Page 68 of Did They Break You

CHAPTER

EIGHTEEN

CORTLAND

Wednesday night,I slow to a jog, ending my run near the cemetery that’s just off campus, surrounded by a thick grove of trees. It’s where I saw Remi earlier today disappearing with that friend of hers. I grit my teeth and try to shove the thought away.

Game day is coming up, and last weekend I played horribly.

I haven’t really been focused in practice either.

I haven’t been focusedat all.

I can’t stop seeing those cuts on Remi’s wrist. That kid pushing her into the bushes. Then before that, Chase’s hand on her hip.

My phone vibrates in the pocket of my running pants and I grab it, wiping my forearm over my brow as I slow to a walk. I clench my jaw when I see my mom’s name.

Linda.

Swiping my finger over the screen, I hold the phone to my ear.

“Have you seen her?” Her first words to me.

I roll my eyes, trying to bite back my temper as I glance up at the moon overhead.

“No,” I lie to my mom, looping back around on the sidewalk across from the cemetery, pacing to cool down.

There’s a pause, and I think about Maya as I bite my lip, swallowing a groan. I blew her off after the game and I’ve done my best to avoid her. I don’t even know why.

Remi hasn’t been in my bed since Friday night and she’s obviously going to keep her mouth shut.

Maya is a shield.

“That’s not what I’ve heard, Cortland,” Mom says, her tone laced with anger.

Fuck you.I hold the phone away from my ear a second, think about throwing it in the fountain at my side.

“How’s Tristan?” I ask Mom, ignoring her bullshit, but spiting her anyway.Like she would know how he is.I went to Dad’s after the game and had dinner with him and my brother.

He’s quiet, and still seems exhausted, but away from Mom, he’s doing so much better.

I close my eyes and think about when I got out of the cab at the hospital. After I saw Tristan in that bed.

“What happened?”My words are hard, my back against the wall just outside of Tristan’s room.

Mom sighs. I hear people talking in the background on her end of the call. “I don’t have time for this, Cort?—”

“Don’t havetime for this?”I glance at a nurse who eyes me as she walks past, pushing a patient in a wheelchair. Closing my eyes, I knock my head against the wall, gritting my teeth. I’ve got one arm crossed over my chest and I dig my nails in below my sleeve on my opposite forearm.

I think about what Tristan used.

A hunting knife. Dad took a picture of it when he went back to the house to clean up. Tristan is on a seventy-two-hour hold, but I saw that picture.

It’s saved in my phone.

Blood slick over the metallic blade, bright red flecked across the white porcelain of Tristan’s bathroom.

He didn’t cut deep enough to bleed out, but he tried.

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