lies.
As his mom stood silently and his dad put on a show, Cole pivoted on his heel and headed for a side door in the large space. It led to a hallway that passed by the locker rooms.
Letting out a breath, I glanced down at the table in front of me, then scanned the crowd for Mr. Baldree. I didn’t see him—and fuck it, the only person who’d taken a pamphlet from me so far was Finn, and that was just as a prop for a joke. I was sure he’d thrown it away as soon as he was out of sight. Slipping out from behind the large table, I threaded my way through the sea of bodies and shoved open the same door Cole had vanished through.
I wasn’t sure how long he’d have before his dad came looking for him, or whether Mr. Mercer would come at all. Maybe he’d just count up all the minutes Cole was missing and add them to the punishment he doled out later.
My skin crawled at the thought, and I walked faster down the hallway. I passed the locker rooms but still didn’t see any sign of Cole. So I headed up the stairs to the second level.
He wasn’t in the dance studio. He was in the second-story hallway just outside of it, leaning against the wall with his eyes closed. I didn’t try to quiet my footsteps, not wanting to startle him, and his blue gaze flashed to me when I was still several yards away.
Then he looked away again, barely even acknowledging he’d seen me.
I recognized this part too.
The shame. The anger. The shutting down.
I know you! I wanted to scream at him. I know a part of you better than I wish I did.
There were so many things I wanted to say to him, but I wasn’t sure he’d listen to any of them. I wasn’t sure I would have when I’d been in his shoes.
“What?” he grunted when I got closer, a note of defensiveness in his voice.
I didn’t rise to it. I just leaned against the wall beside him, focusing on the same spot across the hall that he was staring at.
“You were there the day Adena pushed me down the steps outside Craydon, right?” I asked quietly.
His head turned, sharp blue eyes staring down at me. That hadn’t been what he’d expected me to say. “Yes. We showed up after she did it. When you were on the ground.”
Acid rose in my throat at the memory, but I focused on what I needed Cole to know, forcing down the churning in my gut. “I don’t have super clear memories of it, but I’m sure I must’ve looked like a mess. It… scared me. Gave me a panic attack.”
Even as I spoke, I could feel myself wanting to do what Cole had just done.
Shut down.
Deny.
Don’t talk about it.
But I took another deep inhale, and on the exhale, I said, “It reminded me of when my dad pushed me down the stairs at our old apartment complex.”
In my periphery, I could see Cole turn to face me, his stare burning into me.
“I was twelve,” I continued simply. “It was the worst he ever hurt me. Although ironically, I don’t even think he meant to that time. It was an accident. Not that that makes it forgivable.”
The heat of his gaze on me was like fire, like a laser aimed directly at my skin, and I shifted a little.
“Most the time, he used his fists. Sometimes his feet. Sometimes he’d stop for a while, and I never knew what made him start back up again.” Moisture tried to well in my eyes, but I blinked it back. I hadn’t cried about my dad in months, and I didn’t want to start now. But talking about what he’d done, putting words to it, made my chest ache in an unfamiliar way. I was used to keeping it all inside, hiding it. “I guess that was one of the worst parts. I never knew why.”
“He hit you?” Cole’s voice was a low growl, so full of protective anger it made a shiver run up my spine.
I finally wrenched my gaze away from the wall to face the blue-eyed boy beside me. His breathing had picked up, and his entire body had seemed to grow larger, barely contained by the fabric of his Oak Park uniform. He was staring down at me like he’d never seen me before in his life, like I