Deadly Little Sins (17 page)

“You don’t know what it’s like to lose everyone you love,” Alexis shouts. “I just want my dad back—”

The door keypad lights up, which means someone just slipped a key in it. I snap my phone shut.

Remy stares back at me, her face saying she’s been outside the door for a while.

“I forgot my book.”

“Rem—”

“I really hope you know another Alexis.”

I open my mouth, ready to say something stupid and cliché like
I can explain,
but I just
can’t.

“Were you, like, using me to get to her or something?” Remy’s cheeks are splotched with red, like she’s going to cry.

“Of course not—”

“You
were
. After Isabella died, you were always asking me about Alexis. She told me you were using me, and I should have believed her.”

Now my throat is tight, blood rushing to my face. “Why did you even ask me if you already have your mind made up?”

“I can’t believe you,” Remy cries. “I stopped being friends with her
because of you
.”

“I never asked you to do that!” I feel myself unraveling. “You’re the one who wanted to be friends with me. All of you guys. I never asked for anyone to like latch on to me.”

Remy’s jaw sets. “Well if you wanted to be left alone so badly, you should have just said so.”

I wince. Remy grabs
Heart of Darkness
from her desk and stalks off.

Remy never comes back to the room. I’m too humiliated to go to dinner, even though I know it’ll look twice as bad if I don’t show up at all.

I have no idea who to go to, or how to get myself out of this mess, so I call Chelsea, my best friend from home.

“Hey, babe!”

Someone in the background—a guy—makes a suggestive “ooooh” sound. Chelsea tells him to shut up. My loneliness guts me. That used to be the two of us: the girls at the party who blew off creepers and then stumbled home, laughing about it until we fell asleep at three in the morning.

Now, I just think being drunk on a Sunday night is sad, and I wish Chelsea would go outside so I could talk to her.

“Where are you?” I ask.

I can barely hear her response over the shouting and music coming from her end. “Just some pregaming before a freshman mixer. Fordham guys are lame.”

“You’re in the Bronx? Be careful, Chels.”

“It’s okay, Madison is with me,” she shouts.

Madison Feldman was always our third wheel. The thought of her being bumped up to Chelsea’s second-in-command makes me even more homesick.

“I miss you,” I say.

“What?” The noise from the party is so loud I have to move the phone away from my ear.

“Nothing,” I say, but the call’s already been dropped.

I roll over and bury my face in my pillow. And I cry—not for Ms. C or for Dr. Muller but for myself, because I’m a selfish bitch. Falling apart isn’t even an accurate way to describe my life—
imploding
is more like it.

I almost call home, just to hear my parents’ voices. When I was a kid and thought I heard noises at night, I’d yell for my dad until he came into my room and checked under my bed and in my closet. But now the monsters are real.

A knock at the door startles me. At first I think it’s Darlene, my RA, telling me it’s lights out. But it’s only nine, and curfew isn’t until eleven since it’s a holiday weekend.

Remy could have forgotten her key earlier. I wipe the smeared mascara from beneath my eyes and get up.

He knocks again as I’m looking through the peephole. Brent.

I shut my eyes and silently bang my forehead against the door. Fantastic.

“What’s up?” I open the door and rub my nose, trying to play off the redness in my eyes as an allergy attack.

“Anne, have you been crying?”

I motion to shake my head, but find myself nodding. “If you’re looking for Rem, she’s super pissed and me and probably in April and Kels’s room.”

“I’m not,” Brent says. “You weren’t at dinner, so I was worried. What’s going on with you and Remy?”

“It’s stupid. And I really don’t want to talk about it.”

Brent puts a hand to his chest. “Did
I
do something? Because you’ve been weird around me, too.”

I’m tired of holding back. Especially with him. “No. I’ve just screwed up every single good thing I had, and you being here right now reminds me of that and it sucks.” A single tear catches on an eyelash. “So no. You didn’t do anything.”

He’s quiet. “Do you want me to go?”

I shake my head and take a step back. Brent slips inside my room and shuts the door. He holds my face in his hands, using his thumb to wipe away the tear pooling in the corner of my eye.

