Devils' Day Party: A High School Bully Romance - C.M. Stunich Page 0,191

doesn't remember it the way I do, some part of that night stuck with him.

“They might snap,” I finish. “One kind word could save someone, and you'll never know. It's always better to be nice.”

“Hey, whoa, let's not take it that far.” Raz holds up his hands in surrender as Barron pulls a box of cereal from his book bag. A whole box, unopened and everything. He tears the top off and digs into the brightly colored Fruity Pebbles inside, popping them in his mouth one at a time. “Nobody ever said shit about being ‘nice’.” He makes little quotes with his fingers, and I roll my eyes.

“We're not treating you differently because you tried to kill yourself,” Barron says in that deep, low voice of his. “We're treating you the way we should've treated you all along. Your suicide attempt was a wakeup call for all of us. You won't be here forever, Karma, waiting around for us to get our shit together.” Barron pauses and glances out the window as we pull up to Crescent Prep. “Life doesn't often give do-overs, now does it?” He glances back at me with a smile, and then tosses his sketchbook my way.

I catch it just before he opens the door and steps out, greeting Sonja with a nod of his chin as she and Luke pull up beside us in the old white Caddy.

I take a moment to flip open the book, smiling at the now-familiar images of myself, lovingly etched in charcoal. As I flip through the pages, I find drawings of our time in the butterfly cave, at Thorncrown Chapel, at the Devil Springs high party … But then I get to the end and discover several new images, ones I've never seen before.

Barron's nude drawing of me in the art studio.

An image of me on my knees in the grass beside the gas station parking lot, head in my hands.

An underwater view of a lake, a rope wrapped around the ankle of a man whose face I can’t see.

Fuck.

“Anything interesting?” Calix asks, and I shake my head, clutching the sketchbook to my chest and closing my eyes.

“Art is always interesting,” I whisper, opening my eyes as Raz hops out of the car and he and Sonja start fist bumping and cackling and acting like assholes together. Calix watches me carefully, reaching out his hand to take one of mine.

If Barron remembers even little things, then …

“I know we're just getting started,” Calix begins, his voice hesitant, strained with an unfamiliar hesitancy. I open my eyes to look at him, finding his raven-dark gaze locked on my face. “But, if I can be good to you this year, if I can earn this …”

“I'll get lost with you,” I tell him, choking on the words and trying my best not to cry. I've been crying a lot since I escaped the Devils' Day time loop. But not sad tears. No fucking way. Happy tears only. Pearl is still alive; April is alive; Luke is alive. Everyone I love is okay. How could I dare to be sad now, when I've been given the world? “Always.”

“How …” Calix starts, tilting his head slightly as he tries to figure me out. “You knew what I was going to say?”

“Maybe,” I start, exhaling sharply and looking him straight in the face. “But not all of it. Keep going.”

“I …” he starts, and then grits his teeth, shaking his head briefly. “Never mind.”

Calix climbs out, and I purse my lips, surprised when he comes around to open the door for me. Don't rush things, Karma, I tell myself. I don't have to recreate every moment I had during the loop, not all at once.

“Good morning,” Luke says, putting her arms around me and giving me a hug once I've climbed out into the cool fall air. Red, orange, and yellow leaves swirl around us, a leftover tingle of Devils' Day magic in the breeze that kisses our hair and teases it around our faces. “I still can't believe you're here with … them,” she grinds out, forcing a smile as she pulls back. But then, she doesn't know what happened inside the mouth of the Devils' Den.

Only the boys know.

The boys.

My boys.

“I still can't believe you've been banging Sonja for a year,” I retort, and Luke rolls her eyes, glancing back at her red-headed lover and then sighing dramatically.

“Okay, fine, good point. I suppose I should just be happy that you're not mad