Girl Lost (20 page)

He laughs, a startled burst of noise. Winces when the cut on his lips pulls. “It’s always the quiet ones, isn’t it?”

I snort, and he scoops our bags off the icy ground and turns me toward the lecture halls. “Come on, darling. You’re already late.”

He walks me all the way to my Bio lab, and peeks inside—checking for what, I have no idea. Exploding frogs or lurking frat brothers. You never can tell with James.

“I’ll be back to get you, after.”

“Don’t you have a girlfriend?” I grumble. A smile flickers on his face briefly.

“Hey, Gwendolyn?” I stop, the door open, and glance at him. The amusement is gone, leaving behind a mask of implacable seriousness. “You need to explain to us what’s going on—what you meant by that.” His eyebrows go up, waiting for me to agree. And I nod, because he’s right.

As much as I hate it, my crazy has spilled over onto both James and Orchid. It’s past time to come clean about my past. About who I am.

I wonder if they will still tolerate me, when they know the truth.

“Pixie!”

I jerk to a stop, staring as Peter strides across the caf. James and Orchid are sitting at our table, and I can see Micah approaching from the other side of the caf. All of them are watching nervously. I shake my head briefly.

“What do you want?” I ask. It’s the first time I’ve seen him since that night.
Laughing, slanted eyes, a mischievous smile in a child’s face
. I blink quickly, and the Boy vanishes, disappearing into Peter’s frown.

“You aren’t answering my texts,” he says, staring at me.

“Your best friend attacked me. Again.” I flick my hair over my shoulder, struggling to hold onto my anger and not the terrifying fear that I’m spiraling.

I saw him. I haven’t
seen
him in years.

“I need to talk to you about Belle. It’s important,” he says, stepping toward me.

Micah, standing by our table, tenses.

“No.” I shake my head. “You say you want to be with me. You want this to work. Then I need something—I need her gone. Now. I’m done with excuses. She’s a non-starter for me, Peter. Get her out of town or leave me alone.”

“I
can’t,
” he says, and my breath catches. There is so much desperation in his voice, so much fear. I want to know why, want to hold him and soothe it away. But I can’t—I can’t do this anymore, constantly wondering when I’m going to be ignored, when she will attack me, when he will find time for me.

“I can’t do this,” I whisper. “I’m trying so hard, and I want to. I’ve been patient. But she’s out of control, your frat is fucking stalking me, and my brother is worried about my safety. You aren’t the only person in this relationship.”

“They’re protecting you,” he says, his voice stiff.

“I don’t
need that,”
I say, my voice climbing. James looks up, anger making his face almost unrecognizable for a moment. “I need you to actually be in this relationship. Or I need you to go.” I wait, wait for him to say something—anything—but he doesn’t. His shoulders droop, and I nod to myself.

“Okay. Then, I’ll see you later, Peter.”

I shove the pain and tears down and step past him. He makes a soft noise that sounds like my name, but different, somehow.

As I walk away, I hear him whisper. “Please remember me.”

I glance back sharply, but he’s already moving away, and I can’t keep doing this. I can’t keep waiting for this to make sense. So I keep walking until I reach my table and my friends. They’re watching me—except James, who has leaned back in his chair to watch a sorority sister a table over, her ass hanging out of her skirt. Orchid seems distantly amused, and I wonder if their relationship is actually healthy.

Not that I’m in any position to judge healthy relationships.

“You ok?” Micah asks softly. James snorts softly on his side of the table, a clear indication that even with his wandering attention, he’s well aware of what’s going on here.

“I’m fine. I can’t keep playing these games with him.”

Orchid reaches out, her eyebrows twitching down in sympathy. “Girl’s night in?”

I laugh weakly. “Does your version of a girl’s night include chick flicks?”

“Definitely not.”

“Then you’ve got a deal.”

By unspoken agreement, they shift conversation, and I listen absently as James talks about the upcoming break.

“Will you go home for Thanksgiving, Orchid?” Micah asks politely. She makes a strangled noise, and I frown at her.

“No,” she says softly, “my father is displeased with me—I don’t think he would wish to see me.”

“Come home with me,” James says, and the table goes still.

We all know what’s happening between James and Orchid—the slow courtship and occasional bursts of sex. Living with her, I couldn’t miss it if I tried. But this—this feels different. Serious in a way that is startling. Even James looks surprised to have put that out there.

“James,” Orchid says, her voice shaping a soft refusal. His face goes blank. and he stands abruptly.

“I’ve got to go,” he says without looking at us.

I glance at the other two, at the indecision in Orchid’s eyes and the banked curiosity in Micah. I sigh. “I’ll go.”

I shove away from the table, snag my bag from the ground, and almost sprint from the caf. I know the AGZ brothers are watching me, but for once I don’t give a fuck.

James is sitting on the stairs, smoking, staring pensively at the snow.

Clearly, he’s waiting on one of us. He doesn’t seem terribly surprised to see that it’s me as I stand next to him. “Come on, James, we’ll freeze if we sit here.”

He sighs and drops his cigarette, stubbing it out before rising. Our breath puffs in the chilly air as we walk, and I stay quiet, rubbing my arms to keep warm as I wait for James to talk.

Pushing won’t get me anything, but if I can be patient, he’ll talk to me. I know he will.

We’re early for class, so I slide down the wall. James curses. Drops down beside me with a thinly concealed look of dislike.

“Her father’s mad at her because of me,” he says without any fanfare. “Because he wants her to marry some asshole at a law firm he wants to partner with. And she’s fighting him because of me.”

