you how shit works sometimes when you aren’t the biggest name in school, so let me spell it out for you: No one fucking cares, Sebastian!” The phone chimes again and I consider chucking it out the goddamn window. “You know what each of those attempts at standing up for myself got me? I know you do. You’ve seen it on my back. So don’t you ever fucking suggest that I did anything less than survive, because that’s what I did. I survived. And that’s a hell of a lot more than some people manage.”
The car’s quiet for a long, suspended moment. Even the person texting him seems to give us a break for this—for Sebastian to feel like shit for even considering…
“Look,” he starts, but then the phone goes off again.
Fed up, I snatch it from the console to see what the fuck.
Saturday night
Just as I’m deciding that means absolutely nothing, another bout of texts comes in.
Or I might need a fix for my sweet tooth.
You can tell me just how good it tastes.
Or not. I’ll find out myself.
I thrust him the phone, nodding to the light we’re stopped at, about two blocks from Merle’s. “Your brother apparently has some very urgent business regarding food.” I’m thinking he’ll take the stoplight to reply to the messages, but that doesn’t happen.
He stares down at the phone, turns it off, sets it back in the console, and places his hands at perfect ten and two. He’s looking straight ahead when he says, “Don’t ever look at my phone again.”
I gape at him. “It’s been going off the whole drive!”
When he finally looks at me, I know that cold, empty look has nothing to do with what happened in the Briar Cliffs. This is the same expression he was wearing this morning. Shuttered and blank. “I don’t have any right to your life, but you have the right to mine?”
I swallow, something heavy and bitter landing in the pit of my stomach. “What’s the big deal?”
“I told you I don’t like him knowing my business. I had a reason.” His nostrils flare, the muscle in the back of his jaw ticking. “You should have stayed upstairs.”
It finally hits me then. “This has all been about this morning, hasn’t it?” I know in my bones that I’m right. That Sebastian is unpredictable and impulsive at the best of times, but his behavior today has been sharply pointed, completely lacking in warmth. “I knew something was—you’ve been such an asshole all day. What the fuck, Bass?”
Instead of answering me, he shifts in his seat, something chilling in his voice when he says, “You were right, you know. All that shit you said before about me chasing you, even after you pulled a knife on me like a psycho.” His gaze swings to me, eyes like ice. “But did you ever wonder what it meant that you came to a new school, looking for a new life, every option open to you, and not even three months in, you’re dating the guy who clocked your ass unconscious?”
I blink at him, completely taken aback. I work my mouth around about a dozen aborted replies. The only thing that emerges is, “Are you shitting me right now?”
“What does that mean?” He asks, ignoring me as we pass Merle’s garage, three miles from campus. “Probably that you have shitty taste in guys. You’ve never been as mad at me as when I was trying to do something nice for you. So what does it mean?” He looks at me, but doesn’t give me a chance to answer. “It means that dealing with abusive assholes is what you know. So I don’t know, Sugar. Why have I been an asshole all day?”
The accusation lands like a blow, mostly because it’s something that’s been tickling at the back of my consciousness since that first kiss. I jumped right out of the fire with Doug and back into it with Sebastian—someone that, from day one, I knew had a violent temper. Until this morning, I thought everything was fine. That, despite all that ugliness and baggage, we were good for one another. What happened? What changed?
One thing.
One fucking thing.
“You want to know what I think?” I ask, already feeling sick with the reality of it. “I think you’ve been an asshole because maybe you finally got what you wanted.”
“What are you talking about?” he asks, tilting his head toward me. His eye is starting to look bad, bruising dark around his