You're an infection at Crescent Prep. An anomaly. You walk around there with your weird friends and you flaunt everything about your life that's wrong, things that other people would hide. You pretend that you're strong, but in reality, you're nothing but a weak, pathetic whore.”
My fist flies forward of its own accord and smashes Raz in the face, knocking his head back as I scramble to my feet, pull up my panties, and take off running. Blood smears my knuckles, but I don't pay it any attention, sprinting through the woods as if my life depends on it.
Maybe it does?
He's so angry. Why is he so fucking angry?
I slip in the wet leaves, going down on my knees hard enough to bruise. Just like the first day. Unlike the first day, Raz doesn't follow me. Instead, when I turn around, all I see are the quiet faces of the trees, watching me silently, judging me. I push up to my feet, brush off my skirt and try to recollect my dignity.
But I'm pretty sure I lost it somewhere near Calix's feet.
Fool me once, shame on you.
Fool me twice … shame on me.
It takes me almost two hours to circumvent the party site and walk back to the road. Luke left to take April home, so they could get ready for the party. She left me her phone because she's a goddamn angel like that.
“Fuck.” I sit down on the side of the road, putting my head in my hand and trying to decide if I should call April so the two of them can come and pick me up. Instead, I dial Mama Cathy.
“Luke, I was just planning on calling you,” she says, her voice weak and muddled with tears. She was crying over me? I think, imagining my parents watching the video of me and Calix. Hating him. Questioning me. Wondering if they'd royally fucked up somewhere, to have such a weak girl for a child instead of the strong woman they'd hoped for.
“Actually, it's me,” I say, and Cathy pauses, her sharp inhale of breath making my chest hurt. “I know you've seen the video. I'll talk about it all you want, but … can you please pick me up?”
I tell her where to find me and hang up before she can start asking questions I'm not ready to answer.
When Cathy finally pulls up and sees my disheveled state, her eyes widen, and she starts to cry again. I climb into the shitty green Taurus, the one I rocketed off the edge of a cliff in, and lie down in the back seat.
“Baby, are you okay?” she asks me, and my heart aches and throbs with the need to tell her the truth, to spill all my secrets and demand to know why boys are so mean. Why they pick and poke and needle away until there’s nothing left. “That video … did he hurt you?”
“Only in my heart,” I whisper, because that’s the only truth I’m willing to admit to aloud right now. When I close my eyes, I can still feel Calix’s lips on my neck, his hands on my hips. Shifting, I feel the wetness between my thighs, undeniable proof that we were together. There’s only one way to wipe this slate clean.
“I love you, Karma, you know that, right?” Cathy tells me, looking in the rearview mirror. But I’m just tired. So fucking tired.
Raz. What the hell is wrong with Raz?
“I love you, too,” I reply, closing my eyes against the pain I feel, painted across my heart like a mural I can never scrub clean.
Mom's worried, I get that. But she needn't be.
She won't remember this moment soon enough.
There’s blood all over my steering wheel.
I sit up, calm for the first time in days. Dying triggers the … curse, or whatever this is. Passing out triggers it. Sleep triggers it.
I sigh and lean forward, putting my forehead against the wheel, a familiar trickle of blood running down the side of my face. My left hand reaches out and pushes down the manual lock on my door, so that when Calix predictably storms forward to open it, it doesn't budge.
“Are you fucking insane?!” he snarls through the window, and strange laughter bubbles up in my throat. No matter how many times I go through this, it doesn't get any less surreal.
Turning to face him through the dirty window, I lift my lips in a grin, my bloodied white teeth the only part of