In My Dreams I Hold a Knife(85)

He spun from Caro. It was so claustrophobic in this basement. The walls were contracting, then retreating, like he was stuck inside a beating heart. He grabbed the whiskey bottle, upended it into his shot glass, took the shot, then again. He needed to feed the fire. The fire wasn’t weak.

“Mint, talk to me.” Caro rested a tentative hand on his arm, peering around his side to look at his face. “You’re scaring me.”

“Where’s Jessica?” he managed.

Caro frowned, casting an eye around the room. “I don’t know where anyone is. No one told me their plans, as usual. I invited Jess to get ready at the Kappa house, but she said she had something to do. I figured I’d find her here. But it’s almost time for the party to start. I don’t see her. Or Frankie, or Jack. Or Heather, for that matter. Where is everyone?”

“Fucking cowards,” Mint slurred. “Can’t stand by my side when I need them most.”

“Okay.” Caro pushed him upright against the wall. “Enough cryptic mumbling. What the hell is happening?”

“Is Jessica different to you?” Mint locked onto Caro’s face. “Is she a different person than she used to be? Does she still—” His voice cracked, and he hated himself for it, but he pushed forward. “Does she still want to date me?”

Caro would know. Caro was her best friend.

She looked hesitant. “I tried to talk about this earlier. Now’s probably not the best time.”

“Tell me,” he gritted out.

Caro sighed. “Fine. I thought it was ever since Christmas—” She shot him a look, waiting for some reaction, but when Mint didn’t deliver, she swallowed and pressed on. “But now that I think about it, it may have been going on longer. Jess is so distant. She sneaks around where I can’t… I mean, she’s really good at disappearing all the time, and then she acts like nothing’s wrong. She won’t tell me anything. I’m worried about her.” She looked off in the distance. “Maybe she doesn’t want to be friends anymore.”

Jessica had been sneaking around, even longer than since Christmas. Caro, the idiot, had all the clues in front of her and couldn’t piece them together.

“How long?” he asked, raw as an open wound. “How long has she been like that?”

“It’s got to be…I don’t know, a year at least.” Caro squeezed his arm. “I knew you’d want to help.”

His girlfriend had been cheating on him with a professor for an entire year. An entire year of humiliating him. The fire inside him surged.

“Yo, Prez.” Harris, the Phi Delt vice president, popped up between him and Caro, eyeing Mint cautiously. He must have heard about Trevor. “It’s time to crown the Sweetheart and kick off the party. Crowd’s insane upstairs. Probably our biggest year ever.”

“You’ll help, right, Mint?” Caro looked at him with pleading eyes. “She’ll listen to you. The seven of us have to stick together.”

That was a cruel joke. “Where would Jessica be, if you had to guess?”

“No idea. Maybe she never left her room? She’s been sleeping a lot since her dad…since Christmas.”

Harris tugged Mint forward. “Come on, you have to kick off the show. We couldn’t find our Sweetheart anywhere, so we’re going with the runner-up. It’s either that, or no Sweetheart, and I think the crowd would riot. You’re crowning Courtney Kennedy, by the way.”

Mint let Harris pull him through the crowd and up the stairs, far away from hopeful Caro. He felt the eyes on him, the whispers. But all he could think about was Jessica, what she’d done, this person he’d trusted, this girl who should have been grateful he’d chosen her. Harris led him to the room with the dance floor, where they’d set up a stage for the band. Peeking from behind the stage, Mint could see a mass of people waiting on the other side. Courtney and some other Chi O seniors stood in the middle of the crowd, Courtney’s smile wide, her eyes shining bright. The room hummed with anticipation. Did they all know? Not just that his family was ruined, but that Jessica had cheated? In an instant, all the faces in the crowd seemed to flip, and everywhere, they were jeering, pointing, laughing.

No. He shoved his hands over his eyes. Where was Jessica? She was supposed to be here so he could teach her a lesson, punish her and redeem himself. But she was denying him the chance, taking away his control, his only opportunity to be the humiliator, not the humiliated. He couldn’t walk out on that stage until he’d done it.

He needed to find her. Mint dropped his hands from his face and squared his shoulders, feeling the blaze of fury fall into a sense of order, purpose.

From the crowd, a camera flashed as someone took his picture.

“All right, time to shine,” Harris said, nudging him. “I’ll announce you as you walk up.”

“No, actually—” Mint forced himself to grin. “Why don’t you do the honors?”

Harris blinked. “Why?”

“Well, you know what happened earlier with Trevor. I might not be everyone’s favorite person right now.”

Harris nodded immediately, as if it was obvious. Mint hated him for it, but he sealed the deal, put the cherry on top.

“Besides, you’ve earned it. It’ll probably be you up there as president next year. Might as well get some practice.”