Punk 57 (45 page)

I sit there, frozen.

I look up, seeing a fat, cheesy noodle dangling from my hair over my forehead, and I lock eyes with Manny as he reaches over and picks up the red apple that had come crashing into my tray. He stares at me, looking surprised, but then his eyes shoot up to the noodle, and he snorts.

“Hey,” I snap. This isn’t funny!

But he’s smiling anyway, shaking with laughter.

I roll my eyes, feeling my stomach tighten into a knot, but I set my drink down and pluck the noodle out of my hair. Grabbing a napkin, I start to clean off my arm where thick cheese is sticking to my skin.

“Hey,” a male voice says.

I look up, seeing J.D. pull out a seat. He grabs the apple away from Manny and flings it across the cafeteria, back to where it came from. I don’t look, but I hear a crash and squeals.

“What are you doing?” I ask, watching him lean back in the seat, relaxing.

He shrugs, taking my Coke and unscrewing the cap. “Well, when your girl screws your best friend, it’s time for a new girl and a new best friend, I guess.”

“We like you more, anyway,” someone else says.

I turn my head to see Ten taking a seat next to Manny. He looks over at the kid. “Hi.”

Manny sits slumped, suddenly appearing frightened to even look at anyone. “Hi,” he mumbles.

J.D. takes a sip of my soda.

“When did you know?” I ask him. I’m sure Misha wouldn’t have told him.

“Slightly before I wrote the message on the lawn, outing her.”

I shoot my eyebrows up, and Ten stares at him, shocked. “That was you?” I shoot out.

Holy shit
. If he knew then, how did he just stand by and play dumb around them this whole time?

“I guess I was afraid to stand on my own,” he explains. “Until I saw you doing it five seconds ago.”

“You’re not Punk,” Ten gauges as more of a question than a statement.

J.D. just shakes his head. “Uh, no. It was just that one time.”

I momentarily wonder if I should tell them who Punk is, but no. Wrong time, wrong place, and I’m not sure Punk is done yet. I don’t want to come out of the closet until I’m ready.

I finish cleaning off and open my bag of chips, grateful that everyone in the room has seemed to resume their conversations. Thanks, no doubt, to J.D. and Ten’s arrival.

I guess what I always thought is actually true. There is safety in numbers.

“So I got a limo for prom,” J.D. tells me, looking around at everyone. “Group date?”

Ten nods, but Manny and I are silent. I trust Ten, but I’m not entirely sure about J.D. yet. Everything I’ve noticed from him the past couple of weeks tells me he’s on the up and up, but now I’m paranoid. I don’t want to get suckered into going to prom and whoops…now I’m soaked in animal blood like in
Carrie
.

“This isn’t a joke, is it?” I ask him. “You’re cool?”

He looks at me thoughtfully. “If Masen’s not there, they’ll have to go through me to get to you.” And then he glances at Manny. “You, too. And believe me. No one likes to go through me.”

I can’t help but smile. He’s a hundred-eighty pounds of future USC football player, and while he’s always been pretty harmless, people know they shouldn’t mess with him.

“Sounds good then. I’d love to.” I turn to Manny. “You?”

“You got a dress?” Ten pipes up, asking him.

Manny frowns, shooting him a dirty look. “Do you?”

Ten smiles, and Manny seems to relax a little.

He doesn’t answer, but I’ll call him later. He doesn’t trust us, and I don’t want to push him right now.

Everyone gets busy eating. J.D. steals food off everyone’s trays, and I take out my phone and go to text Misha. I hope he doesn’t mind getting asked to prom.

But then I think better of it and go to Google to find his Facebook. I’ve read so much about his life, and now I’d like to see it, I think. I’m guessing the last thing he wants to talk about is prom, but I’d like to put it out there sooner rather than later for him to think about at least.

But as I type in Misha Lare Grayson into the search engine and scroll to find what I need, I’m suddenly lost in more information than I can handle.

My stomach sinks, and my heart races.

Oh, my God
.

The Cove looms ahead, massive and imposing under the gray clouds. I park next to Misha’s truck and climb out of my Jeep, making my way to the entrance.

Now I know why he stopped writing three months ago.

I should never have let it go as long as I did. It was completely selfish to sit there and wait for him to come around and write me back—assuming his issue was small and insignificant—and that protecting the status quo of our relationship was more important.

Of course he wouldn’t have stopped writing for anything trivial. He’d been committed to me for seven years. Why did I think he’d be so cavalier about dropping me all of a sudden?

And now I know why he’s been hiding out here, away from his dad, too. It all makes sense.

Almost.

Walking into the park, I feel the cool breeze from the downpour yesterday brush my arms. The air is thick and weighted, and the clouds overhead threaten more of the same. I hug myself against the slight chill.

Looking around, I walk past the rides and old gaming booths, spotting the field house ahead. I enter and make my way down the dark stairwell, instantly seeing a light down the corridor.

