Devils' Day Party: A High School Bully Romance - C.M. Stunich Page 0,113

to that statement, but maybe he's wondering why I know so much about him?

“Erina is the one with the pale blue eyes,” he says, picking up his coffee and leaning back in his chair to drink it, boots crossed underneath the table, leather pants so low that a bit of skin shows between the waistband and the bottom of the doublet. “Pale skin, raven hair?”

Ah. The name clicks in my head as I think of the girl from the Devils' Day Committee, the one who broke Barron's necklace on that very first day.

“Why do you think she would upload something like that?” I ask, and Calix shrugs one shoulder, like he just can't be bothered shrugging both.

“More likely it was Pearl,” he says again, but he's right: that's too easy.

“I knew that she was cutting herself,” I tell him, pursing my lips as I add some sugar to my espresso. “And I didn't do anything to help her.”

“Did you actively hurt her though?” he asks, frowning slightly and looking askance at me. “I mean, did you actively go out of your way to make her life hell? Because we did.” Calix takes another sip of his coffee, turning his own attention back to the table. “That's why she's dead, because we hurt her, and then just kept hurting her.”

“Why?” I ask, the sound of that one word so desperate, it's like I'm asking for myself at the same time. Why did you do it? Why do you keep doing it? Especially if it hurts you just as much as you hurt everyone else? “What did she ever do to you?”

“Pearl is my brother's ex-girlfriend,” Calix starts, and then pauses. “Was.” Another sip of coffee, a deep frown. “She got sent to Crescent Prep because of him.”

“Because of him?” I repeat, still not getting where he's going with this.

“She was pregnant,” he tells me, looking back up again. Sitting here, talking to him about something so sad … I still enjoy Calix's presence. It's weird, but I just … like being around him. There's a connection between us that's hard to explain. We both think too hard about things, and consequences—different for each of us—mean too much. I've always cared too much what the Knight Crew thought, even if I pretended not to. Calix cares too much what the whole world thinks. “Her parents sent her to Crescent, and then they gave the baby to my parents to raise.”

“Did Pearl want to give up her baby?” I ask, but I don't really need an answer to that to know.

“She started our feud, even before freshman year began, calling my parents and telling them shit about me and Raz. Pearl is the reason why he's here, too.” Calix scowls, but there's a desperate pleading to that expression that I'm not sure he's realized he's wearing. He wants out of this, an escape, some way to start over and change things, put life on a different path.

Fuck.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Pearl is a mom. Pearl's baby was taken by the Knights—two of the most awful people I'd ever had the misfortune to meet. Pearl … can't die here, alone and sad and wanting.

I'm going back.

I know before I even close my eyes that I'll be going back.

“Are you crying?” Calix asks, leaning forward and setting his coffee cup down. “About Pearl?”

“Not about Pearl,” I whisper, glancing up at Calix and finding him almost too close to me. Well, maybe it's a little bit about Pearl. “I'm going to miss this.”

“Miss what?” Calix is staring at me like he wants to understand, to unwrap all of my secrets.

“This.” I gesture between us with a finger as the waitress comes back with our pancakes, and my heart breaks in two because I know we share the same favorite breakfast food. “Me and you. This talk.” You won't remember this tomorrow; you'll stare at me like you hate me, leaving me to pick up the pieces to understand why. “Us hanging out.”

“It's not like we can't have breakfast again,” Calix says, as if I've irritated him, picking his coffee back up. “Don't cry, Karma.”

Slowly, I pick up my fork and eat my pancakes, wondering if this exhaustion I'm feeling will still be there when I wake up at the gas station next. Because it's coming. And now I know one thing that I have to do to move on: I have to save Pearl. Not just because the universe wants me to set things right, but because it's