Wrecked Book 3 (2 page)

“I didn’t think you were like that,” he told me, looking around my room for something. “I thought you were different, special.” He reached down when he spotted his dark shirt, snatching it up off the floor and jerking it down over his bare body.

My eyes followed the hem of his shirt as it covered his cut abs.

“But you’re not, are you?” he continued, his eyes sharp as they searched my face. “You’re just like everyone else and you always will be.” He gave a humorless laugh. “I can’t believe how stupid I am.”

And before anything more could be said, he turned away from me and stormed out of my room. I stayed frozen at my desk, clutching at my stomach, listening to him stomp down the stairs farther and farther away from me. I stayed like that right up until I heard the door slam shut downstairs. That’s when the tears that I had been holding back all morning finally spilled over.

Sobs wracked my body as I slid down to the floor.

How could I have let him get this close to me?

I thought that after she said goodbye, after I stood and took my punishment, it would be over. I’d survived the worst of the worst and all that was left now was the guilt that would eat away at me for the rest of my days—nothing new there.

But I wasn’t so lucky.

“What do you mean she
transferred
here?” I demanded of my mother, all but yelling at her through the phone. After Miranda had dropped by unannounced, I finally bit the bullet and called my mother. She seemed to know at least to some extent what was going on.

There was a brief pause, then I heard a sigh and could picture her massaging her temple as a headache formed. “I tried to tell you,” she pointed out blandly. “I tried to tell you that Miranda was coming.”

“Yeah,” I admitted, but ignored the twinge of guilt I felt for not answering her by focusing on my anger and panic instead. “But you never said anything about her going to school here! What the hell is she doing?”

For a moment my mother didn’t say anything. I couldn’t say if she was trying to choose her words carefully, or if she just didn’t know
what
to say. “I wasn’t sure until her father showed up a few days ago.”

I held my breath. I hadn’t spoken to Mr. Ansell since the funeral. He hadn’t even been able to look at me. I still wasn’t sure if that was preferable to how his wife treated me—she slapped me across the face and told me that I was the worst thing to ever happen to her daughter—but I know that the way he turned away from me still haunts me.

Some things just don’t go away.

“He came by to tell me that Miranda was doing better. That she was finally started to accept… what happened.” My mother hesitated, clearly not sure if she should divulge any further information and it made me think it was legally sensitive. My mother was a nurse. If Mr. Ansell had told her anything regarding Miranda’s health—like medications or therapy—she would feel obligated to keep silent regarding that. Whatever it was, I doubted it was my mom told me next. “He said that she’d applied to colleges and gotten into several of them, and managed to get a late acceptance into one of them. When I asked him what one, he told me it was the University of Massachusetts.”

Late acceptance. I thought of what a catch Miranda had to be for a university to make that kind of exception for her. It didn’t really surprise me. She was Beck’s little sister and Beck would have been a candidate for full ride scholarships to Ivy League schools if she’d—

If I hadn’t happened.

“Why did she come here?” I whispered into the receiver, terrified of what my mother would say.

I heard another sigh from her, then, “I don’t know. Maybe she wants to make peace, Adrianna.”

Irritation flared within me at my mother’s optimistic and completely unrealistic expectations. Was she crazy? Of
course
Miranda wasn’t here to make peace! Maybe it was just our encounter the other day that was fueling my reaction, but I knew better than to expect forgiveness.

No, what I was in for was punishment.

“Right,” I said, sarcasm filling my voice. “And I’m sure she wants to play tea party and gossip about that cute boy in her class, too, right?”

I could hear the disapproval in my mother’s voice as she reminded me, “Miranda’s been through a lot. It’s been hard on her. She lost her
sister
.” She didn’t add the ‘because of you’ though I knew that she thought it. “You could be a little more sympathetic, you know.”

I wanted to yell at her that she was being unfair. That I was her
daughter
and would it kill her to just be on my side for once? But I didn’t, because I knew she was right. I destroyed Miranda’s life the night I took away Beck’s and there was no changing any of that.

“I
am
sympathetic, Mom,” I told her through gritted teeth. “I never… I didn’t want this to happen. I wish I could go back and change this, but I can’t. It happened. Why can’t we all just move on?”

It was a stupid question. Really, how
could
we move on? Beck had been such a huge part of both Miranda’s life and mine. And she had infected my mother, too. She was the only thing that kept World War Three from exploding in my house. Beck was more important to my mom than I was, I thought sometimes. She was the one who kept me on track to success. She kept me from slipping too far off the deep end.

But even she couldn’t stop me that night. No one could.

“I can’t believe you even said that,” my mom said, her tone a mixture of steely and chastising. She was always a pro at making me feel awful about myself and this was no exception. “She’s hurting, Adrianna. How can you expect her to just erase the loss of her only sister?”

I didn’t have an answer to that, so remained silent. I knew she was right, because there was still a hole in my own chest where Beck had once been and nothing would fill it. I could only imagine how much worse it was to lose a sibling.

“Miranda has every right to be angry,” my mother continued. “And you’ll do her the kindness of allowing her the chance to heal. In whatever way she needs to.”

And that was the end of the conversation. There was no point in arguing with her after that, because it was clear as day where she stood on the matter. I was the screw up and everyone else was paying the price.

It didn’t matter if I was hurting still, too. No one cared because it was my fault.

“This was as helpful and touching as ever, Mother,” I said dryly into the phone. “But I’ve got class in twenty. I’d better go.”

