"Come on," she orders when I hesitate, and I obey simply because I'm positive the alternative would involve me getting kicked in the face. I let her pull me up, and then I stand there waiting for her to push me back down.
"I'm not mad at you, Hailey," she says, and she might as well be speaking a foreign language, because none of this is making sense in my head. "I feel terrible about kicking you out."
Wait, what?
"I just want to go home, okay? This is all my fault."
All her fault . . . ?
Danica hasn't accepted responsibility for her actions since she was old enough to realize that her pretty smile is the equivalent of a get-out-of-jail-free card. Broken toys, bad grades, missed curfews: they've all always been someone else's fault. And it clicks for me then: what's happening. I can almost see her too-big smile hiding behind the act she's putting on, and I resist my fight-or-flight instinct. My feet stay planted in place. I'm a dormouse about to be eaten alive.
"I'm going to make this right," Danica says, and there it is: that smile.
I decide right then that I don't want to be eaten alive. I don't want to be fucking eaten at all.
"You're full of shit," I say, and Danica's smile vanishes. Mike is standing behind her, so he can't see the way her eyes narrow into slits.
"Hailey, I know you didn't sleep with Mike. I-"
"Oh, I know you know that," I agree. "But you're not sorry."
Danica stands there-assessing, calculating. And then she steps forward and wraps her arms around me, pulling me into a threat of a hug. Low, so that only I can hear, she whispers in my ear, "I didn't call my dad yet. But keep pissing me off, you little bitch." And then, for Mike's benefit, she says more loudly, "I mean it more than you'll ever know, okay? I want you to come home with me. We're family."
She pulls away, her pearly white smile daring me to challenge her again. One wrong word, and she'll make my nightmare a reality. She's giving me a chance to stay here, to stay in school and finish what I came here for. One chance.
"Do you need help gathering your things?" she asks, and when she starts gathering them for me, I let her.
If I leave with her now, I can finish my degree. I don't have to move back to Indiana. I don't have to leave Mike for good. I don't have to grow old on that farm.
I tell myself these things as I begin helping my soulless cousin. For the fifteen seconds it takes to finish shoving my belongings into my backpack, I avoid eye contact with the man who just told me he's in love with me. But as soon as I'm finished, my eyes find him across the room.
He's standing by the door, not bothering to hide the fact that he's watching me. "You can always stay here, you know."
"Are you ready?" Danica asks, shoving my backpack into my arms, and when I just stand there, her tapping foot begins counting the seconds I have left until she explodes.
"Give us a minute," Mike says, and Danica dramatically wipes her finger under her eye.
"Really, Mike? Really?"
Mike frowns and rubs his forehead, but then he takes in the expression on my face, and something in it makes him press on. He walks past Danica and takes my hand, leading me out of the room. "Just a minute."
In the kitchen, he pulls me close enough that Danica can't hear us, and he says, "I meant what I said." His fingers stay clasped with mine, the tip of his thumb nervously circling mine as he gazes down at me. "Earlier . . . before I went outside . . . I meant it, Hailey. I need you to know that."
I want to hug him. Or kiss him. Or just cry in his arms. But instead, I simply swallow. I swallow hard, and I float on the surface of those deep brown eyes.
I believe him-however impossible it should be, I believe him when he tells me he loves me.
And I also believe Danica will never, never allow it to continue.
I stare up at Mike until he leans down close, eye-level with me. His voice is hushed but firm, a low whisper that sends goose bumps up my arms. "Pick up your phone tonight, Hailey. If you don't, I'm coming over."
In Danica's car, in Danica's passenger seat, I stare out the window wondering if she's going to intentionally crash the car into a tree and kill us both. She hasn't said a word, so I know something's coming. I know something's coming because I know Danica.
She looks over at me, and I continue staring out the window.
"When did you become the kind of girl that steals other girls' boyfriends?" she asks, shaming me.
I want to tell her that I didn't steal him-that she threw him away-but I ignore her, resting my head against the window.
"I mean, I know you don't like me, but stealing my high school sweetheart? Spending the night with him? Having him tell you he loves you right in front of me?" Danica looks back out at the road, shaking her head. "I never would have imagined you'd hurt me like that."
I know what she's doing. She's making this my fault. She wants me to accept the blame so that she can pile it on and pile it on and pile it on. And if enough is piled on top of me, I'll never be able to find my way out. She'll be the only person who can unbury me.
I swallow the "I'm sorry" creeping its way up my throat, and I concentrate on the trees blurring a path back to my prison of an apartment.
Danica glances at me again, no doubt reevaluating her strategy. "Do you believe what he said?"
One tree, two trees, three trees.
"Aw, sweetie," she says with faux concern. "You do believe him, don't you? You think he really loves you."
Nine trees, ten trees, eleven trees.
She sighs and pats my leg. "I should let you learn this the hard way, but I'm still your big cousin, so . . ." She glances at me, waiting for a reaction, but she doesn't get one. "Some guys just like being the hero. Mike always likes to say he fell in love with me from the moment he saw me. But do you know when that was? Third grade, when I moved to his school." She pauses her delivery for dramatic effect, and I resist the urge to look over at her. "And do you know who I was back then? I was this sad little girl who had to move away from everything she'd ever known, including her best friend."
I can't help it-my neck turns, my eyes find hers, and I get caught in her web.
"Mike likes them broken, Hailey. It makes him feel important."
My gaze slowly swings back to the window, because counting trees is easier than trying to digest anything she's saying. I don't want to believe her, and I know I shouldn't.
"You don't want to be with a guy like that, do you?"
Sixteen trees, seventeen trees, eighteen trees.
Danica faces forward again, and after a moment, she releases an exaggerated sigh and says, "Well, I guess it doesn't matter anyway."
I look at her again, alarms sounding in my head. When she turns her chin in my direction, her brows knit into a pitying expression.
"Oh, sweetie, you didn't think I was going to let you keep flirting with my boyfriend, did you?" She admonishes me with a shake of her head. "I'm doing you a favor. You realize that, right?"
"What are you saying?" I ask point-blank, tired of the charade that Danica won't stop playing. Concerned cousin. Loving girlfriend. Decent human being.
"I'm saying that if you ever see him again, call him again, even talk to him in passing again"-her mask slips away, revealing the monster underneath-"you'll be lucky if all I do is put a call in to my dad."
Chapter 26
Dee Dawson and Rowan Michaels are good at many things. They're good at finding replacement computers, which they claim they got for free from some guy who got it from some other guy who got it from some other guy. They're good at cleaning up trashed bedrooms and unflipping flipped-over desks. And they're good at making sure that when Mike Madden calls me when I'm in bed that night, his name shows up on my phone as "Dee-licious-andra" instead of "Sexy as Fuck Drummer."
"Hello?" I say on the fourth ring, after I stop gnawing on my thumbnail and summon the courage to hear his voice.
"Hey."
My door suddenly flies open, and when Danica points at my phone, I roll my eyes and show her the screen. Satisfied that I'm talking to her arch nemesis instead of her ex-boyfriend, she makes a face and leaves me alone.
"Hey," I reply.
"Hey."
I crack a tiny smile at the ceiling, marveling once again at how easy it is for Mike to make that happen. "How long are we going to keep saying hey?" I ask, and his reply makes my butterflies flutter.