I don’t know who kisses who. It’s one of those kisses where it doesn’t matter. He kisses me so deeply that I can’t tell where I end and he begins.

We wind up on my bed, my head on his chest. The spot on where I rest it is warm, like it’s been waiting for me. Brent wraps his arms around my body, as if he’s trying to block out the rest of the world from getting to us.

“Everyone’s probably at the athletic complex by now,” I say.

“I don’t want to go to the stupid pool,” Brent murmurs, tracing kisses down my ear, my neck. They wind up on my lips.

“Brent,” I say. He leans forward, stopping my words with another kiss.

“They’re going to notice we’re not there,” I say.

“So what.” He kisses the tip of my nose. My cupid’s bow. Then finally, my lower lip. “I’d rather be with you. As long as you give me the choice, I’ll always choose you.”

I run my fingers through my hair, tugging at the roots, which I know drives him crazy. Brent hooks a finger in the top of my pants and pulls me to him so our bodies are mashed together.

The words are on the tip of my tongue:
I’m sorry. I screwed up. Please say this kiss means it’s not too late.

“I go back to that night all the time,” he whispers in my ear. “I think about where we’d be if I’d said no, that wasn’t it for us. It wasn’t the end.”

So do I.

“Don’t think about the bad stuff.” I trace figure eights on the small of his throat. “Not now. I just need a break from all the bad stuff.”

He flips me so he’s on top. Our eyes meet, and he smiles. I prop myself up on my elbows so our lips meet, and we stay like that, kissing, until I know curfew must be approaching. But it doesn’t feel like long enough.

“I don’t want to go.” He rests his forehead against mine. It’s warm.

“Then don’t,” I say.

“I guess … that if someone left the window in the lounge open, I could sign out and come back.” Brent tugs my V-neck down just enough to kiss below my collarbone. He smiles; I grin back and he takes my hand.

After I sneak into the lounge, open the window, and hurry back to my room, heart pounding, I’m alone with my thoughts again. I’m pretty sure I just blew up the hot mess scale by making out with my ex-boyfriend.

I’m not dumb enough to think that this changes anything—that Brent and I will magically forget all the horrible crap that happened between us, the ways we hurt each other. And I don’t think that having him back by my side will make it okay that Remy hates me and my favorite teacher might be dead and if I’m not careful, I could be next.

But only for tonight, I don’t care.

When I wake up, I’m alone. I roll over—Remy’s bed is empty, too. I panic for a moment, worried that she never came back from the athletic complex last night. Then I remember that she’s angry, and probably sleeping in Kelsey and April’s room.

Especially if she came back here last night and saw that I was with Brent.

Brent. Who’s gone.

I pull on a pair of jeans and a fleece and grab my ID card. Before I run downstairs, I text Kelsey.

Is Rem with you?

She responds instantly.

Yup. At breakfast. Where were u last night?

So Remy didn’t tell anyone about our fight. That’s good—I think. I reply to Kelsey.

Are the guys with you?

Nope.

I pocket my phone and head downstairs. As I power-walk over to Aldridge, I tell myself that Brent probably snuck back to his room early and didn’t want to wake me.

When I get to the lobby, I call him. He doesn’t pick up. I try again, hanging up when I see Phil emerge from the lobby elevator.

“Is Brent upstairs?” I ask.

Phil shrugs. “Didn’t see him. Want me to sign you in?”

When I get upstairs, the guys’ room door is open. I poke my head in. Cole is sitting on the couch, eating a bowl of cereal. He doesn’t look surprised to see me.

“Hey,” I say. “Brent here?”

“Said he was going for a run.” Cole’s face is funny.

“Did he say anything before he left?”

Cole looks over his shoulder at Murali, who’s emerging from the bathroom. They share a look. Cole turns back to me. “He said to me, ‘I swear all we did was make out,’ then he said, ‘shit,’ and he ran out.”

My stomach dips. “We did just make out. But I don’t know why that’s anyone’s business but ours.”

Murali sits on the couch next to Cole. “We wanted to talk to you about that. Here, sit.”

I glare at him as he clears a stack of video-game boxes off the couch. “Is this an intervention?”

“More of a Brentervention,” Murali says.

