Page 129 of Did They Break You

Don’t test me.

You’re not very intimidating through a screen.

But I’m smiling despite myself, feeling a chill slide down my spine at his aggressive words.

Cortland

What about when my hand is wrapped around your throat, Remi?

For a moment, I’m speechless, staring at his message. Feeling warmth unfurl in my core, a need in my low belly. And for a moment, I wish he was here.

I wish I could trust him.

But I think about Maya’s texts. Me in his bed.

That’s assault. Leave me alone.

I stuff my phone in my bra and unlock the door, walking out to join the party.

CHAPTER

THIRTY-FIVE

REMI

“How well do you know Van?”

I look up from the back porch step, see Ryann standing at my side. I didn’t even hear her come out. With all the screaming happening in the cabin, out on the lawn, people laughing and getting drunk, a group of half-naked coeds playing a game of tag in the clearing edging up against the woods surrounding the cabin, it’s hard to hear much of anything.

I have a drink in my hand, and Van is getting high inside with one of his painter friends, taking turns hitting a bong that is way too big to be legal. Then again, this entire party is illegal. The underage drinking. The pot.

It could get messy.

And that’s why I’m outside on the steps, littered with plastic cups but void of people, because the back porch is tiny.

“I mean, I know you’re technically cousins or whatever but…” Ryann shrugs, a small smile peeking up at the corners of her lips. “Family ties can be shaky.”

I think of Silas and want to laugh, but I let it go. “I didn’t know him well, not until Ely. But now, we’re close,” I answer Ryann as she sits down beside me, running her palms over herblack leggings. She’s wearing an off-the-shoulder sweater that shows off her slender arms, and her black hair is pulled into a high ponytail.

I find her brown eyes in the dark, and see her elbows propped on her thighs now, hands under her chin as she smiles at me.

“You think he likes me?” she asks me quietly, hope in her words. “Like,reallylikes me?”

Something about it, the optimism, it makes me hold my cup a little tighter. I glance down at it. It’s half-full, and I want to down the rest of it, but it’s my birthday, and I’m not quite ready to get blackout drunk yet.

“Yeah,” I answer Ryann honestly. Van hasn’t shut up about her recently, every time we’ve spoken, I learned a new fact.Ryann was born in New York. Her mom is from Vietnam. Her dad is in the military. Ryann wants to be ascientist.An honest-to-Godscientist,Remi.“I do.”

Ryann nods once, her smile pulling higher. “I like him too,” she says, as if it’s a confession.

“But shouldn’t you know that?” I grin back at her. “You two are like… together, aren’t you?” As the words leave my mouth, I almost feel a little shame because this week I’ve avoided my life. Including Van. Maybe something happened with them that I was too self-absorbed to notice.

Ryann glances over her shoulder, her sweater slipping a little more down her arm as she stares at the back door, Van right inside of it. I can just make out the sound of his boyish laughter. “Yeah,” she says softly. “But we weren’t exclusive. Neither of us really…domonogamy.”

I furrow my brow, confused. Van has never told me that, although I guess he didn't owe it to me. It’s not likewewere dating. “What?”

She shrugs, her gaze coming back to me. “I just… you know. I don’t want to hold him back. I don’t know if he’s told you,and maybe it’s not my place to, but neither of us have ever been committed tooneperson.”She laughs a little, looking down at her lap. “We’re only twenty, right? I think, looking at things long-term, tying each other down would make us… not work.”

I don’t really know what to say to that. I’d never even thought about the possibility of being with more than one person. I consider her words for a moment and think about Storm on the couch, but I don’twanthim. It was fun for a moment, but only that. My mind jumps to Maya’s texts on Cortland’s phone, and I know there is no way in hell I’d be okay with an agreement like that.

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