drink. His glazed eyes said he had already sipped on too much, and she would likely be driving him home.
“Fresh one for you,” he said, nodded at her cup.
His hand pushed the sandy blond hair out of his gaze, and he surveyed the room. Catherine was acutely aware of how different Cross and Derik were in moments like these. Derik’s attention went to only one thing, while Cross always kept at least part of his attention on her. Derik was light, with his blue eyes and blond hair. Cross was dark, from his gaze to his hair, to his fucking personality.
Entirely different.
Catherine downed half the cup in a single drink.
“Slow down,” Derik joked.
“We should probably head out of here soon.”
“Yeah, soon, Catty.”
Catherine hid her disgust by glancing away. “Don’t call me that, Derik.”
“Everyone else does.”
“No, my family does, and it’s a name I use when I’m working with my cousins. That’s it.”
“And Cross,” Derik challenged. “He uses it.”
“Well, he gave it to me, so he can use it if he wants.”
But not you.
Derik chuckled. “Whatever, drink up.”
If it meant she was going to get home sooner, she’d drink five more cups.
Catherine turned to set the red solo cup to the counter behind her, and was surprised at how the room tilted on its axis at the same time. “Whoa.”
“You all right?” Derik asked.
“I think I drank too much, maybe.” Catherine thought about her bag at her feet. “I’m going to call my dad.”
Dante would pick her up, no questions asked. It was his rule. As long as she didn’t drive drunk, and didn’t allow someone who was drunk to drive her. He would pick her up anywhere, and she would never be punished for calling and asking for help.
“Yeah, my dad,” Catherine said again.
She didn’t get to pick up her bag. Derik already had it in his hand, and his other was on her face, making her stare up at him.
“Shit, you’re lit, now.”
Catherine blinked, but her eyelids felt so heavy. “I’m gonna be sick, maybe.”
What was wrong with her?
“Yeah, come on. We’ll head out, then.”
Derik kept an arm around her waist as he guided her through the throng of people and rooms. No one seemed to notice how messed up Catherine suddenly was. A part of her knew something was wrong, but the rest of her just seemed confused.
A short hallway gave her a moment of lucidness.
“That’s not the way to the car,” Catherine heard herself say.
No, it’s a stairwell.
And those were rooms.
A bed.
Blankets that weren’t hers. Sheets that weren’t soft. A body that didn’t listen. A mouth that wouldn’t scream. A hand too tight in her hair. A pillow making it hard to breathe. A boy who didn’t hear no because she couldn’t say it.
Catherine woke up in the morning alone, with dried something on her inner thighs, a soreness way too deep, and her panties on the floor. Her memories were way too hazy, and she couldn’t push through the fog to explain why she was vomiting over the side of an unknown bed, or how she had gotten this way.
And then some of the night before filtered back.
A lot, she suspected, didn’t.
Shame.
It compounded like hard cement to her heart.
Her breath tasted like shame, her tongue burned with it, and her skin crawled with it. She couldn’t escape it.
Shame.
She focused on what she could do, what she knew.
One step … two …
One breath … two …
Trembling hands, vomit in her throat, and ruined panties in her purse.
Alive, here, and unsure.
Unsteady beats of a heart she wasn’t sure was hers.
One step … two …
One breath … two …
Catherine got the hell out of that house, called a cab home, and stayed in a burning hot shower until noon. She only came out of her room to apologize to her parents for not coming home, and took her punishment—one week, no car—with a nod and a promise not to do it again.
She didn’t know what else to do.
“Hey, Catty.”
Catherine turned to ice at her locker, and her hands froze on the book she was stuffing into her bag. Derik looked down at her, grinning in a way she once might have thought was just his cocky nature, but she now thought was predatory.
“Derik,” Catherine mumbled, quickly finishing her task and slamming her locker closed. “I have class, so—”
“Nah, you’re good.”
Catherine needed to get the hell away from this guy.
Now.
“Later, okay?”
She didn’t even get to turn around because Derik was already grabbing onto her wrist and spinning her back. His forceful grip left a red ring when he finally let go.
“So, we should hang out after school,” he said, cocking a brow.
Catherine barked out a laugh, surprising herself. “No way.”
