Page 90 of Even in the Dark

Her business if she wants to say more. She doesn’t for a long time. Then, finally, she tilts her head forward. “Carter's this guy I had a huge crush on. His aunt and uncle had a cottage on the same lake as ours. His father was killed in a car accident a month before that and his mom was still a mess, so he came to stay with his aunt and uncle at their cottage for a couple of weeks. I thought he was the coolest. Turns out… he wasn’t.” Her eyes flicker to the side, trailing a seagull swooping past the roof. “He filmed me on the dock when I was…indecent, and we were kind of fooling around. It was partly my fault. I was totally naïve and just… stupid. I knew he was doing it. I feltspecialthat he was doing it.” She rolls her eyes. “God, it’s embarrassing what a cliché the whole thing was. What a clueless clichéIwas… Anyway, he group-chatted the video to some of his friends. One of them happened to be Seb, who called me as soon as he got it—after texting the group chat and telling everyone to delete the video and threatening anyone who didn’t. And calling Carter and threatening him personally.”

“I ended up telling my mom,” she continues. “I was fifteen—a total wreck, and didn’t know what to do. Mom and I have always been pretty close, so even though it was the most humiliating thing to tell her, I did.” Scarlett's chest rises and falls with a huge sigh. “Long story short, my parents talked to his mother, and it was awful. And so awkward, because she’d just lost her husband. Carter had just lost his father. Maybe he wasn’t even a jerk before that. Anyway, it felt likewewere the assholes,bringing this thing to their doorstep on top of everything they were already dealing with.” Scarlett traces her finger back and forth along the edge of the metal surface we’re sitting on. Waits a few seconds before she continues.

“We didn’t press charges or anything. As far as I know, those guys all deleted the video… But a couple of them had already forwarded it, and even though they said they’d told those guysto delete it, it’s just unreasonable to think they all did. Seb saw it surface a couple times that summer with guys from another town who were boarding school friends, and he did whatever he could to shut it down.” She shrugs one shoulder. “I’m pretty sure no one from SH Prep saw it. I never heard about it, if they did. And I feel like Iwouldhave heard about it if it had got out here. I think Seb told Xave to keep an eye out, and Xave’s basically considered a God at SH Prep, so if someone had started to leak it to any guys there and they knew Xave was against it, they would stop the chain just out of fear of becoming total social outcasts. We never talked about it, but the way Xave acted around me the rest of that summer and at school in the fall—just kind of extra protective—it was like this unspoken thing that he knew, but never brought it up, because he knew I would be embarrassed.”

Scarlett drops her leg again and swings it lightly back and forth. The movement creates these weird blurred shadows against the neon light. “Anyway, the whole thing was… really horrible. Humiliating and shitty and just—I wish I could go back and make it so the whole thing never happened.” She inhales a shaky breath. “But it did. And it’s in the past and I want it to stay in the past. I want nothing to do with that asshole.Nothing.” She meets my eyes. “But he’s started texting me again suddenly, saying he wants to meet up, and I have no idea why… And I want him to stop.” She lets her head fall back again. “Only I don’t want him to think I even care that he’s texting me. Or if I see him or not. I don’t want him to know he’s even a blip on my radar.”

“You need to tell him to go to hell.” My voice is practically a growl. This guy sounds like he’s gonna bring nothing but shit to herdoorstep.

“Were you even listening? I said I don’t want him to think I give a crap.”

I reach my hand out. The one that doesn’t have a cast weighing it down. “Show me your phone.”

“I don’t want you typing anything.”

“Not gonna type anything. I told you I’m shit at texts. Just let me see, and I’ll tell you what I think you should say.”

She hands me her phone, and I read the brief string of texts.

“Yeah,” I say, handing it back. “You need to tell him to fuck off.”

“Not helpful.”

“Yeah, it is. Simple. Two words:‘Fuck’. ‘Off’.If he doesn’t know what that means, he’s stupid on top of being an asshole.”

“He isn’t stupid. That’s part of the problem.”

“Doesn’t matter.Fuck offis universal.” I tilt my head. “You want him to fuck off, right?”

“God. Yes,” she answers right away.

I arch an eyebrow at her. Pretty obvious what she needs to type, then.

“It’s not that simple.”

“More simple than you letting him keep messing with your head,” I tell her. And yeah, I’m aware it’s rich that I’m dishing out this kind of advice. Really aware. “You’re gonna feel like crap no matter what you text back, right? ’Cos of the shit he did and who he is. So, better to feel like crap and at least be the one calling the shots, than feel like crap and him be the one still calling the shots.”

Scarlett narrows her eyes and studies me for a minute. Sighs. Reaches in her pocket like she’s looking for something, then pulls out a tube of that watermelon lip stuff. Opens the cap and glides it across her bottom lip… back and forth. Top lip… back and forth. And fuck me. I can’t stop staring at her lips now.

She pockets the tube. Her lips shiny now and even more perfect. “Why are you staring at me?”

My eyes snap up from her lips. “I’m not.”

“You totally were.”

I poke my tongue against my lip ring. Now she’s the one staring atmylips. Then our eyes meet. Both trying to figure out what the other one is thinking.

I think.

Then she sighs. Says, “Fuck it.” And types into her phone. She holds it up for me to see.

Scarlett

Fuck off Carter

She lifts that same eyebrow again. “Happy?”

I nod. “Yup.”

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