Page 83 of The Cabin

A protest sits impatiently on my tongue, but I’m too busy trying to put one foot in front of the other and not make a fool of myself. I think I underestimated how much he was having to hold me up as we danced.

He notices, and slips his arm around my waist, steadying me, walking us outside. “And what if I wasn’t ready to go? Did you even think to ask what I wanted to do?”

“You were ready to go.”

“How do you know? You don’t know me.” He does. He’s proven it in beautiful poetic detail that he does. It was the most beautiful thing anyone has ever said to me. And we are NOT talking about that right now.

“You could barely stand, Sol. It was time to go.”

“I’m just gonna go back out after you leave.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Ooohh, what are you gonna do? Call my parents and tattle on me again?”

He lets out an annoyed sigh. That’s funny. Not sure whyhe’sannoyed.

“I just called them to let them know you were alright. Not to tattle on you.”

“And what if I didn’t want them to know anything?”

He stops in front of our hotel. “I’m sorry if I overstepped. I knew you weren’t ready to call them and I was trying to help you avoid any backlash when you got home. I was just trying to be nice.”

“Ooooofcourseyou were. Grayson and his endless freaking kindness and his perfect freaking everything. Meanwhile, Sol over here personifies actual fucking garbage every day of her life.”

He doesn’t respond, he just simply puts his arm back where it was and leads me towards the elevators. I don’t even bother asking how he knew which floor to press. Or what bar I was at. Or how he got my parents number. I don’t care anymore.

We stop outside my room while I dig around to find my key to get in. I stumble over my own feet and Grayson steadies me. Leaning me against the wall.

“Can I?” He gestures towards my clutch, asking permission to look inside.

“I don’t know why you’re even asking. You’re just going to do whatever the hell you want anyway.”

He fishes the key out, but keeps it in his hand.

“Sol, I wasn’t trying to –”

My arms fly up in rage, right in his face. And before I get to blow out any of the furious things I was going to say to him I see him flinch. He flinches and moves his hands up to block me, to defend himself.

I go extremely still, eyes wide, horrified. I watched the fear flash across his face. He hid it well, but I saw it.

He thought I was going to hit him. Oh my god. I have treated him so freaking badly that he didn’t trust me enough not to hit him. After everything he told me about his past. After everything I witnessed. I’m going to throw up.

I snatch the card out of his hands and shove it into the door as quickly as possible. The sound it makes when I slam it shut behind me bounces off the walls, especially the tiles on the bathroom floor as I fling myself in front of the toilet.

And I do throw up. A lot. But I know this isn’t from the tequila.

—

The buzzing going off next to my face has me groaning and slapping my hand around trying to find my phone so I can throw it out the window.

My hand locks around the rubber case and just as I’m about to chuck it, I see the name on the screen.

“Cruz?” I yawn, answering his FaceTime.

“I heard you were back in the land of Wi-Fi and plumbing.” He’s walking down a busy city sidewalk, sunglasses on and AirPods in his ears.

“Mom and Dad?”

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