“Pardon?”
“Derik, I will never be alone with you again. And if that was my only option, I would eat the barrel of a gun first. Are we clear?”
Derik chuckled. “Ah, shit, don’t be pissed because you got fucked up and—”
“I was fine until …” Catherine squeezed her eyes shut, trying to bring back the memory of what messed her up. She couldn’t get it there, but she knew, somehow, it had been something Derik did. The cup he brought, the drink … she was sure that was it. “Just fuck off, Derik. I’m not going to say anything about what happened, but stay the hell away from me.”
“What happened?” Derik asked, smirking a little too much. “Because I don’t remember shit, Catty, except us hooking up.”
Rape.
Rape. Rape. Rape.
RAPE.
That was the word her mind kept screaming whenever she thought about it. And she thought about it way too much. All she could do was think about it.
Catherine couldn’t bring herself to say it, though.
Don’t drink from a cup you don’t pour.
Keep someone with you all the time.
Be safe.
Stay smart.
Girls were taught to protect themselves.
Boys were never taught not to rape.
She heard the warnings over and over again. Mantras repeated by everyone.
And she screwed up.
It was her fault, too.
“Fuck off, Derik,” Catherine repeated. “Please, just leave me the hell alone.”
Wordlessly, Derik pulled his phone from his jacket pocket, and turned it on. His finger grazed over the touchscreen a few times, before he turned it for Catherine to see the gallery. Far too many images of her stared back—bad, awful, horrible photos. In some, she certainly might have looked as though she was awake, somehow conscious, but it was clear she was out of it at the same time. Her body was on display. Her pride was shattered.
“So, you and me,” Derik said, flipping his phone back around, “after school?”
“Fuck you.”
“Oh, and send me a pic or something, whatever is on under your jeans today. In case you didn’t know, I’ve got the whole school on my contact list, and it takes thirty seconds to make a group text with some pictures attached, Catty.”
She glared at him, but hid her trembling hands at her side. Silence was her best friend, and her best defense.
“Remember what you said to me last year—it wasn’t by my choice?” Derik nodded, his grin widening. “It was this time. It still is.”
“Cross … Cross!”
Cross turned in just enough time for Catherine to barrel into him like a crazy person. He was standing with a group of friends just outside the entrance of the school. The force of her running into his body sent them both flying back into the brick bannister of the stairs.
She fisted his leather jacket and instantly, strong arms were wrapping her tight.
Safe.
Home.
And him.
An old leather jacket. A conch shell. Bloody mouth. Kisses under falling snowflakes. Sand in her hair. Backseats. Pizza. Romeo and Juliet. Stick shift.
Arrogant boy. Trouble boy. Wild boy. Her boy.
Her boy who never hurt her.
Her boy who waited.
Her boy who loved.
Hers.
“Whoa, hey,” Cross whispered, his hands slipping under Catherine’s tightly tucked jaw to force her head up. His dark gaze skipped over her face, once, then twice. His thumbs stroked the corners of her lips, and stilled when the tears from her eyes tracked down to his skin. “What the fuck, Catherine? What the fuck?”
She was aware—too aware—that people were all around them, friends watching, whispering … already spreading gossip and shit.
Cross hated that nonsense.
“I’m sorry,” Catherine mumbled.
“No, screw that,” he said, turning her around in his embrace and making her walk down the stairs. He didn’t let go of her the whole time. He didn’t stop making them walk until they were all the way across the lot and standing under the school’s old willow tree. Only then did he turn her back around, his hands taking place on her face again so he could wipe the constant stream of tears away. “I need you to talk, or I’m going to start killing somebody, babe.”
“I fucked up,” Catherine said through sniffles, “I really fucked up, Cross. I didn’t follow the rules, and it’s bad.”
“You fucked up. You didn’t follow the rules.”
She nodded.
“Be clearer, Catty.”
“They’re always saying I can’t head out on my own. John and Andino, I mean. They’re always too careful, always repeating the same shit about what I can or can’t do. You’re a girl, you can’t do it the same way, they say.”
She was rambling, because that was easier. It was easier to avoid what she didn’t want to say. Anything was easier than that.
