I couldn’t think of anything except the way her cheeks reddened and her chest heaved with heavy breaths. Each one drowning me in a trance that consisted of her and her alone.
"Why are you looking for him?" I somehow managed to push out the words, and they seemed to snap her out of the same stupor I was in.
"Because." She shook her head and looked back toward the door. There were still a couple of guys milling about, but neither of them looked our way.
I was sure they were listening to every word we said, but none of them were stupid enough to cross me. Not after they saw what happened to Lucas.
Josie balled her hands into fists, and when she looked back at me, I saw that same anger brewing there. "I need to talk to him. I need to fucking—"
She shook her head as if she had no idea what she needed.
I reached out and wrapped my hand around her elbow. She didn’t stop me as I tugged her further into the locker room. We made it around the corner to where my own locker was, but I didn’t drop my hand once we stopped.
"Did something happen?" I searched her face, and I was sure that it had.
"I talked to Cami." She jerked her arm out of my touch and crossed her arms.
My blood ran cold at her words. "You shouldn’t be listening to anything Cami has to say."
"Why not? You do." She lifted her chin and stared up at me, but she was wrong. I didn’t. I barely even talked to Cami lately.
"Cami doesn’t have your best interest at heart."
She laughed, loud and abrasive, and I knew that I had just said the wrong
thing. "And you do?" She shook her head, then took a step toward me. Her body only a few inches away from mine. "I shouldn’t be talking to you at all."
"But you are." My hand tightened around my towel, and I tried like hell to get a tight grip on my temper. It was no use.
I had no control over anything when I was near her. It was unnerving and frustrating, but God, she made me feel so much more than anyone ever had before. She made me feel so fucking alive that I could almost forget everything that didn’t start and end with her.
Almost.
But as soon as she walked away from me, reality set back in, and reality was nothing but a cold, hard bitch.
"I didn’t even know you’d be in here." She took a step back and the warning bell rang out through the school, notifying all the students that it was time to get to class. But I had no interest in getting to class. I had no interest in leaving her.
"What did Cami tell you?"
"Everything." She searched my face, but I didn’t fear anything that Cami had to tell her. I had already told her the truth myself even if she hadn’t wanted to hear it. What I feared from Cami were the lies I knew she spewed.
I couldn’t imagine her doing anything like that to hurt me, not after the things the two of us had been through together, but my gut still tightened thinking about it.
"She told me what happened between Lucas and Frankie." I took a deep breath and tried to calm my racing heart. "She told me about the party and why you feel so guilty. She told me about what you did afterward. Is it true?"
Her voice held so much vulnerability that I knew Cami probably didn’t leave out a single detail. I had no idea why the two of them had even been talking. Why Cami thought this was her place, but I was glad that Josie finally knew the truth.
I was glad that she heard it from someone who wasn’t me.
Because I could see the doubt in her eyes when I had told her the truth. I had just taken her virginity, then hurt her in a way that was inexcusable, but I had still expected her to believe what I told her.
I knew how fucking stupid that was.
"Is what true?"
"What Lucas did. While Frankie was so drunk." She shifted on her feet,
and I knew that this made her uncomfortable.
"It is. I still have the video." Her father thought that he had managed to get rid of them all, but he was an idiot. I had that video saved to my computer where I knew I would one day need it again.
Joseph Vos wasn’t going to ruin the only evidence that could hold his son accountable for what he had done.
Josie leaned back, just enough that I had a full view of her features. Her mouth was set in a straight line, but her eyes held so much sadness and anger that I could barely stand to look in them.
"And what you did to Lucas after? Is that true too?" She searched my face, but I didn’t know what answer she was looking for. I had no idea if she wanted it to be true or if she was praying that I would tell her it was a lie.
I couldn’t imagine that she wanted to protect Lucas after what she knew about him, but I had no idea where her head was at.
I had no idea what she was thinking about any of it.
"It is." There was no use in denying it. She could find out the truth even if I lied, but I didn’t want to. I wasn’t ashamed of what I did to Lucas. I wasn’t ashamed that I had been arrested after, either.
I didn’t give a damn about any of that.
The only regret I had was that I couldn’t protect Frankie.
Not when it came to what Lucas did to her, and not afterward.
The ruthless actions that I did out of anger only helped the bastard. He had his face smashed in, but in doing so, I let him walk away from what he had done without a scratch.
He had walked away without any real consequences.
I would have stayed in that jail cell if it had meant that he would be right there with me. It wasn’t that I wasn’t scared. I was terrified when the cops put those handcuffs on my wrists and threw me into the back seat of their cruiser.
I hadn’t let the truth of what I had done hit me until that moment, and even then, I hadn’t realized the true consequences of my actions. I hadn’t known that my father would have to choose between protecting me and protecting Frankie. If it was up to me, he should have let me rot in there with Lucas by my side.
But he didn’t.
And I knew that Frankie had everything to do with it.
I had failed to protect her, but she wouldn’t fail when it came to me. She had begged my dad to take the deal with Mr. Vos even when I had begged
him not to.
It hadn’t mattered what I said.
It didn’t matter that I had made the decision to put my hands on Lucas even when I knew I would have to pay the price. He was our father, and he was trying to protect us both in the best way he could.
I had hated him for that decision. I had hated that he chose me over Frankie when she needed him the most. She needed us both.
I had failed her, and my dad had chosen to protect me.
I still remember my mother’s face when I came home. She was so relieved. She was happy to have me back where she could touch me. She ran her hands over my face, my arms, every part of me, and I don’t think she left Frankie or me out of her sight for at least a solid month.
And I knew that it wasn’t because she didn’t trust me. She was scared of what had happened to her babies.
But I had made a choice for the consequences I had. Frankie hadn’t. And Frankie was what hurt my mom the most. Looking into her eyes that were so void of life. It practically killed me.
I couldn’t imagine how either of our parents felt.
Josie shook her head and took a step back from me, and the look of disgust on her face fucked with my head. How could she be disgusted with me for what I had done after she knew what her stepbrother was capable of?
"That’s the part that bothers you?" I jerked my locker open and let the door slam into the locker next to it with a loud crash. "After everything that you found out, you’re disgusted by what I did?"
I laughed, but the sound was filled with venom even to my own ears.