Page 22 of Brutal Obsession

I let her help me up. “I’m going to need to get new clothes, too.”

“Those fuckers,” she breathes. “What didn’t they touch?”

“The rest of the apartment.” I can’t even feel particularly bad about that—I’m glad they only targeted me. For whatever I did. I think, on some level, I might deserve it.

“Did you take photos?”

I nod and pull them up. She takes my phone and swipes through, her face getting more and more pinched as she goes. I wanted evidence, but now all I want is to forget it happened.

Fat chance of that.

“Definitely time for a drink,” she mutters. “Not that I’m a proponent of drowning our problems in alcohol. But the game is tomorrow, so it should be relatively tame.”

I nod along.

And then we get to Haven, and we both swear.

Five-dollar Margarita night.

“Well, at least we like margaritas,” I say.

She laughs. “Yep. Jess is on her way, too.”

We find two stools at the bar, and the bartender arrives shortly after. He’s a senior at CPU, but he doesn’t comment on the video. He just gives us a broad smile and takes our orders without comment.

Willow glances around. There’s a lot of underclassmen here today, which normally isn’t a problem. I don’t mind them here, being loud and distracting. It helps. I focus on the television hanging on the wall over the glass shelves of liquor bottles instead.

“Did you talk to your mom about him?” Willow asks.

I shake my head. “Haven’t heard from her since she dropped me off last week.”

She grunts. Willow knows my mother’s antics. Knows what to expect from her and what she’s become.

And what she’s become is a flake.

It’s okay, though. Once my dreams went down the toilet, I understood that her dreams went along with them. She spent a lot of time carting me to dance classes, recitals, buying pointe shoes and tutus and the outfits I had to have as a kid and teenager.

She wanted to see me succeed, too.

“My parents and sister are coming up next week,” Willow says. “I guess my sister wants to apply here and follow in my footsteps.”

I raise my eyebrow. Willow’s sister, Indie, is a wilder version of my best friend. At sixteen, she already has a reputation of dating too much, of sneaking out, drinking when her parents aren’t home. She smokes weed, too. Something Willow and I tried exactly once before my mother forcibly smacked some sense into me.

I still can’t smell it without my ass cheeks hurting.

“I think they want me to take her around to my classes and shit.”

I grin. “Good luck.”

Indie and Willow are almost too similar. Headstrong, chaotic. They argue and fight, and that’s their love language.

I don’t get it. I’m an only child from a single mother. It was just the two of us when I was growing up. We lived in an old Victorian house in a sprawling neighborhood. One of the last that didn’t actually have congested traffic or a commute.

We went to the best school in the county. We got a solid education. But besides Willow, I didn’t walk away with more friends.

Which is fine. It just means we’re close. I spent weekends at her house when my mom needed a break from me. Her parents fed me dinner, helped with my homework on occasion—her mom is a mathematician, and her dad is an engineer. They’re like-minded and whip-smart.

Willow gets that from them. It’s why she’s majoring in computer science. She’s going to take the tech world by storm when she graduates.

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