Page 45 of Chaos at Westbrook High

“You do this every day?” he asks, already knowing I do.

“Yes.”

“At five-thirty in the morning?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because I have to be at work at six-thirty.”

“You know that’s not what I meant.” He gives me a pointed look. “Why do you do this to yourself? Run so hard you make yourself sick? What’s that getting you?”

He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. It’s not usually this bad. I haven’t gone this hard in weeks, not since the morning after Valerie died. It’s probably also due to the fact that I didn’t sleep for very long, but I don’t bother explaining myself to him.

“You gonna rat me out to Elijah?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “No. I meant what I said to him last night. I only tell him what he needs to know. Your business is your business unless I decide it needs to become his.”

“That’s not comforting at all.”

“It’s not supposed to be.”

Rolling my eyes, I walk away.

He follows me. “I know you’re going through some shit. A lot of shit,” he amends when I turn to face him. “I know you just lost the only parent you ever had, and it sucks. But Valerie didn’t teach you to run like that so you could come out here and use it to hurt yourse?—”

“Don’t talk to me about Valerie.”

Shutting his mouth, he nods, and we leave it at that.

“I’ll be ready in ten minutes.”

Chapter 18

KAI

“I shouldn’t want her anymore,” I say to Callie, rolling my head to look at her when she doesn’t say anything back. “Right?”

She’s beside me on my bed, rolling her morning joint. “Why are you asking me?”

“Why aren’t you answering?”

“If I say yes, you gonna stop wanting her?”

No hesitation. “No.”

“That’s why.”

I sigh and sink back into the pillows, spinning the phone in my hand as I stare at the wall.

I still want her as much as I wanted her yesterday—more than I wanted her yesterday—which is fucking me up because?—

“She’s my cousin’s little sister,” I say out loud, voicing the thought that’s haunted me at least a hundred times since last night. “She’s my aunt’s daughter, Callie. That’s fucking weird.”

“Do you even remember her?” she asks. “Leila, right? Derek and Hailey’s mom?”

Derek and Hailey’s mom. Jesus.

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