She retched again, the sickly sweet vodka and cream soda even worse on the way back up.
Reece’s fingers were hot at the back of her neck. He kept massaging and pressing and she didn’t want to be touched right now, not by anyone. Especially not him; she didn’t want his attention and his concern and his fucking kindness. She swatted his hand away, unseeing.
I am Charlotte Thorne and I am nothing, I am an embarrassment. Everyone leaves, everyone sees who I am and they leave and I go back, I beg—
“Get off me.”
She twisted out of Reece’s arms. Her foot hit one of the tent posts and she lost her balance, landing hard on her knees. She groaned as her palms hit the dirt.
Reece crouched next to her, and Charlotte flinched away, more wild animal than human. “Stop it,” she sneered, all raw nerves. “Stop touching me.”
Reece shrank back like he’d been struck. Guilt joined the murky swarm of emotions wreaking havoc in her mind, but she couldn’t deal with it, she couldn’t hold his feelings alongside her own. She couldn’t breathe.
Charlotte, how can you be so stupid? How do you fuck everything up? You are so annoying ravishing pathetic
The lid from the storage container labeled Ben was blown away, lost forever. His words came back to her without so much as a thin coat of dust. She could still feel his fingers on her cheek as he sipped pain from her lips. Was that five years ago or tonight?
Are you going to miss me, Thorny?
“Are you bleeding?” Reece again, still, his voice jagged with worry. “Charlie?”
Another voice joined the din in her mind, a crisp, feminine mid-Atlantic accent.
disgraceful
Charlotte clambered to her feet. Reece stepped forward to stabilize her and she jerked away. She couldn’t look at him, couldn’t let him touch her. She didn’t want to see it on his face, that he finally knew how broken she was. That he finally understood why she wasn’t good enough.
“I’m fine.”
“Are you sure?” His green eyes were almost black in the shadows of the tent. He reached out for her again and she took a step back. “Do you want some water? Should we go back to the dorm?”
Too many questions. She couldn’t think. Why did he still want to help her? Was this pity? Was he just that damn nice? Her fingers grabbed on to a rope supporting the tent post and held on tight.
“Charlotte?”
“Leave me alone. Please, just leave me alone.”
Her voice wasn’t the fawning, mewling plea from inside the tent. It was ice-cold and sharp as a diamond at the corners. Reece startled at her dismissal, frozen midstep with his hand outstretched. She bit down hard on the inside of her cheek. “I don’t want your help. I don’t need you.”
She turned her back to him and started across the Lawn. She didn’t have a direction, only away. Reece didn’t follow.
disgraceful
Shame clung to her like gasoline.
God help her, she sounded just like her mother.
Sunday
Chapter 12
TEXT MESSAGE FROM JACKIE SLAUGHTER TO CHARLOTTE THORNE, 12:07 AM: where are u reece said u saw ben are u ok??
TEXT MESSAGE FROM JACKIE SLAUGHTER TO CHARLOTTE THORNE, 12:11 AM: charlotte answer ur phone
TEXT MESSAGE FROM CHARLOTTE THORNE TO JACKIE SLAUGHTER, 12:13 AM: I’m back at Randall.
TEXT MESSAGE FROM JACKIE SLAUGHTER TO CHARLOTTE THORNE, 12:13 AM: dont move im coming
Adrenaline left Charlotte’s body in dribs and drabs. Exhaustion filled the space it left behind, purple like a bruise.
Jackie didn’t ask any questions. Her best friend swaddled her in a blanket like an empanada and pulled up an old sitcom on her laptop. Snacks littered the bed. The cinder-block walls dampened the sound of the Lawn Party that rolled across campus like thunder. Charlotte was safe for now.
Even when her brain stopped lurching between the past and the present, Ben’s sneering face wouldn’t leave her alone.
How could she have been so naïve? Why did she think she could come back here and have a simple, productive weekend? There were no do-overs in life. This school did not belong to her. Hein University did not exist without Ben Mead. She should have listened to her gut on Thursday night and left.
“Thank you,” she croaked when words returned to her. Her throat hurt. She took a sip from a water bottle Jackie bought at the vending machine. “Sorry I wrecked your night.”
Jackie turned down the volume on her laptop. “You didn’t. I’m so sorry about Ben.”
Charlotte ignored the unnecessary apology. None of this was Jackie’s doing; Charlotte was the one who should have been prepared. She’d had years to get ready for a run-in with Ben, years to think of what to say and practice it in front of the mirror and convince herself that she had no reason to be afraid. After all, she had the courage to break up with him when she was only twenty-one. How could she be even more petrified at twenty-seven?
“I didn’t think he’d come near me,” she admitted.
Jackie scoffed. “Ben’s only joy in life is tormenting women.” She pushed an empty sleeve of Oreos to the end of the bed. “Keep drinking water, you need fluids.”
Charlotte did as she was told. The water helped with the nagging headache at the back of her skull. Her nausea had lifted but she felt like she’d left her kidneys on the President’s Lawn.
