Devil Incarnate (Boys of Preston Prep #4) - Angel Lawson Page 0,171

to talk it out.”

Shoulders slumping, I run the tip of my finger down the gluey bristles of the brush. “I can’t.”

“Why not?” Caroline asks, sitting down on my other side. “Is this because…I mean, I know I was a bitch before, but I really meant it when I said you can tell us anything.”

“Anything,” Vandy stresses.

I shake my head. “Not this.”

We all go silent for a moment, which I spend pressing my fingertips together, fixated on the tacky sensation of press and pull.

“This is about that guy, isn’t it?” Caroline guesses, gently bumping our arms together. “Because we wouldn’t approve.”

I finally drop the brush, inhaling sharply. “I just can’t hear it right now.”

The confusion is apparent in Vandy’s voice. “Hear what?”

I finally turn to look at her, and I don’t know what my face is doing, but whatever it is, it makes her face fall. “That I should have known better.” It’s strange. I’m not sure how I can possibly have any tears left, but they come anyway, flooding my eyes in a deluge of shame and wasted grief.

“Hey,” Vandy soothes, quick and solemn. “No, don’t do that.” She curls her arm around me and pulls me into her side, hand cradling my head. “Whatever it is, I’m sure it’s not your fault.”

“Yes, it is.” I sob into her shoulder, knowing that she’s wrong. “I’m so fucking stupid, V.”

“You are not!” Caroline says, sharp and insistent.

“I am,” I cry, wiping my cheeks. Once I’ve got myself under control, I take a deep, calming breath. That’s the clincher. Heston has a nature, and I knew it. All along, I knew exactly what he was capable of. Maybe he’s lying about the flash drive. Maybe it’s already out there and my father’s about to get a call. Maybe there are more videos. Maybe it’s all been a trick to maneuver me into this exact position.

But even if he’s telling the truth, it doesn’t make it better. If he’s changed, and has grown to care about me, and really intended to keep that video locked, then it still means I failed. I let him in. I let myself love him, despite knowing who he was.

The biggest problem isn’t that I can’t trust him.

It’s that I can’t trust myself.

Weary, I rest my head in Vandy’s lap, staring sightlessly at the paper maché. “Do you think it’s possible to love someone and keep hurting them?”

Caroline hums in thought. “What do you mean?”

“If someone hurt you—like, really bad—but then they told you they loved you, you wouldn’t believe them, right?”

Vandy’s fingers run through my hair, smoothing it from root to tip. “I believe Reyn when he says he loves me.”

Closing my eyes, I sigh. “That’s different. That car wreck was an accident. He didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“No,” she agrees, twirling my hair around a forefinger. “But he meant to steal that car. He meant to manipulate me into coming along. He just didn’t realize how bad it’d be.”

“What if he did it again?” I wonder, already knowing this is comparing apples to baguettes.

Vandy confirms this. “Reynolds would never put me in a position like that again. He’d give up his life before he let that happen.”

“See?” I bolt up to look at her, pointing a finger. “That’s love! It’s not something that happens suddenly after you’ve fucked someone over. Reynolds probably loved you since you were little kids.”

Vandy frowns in thought, but it’s Caroline who speaks. “I don’t know if that’s fair, G. I think everyone loves in their own way, at their own pace.”

“Great,” I mutter sourly. “Vandy gets Saks Fifth Avenue ‘love’ and I get the counterfeit, street corner knock-off?” Laughing humorlessly, I admit, “Yeah, that seems about what I’m capable of getting.”

“So this guy must have done something messed up,” Caroline observes, “and now he’s trying to get you back?”

Shaking my head, I admit, “I don’t know. He says he wants to ‘undo it’. Like he can just wave a wand and erase the fact that he—” My words bite off before I can give too much away. I wasn’t lying before. I wouldn’t be able to stand hearing that I should have seen this coming. It’s bad enough coming from my own thoughts. I don’t need my best friends to beat me over the head with what I already know. “It doesn’t matter. It’s probably all a lie, anyway. I doubt he even knows how to love anyone but himself.”

“I don’t know who this guy is,” Vandy says, tucking my hair