“Dealing, you mean?” Cross asked.
Catherine nodded wildly.
“Did you go out on your own?”
“Not to deal,” Catherine said, “but some of them know me anyway when I’m out.”
“Yeah, sure.”
“John and Andino didn’t know I was heading to parties, though, they just thought I was going out with Derik, and they’d leave me the hell alone about it.”
Cross stiffened.
He hated Derik.
“I fucked up. It’s really bad,” she repeated in a whisper.
Cross’s hands pressed harder on her cheeks, like he was silently willing her to calm down. “Why do you keep crying? Just … Jesus Christ, tell me what the fuck is wrong so I can fix it, okay?”
He couldn’t fix this.
She just needed someone safe.
He was safe.
“Catherine, tell me,” Cross hissed.
“I was out with Deirk this weekend—a house party. I got really messed up. I don’t remember a lot. He’s got pictures of me, Cross, like that. All these pictures, and he’s trying to use them to get me to do whatever he wants. I screwed up, and it’s bad. It’s really, really bad.”
“Is that it?”
Catherine’s gaze darted away.
Cross didn’t miss it.
“Is that all it is, Catherine? Just pictures. Just a messed up night. I need to know if that’s it.”
“Cross—”
“It’s not, is it?”
Catherine’s tears started all over again, and her throat closed around the words clawing their way out. “I think he slipped something in a drink—I only remember some stuff, like the pillow and the blankets, and trying to speak. And I was messed up in the morning, and not hangover bad, but something bad.”
Cross was holding her so tight, it was starting to hurt. His gaze blared with fire and hate and violence. “Do you remember saying yes to him?”
“I never said no.”
“You don’t have to.”
Cross let go of Catherine’s face, and in a blink, he was gone. Catherine immediately bolted out from under the low hanging willow branches, but Cross was already jogging across the parking lot.
“Cross, wait!”
He didn’t hear her.
Or he chose not to.
Catherine couldn’t keep up, and her continued shouts went unanswered.
“Cross, please!”
Inside the school, her shouts reverberated through the hallway. Heads popped out of classrooms, and a friend of Cross’s was right behind her before she even knew what was happening.
Catherine only saw the flash of Cross’s leather jacket dropping to the floor a second before he tackled Derik from behind.
One punch … two …
One skull cracked into the floor … two …
One curse … two …
“Cross, please,” Catherine cried.
Her hands fisted into the back of his dress shirt, and she pulled hard. He didn’t budge. She tried again, crying harder and tasting salt on her lips. She didn’t give a shit about Derik, but she cared about Cross.
There was no way this would end well for him on some level.
“Please, Cross, please!”
Her pleas were nothing to the snarled words flying out of Cross’s mouth with every punch he landed to Derik’s already broken, bleeding face.
“Where’s the fucking phone, Derik?”
And …
“You’re a dead man, motherfucker.”
And …
“Don’t you fucking ever …”
Catherine was flung off Cross by a student, and then three more football players took the place she had been. It took another two more coming to finally pull him off Derik. All five of them held Cross down while he beat and thrashed, hateful and raging and almost off the floor again.
Derik wasn’t moving.
At all.
Twenty minutes later, Cross, Catherine, and Derik sat in the reception area of the principal’s office together. Cross had already snatched the phone out of Derik’s pocket while he had laid unconscious on the hallway floor by the time a teacher came out.
No adult had seen the fight.
Cross’s bloody knuckles and Derik’s face was more than enough explanation when none of them spoke up. Even Derik said nothing when he finally came to again.
“Derik, your mother is here to take you to the hospital,” said the principal, before she let the door swing closed.
Cross’s gaze met Derik’s across the room. “Say a thing, and you’re fucking dead. One word, man, try me.”
Catherine stayed tucked in her own little corner of the office. She didn’t feel safe or okay again until Derik was gone.
“Cross?” Catherine whispered.
“Yeah, babe?”
“You can’t tell.”
He looked up from the phone in his hands—Derik’s phone—and stared hard at her. “What?”
“What I told you about what happened, I mean. You can’t ever, ever tell, Cross. Not the truth, not why.”
“Catherine—”
“You can’t tell. Please.”
