Page 37 of Catch Me

Lex is staying quiet. There are two pink circles on his cheeks like he’s embarrassed, which pains me. I want to comfort Lex and scream at Reid, but at the same time, I don’t want to be caught in the middle. Instead, I just shake my head and walk away.

“Where are you going?” Reid asks, his voice strained.

“Somewhere. Anywhere,” I say, frustration settling in. “As long as it’s not near you.”

Guilt slams into me the moment those words leave my mouth, but I run away from it. From all of it. Maybe this was why Brady didn’t think it was a good idea to get involved with Reid. Did he foresee all this? Did he know what was going to happen before it even did?

All I know is, I want my cake and eat it too. I want Reid by my side, and I want Lex to be okay with it. But that’s a perfect world, and if anyone should know that this isn’t a perfect world, it’s me.

17

Imeet Oscar in the library during English class again. We don’t talk much until the bell rings for lunch, and I stay right where I am. He peers over at me, lines wrinkling his forehead. “Not going to lunch?”

I shrug. “I’m not hungry.”

“Sounds like bullshit to me,” Oscar says. He seems tired, or more like he has a hundred different things on his mind. “Sounds more like you want to avoid the fact that your boyfriend punched his best friend because they’re both in love with you.”

I really fucking hate that he knows so much. I also hate the fact that I don’t have anyone else to talk to but Jules. It makes me want to tell Oscar everything, all the pent up frustration I’m feeling because of it, but it’s only because he’s right here and I haven’t been able to think about anything else all day but Lex’s black eye and what it symbolizes.

Instead of saying all that, I look up. “Something like that.”

“I admit, I didn’t think Reid was going to take it that far.”

My tongue itches to move. My lips ache to open, to agree with him, but I hold it back. “Nice ex friends you got there from Rawley Heights,” I say instead.

“Ha,” he says, emotionless.

“Did you know they were going to be that pissed?”

“To come at me at my new school?” He moves his head back and forth like he’s weighing the two sides. “Yeah, I did.”

I give him a disbelieving look. “Then why the fuck would you do it? And I don’t know if you noticed, but Sasha couldn’t get far enough away fast enough. She doesn’t give a shit about you.”

“And you do?” he asks. “Because you were there.”

“I was there for Cade.”

Oscar’s gaze lowers. “I knew what I was getting into when I agreed to do it. Sasha and I have an understanding. I’m not her knight in shining armor, and she’s no fucking princess. But we have a few things in common.”

“Why do I think the things you have in common are probably also the worst traits about you?”

“So, you have been paying attention?”

I shake my head, wondering why the hell I even engage in conversation with him. He brought those thugs to our school. Some terrible shit could’ve happened to my friends because of it. But no matter how much I want to blame it all on Oscar, I can’t. Sasha’s the reason why Oscar is even here.

“Listen, I won’t forget what you and your friends did for me out there. If they weren’t around, they probably would’ve busted my head in.”

“Yeah, I saw the golf club. And was that a gun?” I ask, almost incredulously.

“Rawley Heights isn’t a very nice area. You think you got it bad. Not even fucking close.”

I slice a look toward him. He seems to know an awful lot about me. Or maybe that’s just his way of trying to get me to say more. I don’t engage him on that, but I do ask, “So, shit like that is a regular occurrence at Rawley Heights?”

“Metal detectors, police, fucked up teachers. Any sad story you’ve ever read about at a high school, Rawley Heights has. Why do you think I wanted to get the fuck out of there? The scouts don’t even want to come to our games because it’s so fucked up.”

My heart pings. I hate that the more Oscar talks, the more I can see why he’s done certain things. But, I hate the idea that he does things without caring who it affects. I’ll never be able to get over that. “That’s…terrible.”

“It is what it is when you live in the projects. Everything’s about the honor of having no honor. They work with their own set of rules, and I broke one. No one gets out of Rawley Heights. And if you do, they make you pay.”

---