We get in my car and drive to an ATM where he takes out some cash, and then we drive some more until we find a hotel two hours away. He pays with the cash he took out, mumbling something about his dad not being able to find him that way. And just like with what happened to his mother, we don't speak about what could've happened to him. Because with me, his secret is safe, and with me, so is he.

We spend two nights at the hotel, and when Monday morning comes, I leave for school, and he leaves with the promise of seeing me later in the afternoon. He does see me... but with only one eye, the other forced shut, puffy, black and bruised. He tells everyone he took a basketball to the face during a pick-up game on campus. But I know the truth. We both do. Because he didn't go back to campus. He went home to face his demons... like a man.

Chapter Nineteen.

LUCAS.

I choke on whatever the cafeteria lady pa.s.ses as food and look up at Laney, my eyes wide. "Say that again?"

"Have you ever had a threesome?" Her tone is nonchalant, but the red in her cheeks gives her away. Laney's a blusher, always has been.

Leaning forward, I glance around us, make sure I'm not dreaming because of all the things that I've imagined coming out of Lois Sanders' mouth (and trust me, I've imagined a lot of things), the word "threesome" is not one of them. "Is Cooper, like, pressuring you to-"

"No!" She throws a plastic fork at my head, hitting me square on the cheek and thankfully distracting me from my images of her and that a.s.shole. "It's just..." She leans closer, lowers her voice. "The other day we were in my room and-"

"Stop!"

"-and this girl sent him a picture of her making out with another girl."

I put on my best friend persona and act like I'm okay with the conversation. "And what did he say about it?"

She shrugs. "Not a lot. Just that it was a girl he'd hooked up with once and she wanted to know if he was interested in doing it again with another girl added to the mix. He wrote back right away, in front of me so I could see."

"What did he write back?"

"That he wasn't interested and he was with someone so to stop messaging him."

"And you believe him?"

"I mean..." She leans closer again. "If he wanted to lie, he could've told me something else, right? Like the person must've sent it to the wrong number. But his story seems legit so..."

"Did you argue about it?"

"No. He said it so, like, matter-of-fact, that I couldn't even come up with an argument."

"Do you trust him?"

"I don't know." I can see by the way she lowers her gaze, bites down on her bottom lip that she's lying. She doesn't trust him but she wants to and that's eating at her, clawing away at her thoughts, and I get it. Picturing the one you love with someone else can twist your insides to shreds.

And she thinks she loves him, and I know I love her, and so I tell her what she wants to hear: "He's with you all the time, Lane."

"Yeah, on weekends. But what happens during the week when I'm not around?"

I shrug. "It's college."

"That's what he said!" Great, the last thing I want is for me and Cooper to think alike. She adds, "But what does that mean?"

I'm already sick of the conversation, sick of talking about him. "Can we talk about something else?"

She rolls her eyes. "Like what?"

"What are you doing for winter break?"

"I don't know," she shrugs. "My dad's going to Savannah to meet Misty's family and Coop's home so he'll probably just hang at my house."

"New Year's?"

"No idea. Why?"

"Dad's taking the twins and Lachlan on some fishing slash bonding trip and Logan's been banished to my aunt Leslee's, so Leo and I are going to have a few people over to the apartment. It'll be low key. We're not really down for anything big this year. But you're welcome to come."

She scrunches her nose. "Remember the first time we did New Year's together?"

"You mean that time we hid out and spied on Luce and Cam and their friends? And Dumb Name thought it was a great idea to steal a bottle of vodka from them?"

She holds her stomach and groans. "Don't remind me."

"You puked so much that night."

"In my defense, it was my first time drinking and we were thirteen!"

"You kept asking for G.o.d to take you away for all your sins."

"Shut up!" Then her eyes widen and her face pales, and I follow her gaze across the room to Cooper walking toward us. He smiles at her, glares at me. As soon as he gets to us, he leans down, and before she has time to decline, he practically sucks her entire face into his sloppy, gaping mouth, putting on a show for the entire cafeteria.

I look away, bile high in my throat, an indent of his foot now in my gut. He sits next to her, his arm around her shoulder while she wipes his drool from her mouth. "What are you doing here?" she asks.

It's Friday, which means he's here for practice, but he's not normally this early. At least not that I know of. Or does she mean here in the cafeteria where the high schoolers hang out and not in the teachers' lounge or wherever the f.u.c.k it is coaches go on their lunch breaks. It doesn't seem to matter what she means because he faces her, eyes narrowed, "Why? Did I interrupt your little rendezvous?" He raises an eyebrow, his attempt at intimidation. "Are you not happy to see me?"

