growl that, if she wasn’t careful, could easily turn into a sob, Jess picked up his sweatshirt and threw it at his face.
He caught it before it could make contact. “What’s your problem?” he asked. “They’re just joking around.”
“I don’t have a problem.” But everyone else did. They were too small-town boring and uptight. She started walking deeper into the woods.
He grabbed her arm, stopping her so fast, the entire world tilted. She clamped down on the urge to vomit.
“The party’s this way,” he said.
Once the trees stopped spinning, she jerked away. “Get off me.” No one touched her unless she wanted them to, and he’d lost that right. “I’m leaving.”
Her voice broke and she prayed he didn’t notice.
“All right,” he said slowly, as if trying to calm her down, “if that’s what you want.” This time, he reached for her hand. “Come on, I’ll take you home.”
She crossed her arms. “Why?”
He sighed heavily and glanced back at the party. “Because you’re drunk and shouldn’t be wandering around the woods at night.”
“What’s the matter? Afraid I’ll die of exposure or get attacked by a wild animal and you’ll be blamed?” Though she gave him plenty of time to deny it, he didn’t. All he cared about was getting into trouble if something happened to her. “Go back to the party. I’m sure you’re dying to tell everyone what a stud you are.” She raised her voice. “But you might want to leave out the part about how it lasted a whole five minutes.”
“Everyone was right about you,” he said. “You really are a bitch.”
Bitch. Slut. Loser. All names she’d been called before. Whoever said words couldn’t cause pain had obviously never gone to high school.
“And don’t you forget it,” she said with her patented sneer. And she walked away.
This time, he let her go.
Good. She didn’t want him chasing after her pretending he cared about whether she made it home safely or not. Oh, sure, he’d been all charm when he’d called and invited her to the party, had layered it on even more when she got there, flirting and joking around, but it’d all been an act. She wasn’t sure who she was angrier with: him for not being different, for not living up to her hopeful standards.
Or herself for sleeping with him anyway.
She squinted at the narrow path cutting through the woods. If she kept walking, she’d end up in the clearing near the quarry’s entrance.
She hoped.
Too bad the farther she got from the clearing and the fire, the darker it got, the trees seeming to have multiplied to cut off any and all light from the moon. But it still beat going back the way she and Nate had come. She knew what would happen if she rejoined the party. The girls would freeze her out with their bitchy comments and accusing glares, blaming her for giving the boys what they were too frigid to. The guys would exchange smirks and elbow nudges and Nate would end up avoiding her the rest of the night.
And she was too wasted, too emotionally messed up at the moment to pretend it didn’t bother her.
She took out her phone and pressed the speed dial for Marissa, her best friend back in Boston. Holding it to her ear, she began making her way through the woods again, her steps unsteady, her head spinning.
“Come on,” she muttered when Marissa didn’t pick up. “Where are you?”
Despite her best efforts, tears streamed down her face. She angrily wiped her cheek with the back of her hand. Her toe caught on a tree root and she pitched forward. Her phone flew from her grip and she landed hard on the ground on her hands and knees.
Tears and snot dripped from her face as she fought to catch her breath. To not puke. Her palms stung, her head swam. She straightened her leg, felt material rubbing against her knee and realized she’d ripped a hole in her favorite jeans.
God, but this place sucked. She hated it here.
Patting the ground around her for her phone, she crawled forward. Something rustled behind her. She froze, holding her breath as she listened. When only silence surrounded her, she continued her search, inching forward along the forest floor, the sharp twigs scratching her.
“Shit,” she whispered.
“You can say that again.”
Her head jerked up and she fell onto her rear, squinted against the harsh glare of a flashlight. But she didn’t need to see who had spoken, didn’t need a light to