Page 7 of Rage
Not hard enough to bruise, but hard enough to remind me of the difference between our sizes. He’s taller with lean muscle.
But that is not the only thing that makes him different from the students that go here.
Roman Mancini is from one of the most powerful families in New York. He could make me disappear by lunchtime, and no one would make the call.
My father was the only family I had left after my mother died in a car accident.
After I turned eighteen, he vanished. I’ve never confirmed what I already know.
He’s gone.
“I don’t share, Amy.”
“I’m not something to share,” I say quietly. “How can you say that? After everything I’ve been through?—”
His expression shifts in that practiced, rapid way.
The softening.
It’s not the first time I’ve noticed how quickly he catches himself.
“I know,” he murmurs, brushing his thumb over the wrist he just gripped too hard. “But I protect what’s mine.”
Mine.
The word is a warning bell. And I know exactly what that makes me.
I’m buying my time.
I’m waiting on a scholarship decision.
Three applications, three universities, all requiring a GPA I’ve maintained in secret. My only exit strategy that doesn’t depend on someone else’s mercy.
I haven’t told Roman.
There are nights I lie awake rehearsing how I would leave—what I’d take, how I’d get the money, and where the nearest bus station is.
The following week, Roman leaves school early for the first time. He sends a driver with no explanation.
Not that I would dare ask.
Since I met him in tenth grade, Roman has changed, or maybe I was too wrapped up in the idea of what I wanted him to be, and it wasn’t the same person.
He is always with me.
Always watching.
Always there.
But today, he wasn’t, and I’m not sure if I should be worried or relieved.
When the driver drops me off at the house, I take the stairs slowly. I reach the landing and turn left down the hallway.
His bedroom door is half open. The air is different.
Every breath thicker, warmer, carrying an absence that I already know the shape of but don’t want to name.
I push the door.
