“He was a mistake?” Ophelia asks softly.
I shake my head, fighting the godforsaken tears that keep coming out. “No.” I bring my eyes to hers. “I was.”
It’s late. My muscles protest as I slide into a pair of silk pajama booty shorts and a cotton crop. After relaxing in the spa with the rest of the girls, and ducking and hiding from Frankie’s constant verbal jabs, I told them goodnight and made my way back to my bedroom. I couldn’t think straight. Words and theories were running rampant inside my head.
Pulling my bedcovers down, I’m about to shut off my bedside lamp when my door opens.
I turn the light off anyway, drowning us in darkness because I don’t want to look at him right now. I can’t. Not now. Not if I don’t want to cry again, and not if I don’t want to picture him and Veronica all over each other. If his hair is messy, I’ll only picture her long fingers running through it.
“I know you’re angry with me.”
I lie down on the bed, squeezing my eyes closed while knowing he can’t see me.
The door clicks closed. “How’s your neck?”
I grit my teeth. Silent. Don’t say anything.
The mattress sinks beneath his weight. “Saint, this is the only way I can keep you safe for now.”
“Safe?” I snap. Dammit. I sit up quickly, shoving the covers off my body. I don’t know where he is or what he’s looking at right now. “How is me getting shot at keeping me safe?”
“That wasn’t supposed to happen…” Brantley growls, his tone so feral I almost don’t recognize it. “That for sure was not supposed to fucking happen. You were supposed to come here until—”
“—until what? Until you wanted to continue with your secret texts to me?”
Pause. He shifts. “What texts?”
I tear the final blanket off my body, my feet about to hit the ground when his hands are on my arms, shoving me back down onto the mattress as if he knew where I was all this time.
He shakes me. “What. Fucking. Texts?” I feel his breath on my lips now, warm and familiar.
I gulp. Stop it.
“In the car after the accident, you told me I didn’t text you back.”
“I wasn’t in the car.” Brantley squeezes my arm, shoving me back onto the mattress and disappearing. Light ignites his face as he tosses me my phone. “Show me the texts you’re talking about.”
I squeeze my phone in the palm of my hand. “You’re a real asshole, Brantley.”
He doesn’t answer. He seems different. Distant.
I unlock my phone, the photo of Bishop and me staring back at me on my wallpaper. “Bishop. Where is he?”
“He can’t come here. We’ve put your phone into the universe so no one can track it. You can use it from now on.”
“Brantley, what’s going on?”
He looks at me for the first time tonight and my heart drops into my stomach like a heavy boulder being thrown from a cliff. His jaw tight, eyes dark, and features pulled. He shakes his head. “Not right now. Show me the texts.”
I open up my messages, scrolling past Tillie, Madison—I pause, looking up at him.
“Oh that? Yeah, that is home where she belongs now.”
My lips stretch wide. “He read the letter?”
His mouth stays in a straight line. “Yeah. Then he flew straight to New Zealand and dragged her ass home. Like he should have done fucking months ago.”
“Are they okay?”
“Madship?” He turns back to me. “No, but she’s home and not going anywhere. Show me the texts.” I continue scrolling until I reach the end of my messages. My brows pull in.
“I saved it under a question mark. Did you go through my phone?”
“I didn’t go through it, because you fucking changed the passcode. Our hacker broke into it, but I didn’t read your messages.” He stares at me. “Should I have read them?”
I ignore him as I continue to scroll up and down in search of the messages from ?. Even when I open my contacts, there’s no number saved as the question mark.
“I don’t know what’s happened. Everything else is here except the messages.” I toss my phone onto my bed and lean back against the headboard, pulling my knees against my chest. “You betrayed me,” I whisper so softly I almost thought I didn’t say it out loud.
“I did what I had to do, Dea. You can hate me all you want, but I will always do what I need to do to keep you safe.”
Silence. I don’t have a response right now, and I’m afraid that if I talk, I’ll say something I might regret. My phone’s light flicks off and we’re back in darkness, where we both belong. Knowing he’s beside me shouldn’t comfort me the way it does because I’m still angry, but when my eyes begin to drift closed and I start shuffling down the bed, I already know. My soul forgave him already; it’s my mind that won’t budge.
I pull the covers up to my chin, slipping farther into the silk sheets. “I—”
“—don’t talk.” His voice is strained. “Just—don’t. I’ll be back tomorrow.” He shifts off the bed and it’s not until he opens the door and light sneaks in that he turns around to say, “I trust Veronica, Saint. You need to, too.” Then he’s gone. I don’t know why, but his parting words bother me. They bother me enough to tear off my covers and run for my bedroom door. But when I pull it open, my eyes wild and my anger at peak point, he’s gone.
My feet hit the conveyer belt to the beat of “Without You” by The Kid LAROI. After tossing and turning last night, I successfully managed to get two hours of sleep. I went to bed angry. I woke up angry. It’s unlike me, and it’s messing with my balance. I pump the speed up to twelve, turning the music up louder with the remote. My arms swing, my legs ache, and the timer on the treadmill says 145:26. The longest run I’ve ever done.
I’m still angry.
Squeezing my fists, I change the song. “The Bleeding” Perfect. Angry music to match my angry mood. The treadmill stops and I tear out my AirPods, spinning around to see who turned it off.
“Girl, don’t hit me!” Ophelia raises her hands. Her hair is piled up on top of her head, her toned body filling a sports bra and yoga pants. She steps onto the treadmill beside mine. “You’ve been running for almost three solid hours. I’m doing you a favor.”
I’m still catching my breath with both hands grasped on my knees as sweat falls from my forehead and onto the black belt.
“How’d you find the gym?” she adds.
Finally catching my breath, I grab my towel and swipe the sweat off my face. “It took me a while before walking outside.” The gym is right behind the pool. Built in a glass globe, giving you the feel of being in the middle of trees, while looking up at the sky.
“She built it for night gym sessions. You can see the stars some nights.”
I jump off, heading for my water bottle.
“Look, I don’t mean to pry, but we can all feel your energy and it’s setting Frankie off more than usual.”
“Setting her off?” I ask, leaning against a punching bag while tossing my towel around my neck. “How?”