This place freaks me out. I’d heard some people from Thunder Bay were buying the property and had plans to tear down the old theme park and turn it into a hotel with a golf course and a marina and all that, but it might’ve been just a rumor.

I’d be sad to see the place go, but yeah… I turn corners half-expecting to see death clowns cackling among the decay.

Too many horror movies, I guess.

Misha’s room is lit up, and I see the lamp on the bedside table turned on as well as some candles on another table across the room. He’s lying back on the bed, his feet on the floor and his ears covered with headphones as he taps his thigh with a pencil.

There are a few boxes that look filled with his belongings sitting next to the door, but other than the bed, table, and lamp, everything else is packed away.

I smile softly, unable to tear my eyes away from him. The way his foot is tapping to the beat that I hear playing out of his headphones, the way the ring in his lip makes his mouth look like something to eat, and his dark brown hair—damn near black—wispy like he was just outside in the wind.

My heart aches, my stomach somersaults, and my lungs fill with air that sends a shiver down my spine.

I love him.

Stepping over, I climb on top of him, straddling his waist and planting my hands on either side of his head. He jerks and opens his eyes, his gaze turning gentle and happy when he sees me.

He pulls off his headphones. “Are you okay?”

I know he was probably concerned about leaving me at school around Trey and Lyla without him. I nod.

I’m tempted to tell him about my day. Trey’s threats, Manny in the bathroom, J.D. and Ten at lunch. But no more distractions.

“Why didn’t you tell me about Annie?” I ask him.

His expression turns somber, and he slowly sits up. I move off him, sliding onto the bed and sitting at his side.

“I would’ve,” he says, avoiding my eyes as he turns off his iPod. “I was just waiting for us to calm down.”

I can understand that, but I’m not talking about when he came here as Masen. I’m talking about in his letters.

“I heard about it and saw the name online,” I tell him, “but…why did you tell me your last name was Lare?”

When I heard about the seventeen-year-old girl who died on Old Pointe Road from a heart attack, I’d read her name was Anastasia Grayson.

Annie, I gather, is short for Anastasia, but Misha never told me his real last name?

“Lare is my middle name,” he replies. “A family name. Everyone in Thunder Bay knows the Graysons, and my grandfather is important. There’s always been pressure to be and act a certain way. It was so aggravating as a kid, and when I started writing you, I saw it as an opportunity to kind of be free. Not really thinking that a kid our age probably wouldn’t know who Senator Grayson was anyway.” He gives a weak laugh. “I legally changed it to Lare when I turned eighteen, though. It suits me a lot better.”

So I guess I wasn’t the only one pretending to be someone else.

“She was an honor student,” he explains, “an athlete, and she was always picture perfect. I wondered how she did it—how she found the time and energy to be everything she was—but it wasn’t until too late that I realized what she was doing to her body. There were signals and we missed it. Taking money out of my wallet, the hours she kept, the decreased appetite…”

I’d read the details when the police finally released her name all those months ago. She was jogging, it was late, and she was alone. Her car was dead, so they guessed she was trying to run to a gas station or something.

She’d collapsed with her phone in her hand, and by the time help got to her, she was gone. It was later determined she’d been abusing drugs for quite some time.

I didn’t follow the story and wasn’t very invested at the time. She was just a girl I didn’t know. But I’d heard enough to know the details, and I want to cringe, thinking back to the times I thought about it, not realizing who she was.

Misha’s sister.

“It was the night we met at the scavenger hunt,” I say, remembering the date in the news article.

He nods absently, still staring off. “You and I were inside talking, and she was…”

Dying
. I look away.

“I couldn’t stomach anything after that,” he explains. “I stopped writing, because I couldn’t talk about it, but I couldn’t talk about anything else, either. I couldn’t carry on like before, and I couldn’t face the reality of her being gone. I felt sick.” He finally looks over at me. “I needed you, but I just didn’t know how to talk to you anymore. Or anyone. I’d changed.”

“You can talk now.”

He smiles, easing me back to his lap. “Yeah. I’m not sure I could ever give you up again.”

I touch my forehead to his, not knowing what I would do without him. I hate that he stopped writing. I hate that he pretended to be Masen. But I’m so glad we’re here.

I just really hate that it was his sister’s death that brought him here.

“I understand why you stopped writing and why you came here to get away, but…” I look him in the eyes. “Why did you enroll at school? If it wasn’t for me, what was it for?”

He shakes his head, letting out a breath. “Nothing.”

“Misha.”

“Really, it was nothing,” he tells me, cutting me off. “I thought I had another reason to be here, someone who I used to know, but no. It was dumb, and I feel stupid. I shouldn’t have come.” And then he smiles, wrapping his arms around me. “But I’m not sorry I did.”

I cock my head, aggravated. He’s being cagey again.

“I love you,” he says. “That’s all that matters.”

And he looks so calm and happy, I don’t want to ruin it. I take in a deep breath and relax into him. “Can I have the scarf back?”