Before she could say good bye or anything else, I hung up the phone and put it on silent. I didn’t want to deal with anyone after
that
guilt trip.

Shoving my phone into my bag, I marched determinedly down the hall towards my class. It really was starting in about twenty minutes, and though it was still early to head that way, I didn’t want to risk running into Logan again.

I cringed a little as I walked. Like he would be waiting for me anywhere at this point. After what he heard me tell Miranda, there was a good chance he was never going to even look in my direction again, much less be interested in catching me before class.

My chest clenched in response to this knowledge. I tried to tell myself it was for the best, that whatever he felt about me now, whatever his opinion, it was for the best. The whole point was to get him out of my life, wasn’t it?

No reason to feel badly about it now…

I turned a corner and ended up running straight into Mason.

He looked as surprised to see me as I was to see him, his eyebrows high on his forehead and his eyes a little wide. Once he recovered, he smiled at me. “Hey, Addy. How’re you? I haven’t seen you in forever it seems like.”

Yeah, not since I hunted him down in class and dragged him out into the hall to yell at him about Logan. In retrospect, I was sort of right in giving him hell about introducing me to someone like Logan. It was for the wrong reasons, because Logan wasn’t the violence I had been expecting, but he was definitely trouble—and he was going to ruin all that I had worked so hard for.

“It’s been a while,” I admitted, forcing a smile. I actually was kind of happy to see him. Mason had become one of my better friends here at the university and I missed spending time with him. “What have you been up to?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “The usual. Class, hanging out, keeping Mark out of trouble.” He grinned and my smiled widened, turning genuine. Mark was known to be the more troublesome of the two twins, often dragging Mason into things that he’d just as soon not be a part of.

“Might as well be a full time job,” I told him.

Nodding, he said, “What about you? You were… intense the last time I saw you, and then you just disappeared.”

I blushed a little at the mention of my embarrassing performance that day in the hall. It was pretty dumb of me to have been so…
reactive
. “Oh, I just got a little busy. I was pretty crazy that day. All over the place.” I leaned in closer to him and whispered jokingly, “Probably that time of the month.”

He rolled his eyes. “That’s such a girl excuse.”

I shoved at his shoulder. “Only because it’s true.”

Not bothering to argue the point further, he turned back the way he came so that he could walk with me as I continued on my way to class. “I’m actually glad I ran into you,” he told me. “I'm having another little get together at my place this weekend.” Quickly, he added, “No Logan—or Lexie. Just me, Mark, Danny, and Kass if she can pull herself away from that new guy of hers.”

I laughed. “Good luck on that one. They might as well be joined at the hip.”

Groaning, he threw up his hands in overly dramatic fashion. “I know. Crushes are overrated and make it so much harder on the rest of us.”

Smiling, I nodded. “Agreed. I think she
definitely
needs an intervention. I’ll talk to her about it.”

“Thanks,” he said, then nudged my shoulder. “And while you’re at it, you can just drag her there yourself.”

The implication was clear and I decided not to argue with him. “Alright then. You got it. When is it again?”

There was a moment of surprised silence as he just stared at me. He had clearly not been expecting me to accept so easily. Usually, I was all about putting up a fight. It was pure academics for me, but right now I knew better than to think I could just sit in my room and pretend to focus on papers or studying. I needed some time with friends—the good, non-partying kind of friends, and Mason fit the bill. And with the guarantee that there would be no Logan (or Lexie) there, I felt pretty good about saying yes.

“What?” I asked innocently.

He pulled himself together and smiled quickly. “Nothing, nothing at all. It’s Saturday at six. Only a couple of hours for a movie. Plenty of time to add in some studying.” He winked at me.

“You got it,” I said, smiling.

“Great,” he replied, still trying to shake off his obvious surprise.

We stopped outside my classroom, and I waved good bye. As I entered the class, I felt a little better about everything. Mason had managed to give me hope where everything else that day had been making me feel like there was little reason to keep trying.

Class was boring and saw more ups and downs from me than an elevator. For a while, Mason’s party idea distracted me from the mess that was my life. Hanging out with him and other friends promised to be a mostly stress free event. No one knew what had transpired between Logan and me, though Kass knew
something
was going on with me and him. Which meant that in all likelihood no one was going to bring up an awkward topic.

Especially since neither Logan nor Lexie would be there.

The idea calmed me, but as class progressed, my good mood faded. Every dark head of hair made me think of Miranda. Every whisper made me think that everyone in the class was talking about me. That they somehow
knew
what was going on.

I tried to focus on taking notes, pulling out my notebook and scribbling down a few key ideas. But as my interest waned, as it always inevitably did, I found myself thinking of the things that were troubling me once again.

Kids came through the door late after class already started and I imagined that it was Miranda appearing in my class.

Everything set me off, making my jump in nervous reaction. My paranoia had me chewing on my nails and biting on my lower lip until it bled.

I was freaked out by the time class was over. I packed up my things as quickly as I could, trying to only think about my next class. Worrying over academics was preferable to everything else that was going on.

As I walked down the hall, there was a buzzing in my pocket. I cringed as I pulled it out, dreading the text that would be there. Every text I received, I imagined was from my mother or from Miranda trying to torture me for my sins. I’d had to turn it back onto vibrate after my first class, because there was a study group that I was running after school and people were trying to reach me.

None of the texts were actually from my mother or Miranda or Logan or anyone that was putting me on edge. They were all about the study group and one from Mason about the party, and finally one from Kass reminding me to bring my notes to lunch.