Harder (Caroline & West #2)(36)

“Caroline, we talked about this.”

We’ve talked about all of it, every possible facet, every conceivable approach. We’ve more than made up for all the talking we didn’t do in the months after Nate first posted the pictures. We’ve talked until my jaw hurt.

“But don’t you ever wonder if we’re making a mistake?” I ask.

“No.”

Which, actually, yeah, I knew that already. My dad’s idea of a life philosophy is that you figure out what you want, and then you go after it. He believes in ambition and its relentless pursuit.

No giving up. No compromising.

He plucks a cherry from the jar on the counter. “Don’t give up on this,” he says. “It’s going to be hard work, but it’ll be worth it.”

Maybe it is going to be worth it, but if the goal is to make Nate pay, my will might be starting to flag. I pass him on the sidewalk, and he seems untouchable.

I pass him on the sidewalk, and I don’t really care.

I have other things on my mind.


Frankie texts me on Wednesday afternoon of fall break week. I drive back to Putnam to pick her up from school. After she falls asleep that night, I sit out on the steps and wait for West.

I hear him before I see him. The drone of an engine coming up the road, changing pitch and volume as he slows to make the turn.

The rocks under his truck’s wheels. Light cutting across the garage.

I hear his boots on the steps, but I can’t see his face. It’s dark by the door, and his headlights messed with my night vision.

I see the cherry-red tip of his cigarette as he flicks it to the ground and grinds it out, then leans down to pick up the butt.

When he’s two steps below me, he stops. “Is Frankie okay?”

“She’s asleep.” I stand up, a few feet separating us, dozens of cubic inches of darkness. “I wanted to ask you, did she tell you she’s having trouble on the bus?”

“What kind of trouble?”

“The kind of trouble girls have.”

I’m not sure how else to put it or how much to tell him. I don’t know a lot myself—just that Frankie is increasingly reluctant to ride the bus home, and it seems pretty likely that the boy who’s harassing her has stepped it up a notch or two.

I can’t decide if it’s for me or for Frankie to tell him that. I’m wary of stepping between West and his sister. “You should find out from her.”

He exhales—a soft whoosh of breath. “I don’t want you babysitting Frankie.”

“I’m not babysitting,” I tell him. “We’re friends.”

“You can’t be friends with a ten-year-old.”

“I can if you’ll let me.”

“What if I won’t?”

“Why wouldn’t you? Your sister deserves a friend, don’t you think?”

“Maybe a friend her age.”

“What if she made one at school? She couldn’t bring her friend over here. She couldn’t go to the friend’s house for a playdate, not with your work schedule the way it is. She’s stuck hanging out alone for hours every day.”

“Laurie keeps her company sometimes.”

“He’s got to be fifty, though. Are you honestly saying it’s better for her to be with him than to do stuff with me?”

Begrudgingly, he says, “No.”

“Good. Because I’m good for your sister, and I think you know it.”

West turns his head away to look out over the drive. My vision is better now, sharp enough to pick out the shape of his profile against the sky. His Adam’s apple.

I can feel how tired he is. His tiredness is tangible, a statement his body makes to mine, and my arms want to reach out and touch him. My heavy head wants to find his shoulder.

He used to feel this way after a Wednesday-night shift at the bakery—dead on his feet by the time we stumbled through the door to his apartment. He’d flop back on the bed still kicking his boots off, pull me against his side, nudge his face into my hair, and fall asleep in his clothes.

There was something so trusting in it, so precious about being that close to him at his most vulnerable.

He taps the toe of his boot against the step. “I don’t get what you’re doing here.”

“I think I’m helping.”

“I don’t see why you’d want to.”

“Yeah, you do.”

“I told you I’d keep away from you,” he says. “I meant it.”

“Is that really what you want?”

I hear him swallow. I wonder if his throat is as sticky as mine. If his heart is beating as fast.

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

He doesn’t answer for so long, I think he won’t. But when he does, I wish he hadn’t, because all he says is, “What I did to you …”

Like fingers snapping—those words ignite my anger in an instant. “I already told you what I thought about what you did.”

“Right,” he says. “And it’s because of what you said that I knew to keep away from you when I came back here.”

“I never imagined you would come back here.”

“It doesn’t change anything.”

“For f*ck’s sake, West, it changes everything!”