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CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
REN
* * * * * *
2016
WE DIDN’T EVEN make it to Christmas before another catastrophe found us.
For weeks, I kept the fact that I’d seen Della kissing Tom hidden. When she looked at me over breakfast of toast and cereal on the weekends, I tasted the question she wanted to ask. When I arrived home from a long day at the milking yards and she had a home-cooked meal for two, I heard the query she wanted to know.
And I ignored each look and stare.
Not because I still didn’t know how it made me feel—sick to my stomach mainly—but because I worried about her. I worried what sort of person kissed another with that much heat and desire—practically making love on the damn dance floor—and then broke up with them that same evening.
I knew the feeling of not wanting to get close to someone, but she’d taken it to a whole new level. She’d used him, and as much as I loved the fact that she’d broken up with him, I couldn’t get over the way she’d kissed him.
Over and over, I replayed it, ripping my heart out little by little until I was more lost and more afraid than I’d ever been.
I hadn’t hugged her in weeks.
I hadn’t snuggled with her on the couch.
I barely touched her.
And she didn’t call me out on it or demand to know what was wrong.
We both knew what was wrong.
Lines had been crossed again, and I desperately wanted to draw more in the sand and ensure they stayed steadfast and true.
Regardless of how I felt about watching her stick her tongue down another boy’s throat, she seemed to shut everything down and act normal—if we even had a normal anymore.
She never once mentioned Tom again, and I couldn’t think about the kiss she’d given him without getting hot and angry and hard, and not necessarily in that order.
I hated that she’d kissed someone, but that was my own selfish reasons wanting to keep her protected. I was hot because all the men in that place watching that kiss had felt the passion dripping off Della. And I was hard because, goddammit, it reminded me how long it’d been since I’d felt the delicious friction of kissing and I was obscenely jealous.
Jealous of Della’s freedom.
Jealous of Della’s courage.
Jealous of Della being with anyone when all I wanted to do was lock her in a tower.
It made me sick that I couldn’t entangle proper and improper thoughts anymore. I hated that I couldn’t trust myself around her, when before, she was everything I ever needed.
I didn’t know if that was her first proper kiss, or if she’d been practicing a while, but holy fuck me, she knew how to do it.
The way her leg came up to hook over his hip. The angle her head tilted to give unfettered access to her mouth, and the way her hands roamed and nails dug as if she’d drown if she didn’t get more.
I could understand the awe on student faces who’d watched such a thing. Even the girls had parted their lips and wanted what Della was having, but for some reason, I didn’t think it was Tom who was the excellent kisser.
It was all her, and that was what screwed me up even more.
Why was she so talented at something I wanted to shield her from for years?
And why had I only just noticed what a sexual creature she’d turned out to be?
It made my own needs spring loud and cruel to the surface, and I often thought about my experiences with Cassie. Of our kisses and thrusts; of hands in dark places and tongues wet and dancing.
I’d enjoyed sleeping with Cassie, but I hadn’t felt a tenth of violent hunger as Della had shown on the dance floor that night. Perhaps, she was right and I was wrong. Some people were just more sexual than others, and I was hurting her by not letting her be free with whatever she needed to find.
Maybe she’d outgrown me in more ways than I’d ever imagined.
It fucking gutted me, but the very next day, I headed to the pharmacy while she was still in bed and bought a packet of condoms. Afterward, I booked in a doctor’s appointment for her to arrange a better in-depth sex talk than I was capable of and to discuss birth control arrangements.
Thanks to Cassie, I knew about the pill and STIs and the minefield of what sex entailed. It was time Della did too, so at least I didn’t have to worry about her getting pregnant or sick.
I assumed Della found the condoms with the note I’d left on her bedside table.
Simple and to the point: If you’re going to do things outside my control, please be safe. Use these. At all times. With a big black arrow pointing at the twelve pack of condoms.
My heart hadn’t stopped pounding in agony every time I thought about her using them. But my job wasn’t to prevent her from living. My job was to keep her safe while she did.
It didn’t matter how I felt.
It was all about her.
And that was what I tried to remind myself when the phone call came.
* * * * *
Normally, I was the one who screwed things up. I took the blame. I shouldered the consequences. But more and more, Della was the reason things turned ugly.
Two unco
I came home a few nights after I’d given her the condoms to find the bathroom door wide open and steam curling down the corridor.
The scents of liquorice body wash and melon shampoo—her current favourite scents—gave me a clear path to her bedroom where she sat in the middle of her bed, dressed in i
Everything was right with that picture apart from her hair.
Her gorgeous, golden hair was now a rich blue to match her ribbon.
The same ribbon tied at the end of her plait, draped over her shoulder in a vicious shade of cobalt.
“What the hell did you do?” I stormed into her room, barging past the door, and not caring that it slammed against the wall. She’d transformed from angel to nothing but trouble.
Trouble that I no longer knew how to handle…in so many complicated ways.
She looked up, blue eyes even brighter thanks to her new hair.
She winced at my temper. “I knew you’d be mad—”
“Of course, I’d be mad. Your hair is goddamn blue! What were you thinking?”
“It’s not permanent.”
“I don’t care. Wash it out. Right now.”
She shrugged, her pen in one hand and the end of her plait in the other. “It…um, it’ll wash out in twenty-four showers or so.”
“Twenty-four! You have school tomorrow.”
“They won’t mind.”
I laughed, full of exasperation and a
“Why the hell do you remember the dress code?” She pouted. “Can’t I have a little expression?”
“I remember because I remember everything.” My eyes burned, sending their own message that I’d seen her kiss, and I remembered every mortal detail about it. Before she could read that stupidly sent information, I growled. “And no, expression is for after school. School is about learning to follow rules and—”
“It’s stifling me, Ren! I can’t be who I want to be there anymore. I can’t talk to anyone about…things. I’m sick of telling lies about who we are and where we come from. They don’t understand. No one understands—”