Page 98 of Dark and Dangerous

“I wish it were you who had died.”

Jace drives me home, staying quiet, just like he has the entire day. Not that it matters. I don’t think I’d even be able to hear him over the constant buzzing in my head. That and the voices that sound eerily close to my mother’s. Funny that.

Jace parks the van behind the house, like always, but he doesn’t make a move to get out. Instead, he reaches between the seats and returns with his backpack, unzips it, and reveals a wad of cash bundled together with an elastic band. He hands it to me, offering a smile, and I look from the cash up to him. His smile only widens. “The bet was still going,” he tells me. “So that’s yours.”

“The bet?” I whisper, and it takes a moment for the haze to clear from my mind, for clarity to kick in. For reality to sink its teeth deep within my flesh and pull me apart limb from limb.

We’d had sex on Sunday, the same night my world fell apart. It’s Wednesday now, and Jace… Jacewhat? Bragged about it to his friends? Made them pay up?

No…

He wouldn’t.

Jace—clueless to the chaos he’s created—decides now is the perfect time to tell me, “There’s a dealership in Fremont we can go to on Saturday. You can see if you like anything there. If not, we can go to Odessa.”

The bet.

The car.

And the months in between then and now…

The months when I fell for the boy beside me.

The boy handing me cash because Ifuckedhim.

He starts to get out of the van, and my sense finally kicks in. I stop him with a hand on his arm. I want to tell him that this is wrong, that he fucked up, but what comes out instead is: “Not tonight.”

60

Jace

For the first time ever, Harlow doesn’t come to my game, and it affects me.Badly. She usually rides in with her friends or with her dad if he’s home, because I like to arrive an hour earlier to meet with Coach and get some practice in before the arena fills.

It wasn’t until I got onto the court and saw her friends sitting front row center without her that I realized she was a no-show. At a break in the game, I questioned her friends, and they responded with a nonresponse. Harlow had messaged them, saying she didn’t need a ride.

That was it.

I spend the rest of the game distracted, constantly looking over at the crowd, waiting to see familiar eyes, encouraging me to keep going, to step up my game because I’m better than what I’m showing. My team notices my mind’s not in the game. My coach does too. He pulls me aside during halftime, tells me I’m letting my team down. I want to tell him I don’t care—that I have a feeling I’m letting Harlow down more.

We lose. Get annihilated by a team we’ve beaten a dozen times before. It’s my fault. I know this. I just don’t have it in me to care.

The second I’m able to access my phone, I do. I expect messagesfrom Harlow, but all I have are missed calls from her dad. I don’t bother showering or getting changed. I call him back on the way to my van, my heart continuously thumping in my chest.

“Are you with Harlow?” he asks.

“I just finished a game.”

The phone fills with static at his heavy exhale. “So, she was there?”

“No.”

There’s silence at his end and on mine, and it makes me stop in my tracks. For the longest moment, I stand in the middle of the parking lot, my phone held to my ear, waiting for…something.

I just don’t know what.

“Can you go check on her for me, Jace?”

“Yeah, I’ll let you know.”

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