Page 81 of The Invitation
“I would never do that.”
“Bullshit,” I say, firing right back at him. “Then I had to go home with no one to talk to, deal with my mother’s complete breakdown over her love life, and a father who didn’t want anything to do with me because, apparently, I wasn’t worth the energy of a relationship.”
Ripley’s face falls as my bottom lip trembles.
“I’ve gotten over it,” I say. “I don’t care what you or anyone thinks of me. You can hate me. That’s fine. But the fact that you would do this all over again to me …”
“Will you listen to me?Please?”
“No.”
I turn to march into the kitchen because it’s the farthest I can currently get from him in nothing but his shirt, but he grabs my arm and whirls me around to face him. His eyes are wild. His features somber. Yet he holds on to me gently—just tight enough to beg me to stay.
“Did I know there was a bet that night?” He holds his breath. “Yes. I did.”
“You asshole.”
“But I wasn’t a part of it. I overheard my friends talking about it—who could be the first guy at Waltham to kiss the gorgeous new girl?”
“Congratulations.”
He narrows his eyes. “I’d watched you from the second you walked in that school. I couldn’t take my fucking eyes off you. You were the prettiest girl I’d ever seen, and I tried to talk to you a hundred times but chickened out.”
Right.
“Why would a girl like you talk to a guy like me?” he asks.
Is he serious right now?
He steps toward me hesitantly, as if he thinks I might bolt for the door. “Listen, Georgia, I kissed you that night because I wanted to—because I wanted to kiss you more than I’d ever kissed anyone in my life. And there was no way I was letting one of those assholes, who wouldn’t give a shit about you, make a joke out of you.”
“So you did it yourself?”
“I danced with you to warn you but couldn’t figure out how to say it. And then your shirt was soiled and I thought it was the perfect time to talk to you without everyone around. But then your shirt came off and you looked at me and …” He runs a hand through his hair. “I didn’t do that to win a bet. And, as a matter of fucking fact, that whole incident is what cost me my college scholarship.”
My jaw hangs open. “What are you talking about?”
“A few months later, Shawn Tonley made a comment about you and … it devolved from there. We got into a fight and the cops got called. I got suspended and lost my scholarship.”
My eyes widen and I cover my mouth with my hand.Oh, my gosh.
“He ran his mouth because he knew I couldn’t do anything,” Ripley says. “The college I was going to had a strict behavior clause in the offer. Shawn knew that.”
“Then why didn’t you just let him talk shit?”
A softness drifts across Ripley’s face. “Because it was about you.”
I gasp a breath, my mind spinning.That’s why he got suspended? That’s why he lost his scholarship?
That’s why his father broke his nose?
Because of me?
I take him in, hoping I can find something that makes me think he’s lying to me—but there’s nothing. He’s more unguarded, more vulnerable, than I’ve ever seen him. There’s no joke, no smirk, no mischief in his eyes.No hatred.
He’s telling me the truth.
That one event caused this terrible steamroller effect that tore apart my self-confidence and derailed his future.
