Say a Little Prayer(64)

Torres takes a hesitant step forward. “Did…you write that?” she asks.

“No.” I shake my head. “I mean, yes—I wrote it, but it’s just a first draft.”

Julia closes the book and tosses it onto my bed. In the time it takes to land on my pillow, I feel my chance to defuse the situation vanish. “But you still wrote it,” she says. “You said it yourself—you’ve been tricking all of us into carrying out your personal vendetta while pretending to be our friend.”

“I’m not pretending!”

“What would you call it, then? Because I don’t think my friend would write those things.”

My hands curl into fists. “Why? Because I said your dad is a piece of shit? That’s not really a surprise, Julia.”

Julia stiffens. Behind me, Greer mumbles something that sounds suspiciously like “Yikes,” but Torres is the one who steps between us.

“Enough,” she snaps. “What’s going on?”

For a second, something like fear flashes across Julia’s face. She thinks I’m going to tell them, I realize. She thinks I’m going to tell everyone we kissed like it’s some terrible secret. For some reason, the fact she thinks so little of me hurts more than her dismissal.

“It’s nothing,” I say. “That was harsh. I’m sorry, but it’s not about you.”

Julia folds her arms. “No, it’s just about how much you hate my dad, apparently.”

I can’t help it. I let out a rough, high-pitched laugh. “Of course I hate him! He’s the reason I left, Julia. He’s the reason Hannah can’t come back. Did you honestly think I was okay with that?”

“I don’t know what to think! You never talk about it! It’s like this secret, taboo subject you never bring up.”

“But you know,” I say. We’re straying dangerously far from our original argument, every emotion I’ve ignored for months suddenly rising to the surface. “Do you just not care?”

Julia’s shoulders slump, expression softening ever so slightly. “Of course I care,” she whispers. “It’s…complicated.”

“Why? Because you’re scared he’ll turn on you next? Because you’re afraid of what’ll happen if he finds out you’re not as perfect as you pretend to—”

“Don’t.”

The edge in her voice is back, grating against my rapidly fraying self-control. It’s definitely fear driving her now. I recognize the way it pinches the corner of her mouth, but I don’t care. “You can’t have it both ways,” I say. “You can’t tell me how much you want things to change when it’s convenient and then do nothing about it.”

Julia shakes her head. “That’s not my responsibility.”

“It’s not mine either! I don’t want to be here, but I also don’t want to live in a world that lets people like him do whatever they want. He’s going to hurt you, too.”

It’s the one thing I’m sure of. Maybe our kiss meant nothing. Maybe Julia was just curious. Maybe she’ll shove herself so far back in the closet that none of this will matter, but I don’t think she can deny it forever. Eventually, something will slip, and the very people she’s defending will turn on her, too. I wait, breath tight in my chest, but when Julia’s gaze drops to the ground, I realize this conversation is over.

This time, no one’s coming to save me.

“Fine,” I say, reaching for the door. “Ignore it. Maybe you’re safe here, but this place is hurting me, too. I don’t think my friends would be okay with that.”

“Then, maybe we aren’t friends.”

Julia still isn’t looking at me. She’s standing with her head down, hands balled at her sides, but she might as well have shouted in my face. There might be a world where I salvage this somehow, where I let Julia rage and acknowledge this as the defense mechanism it so clearly is. But I’m tired of giving everyone the benefit of the doubt. I’m tired of no one standing up for me, so when I open my mouth again, it’s to say the one thing I know will end this once and for all.

“I know you think you’re different,” I whisper, watching her shoulders tense with each word. “I know you think you’re this great person and amazing ally, but that’s not true. You’ve always been just like him.”

The color drains from Julia’s face in a single vivid rush, but I don’t stay to see the aftermath. I came here to destroy this place, didn’t I? Maybe I can’t do that without taking Julia down with me. So when her hand twitches at her side like she wants to reach for me, I pretend not to notice. Instead, I walk straight out of the cabin and back into the sticky afternoon as thunder rumbles ominously overhead.





XVII


    POV: You’re Watching Me Have a Proper, Full-On Gay Crisis


The first thing I notice the next morning is the silence. There’s no alarm, no thumping bass, no jumbled mess of lyrics. Then there’s a hand on my shoulder, someone leaning over me in the dark, and I jolt upright. Because Amanda Clarke is standing next to my bed with her too-sharp nails casually resting on my collar-bone.

“What—?”

Our cabin door flings open to reveal Cindy on the porch, pen tapping rhythmically against her clipboard. “Let’s go, girls,” she calls. “Time to get moving.”