Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 87573 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 438(@200wpm)___ 350(@250wpm)___ 292(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87573 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 438(@200wpm)___ 350(@250wpm)___ 292(@300wpm)
“Anytime.”
“I don’t know how you got him to admit that he was wrong,” Jensen said. “We only butt heads day and night.”
“He knew he was in the wrong as soon as he called me. Not sure it was anything that I did.”
Jensen sighed. “Either way, thank you.”
“Are you going to let him go back to New York?” I asked even though it was none of my business.
Jensen’s eyes flicked back to the direction Colton had disappeared. “I don’t know. What would you do?”
I laughed. “No idea. I was a rule follower in high school.”
“Yeah. So was I. How trashed is the lake house?”
“Ah,” I said on a wince. “I’d make him clean up as much as he can before you go look at it.”
“That bad?”
I nodded.
“All right. Well, thanks, Whitt. I know you didn’t have to do any of this.”
I waved him off and then headed back to the car. Before the door closed, I turned back. “He’s a good kid, you know?”
Jensen nodded. “I know. Somewhere down deep.”
I didn’t prod any more. Colton would stay, or he would go. He’d earned it either way. I was glad I’d been able to help. Like I wished that I could do with Eve right now.
32
Eve
Bailey was throwing up in the bathroom of our dad’s double-wide.
“It’s just a hangover!” she insisted as she leaned her cheek against her porcelain throne.
A hangover.
Right.
Like I hadn’t seen her incapacitated last night. As if there hadn’t been an entire table of illegal drugs in front of her. As if I hadn’t dragged her ass out of that party against her wishes. She would have happily stayed with that idiot Xavier.
“You’re not fooling me.”
Her response was to wretch into the toilet.
I cringed and took another step back. I was glad Dad wasn’t here to witness it. He was off at church, pretending like nothing had happened. It was better for everyone that he was out of the picture.
He’d raged last night when I finally brought Bailey home, high as a kite. It was one of the few times that I agreed with him. Every single thing he said to her about her irresponsibility had been true. Even if it wasn’t helpful. But it only made Bailey worse. Oil and water mixing. And watching the exchange made me wonder how I’d ever thought this would work.
When he’d stormed out of the trailer this morning in his Sunday best, neither of us had stopped him. Bailey hated him, and I didn’t think much more highly of him.
Bailey finally stopped throwing up and flushed the toilet. She was pale, and her pupils were swallowing her irises. “Ugh, feel awful.”
“I bet.”
“I wasn’t trying to fool you,” she said as she stood between what had originally been our two rooms.
“Really?” I asked, raising my brows. “So, you left your phone on accident?”
“Yes.”
“And the burner phone I found on you? The one you used to text Trevor?”
She bit her bottom lip. “It’s a friend’s. I borrowed it since I’d forgotten mine.”
“Uh-huh. And Xavier?”
“I didn’t know he’d be there!”
I snorted. Likely story. By my estimation, it had been his party. Not that that line of reasoning would get through to her. Reason wasn’t her strong suit.
“And the drugs I saw you sitting in front of?”
“I wasn’t using.”
My eyes rolled so far into the back of my head that I saw into the other room. “Right.”
“I wasn’t.”
“So, you’d pass a drug test.”
She fidgeted then. For the first time, her demeanor cracked. We both knew she’d fail with flying colors. The way she had failed her junior year of high school.
“Just let it go, Evie,” she said instead of answering.
She pushed past me into her room, but I wasn’t done. I followed her.
“I can’t just let it go. Xavier told me you owe him two thousand dollars.”
Bailey whirled on me. “I don’t owe him shit.”
“He said that you were going to work it off with sex!”
She scoffed, “Like I’m a prostitute.”
“I don’t know what you’d do for your next fix. I didn’t know before, and with a relapse, I certainly don’t know now.”
“I haven’t relapsed!”
“Bailey, just stop! I was there. I saw you high as fuck, sitting on a balcony in front of enough drugs to OD. Again. Xavier offered for me to help pay off your debt, too. Do you know that?”
She winced at that. “He did?”
“YES! He did!” I shook my head in frustration. “Do you not see what’s happening? Do you not care?” I revealed my wrist tattoo of the two crescent moons, one full and one empty. I grasped her wrist and turned it over, revealing a matching set. “Does this mean nothing to you?”
“I’m not using again.” She yanked her wrist out of my grip and looked down at it. “I maybe had a little weed. That’s it.”
I closed my eyes in frustration. Same old, same old. A string of lines, couched in a tiny molecule of truth. But never the whole truth.