But in hindsight, if I’d known I’d be forced to listen to this shit at some point in the day, I would’ve removed her ass from our list of authorized visitors without hesitation. Friend or not.
Mostly, she hung with Dane, either in his room listening to music, or in the theater room binging bad reality TV. But when she got bored, she’d wander into Sterling’s space or mine to check in. She never pressed for conversation, though, which was a good thing because I had none.
My notifications had gone off nonstop from the time the game ended yesterday until a few hours ago, when I finally silenced them. The sudden explosion of interest had nothing to do with the team being one step closer to the championship. The vultures were hitting me up to be a part of the shitshow, to get the details everyone’s after. And their main question?
Why’d I post the video?
“Ready to talk?”
Joss’s voice drags me from my thoughts as I hit a left half a second after the light turns red.
“If I wanted to talk, I wouldn’t have left to get away from everyone,” I grumble, thinking of how she insisted on tagging along when I announced I’d be heading out for a drive.
“Didn’t get away from me,” she quips.
“Yeah, I noticed that.”
Hopefully, she hasn’t taken anything I’ve said in the last thirty-plus hours to heart. She knows I’m kind of an ass when I’m pissed. Well, more of an ass than usual.
“Fuck.”
Joss peers over when the word leaves my mouth, purely out of frustration.
“You know,” she says way too calmly, “I have her number if you want to call.”
My heart leaps when she offers, and I hate that it does. Still, I give nothing away. Instead, I press the button to crack my window a bit. Like it isn’t only forty-something degrees outside. It helps when anger suddenly makes my temp spike, though.
I fucked up. No one knows that better than me. Directly, indirectly, however you look at it, everything that happened is on me. Still, even with the bull that’s taken place since the video went live, my biggest regret right now has nothing to do with that. It’s got to do with those three stupid words I last spoke to Southside—‘You should go.’
Basically, I’m a dick who can’t seem to deviate from dick behavior.
“So … you want the number or not?”
A few seconds pass and I say nothing. But in true Joss-form, she grabs my phone, unlocks it because her nosey ass seems to always know my codes, then she puts Southside’s info in herself.
“There,” she huffs. “Now you have it for whenever you get your head out of your ass and man up to call this girl. And you better have some sort of monumental apology ready, because what the fuck, West? Have you lost your mind?” she scolds. “Not only is this about the sickest power play I’ve ever seen, but even if you don’t care about her, what about football? The state championship? Next year? The coaches at NCU are definitely gonna hear about it because everyone’s passing it around. There won’t be any hiding from this.”
“You don’t think I know that?” I snap, gripping the steering wheel tighter.
Her accusation, and the subsequent warning, make my jaw tick with rage but I hold my tongue from saying more. For fear of saying too much.
“Then why risk it? Just to continue whatever ridiculous game you have going with this girl?” Joss pauses to shake her head, radiating judgement from her seat. “I should’ve called you on your shit when this all started. Lord knows no one else has the balls to do it. If I had, instead of ignoring it, maybe you wouldn’t have possibly set your entire future on fire.”
She’s staring at the side of my face, full of anger she didn’t let show at the penthouse. There, she’d been neutral, probably feeling outnumbered with Dane and Sterling around, but there was no trace of her being reserved now. Guess I don’t have to wonder why she volunteered to join me for the ride. She wanted her chance to rip me a new one in private.
A heavy sigh leaves her mouth and she finally faces forward, but she’s still worked up.
“You’ve done some twisted shit before, West, but this is next level,” she continues. “And to think, I encouraged Blue to talk to you the other night! Because, silly me, I thought I knew you, thought you were decent. Never in a million years would I have imagined you could be so monumentally cruel! You’re—”
“Damn it, Joss! It wasn’t me!”
My voice reverberates in the car a moment after I yell the words. Then, we’re both unnaturally silent. No sound other than the wind that rushes in through the partially open window.
“Fuck!”
I’m not sure if I’m relieved or terrified having admitted it out loud. Maybe a little of both. I was supposed to keep my mouth shut. Swore I would, actually, but I feel myself unraveling more by the minute, knowing what everyone thinks of me. Knowing what Southside thinks of me.
“You’re telling the truth?”
“What the fu…” I catch myself when my temper flares again. “Yes, Josslyn Grace Francois, I’m telling you the fucking truth.”
In my peripheral, I see her point a finger when her head tilts.
“Nope, don’t do it,” she warns. “Don’t you dare ‘full-name’ me right now, West Xavier Golden! I’m not the one in hot water here!”
Dear, God. Deliver me from Joss. I don’t want the guilt of dumping her on the side of the road. So please, please, please let me find a safe, well-lit bus stop to ditch her before my patience runs out.
As if she just heard my thoughts, she rolls her eyes so dramatically I don’t have to look over to see it.
“Now,” she huffs, “if it wasn’t you, who was it?”
“Don’t ask me that.”
“Are you kidding me? You have to tell someone! You can’t take the wrap for this.”
Staring at the road in the headlights, I zone out thinking of how this whole thing started from one careless decision made roughly a year and a half ago. That single incident gave the one responsible for the leak just enough leverage to keep me quiet.
“Why wouldn’t you want to clear your name? You have too much to lose if you don’t speak up, West.”
Joss is staring when I sigh and come to a grave realization, speaking it out loud. “I’ve got too much to lose if I do.”
The last human being on Earth I trust with my future has it right in the palm of her evil little hand, and there ain’t shit I can do about it.
I feel Joss staring again. “What aren’t you telling me?” she asks. “I mean, besides who’s behind this.”
My chest burns with rage, knowing I’m holding a secret for someone I hate. Not only aware of what it could cost me down the road, but … sure as shit of what it’s cost me already.
Who it’s cost me already.
No matter how hard I fight it, no matter how I try convincing myself it doesn’t matter, all I see when I close my eyes is Southside on the back of Ricky’s bike. Thanks to Pandora’s cronies stalking everyone like undercover paparazzi, none of us miss much of what others are up to. And in my case, I’m hyper-focused on Southside’s whereabouts.
If anyone knows I don’t have the right to feel a damn thing about where she is or what her next move is, it’s me. But still, I think about it. It’s kind of all I can think about.