Laney glances at me, then at Cooper, and I don't think she's taken a breath since she saw him. "I am, it's just-"

"What did I interrupt?" He cuts in, points to me. "Were you guys planning on what time Dawson here was going to climb through your window tonight?"

I lean back, unfazed at his attempt to intimidate me, and if he cared enough about his girlfriend, he'd realize I'm not the one affected by his bulls.h.i.t. She is. I smirk, right in his face, and f.u.c.k I wish I could punch him. "I use her door and I don't need to be invited."

"Luke!" Laney gasps, covers her entire face.

"I cut out early," he says to her, "wanted to see you. I miss you."

She lowers her hand, smiles at him. Swear, it's like he puts all his bulls.h.i.t in a blender and feeds it to her with a f.u.c.k You money, platinum, handcrafted spoon.

And it's hard, so hard, to keep my irritation in check. But I do. I say, "I was just telling Laney-"

"Her name's Lois. Who the f.u.c.k gave her that name, anyway? It's dumb."

Her hand lowers under the table, probably to his leg, and she whispers his name. She doesn't gasp like she did when I threw s.h.i.t his direction, but hey... she loves him. And love is f.u.c.king blind. She doesn't go on to tell him the details of her nickname, that my mom gave it to her and how much she (apparently) loved my mom because it obviously doesn't compare to how much she loves him. Now I'm being mean. And stupid. And I know she loved my mom and that was a really s.h.i.tty thing to think. I force a smile, let Laney know it's okay that she doesn't want to tell him, and say, "I was just telling Lois that I was having a few people over for New Year's." My fake kindness even goes as far as to say, "You're both welcome to come." And the bile's in my throat again.

"We can't," Cooper says, picking at the food on Laney's plate. "My buddies and I rented out a houseboat for the night."

"You know Lois gets sea sick, right?"

He hates me. I can tell by the tick in his jaw. He hates that I know more about his girlfriend, and I'm smirking at him because I don't hate him. It wouldn't surprise me if he stood up right now, in the middle of a packed cafeteria, and asked Laney to get a ruler while we both whip out our d.i.c.ks for her to measure. She doesn't need a ruler. I've seen Cooper in the shower. I'd win. And when that didn't satisfy him, he'd challenge me to a p.i.s.sing contest and I'd win again. But Cooper's dumb because it's not about either of those things. It's about who loves Laney more. And I'd win that, too. Every single time. Because I know she gets sea sick and I know that when she gets sick (even with lady cramps) she likes to have her back rubbed. And I know exactly where to rub it. I'm still smirking, and it takes him eleven seconds to start shrinking. f.u.c.k you, Cooper Kennedy.

I win.

Lane grasps his arm, forces him to break our staring compet.i.tion.

I win.

She asks him, "You want to get out of here? I have nothing important for the rest of the day."

She leaves with him, but not before he gives me another one of those pathetic attempts at intimidation. They walk out of the cafeteria with his hand on her a.s.s and he thinks he's won, but I had that a.s.s first. So...

I win.

Cooper gives me h.e.l.l during practice and I expected nothing less, so I came prepared and got Garray in on the joke, too. "Yes Sir, Drill Sergeant, Sir!" is our new response to everything. G.o.d, I love that look in Cooper's eyes-the one that says he'd give absolutely anything to be able to sucker punch me in front of everyone but-and this is the best part-this is his "community service" and he's a "figure of authority" and Garray and I are nothing but c.o.c.ky high school kids under his watch. It's glorious, really, to see his anger rise and rise and rise some more. It earns Garray and me an afternoon detention each from Coach Anderman, our real coach, and we pretend like we care until we turn our backs on him and snicker to ourselves like we're f.u.c.king eight, not eighteen. "Totally worth it," Garray says, b.u.mping my fist because he's my best friend and he's on my side, the side Laney should be on. We walk toward the locker rooms and he keeps walking while I stop in front of Laney. She's always here, always waiting for her beloved. Her glare instantly wipes the smirk off my face. She sneers, "What the f.u.c.k is wrong with you?"

I wipe the sweat off my face with the bottom of my tee and shrug. "It was just a joke, Lane. Christ."

