Page 125 of The Casualty of Us
I said it once, so don’t make me say it again.
My patience is wearing thin.
And right there below the words are a few carefully drawn flowers—petunias, I think, which would make sense. Petunias for anger. Petunias for resentment.
Petunias for desire.
He’s driving home the point that none of them will stand in his way…and that just means I need to move more quickly. I have to distract the monster with a new toy.
“Ophelia.” Hayes’s tense rasp has me glancing up at him through my lashes, seeing the same fear in my father’s eyes reflected there. “What is that?”
“He—” I start, then stop, swallowing to buy myself another second before reminding him. “You know how I told you I thought one of them took pictures of me?”
“Yeah.” His brows shoot down sharply. “Of course I do.”
“He did.” I clear my throat, hating the truth even while confessing it. “He’s been sending notes since the start of summer.”
“Notes?” he scoffs roughly, gaze darting to my parents before coming back to mine and holding there as his face starts to harden. “Notes about what?”
“About me, I guess.” I shrug, trying to make it sound maybe a hair better than it actually is before my father interrupts.
“He says he wants her back.”
Oh, that absolute piece of—
“He wants you back?” The low words come with a narrowing of his eyes, nostrils flaring and letting me know I’m definitely paying for this later. “Wait,” he bites out. “This has been going on all summer?”
I purse my lips, resisting the urge to take it all back, and breathe out the truth a second later. “Yeah.”
His eyes hold mine for another moment, shock and anger warring with each other before the latter wins out. “Excuse me.” He looks back at my parents with a grin that’s all dimples and honestly a little scary. “I’m going to let you two catch up with Ophelia while I go find Oliver real quick.”
Both my parents stare at him with surprise playing out on their faces as he starts to head for the stairs in the entry, my mother recovering first and calling out, “Do you know where his room is?”
“I’ll find it,” he tosses back.
I scowl at his retreating back before it disappears into the hallway on the second landing, not happy that he’s going tomake me wait instead of just laying into me like I know he wants to do. I mean, I would.
I’d string him up six ways to Sunday for keeping something like this from me.
“Well, he’s…interesting.” My father tries, making me roll my eyes again because I’m aware he’s probably wondering where the guy he agreed to write a recommendation letter for went.
A few seconds later we all hear the sound of a couple of doors opening and then shutting. It gives me a rough idea of how close he is to where Ollie’s room sits directly across from mine, and when another door opens a second later before shutting harder than the others…I know he’s made it there.
The sound of shouting starts up another couple of seconds later and is accompanied by my mother’s snort of amusement. “I think he’ll fit right in around here.”
Hayes
I’ve been goingfrom heaven to hell in the space between one breath and the next. All for the past day with her, and now that I finally understand what has her looking so haunted. Someone has some serious fucking explaining to do about it. Ophelia…I’ll deal with her little jaunt down the rabbit hole of rebellion later.
That one will require more care.
But right now I’m pissed as fucking hell, and since her parents probably wouldn’t appreciate any of the more creative ways I’d want to work that particular emotion out with her…option number two it is. I open the third door upstairs andfinally find him, lying on a gray-and-white checkered bed with his headphones on and looking generally miserable.
Fucking bastard.
“Wha—” His head whips toward me in surprise and he pulls off his headphones. “Hayes?”
“You’re fucking dead,” I growl, taking another couple of steps toward him as his face fills with a nervous look. “I swear to God, if you weren’t her—
