Page 50 of Between Us

“And I guess you could call it luck that Meera’s two older brothers went to Astoria Academy, the sibling private school, and were stereotypical popular jocks. Not that any of the boys ever really tried, but Jatin and Dev never let any of them fuck with Meera, Margo, or I.”

“But you graduated from an online program. You’ve mentioned that a few times. So… what happened?”

My eyes start to fill with tears as I get to thebigincident—the one that almost broke me.

“When I was in the locker room, changing and mentally preparing for our semi-finals, Margo burst in, walked right up to Morgan, and sucker punched her.” I glance up at Adrian and laugh at the shocked wide-eyed expression. It’s overall not a humorous situation, but as I was watching this play out in real time, I felt exactly how Adrian looks.

“I had no idea what was going on. I always turned my phone off leading up to a race or meet, so I didn’t get any of their messages. Even Dev was trying to call me. But as Marissa and Becky tried to pull the two of them apart, Meera came to my side and told me… or I guess I should say sheshowedme.”

Adrian’s entire body tenses next to mine and I wish I could read his mind. Sometimes it still doesn’t even feel real, like I’m just sharing a horrible story I heard from a friend of a friend or something. We like to tell ourselves that things like this don’t actually happen—but all of this is my real life.

“Morgan must have been bored that day because she decided it’d be funny to snap a few pictures of me changing into my suit. And even funnier to send them to her boyfriend’s friends at Astoria.” I shake my head, looking back down at Benji. It’s one of those situations where, rationally, IknowI have no reason to be embarrassed, or ashamed, but my brain doesn’t typically live by rationality.

“What?”Adrian asks after a stunned second. His voice dipping even lower and dripping with unfamiliar anger. It doesn’t scare me though—I recognize his anger as the same protectiveness of Margo and my parents. It feels different coming from Adrian though. It’s stronger, more potent, but it’s also comforting in a different way than anyone else.

“I mean, you couldn’t really see anything. One was just my back and panties—boy shorts that day thankfully.” I lift my hand in a fake hooray. He offers me a small smile and I know it’s more for my benefit than anything. “But the other three… like I said, I wasgrowingwell into my teenage years. So, even with all of this”—I gesture to the front of my chest with my hands—”covered, there’s still quite a bit of side boob.

“And no matter how generally nice they were, I can’t exactly blame them for how almost an entire school of teenage boys reacted to a topless photo.” I transferred out of the school only a couple of days after this, so I’m not sure exactly what happened or what was said. And there’s not a single part of me that desires to.

“Yes, you can,” Adrian quietly seethes next to me.

I shrug, not really wanting to argue about the maturity level of sixteen year olds. “I didn’t swim that day. Neither did Morgan, Marissa or Becky. We spent the entire evening in the office of the headmistress, Mrs. Trainor, with our parents. Margo and Meera’s too.”

Skipping over the details, I tell him about how Mrs. Trainor saidallsix of us girls have put her in a hard situation—as if my friends and I were as responsible for this as the other three. He looks slightly less disgusted when I tell him how my mom went the fuck off on Mrs. Trainor and the three girls, threatening everything from child neglect to the distribution of child porn. The scowl that doesn’t fit his handsome, normally happy face returns when I get to the part about how Morgan’s dad turned around and threatened my mom for defamation.

That was quickly settled once the police got there and looked through their phones, so her dad shut up very quickly. Regardless, it was a long, horrible night.

“Blake… I—” He trails off, at a loss for words. There really aren’t any in these situations though.

So, I tell him exactly that. “It’s not your responsibility to fix it. And my parents forced me to press charges.”

It’s not that I didn’t want to, necessarily. I was just so fuckingtiredby that point. I wanted it to be over, and at the time, it felt like another few months of dragging out my misery and humiliation.

“Good,” he vehemently declares.

I shrug again, suddenly reminded of the helplessness I spent so long feeling during those months. “The lawyers came to a deal before we had to go to court. They had to pay for emotional damage and got a few hours of community service that summer. Maybe, according to the judicial system, I received justice, but it doesn’t feel like it. I was just so…tired.”

I mean, how can it? They lost a state championship and only a few hours of their summer break after everything they did to me. I feel like I lostyearsbecause of them. And the fact that those were supposed to be ‘the best ones of my life’ only pushes the knife in deeper.

Adrian lifts his hand from my thigh, slips out of my hold, wraps that arm around my shoulder, and pulls me in close. The gesture brings fresh tears, but I don’t try to hold them back. It doesn’t feel necessary when I’m in Adrian’s presence.

Truthfully, I didn’t really question it when Adrian said I was safe with him. As scary as it is to trust someone new, he’s proven, more than once, that he deserves it—the last twenty-four hours only confirming that for me.

It probably started around the first time we ran into each other at the gym, but slowly I’ve started to let myself accept that he’s showing obvious interest in me. It’s more than friendship he wants, but it’s not only a physical attraction either.

“I know I’m not at fault,” he quietly tells me as he turns my chin up to him, using his other hand, “but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t care. And I do—because theyhurtyou and that really pisses me off. You’re right though, I’m not going to apologize on their behalf.”

I nod once, relieved. A large reason why I shy away from talking about this is because of the fake niceties people respond with. It doesn’t ever do anything for me, and I think it’s more to make the other person feel better. Like apologizing on behalf of my bullies cements the fact that they themselves are a good, caring person.

It doesn’t and at this point, I’m justtoo tiredto fight about it.

Still holding eye contact, he leans his forehead against mine. “I won’t hurt you. Ipromiseyou, Blake. If you give me a chance, I’ll do everything in my power to make sure you only know happiness from here on out.”

The hand that’s been restlessly petting a sleeping Benji tentatively grabs onto his scrub top when I turn further into his embrace. His free hand drops down to my thigh, except this time he pulls my bent knees toward him. I’m as close to being in his lap as I can be without lifting my butt off the floor.

With only a couple of inches between our lips, I quietly murmur into the space, “You… you could start now.”

His brows furrow and the hold he has on the back of my neck tightens. It isn’t painful, but the gesture itself is possessive. “What do you need right now? Just tell me, pretty girl, I’ll make it happen.”

---