“You’ve grown up a lot since you last tried,” he says. “I can reach out to Angela, see if we can arrange something—”
“Please,” I whisper. “Not today.”
He pulls up to the curb. “Len will be home early today, okay?”
“I think I’m just going to catch up on homework and be antisocial for a while.”
“Perfectly acceptable.” He winks. “Go on, now.”
I climb out of the car, glancing back once. I push the door open, and then he leaves. And I’m alone.
Finally.
9
Caleb
Amelie smirks at me from her table at lunch. She came in late, her gaze finding me and lingering. Riley is at our table, down at the end with Eli and Liam.
They know I’m in no mood to be nice.
My bad mood isn’t infectious, but it sure does stink. That’s what Theo told me approximately ten minutes ago while I waited for Margo to return to sanity.
Riley’s phone chimes, and my head automatically turns.
She glances from Eli to me, then frowns.
“What is it?” I snap.
Riley flinches.
I lean over Theo and snatch her phone away.
Margo: Robert took me home.
I growl under my breath and slide her phone back.
“Dude,” Eli says. “Not cool.”
“What’s not fucking cool is Margo playing this cat-and-mouse game.” I stand, my attention tripping over Amelie again. She’s got a shit-eating grin—which means she’s probably up to something. “Fucking hell.”
She stands and meets me halfway, running her finger down my chest.
I grab her wrist, squeezing hard enough to send a message. Don’t fucking touch me.
“You like using girls?” she asks, a slight shake to her voice. “I told her where the text came from.”
I drop her arm like burning coal. “You trying to make your life miserable?”
She frowns. “I had to. She’s finally standing up to you—”
“You know nothing,” I growl. Margo standing up to me—my blood runs hot. Hotter, anyway.
I couldn’t have possibly predicted that I would like her fire. But damn it, I think I do.
I brush past Amelie, more than done with this conversation.
“Where are you going?” she calls after me.
Her and I both know the photo of Ian and Margo didn’t originate with Savannah. Whatever games she’s playing, I can do better.
And so can Margo.
I’m halfway down the hall when Coach steps out. He takes one look at me and scowls.
“Asher, with me.”
I gnash my teeth, but I follow him to his office.
“Sit.”
I do. It takes a lot of effort to not jig my foot or tap my fingers against my thigh. Calm, cool, collected. Coach takes lacrosse seriously. His whole career rides on it. If one of us screws up, we’re out.
It’s how it’s always been.
“You’re slipping.” He sits across from me, leaning his elbows on the desk. It’s covered in papers, but he doesn’t seem to care. The whole office is organized chaos.
“Not sure how you mean, Coach.” Grades are fine—better than fine—and I’m running again. We haven’t started practice, but I’ll be in tip-top shape soon enough.
Okay, it was just the one run. But we’re getting back into it.
Not that I ever really lost it.
“This girl.” He flashes a photo at me. The disastrous photo that caused half the school to turn on Margo. But hey, at least the video was scrubbed from the servers.
I did something right for once.
“What about her?”
“Is she going to fuck with your head?” He slams the phone down, grimacing. “Teenagers are brutal. But you’re not just a teenager. You’re the captain.”
A golden boy.
School royalty.
“You’re not telling me anything new.” I lean back. Fuck Coach and thinking this sport gives him free reign over my life. Over what I do with Margo. “She isn’t a problem.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Oh? So you weren’t about to skip.”
“No one fucking cares, Coach.”
He lunges across the desk and grabs my shirt collar, jerking me up. “Don’t play that game with me.”
I glance down at his fingers curled in the fabric at my throat.
We clash sometimes. He’s the original golden boy—the original asshole who ruled Emery-Rose when he was a student. Football and lacrosse god with a temper to match his infamy.
“Fine,” I grit out.
“Smooth sailing,” Coach says. “Now until graduation. Your choice of schools, right?”
He releases me, and I slowly retake my seat. He does the same.
“Where are you applying?”
I shrug. “Mom wants me to go for Harvard.”
He snorts. “And?”
“And I’m thinking…” I don’t know.
It’s forever away.
“Deadlines are approaching,” he says. “You toured schools over the summer.”
“Have you been talking to my mother?” My anger is waking up again. How dare she call my coach? “Is that what prompted this whole fucking thing?”
He rolls his eyes.
“Coach.”
“Cool it, Caleb. I can see the smoke coming out of your ears.”
“Because she—”
“Loves you?”
No.
Because she’s worse than Uncle when it comes to twisting the world into her own masterpiece. No one else’s opinions matter.
“What’d she say?”
“She wants you to apply for Harvard,” he says. “Early decision.”
I cough. “Fuck, no.” That would lock me into it if I got in—and there’s a high chance someone would donate in the Asher name, and suddenly I’d be hiking my ass up to Cambridge, Massachusetts.
“Make a list,” he orders, standing. “I want to see where you’re thinking of going.”
I stand, too. I know a dismissal when I hear one.
I don’t wait for him to roll out the red carpet and usher me out. Instead of going back the way I came, I head for the boys’ locker room. There’s a door in the back, much like the girls’ locker room. I unhook the alarm and shove the door open.
So fucking done.
A quick trip later, I’m walking up the path next to my house. I unlock the door to Margo’s old home and turn on a light. We rarely came in here as kids. I think her mom preferred the luxury of the main house—or the solitude after we were gone.
Her parents’ room is a wreck. The door is still closed from the last time we went in there.
This house doesn’t affect me like it does Margo. But then again, these aren’t memories to me. They’re stories Keith Wolfe spun on the stand, begging for a not guilty verdict—until he took the plea deal. It’s easy to distance myself from them, especially with what happened after.
He got what was coming to him.
His lies encompassed all of us. Me, my parents, Margo, her mother.
She doesn’t know—but she might begin to unravel it. She’s digging. Trying to remember.