Cole puts down his spoon. “Seriously, man? Be quiet.” He rounds on me. “Anne, you rock and everything, but we’re just looking out for Brent. We don’t want him to get all messed up again, if you’re not, you know, serious about him.”

I regret ever sitting down. “Messed up?”

“He’s been looping his Bon Iver album,” Murali says. “We’d like him to stop.”

Cole tosses a soggy piece of cereal at his face and misses. “You sound like a selfish dick. He’s our best friend, dude.”

“And he’s not my friend, too?” I glare at Cole, who blinks at me. Obviously, he and Murali didn’t take the time to prepare their arguments before they double-teamed me. They should know better. My dad’s a lawyer.

“Look, Brent’s a big boy. He can kiss who he wants.”

“Yeah, and there are a lot of girls who are into him,” Cole says. “But he won’t even look at them if he thinks there’s a chance he can get back with you.”

“That’s what you’re worried about?” My voices hitches up an octave. “That I’m
cock-blocking him
?”

“Anne—” Murali gets up, but I’m already at the door.

Brent isn’t in the dining hall, but since I already swiped to get inside, I may as well eat breakfast. I head for the juice bar, keeping one eye on the entrance to see if he shows up. I balk, seeing the back of two familiar, tall, athletic bodies with perfect blond French braids.

“Are they back together?” Jill asks, a touch of disappointment in her voice.

“Probably just a hump and dump,” Brooke says.

No doubt they’re talking about Brent and me. I inch up the line behind them.

“You think they did it?” Jill’s voice is hushed.

“Everyone saw his walk of shame,” Brooke says. “She’s unbelievable. I mean God, she almost got
expelled.
Keep your legs closed.”

White-hot rage bubbles in me. “Excuse me,” I say to the boy in front of me in line. I push my way around him and dump my glass of cranberry juice onto Brooke’s tray. It splashes onto the front of her shirt. She shrieks and jumps back to avoid the red dripping from the counter onto the floor.

“Oops.” I smile at her even though I’m trembling inside. Suddenly, I’m not very hungry. Before everyone starts catching on to the scene I just caused, I make a break for the exit, and smack right into Brent. He puts his arms on mine to steady me.

I yank away. “Why did you bail on me this morning?”

The area under his eyes is gray with lack of sleep. “I—I just needed to process. I freaked out.”

I lower my voice. “Kissing me was that bad?”

“No. Of course not.” He scratches his eyebrow. Runs his thumb alongside his mouth. Anything to avoid looking me in the eye. “But last night—I’ve been thinking about that happening since we broke up. I
wanted
that to happen.”

“You didn’t exactly have to twist my arm, remember?”

He runs his hands over his face. “Have you seen him? Since you’ve been back?”

Anthony. I should have known this was about Anthony. “What does that have to do with us?”

“Everything. And you know it.” Brent’s eyes flash. “Do you realize how much it killed me to see you with him that night? It was like you were waiting for us to break up so you could be with him.”

“That is
not
true. I was never
with
him.” I’m not exactly whispering. People are looking at us now. Brent casts a glance over his shoulder and lowers his voice.

“Don’t lie. Did you have feelings for him when we were together?”

My stomach clenches. “Yes. But I never acted on them.”

A muscle in Brent’s jaw twitches. He shrinks away from me.

“Wait,” I say. “The things I felt for him, are, like,
nothing
compared to what I feel for you.”

I don’t realize what I’ve said until his face softens a bit.
Feel,
not
felt.
Desperation claws at me. “You’re the one who’s always been there,” I say.

His mouth forms a line. “Just not the one time it mattered.”

I’m speechless.

“That text message,” he whispers. “I know it’s not a prank. Does
he
know what it’s about?”

And just like that, I’m angry.

He has it so wrong. How am I supposed to convince Brent that I’m done punishing him for not believing me last year? How am I supposed to tell
anyone
what really happened at Shepherd’s house—that Anthony followed me inside and Travis Shepherd would have shot him if Steven Westbrook didn’t kill Shepherd first.

Anthony thinks I’m a monster who almost got him killed. If I tell Brent the truth, he’ll think I’m a monster, too.