“She’s allowed to decide who she wants to be with,” I say carefully.

James laughs, a dull sound. “No. Her family still ascribes to arranged marriages, and this one would benefit the family business. Orchid doesn’t get a lot of a vote—and if she defies him long enough, the old man will cut her off.”

“You’re pretty well off,” I point out. “How bad can it be for her to be with you instead of the boy her father chose?”

James laughs and slides a glance at me. “You have no idea, do you?”

I wait patiently, and he shakes his head. “Gwendolyn, none of my money is clean. My father is in prison for embezzlement, and I’ve been in illegal shit since I was fourteen. I’m good at it—and I could take care of Orchid, if things continue to get serious. But I’m not the guy you take home to your traditional father as a model of upright behavior.”

I blink. How did I not know that? How had I managed to miss something so essential to James?

“But she loves you anyway,” I say, a feeble protest. James leans his head back, eyes closed, his expression pain twisted with pleasure.

“Unfortunately, my darling, love doesn’t always conquer all.”

I hesitate, and then softly ask, “Do you think she’ll go home with you?”

“I don’t know. Orchid wants to obey her father’s wishes—she was raised to respect him above all else. But she would be miserable, and she knows it, so that works in my favor. I just hate that she’s having to choose between us. I hate the old man for forcing this on her.” He sighs and shakes his head. “Don’t worry about us, Gwendolyn. We’ll sort it out—or we won’t and we’ll be a tragic story doomed from the start.”

I snort, and he grins. “No one can every say you don’t have a flare for the overdramatic, James.”

The door swings open to our lecture hall, and students begin to stream out. I move to stand, and James places a hand on mine, stalling me. “Does this change things, between us? What I am?”

I laugh and lean in to drop a kiss on his cheek. “I don’t really care who or what you are or do. You’ve been a good friend to me and a mostly good boyfriend to Orchid. I won’t ask for more than that from you.”

Relief flickers in his eyes, and he smiles. “Come on. I want to sit in the back,” I say, standing and bushing my ass off.

He laughs and joins me. “Slacker,” he teases gently, and I relax, the tension vanishing as quickly as it came.

That evening, Orchid shows up in the dorm with two bags full of junk food and a Netflix primed with horrible, D-grade horror movies. I snuggle into my pillow, picking at the bowl of popcorn and junior mints, watching as a shark tears through another flawlessly made-up camping co-ed.

“Do you think they take flat-irons into the woods?” Orchid asks lazily, a smile turning her lips. I laugh. It’s not a chick flick, and there’s no ice cream to be found—although there is a half empty bottle of rum on the dresser and two shot glasses, courtesy of James.

“Are you going to go home with James for Thanksgiving?” I ask, not looking in Orchid’s direction.

“I shouldn’t.” She hesitates, and then, “Did he tell you what my father wants?”

“Yes.”

“It’s crazy, isn’t it?”

I shrug. “I’m a good judge of crazy, and an arranged marriage doesn’t tip my
what-the-fuck
scales. It’s just family—family is always messy.”

“So you think I should go with James?”

“I think you should give that a fair shot—he loves you.”

“But he’s a criminal. Jesus, he deals drugs, Gwendolyn. He’s not good people.”

I do look at her now, and frown. “Is that you talking or your father?”

Color blossoms in her checks, and I feel a moment of guilt. “It’s complicated. You know it is.”

“I know he loves you, and it’s only as complicated as you let it be,” I answer. She goes quiet, and I toss a junior mint at her. It bounces off her shoulder, and she scowls, a faint smile easing the tension in her eyebrows. “You know whatever you decide, it’s okay, right? It doesn’t have to be James. I’ll still love you.”

Her eyes widen a little, and she nods sharply. Sniffles and turns the movie up. I grin and turn back to my popcorn, letting her have her moment to regain her dignity.

Orchid needed those moments, I’ve learned.

A sharp rap on the door ends it abruptly, and she mutters a curse, her blank expression falling over her face as she rises from her bed and pulls the door open.

Peter is standing there. My breath catches, and I stare at him, stunned.

He’s dressed in loose khakis, a forest green shirt, a beanie pulled low on his head. Red hair hangs in his eyes.

Laughing eyes, sly and childlike in their glee.

I gasp, shake my head hard.

“Do you want him here?” Orchid asks me. Peter doesn’t say, doesn’t even acknowledge her. His eyes are watching me.

Hurt. Broken and betrayed as I told him I was leaving.

“Stop,” I whisper, shaking my head. I curl into a ball on my bed, and Orchid makes a low noise of surprise. “Just stop.”

His hand on mine as we left the island. His grip, too tight and the only thing keeping me steady, as we step onto the bloody ship. His gaze, worried and more serious than I had ever seen.

“
STOP!”
I scream. Orchid curses, scrambling across the room toward me. Peter takes a step inside, letting the door swing shut, and I shriek. “Go away, Peter. Leave me alone!”

“Get out,” Orchid orders. “She doesn’t want you here, Peter. Go.”

“I can’t,” he says, and it helps some. His voice is different, and it shakes the grip of the memories. “I need her help.”

“You have no idea how fragile she is,” Orchid snarls.

“Belle is
dying,
” he says, his voice laced with desperation. It rips something from him, to say that, and I know it’s the first time he’s said it aloud. “She’s dying, and I
need
Gwen to help me.”

The memories are still there, and I need to focus on them, and why they are getting stronger, but I shove them aside and croak, “What are you talking about?”