“Yeah,” she says. “I only told her the truth.”

“You told your truth, isn’t that right?” I glare at Veronica and rage builds. I would never, ever hit a girl, but I want her gone and out of Reece’s life, and there’s only one way to do that. I look back at him. “Tell me, how does it feel to screw a girl who wants me? Do you know how many times I’ve told her to leave me alone? Nice, right? Think about her begging me when you’re hitting it.”

“You’re a dick!” she yells, yanking up her clothes from the carpet beside the bed and trying to put them on under the sheets.

“Get out of my room!” Reece’s skin is mottled, going from red to white and back again.

“Make me,” I snarl back at him. I’m past the point of caring about our precarious relationship. I’m angry and pissed, and Sugar’s gone, and someone’s going to pay.

His chest heaves as he faces off with me, and I’m ready, my shoulders tense, fists clenched.

“You’re losing it, Z!” he yells. “Pretty soon you won’t have anything left if you keep this up.”

Darkness pulls at me, wanting to wound him and make him feel as low as I do right now. “At least I’ll always be better than you at everything.” He shoves at me with his hands and I stumble back against his dresser. I laugh and turn back to face him. “That’s all you got, little brother?”

His face hardens, but he’s not angry enough. He’s not there yet, and I need him pissed. I need him livid, and I know how to get him going.

I know his little weakness.

I get in his face and push at his chest. “You loved Willow and I always knew. She told me. She laughed about it.”

At first, his mouth opens and he stumbles back, but then he steps forward, his eyes ablaze. “Yeah? So what? I did love her. I loved her more than you did. I was there when you weren’t. I watched her drive away that night.”

Pain and guilt slam into me, and my jaw goes slack at the gaping wound he opens.

Then he hits me square in the face and everything goes black.

35

Sugar

I want to die.

A week goes by in a blur. It feels like the world should stop and wait for me to catch my breath, to wait for this awful emptiness to ease, but it doesn’t. I spend the first two days without him in my bed tossing and turning, angry and pissed off at myself for trusting him. By the time Wednesday hits, I’m curled up with a pillow, trying to smell the remnants of him as I re-watch Game of Thrones and cry. Julia calls Taylor and Poppy, and they come over and beg me to leave the dorm room and go to class. But I can’t. My room is our place. It’s where we made love and laughed. It’s where he gave me the penguin. By Friday, I feel empty, a vast cavern of nothing. My anger is back, battling with the grief, but I don’t have any tears left, and I vow to be better and throw myself into filling out more law school applications. When Monday rolls back around, I resolve to go to class. I tell all my professors I was sick and when they look at my face, they buy it and let it slide.

Another week creeps by. I live at the library, trying to get caught up on my coursework. I eat real food instead of crap and keep my head down as I work at BB’s. Mara keeps asking me what happened and I can’t tell her. She gives up and just sighs whenever she looks in my eyes. I know what she’ll see there: heartbreak.

And through it all?

I haven’t seen or heard from Z.

A whimper wants to rise up inside me, and I push it down.

Which is why when he walks into our poetry class midmorning, I gasp aloud.

I scramble around for my phone and fire off a text to Eric. He’s been checking in on me periodically to see how I am, and while I only send him one-word answers—Fine, Okay—it’s a connection to Z that’s hard to give up.

Why is Z in our poetry class? What happened to therapy?

I see the dots across the screen and I clench the phone, anxiously awaiting a response as he comes to a halt in the doorway, looking for a seat.

He rearranged his schedule. Told me this morning.

Why? He’s still seeing the sports psychologist?

Yes, babe. Maybe he’s there to see you. I don’t know.

Whatever. I hit send and look back up.

Z looks magnificent, his shoulders and body in a tight black shirt, his legs in jeans that cup his ass, his feet in gold Converse. His hair is untamed, his face hard as he steps forward and moves his gaze across the auditorium.

I prepare myself for one of his intense stares.

It doesn’t happen.

His icy grey eyes ghost over the room and I feel the brush as they flicker briefly on my face, but they keep moving, his expression blank.

And just like that, it’s back to the way it used to be: me, invisible to him.

“Dude, Z’s back,” breathes Sorority Girl a few seats away.

“The TA said the professor excused him for hockey stuff, but he’s been doing the work on his own. Maybe he’s back for good,” another girl replies.

Well. She certainly keeps up. My lips tighten.

“I hope this class improves his hockey game,” says a guy a few seats away.

I clench my fists and even though I’m angry and hurt, I can’t let anyone drag Z down. I turn around and scowl.

The guy’s eyes go wide. “If you watch the news then you know he’s losing his shit.”

I flip back around and stare at the professor. There has been rampant speculation about what happened at Concord State but no confirmation, and I’d have to be on another planet to not know that they barely won their last game against Denver.

I have an empty seat next to me, as usual, but Z heads to the front where he used to sit. Of course there’s a girl on each side of him, gushing.

Class gets started but I’m in a daze. I can’t stop staring at the back of his head.

“Miss Ryan, can you read the poem?” Professor Goldberg says, and I blink.

“Sir?”

He raises an eyebrow. “The Emily Dickinson poem?”

I let out a breath. Right. The one you read last night, Sugar. Get with it.

I give him a nod, but my eyes are on Z, and I think I see his shoulders tightening as he shifts in his seat.

I lick my lips and stare down at my laptop.

“Miss Ryan? Are you with us today?” the professor asks.

“Yes.” I clear my throat and read the poem.

““Hope” is the thing with feathers -

That perches in the soul -

And sings the tune without the words -

And never stops - at all -

I’ve heard it in the chilliest land -

And on the strangest Sea -

Yet - never - in Extremity,

It asked a crumb - of me.”

“Excellent,” he says. “Elaborate, please, on the meaning.”

Oh.

Several long moments go by, and a few students turn to look at me.

But he doesn’t look.

He stares down at his notebook, pen twirling through his fingers.

Professor Goldberg gives up on me and looks around the room. “Initial thoughts, anyone? What is this poem about?”

“The poem is about a bird,” Sorority Girl says.

The professor lifts an eyebrow. “Indeed. Just a bird?”

There’s a rumble of chuckles.

“Hope is the bird,” I say. “The bird is a metaphor for hope.”

“Nice, but tell me more.” He scans the rows of students. “What does it mean? Come on, give me the good stuff, kids.”

Z stares down at his desk, and something shifts inside me, my anger turning to sadness. He’s in a dark place, and haven’t I always known it?

It’s part of why I was drawn to him…

I still want him.

I overhear Sorority Girl whispering to the girl next to her about Z and how he freaked out at the game. They’re wondering if he’ll be able to take the ice at the next one.

My chest rises.

We are over. We are—but I still want to protect him. I want him to live out his dreams. I want him to have hope.

I get the professor’s attention and he turns to me. “Yes?”

“The central idea of the poem is hope. Everything might be falling apart, but hope never stops. It’s there when you just can’t get calculus or when you didn’t get into law school. It’s there when darkness is inside you.” I stop, my voice verging on cracking, emotion threatening. I swallow. “Hope is there when you can’t figure out the fucking answers.”

Professor Goldberg gives me an approving nod. “Your participation point just went up a letter grade, Miss Ryan. I’ll forgive the profanity.”