She steps closer, her tone somewhere between a whisper and a growl. "You think this is a game, Lucas, and it's not." Wait, is she about to cry? "He was already on edge after that s.h.i.t you pulled at lunch, and you keep pushing his b.u.t.tons!" She pokes a finger into my chest, over and over, harder and harder. b.u.t.tons. "You've gone out of your way to p.i.s.s him off, to make him angry, and it's all well and good for you because you're not the one who has to deal with him. I am!" Then she storms off, her feet heavy, stomp, stomp, stomping on my heart.

I throw my arms out and shout, late to retort, "If your boyfriend has a problem with me, I'm right f.u.c.king here!"

She turns swiftly, wipes at her eyes. "That's not how it works, Luke! Grow the f.u.c.k up!" And she runs away this time. More distance, more s.p.a.ce and even though I could close the gap, catch up to her, I'd still know that my actions caused my fate, and somewhere along the way, I lost you, Laney.

Chapter Twenty.

LUCAS.

It's 11:49 again.

Different month.

Different day.

A few of my friends are here, Dumb Name included, but there are more of Leo's friends than mine. We're drunk. Well, they are. I'm beyond it. I've spent the past few days thinking about her and wondering how she is. Where she is. She hasn't replied to a single text and every time I call, her phone is switched off. But, Cooper is home and Cooper despises me and she loves Cooper and maybe she even loves Cooper enough to despise me the same way.

I don't normally sit around at my own parties grasping my phone like a baby with their blanky, but it's called a "security blanket" for a reason, right? I should give up on her like I should give up on my phone, but my phone is what connects me to her, and it's my security blanket.

It's not as if I expect her to call, but I want her to. And maybe that's why Garray's grabbing my shoulder and telling me to, "Let it go, dude," while he points across the room to a girl who came with his girl-a girl I've never seen before, a girl who's looking at me with f.u.c.k me eyes, most likely because she was promised by Garray and his girl that I would, in fact, f.u.c.k her.

11:50 and New Girl has ten minutes to convince me that f.u.c.king her won't f.u.c.k over my chances with a girl who's in love with a guy who despises me.

"She's probably f.u.c.king Cooper right now, and you're sitting here like a junkie waiting for his next hit. Let. It. Go."

Dumb Name's right.

But still, I do nothing. Just sit. Watch the seconds tick by.

11:55 and New Girl sits down next to me. "Rad party," she coos.

In which decade was "rad" still a word people used? Pretty sure it was pre-Laney and I was walking around in a red eye mask, red knee pads and a red cape Mom made me so I could pretend to be Raphael. Ninja Turtles didn't even wear capes, but my mom was that awesome.

I smile, look at her properly for the first time. She's not as hot as Garray's girl and nowhere near as hot as Laney, but she'll do because I need to let it go. I casually rest my arm on the back of the couch and lean in close. "Who's your favorite ninja turtle?" I ask her.

When Laney had asked me the same question, I told her it was Raphael. Then she had asked why, and I'd said that I think, deep down, I wanted to be him. He was the bad boy, the black sheep of the brotherhood. Laney had laughed, said that Logan was more suitable to be Raph. I'd agreed, but I hadn't said that I was most like him. I'd said I wanted to be him. Some days I wanted to not care about anything, to not have the responsibility of being the oldest brother weighing on my shoulders. "You're more like Leonardo. The leader. The one they all look to for help," she'd said.

"Umm..." New Girl purses her lips, looks up at the ceiling, contemplates like I've just asked her the most complicated question in the world. "Michelangelo," she finally says.

It's 11:57.

"Michelangelo?" I ask. "Why?"

She giggles. "Because pizza?"

Laney's favorite turtle was Donatello. "Because he's so smart without being obnoxious about it, you know? He doesn't make the others feel dumb for not getting it. And he's stealth but not just in combat. In life. It's like he's invisible until the world needs to see him." f.u.c.k, she was amazing. I could've had amazing. Instead, I'm stuck with pizza.

11:58 and some a.s.shole turns on the TV so we can all sit around and watch the clock tick down together.

"You want to go to your room or something?" New Girl asks. Her hand's on my leg and I didn't ask for it or want it there, but when my eyes meet hers, I see the desperation. She came to a party at a stranger's house with her friend who's with a guy that has a friend who (they all thought) would be willing to f.u.c.k her brains out and she came because she wants me to f.u.c.k her, to erase the memory of some guy that's been haunting her dreams, her thoughts, day and night and I get it, New Girl. I really do.

"What's your name?" I ask.

"Sandy." Sandy/Sanders. Close enough. Because that's who I'll be thinking of when I'm deep inside her. Oh, the irony of it all. "So?" She blinks.