Page 36 of Caught Up

“I thought you said you didn’t need him to apologize?” Taylor said.

I smirked. “I don’t. I just wanted to see him beg a little.”

Ryan shook their head. “You diabolical little bitch.”

I nodded, unrepentant, and took a sip of my latte.

They sobered. “I think you’re right about needing to be careful around him, though. Aside from the stalking, that confession about framing your old friend and attacking the principal isnext-level.”

“I know,” I said. “He didn’t sound at all remorseful about either one.”

Taylor shrugged. “I think it’s romantic.”

Ryan let out an exasperated breath. “Of course you do.”

“No, think about it,” Taylor said, and for once, she seemed serious. “This hasstar-crossedlovers written all over it. By lying about hooking up with Lauren, he thought he was saving her, and then he punished the other people who’d wronged her. Guerrilla justice.”

“That’s sofucked-up, though,” Ryan argued.

“I didn’t say it wasn’t. But two things can be true simultaneously. It can be bothfucked-upand deeply romantic.” Taylor turned to me with hearts in her eyes. “Like he was trying to protect his fair maiden from afar.”

I glanced behind us, looking for the maiden she was referring to. “Oh, you meant me?”

“Yes, you,” Taylor said, leaning forward to grab my arms. Her pastel hair swung into the space between us, dark eyes wild as she started to shake me. “Why won’t you let him love you?!”

People around us turned to stare.

“Will you quit it, you lunatic?” I said, pulling out of her grip. “I just...” God, how to explain all the things I was feeling? “I can’t let him back in, because I know he’ll only hurt me again, but I won’t deny the attraction is still there.” Understatement. The attraction had grown from a spark into a blazing inferno. I could practicallyseethe flames creeping closer while I sat and drank my latte, a little text bubble floating above my head declaring that this was fine, everything was fine.

“So don’t let him in,” Taylor said. “What’s wrong with keeping it casual?”

I blew out a breath. “Aside from all the red flags?”

She nodded.

“Maybe I don’t want to get sucked back into the past,” I said. “I already knew Junior was going through some shit at the time, and I see his reasoning, even if I don’t entirely agree with it or understand what he was so worried about. And while I do believe he’s sorry, being around him reminds me not only of what happened, but what happened after. It was a really dark time in my life. I felt so lost, so let down by not only the kids my age, but by the adults meant to protect me. And theshame...”

The shame of everyone thinking I was crazy, of them ripping apart my fan fiction after Kelly told them my pen name, of them demonizing my fantasies, making me feel like I was bad or broken ordisturbedjust for having them.

I shook my head, needing a minute. Walter, sensing my distress, stood from where he’d been sprawled at Ryan’s feet and put his head in my lap. He really was the best boy. I reached down and stroked a hand between his ears, ruffling the fur at the back of his neck and scratching beneath his collar, just where he liked it. His eyes slitted in euphoria, tail thumping against the ground.

Taylor scooted her chair closer and slung her arm around my shoulder. “You don’t have to say anything else. I get it.”

I smiled at her, grateful. Taylor understood shame culture better than most. Like me, she’d been raised with a strict Christian upbringing, only instead of being Catholic, she was Mormon. And adopted. Her white parents had been unable to conceive and desperately wanted children, so they flew to Vietnam and welcomed both Taylor and her older sister, Tasha, into their lives. Tasha was the golden child, the perfectstraight-Astudent turned trad wife with a bundle of kids. Taylor had been the “problem child,” though that was a relative term. For all intents and purposes, she was a normal kid, but to hersuper-strictparents and their borderline cultish faith? She was beyond saving.

We’d both put in a lot of hours with our therapists trying to heal from our experiences, and though we never, ever let anyone make us feel bad about ourselves now, the old scars were still there. Who could blame me for not wanting to reopen mine?

Across from me, Ryan fiddled with their empty coffee cup. “So, what are you going to do if Junior pops up somewhere while you’re there?”

“Hide,” I declared. “My hormones can’t be trusted around him.”

“That face of his is a problem,” Taylor said.

Relief rolled through me, knowing I wasn’t the only one affected by it. “Right?”

“Heispretty,” Ryan agreed, sounding like they didn’t want to.

I nodded. “He’s funny, too. Dry, sarcastic, but it works.”

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