Page 69 of Devils' Day Party
That's all it ever was.
Deep down, I wondered if he were harboring secret feelings for me. If he changed his tune because his friends had shown up and caught us.
But that wasn't the case.
That wasn't the case at all.
My knees feel weak, and I end up putting a hand on the wall to steady myself.
Calix … I'd always thought that Calix liked me. But all along, it was Raz? My mind is blown.
“Are you going to post this at the same time you post the other one?” I snap, turning sharp eyes on Sonja. The look of confusion in her face is almost believable.
“Sonja …” Luke starts, her voice soft and almost tender. It kills me to hear her sound like that, like I did last year when I fell into Calix's arms like a fool. “What's going on?”
“Happy Devils' Day, bitch,” Sonja says, yanking her blazer and skirt on and gathering up the rest of her clothes from the floor. As she does, I swear I see something melancholic flash in her green eyes, but it’s gone in an instant and I’m left wondering if I imagined it. “Thanks for the cherry, baby.”
Sonja storms out the cabin door and Raz follows, sneering at me as he goes.
I can’t even begin to decipher the way that sneer makes me feel, how empty and sad and lonely. So I don’t bother, pushing the emotion down, burying it in the shadows of a broken heart.
“Lock them both in here,” Calix says as he slips past, moving out the door and avoiding my stare. He has a triumphant smirk on his face, but he doesn't look at me. Not even once.
“Why?” Luke whispers, looking down at the blankets as Barron steps up to me and grabs my chin. He stares into my face for a moment before giving a small half-smile and pulling the golden key from his pocket again. He places it in my palm before pushing my face away.
“Maybe don't come to school today?” Barron suggests, stepping past me and closing the cabin door behind him. He disappears, leaving the sweet scent of cherry candy and laundry soap in his wake.
I turn back to Luke and find her sitting with silent tears rolling down her cheeks.
Whereas I'd abandoned her and April to be with the Knight Crew, she didn’t make the same mistake. Luke stuck to her guns, to her heart, and she is a vastly better human being than me—even if she lied about Sonja. I will not forget that.
“Are you okay?” I whisper, feeling guilty, wondering if she'd be happier if she had just said it, if Sonja would've let her go with them then. It's a possibility. At this point, I'm starting to wonder if each and every member of the Knight Crew is a sociopath.
“I'm … are we really locked in here?” Luke asks, looking at the two tiny windows, boarded over on the outside to try and discourage break-ins. Discourage, being the key word. “Because I could really use a moment to myself right now.”
“Barron gave me the key,” I start, looking down and opening my palm. The gold key catches the light, turning dust motes into faeries. It feels for the briefest of instances that we're in another world entirely.
“Yeah, and you don't think there's not a lock on the outside?” Luke asks, flushing from head to toe. I should be furious with her, and I am. But I'm also aching for her at the same time, remembering how it felt last year when Calix screwed me over. I turn and try the knob, feeling like a complete and total idiot. Again, I thought maybe in his weird way, Barron might be okay with me, too. Obviously not. “Great.”
Typical fucking Barron—give me the key, act like he’s doing me a favor, but in reality, he’s fucking me over just as much as his asshole friends.
“Do you have your phone?” I ask, turning as I realize I left mine in my car, the car that's still sitting at the gas station. Wow. Today sucks. I'm never kissing Calix again. Unfortunately, I can't unsee what we walked into, Luke and Sonja's mouths clashing in heat, their hands between each other's legs.
I feel dizzy again. The last thing I want is the image of my bestie banging a bully in my mind. Then again, in most of these timelines, Luke has to see me with one. Maybe I understand how my moms feel just a little bit better.
“It was right here,” Luke chokes out, searching frantically around the nightstand that was closest to where Calix was standing. Great. “Fuck!” she screams, leaning forward and putting her forehead on her knees. “This is the goddamn worst. The worst. I didn't want you to find out this way.”
“Yeah?” I ask, cocking a skeptical brow and putting my fist on my popped hip. “How did you want me to find out?”
