“He has another brother, right?” Audrey asks.
“Miles,” I say, my mind a million miles away. “He’s ten.”
“Still, Dylan doesn’t look as bad as he did two months ago,” Dakota says, and squirms in Zane’s arms until he relaxes his tight hold. She pats his arm absently. “Maybe things aren’t that bad for him right now. He kept his job, didn’t he? The one you were all concerned he might lose?”
There. Dylan’s fine. He doesn’t need me. Not that he ever expressed any need for me, not after he broke up with me so many years ago. If he needs anything, he’s far more likely to ask any of the other guys for help. I’m invisible to him, even when I throw birthday parties for him, or ask about his day, or his classes. He pulled away from everyone—but mostly from me.
“Coming to our concert, Saturday night?” Dakota asks, and it takes me a moment to realize she’s talking to me. “Nine o’ clock, Crow Feet.”
“You should go,” Audrey pipes in. “Quinn really likes you.”
I open my mouth, close it, try again. “Who’s Quinn?”
“Quinn plays the guitar in our group, and he also sings,” Dakota says, shooting Audrey a wide-eyed look.
Yeah, she doesn’t know of Audrey’s conspiracy to find me a guy and make me forget all about Dylan. Audrey wants everyone to be happy.
If only it were that easy…
“Saturday,” I say and then I remember something. “I can’t.”
“Come on, it will be fun,” Ash says.
“I promised my parents I’ll go to the Autumn Glitter gala. It’s organized by some friends of theirs.” Friends being used loosely. More like people who can make them money. More money, that is. “It was cancelled, and now they changed their mind again and are running in circles trying to find security and catering.”
Though why I should care…
“Can’t you un-promise?” Audrey mutters.
“Sorry.” Figures that now I feel guilty for letting my friends down on top of feeling slightly terrified of having agreed to my parents’ needling just because…. Just because I still have hope.
Hope is dangerous. When will I ever learn?
***
Dylan doesn’t show up in biology class again. Concentrating on the professor is hard. I worry about Dylan.
Surely I have a right to worry, as a friend, right? And his not showing up again isn’t a good sign.
And it’s not just Dylan I’m worried about. The damn gala is coming up this weekend and I have a really bad feeling about it.
I don’t know why. My parents have forced me into going to lots of social events over the years, and mostly it’s not too bad. I dress up, show up, mingle a little, and they ease up on me for a while.
Thinking more about it, it must be the strange way my father relented on the topic of studies on the condition of me going to the gala. My studies, my future, have been a sore points since my school days.
Why is this gala so important to him?
I shouldn’t think about it any longer. My hunches have often proven wrong. Like, I thought Dylan wanted me, that he loved me, and I couldn’t have been more wrong.
And here I go again, thinking about Dylan… Christ.
The gala will be fine. I’ll be all right. The one person I’m truly afraid of meeting in those social circles is Sean, Sean Anholt, but he moved to England to go to Oxford. I haven’t seen him in almost a year now, not since that last disastrous meeting at my parents’ house last winter, and that’s a good thing.
Sean. A cold shiver runs through me. A sudden memory of his mouth crushing mine, his teeth breaking the skin, so all I tasted was blood, his hands bruising my wrists, his weight trapping me…
Oh God. My heart is thumping so hard everyone must hear it in the classroom. The class isn’t over, but I don’t care. I grab my notebook and pen, sling my bag over my shoulder, and hurry out. My panting breaths sound too harsh in my ears. All the self-defense lessons in the world can’t erase the memory of what he did—the fear, the helplessness, the defeat.
Sean is gone. He can’t hurt me again. At least my parents have stopped pushing me to go out with him. Jesus.
We were only together for one brief summer vacation in my last year of school. I went to visit my parents and they invited Sean over. He was charming at first, and he lavished presents on me that left me speechless. We lounged on his yacht, went to crazy, glamorous parties. He brought me white roses and champagne. I was only sixteen, and still heartbroken over Dylan.
Some things never change…
Anyway, Sean distracted me from my sadness over Dylan, and I was grateful for it. I had fun, and my parents encouraged me to spend time together with Sean. Such a lovely young man, they said. Son of such a respected family. A prince fit for their daughter.