“I know, baby,” he said comfortingly.
“Now she’s a Rock Chick and you heard her tonight!” I kept talking loudly, tears sliding from my eyes. “And I haven’t figured out how to make amends.”
“You and your posse taking her in and having her back is doing that, Ally,” he pointed out.
“Obviously not fast enough!” I returned. “But none of my posse was ugly to her. Except me and Shirleen, but Shirleen got her chance to make amends. Sadie even asked for her.”
And this was true. Shirleen was Darius’s aunt, Lee’s receptionist, and also a Rock Chick of the Daisy variety (which meant she wasn’t attached to a Hot Bunch boy, but she was a Rock Chick all the same).
She’d been snippy with Sadie that day. But when Sadie finally reported her rape, she’d asked for Shirleen to be there.
“Ally, baby, what happened with Sadie tonight didn’t have anything to do with you.”
“I know that,” I snapped, yanking out of his arms and taking a step away. “But she…” I shook my head. “God, that monster broke her wrist. Gashed her face. Made her feel tawdry.”
“Come back to me, honey,” Ren urged.
I shook my head again. “No. I can’t.” I stopped talking, started pacing then kept babbling. “I have to sort this out in my head.”
I continued pacing and Ren didn’t say anything.
This didn’t last very long before he said something.
“Jesus, you really can’t deal with being mean,” Ren murmured incredulously.
I stopped pacing and whipped around to face him. It was dark but I still could feel he was watching me.
“Not to someone who doesn’t deserve it!” I yelled. “I’m all for a smackdown if a bitch is a bitch. But Sadie is no bitch.”
“No, she’s not,” Ren agreed cautiously.
“So that means I kicked a sister when that sister was low. I don’t do that shit, Zano.”
“Fuck, you’re back to Zano,” he muttered.
“What?” I asked sharply.
“Nothing, honey. Just come here, will you?”
I shook my head again. “No. I…” my eyes narrowed on him and I re-asked an earlier question. “What are you doing here?”
He gave me the same answer. “I was worried about you.”
“You ditched your date because you were worried about me?”
“Yes,” he answered immediately.
Shit.
What did I do with that?
“Ally, look at me,” he ordered.
I was looking at him, or at least I was looking at his shadow. But he sensed I wasn’t focused, and how he could sense that, I had no clue. It weirded me out and made me feel all warm inside at the same time.
Still, I focused on him and he sensed when I did that, too.
Yikes.
When I did, hesitantly and gently, he asked, “Did something like what happened to Sadie happen to you?”
Oh God.
He thought I’d been raped.
That was why he was worried.
I couldn’t let him think that so I replied softly, “No, Ren.”
“Back to Ren,” he whispered.
Oh shit.
He was trying to figure me out.
I couldn’t let that happen.
Okay, time to end this.
