“What the hell happened this morning?” Chas asks me, his voice tight and strained. He sounds disappointed, but not in me. In himself, more like.
I cross my arms, dropping my chin to my chest and inhaling slowly. I could feel every person in my last class staring at me, studying me, searching for weaknesses. How did I not see this side of Whitehall sooner?
Oh, that’s right. I had Lumen to protect me. Parrish. Chasm.
“I got jumped,” I whisper, and he lets out a snarl. I hear the sound of breaking glass and look up just in time to see Chasm’s fist in the mirror. He pulls his hand back, shaking it and snarling in Korean as he picks out a few shards and chucks the bloody pieces in the sink.
“Oh my god, Chas,” I start, grabbing a wad of paper towels from the dispenser and dabbing at the wound. It isn’t as bad as it could be, but he’s bleeding quite a bit. “Why the hell did you do that?!”
“I should’ve stayed with you,” he growls out, his voice this dark, dripping thing, full of rage. Chasm … it occurs to me that Chasm is the exact opposite of Parrish in so many ways. On the outside, Parrish is a complete and total asshole. On the inside, he cares so much that it breaks him down, it cripples him. Chasm tries to affect a pleasant presentation, to smile and laugh and flirt, but on the inside, he burns.
“You can’t be with me every minute,” I say with a sigh, putting his hand under the running water as he winces and tries to pull away. I tighten my grip, squirting a generous amount of soap into my palm and gently washing his hand. He stays where he is, letting me lather the soap around his knuckles, prodding my fingers against the myriad little wounds to make sure there aren’t any remaining shards of glass. “And I already told you: I don’t want you making yourself a target with me. Stay on the boys. They didn’t seem willing to get involved; it was only the girls.”
“Lumen,” Chasm says, which I already knew. “I don’t care if she is a girl, I’m going to kick her ass.”
“You’re not going to touch her,” I tell him, rinsing the soap off of his hand and then letting the warm water run over the cuts for a minute. I look up, forcing him to meet my eyes. “Chasm, promise me. You beating her up won’t help me or Parrish, not at all.”
I release his hand and some of the strange tension leaves the room. I pass him another wad of paper towels and watch as he dries himself off. As he does, I pull my phone from my pocket, finding a text from Maxx.
Made it out safe. Let me know if you need anything.
I let out a sigh of relief and lean my back against the wall, wishing for nothing more than Parrish’s warm arms around me, and a cozy bed we could both drift off in together.
“The headmistress grabbed me as soon as I walked in the door this morning,” he explains, which isn’t at all the promise that I was looking for. He shakes his hand out with a curse, tears his tie off, and wraps it around his bloodied knuckles. “I’m sorry that I wasn’t there.”
“What did the headmistress want?” I ask with a frown, watching as he stains the expensive silk tie with his own blood.
“She wanted to know what I thought about carrying on with plans for prom.”
“Prom?” I ask, realizing absently that they haven’t had one here since I came to Whitehall. Back home, junior prom usually happened late February while senior prom happened during March. Then again, they do things entirely different here at Whitehall. “What did you say?”
“I told her that I don’t give a shit about prom either way. Have it or don’t. It won’t bring Parrish back.” I cringe a little at the bitterness in his voice, but fully understand the source of it. I’m feeling a bit broken myself.
The eternal optimist is starting to buckle under the weight of the world.
“Why did she ask you about the prom?” I wonder aloud as Chas turns toward the urinal on the wall.
“I really have to pee, but I don’t want to leave you alone in the hall …” he starts, and I flush ten colors of crimson, turning around to look at the wall. I’m sure my boobs are flushed, too, but what can you do? The thought of Chasm taking his dick out with me in the room is … it’s weird.
I reach over and turn the sink on to give him some privacy, waiting for him to finish.
He rejoins me at the sink, washing his left hand while his right remains wrapped in the tie and stuffed in his pocket.
