Devils' Day Party: A High School Bully Romance - C.M. Stunich Page 0,106

below my window, I spot the box of spray paint and shame washes over me. Somewhere, someway, the memory of that must be buried in my sisters' brains, just like Barron remembers all the time we've spent together.

“Let's paint,” I say, picking up a bucket and opening the top.

My sisters dig in as the moms sit on my porch and lean against one another.

As the hours pass and the moonlight moves across the sky, the girls fall asleep on the cement, paintbrushes still clutched in their hands, and the moms take them to bed before leaving for their own room.

“If you stay up long enough to see the sunrise, paint it,” Cathy says, kissing my forehead before disappearing into the house behind Jane.

I head inside, grab a band and put my hair into a high pony, before returning to the mural. Even though I'm yawning, my eyes brimming with tired tears, I keep going until a bit of orange-yellow light on the wall draws my attention away from the face of the Horned God and over my shoulder, to where the sun is just beginning to kiss the sky.

Throwing my paintbrush down, I head around to the backyard and grab a ladder, climbing to the roof of the house and perching on the eaves so I have the best possible view of the sunrise.

“It's tomorrow,” I whisper to myself, putting my chin on my knees. This is the latest I've ever stayed up and, beyond all hope, I'm wondering if I've just managed to beat this thing. Frankly, that'd probably be the best thing that ever happened to me. I wouldn't change a thing about yesterday. Not a damn thing.

When I climb down and head inside, I see that it's nearly seven thirty in the morning, and my heart swells.

“Take that, Devils' Day,” I say, wondering if I spent too much of my time worrying about the boys when I could've been here with my fucking family. Maybe that's the lesson I'm supposed to learn? That the toxic love offered up by Barron or Raz or … well, Calix, that I don't need any of that to be happy.

But … even if I don't, I still want to spend more time with them.

I start a pot of coffee and then head into the studio to get my phone, switching it off of airplane mode to look at my messages through blurry eyes.

Pearl killed herself tonight. Call me.

The text is from Luke, waiting on my phone to fuck with my whole day. I sit down suddenly on the paint-covered stool next to my painting, the excitement in my chest dulling to a painful ache. Pearl isn't your problem, Karma, I tell myself, but yet … I can't help but wonder. Does she die in every timeline, and I've just been missing it? Or is there something I can do to save her? My heartbeat picks up and I close my eyes, clutching my phone to my chest.

The sound of a car rolling down the gravel of the driveway draws my attention, and I glance over to see the shiny black curves of Calix's Aston Martin. I stand up from the stool and make my way over to where he sits inside the blacked-out windows of the idling car. After a moment, I decide to move around the front and get in the passenger's seat, cringing a bit at the rumpled surface of the door.

Calix Knight turns to look at me as I climb in, his devil's mask pushed up into his hair, black makeup bleeding down either of his cheeks, like it's possible he might've been crying. But no, that mussed hair, those blurry eyes … he's just coming down from a long night of partying.

“Pearl killed herself,” he says, almost matter-of-factly. I nod and close the door behind me.

“I know.”

Calix takes off down the gravel road, the circular shape taking us back to the highway. I'm so tired that my eyes keep drifting closed of their own accord, but then I snap to with a gasp, scrabbling to stay awake, desperate to see what tomorrow will finally bring.

“You can sleep if you want,” he says as I glance over at him, his own lids droopy, his dark eyes distant as he gazes out the front window.

“If I fall asleep, I'll wake up and this'll all be a dream,” I tell him, setting my phone into the cup holder between us. Calix's face tightens up, but he doesn't reply. Instead, he