Her bloody-knuckled, dark-eyed boy nodded.
Because he was hers.
Always.
Catherine hugged her arms closer to her chest, in an effort to keep out the cold. She should have grabbed a sweater before leaving the house, but she just reacted to the text from Cross saying he had something for her to pick up.
As it was, she also needed to get the hell out of her house. Her father had not been happy about what happened at the school, never mind that Cross had been involved, and the school played it off like it was tiff between the boys over her.
Because dating.
And teens.
It didn’t help that Catherine played along with that story, too. She didn’t offer anything different, not to the principal, or her father.
All Dante saw was a spectacle being made of his daughter, by Cross.
Again.
She couldn’t tell her father the truth without explaining what had happened, and what she had let happen. She wasn’t ever going to do that.
In the vacant restaurant parking lot, Catherine found Cross waiting. She met him in the middle. Silently, he tugged off his jacket, then the hoodie underneath, and handed it over. She slipped it on, breathing in his familiar scent and warmth while he put his jacket back on.
Then, he handed over Derik’s phone.
“It’s all gone,” Cross said, “all of it. He didn’t have a backup on auto. Nothing was sent out.”
“Probably didn’t have the chance.”
“Good thing.”
“Yeah,” Catherine agreed.
“I got a friend to check it, just to make sure, after I wiped the device. It’s gone. Destroy it, or give back to him with a smile, whatever.”
“I’m not going near him again.”
Cross let out a dark sound. “He’s dead anyway.”
“What?”
“Derik,” Cross repeated, folding his arms over his chest and showing off shredded knuckles that looked damn sore, “is dead, or he’s going to be.”
Catherine could see it in Cross’s eyes in that moment—with her, he did not play. He had very little lines people shouldn’t toy with, but she was one of them. Maybe the biggest one, shit, maybe his only one in the grand scheme.
“You can’t just … kill him,” Catherine said, her gaze darting around as though she was scared someone might overhear their conversation. The parking lot was still empty. “You already kicked his ass, Cross. I’m sure if he just showed up dead somewhere, you would be the first person to get a knock on your door.”
“I’m a patient motherfucker.”
“Cross.”
“I said what I said, Catherine.”
He never said things he didn’t mean.
She didn’t know if that scared her, or not.
“And we’re not done,” he added quieter. “You and me, I mean, we’re not done at all. We’re so far from done, Catty.”
He was right. They were always leaving shit unfinished. Somehow, it would be them again. Just not right now.
“Yeah, we never really are, huh?”
Cross shrugged. “Nope.”
He reached out and grabbed her by the back of her neck, dragging her into his chest for a tight hug that felt oh, so good, before he kissed the spot right between her eyes.
“Love you, babe.”
So familiar.
Oh, so good.
“Promise?”
“Always.”
As fast as he took her into his embrace, he let her go. Catherine waited until he was in his Rover and heading out of the parking lot, before she headed for her own car.
She didn’t forget his words, though.
His threat.
His promise.
It would be another three months before Catherine had to face those words again, and exactly what they meant.
When the air turned cold …
When ice covered roads …
When no one was looking …
Two days after an accident on an icy turn that took Derik’s life, Cross handed Catherine a piece of small metal tubing in an empty classroom. It was only maybe a half of a centimeter long, and she had no idea what it was.
“Car break lines,” he had said.
Catherine had only kept staring, unsure and unsteady. So goddamn wary, too.
Cross had laughed a dark and dangerous sound. “I never thought my first one would go down like that, but it doesn’t surprise me that it was for you.”
I’m a patient motherfucker.
Maybe she should have been disgusted.
Maybe she should have been terrified.
She only felt relief because she didn’t have to see Derik every day, and he deserved what he got. All of it.
Catherine still broke down.
Hard.
It was brutal; her sobs and messy tears filled the quiet space. Her ass hit the floor with cut break lines in her hand, and all she could do was squeeze it. Then, Cross was down on the floor with her, all his arms and legs wrapping around her like a fucking cocoon she couldn’t get out of, but she didn’t even want to. His familiar scent soaked into her lungs—leather, gun oil, and love. She could breathe again. She could finally breathe.
Promise?
Always.