The Rebel of Raleigh High (Raleigh Rebels #1)(46)

I want to smash my fist into his face, just like I smashed it into the car window. Instead, when he takes a slow, obvious step toward me, I fall into his arms and bawl into his chest. His arms wrap around me tight, and for the first time since that night in Leon Wickman’s bathroom, I cry as I am held. The smell of laundry detergent, pine needles, and Alex roars inside my head as I suck in breath after breath. My hands are fisting his t-shirt, pulling hard at the fabric, but he doesn’t push me away. Not even when I let go and slam my balled-up fist against his chest. Or any of the other five or six times that I hit him as hard as I can.

“Shhhh. It’s okay. Breathe, Silver. Breathe. You’re okay. I’ve got you.”

He shouldn’t. He shouldn’t fucking have me. None of this has anything to do with him, and yet I can’t manage to shrug free of him. It hurts too fucking much. God, I knew it did, I knew it was there, eating away at me, but I’ve distanced myself so effectively from the pain that I had no idea how crippling it would be when it finally overcame me.

I lose myself for a long time, and Alex doesn't falter. He stands firm, crushing me to him, whispering to me in both English and Italian as the out of control emotion gradually begins to ebb. After what feels like a lifetime, a dull, numb kind of calm settles over me, and I begin to feel stupid.

With shaking legs, I push away from him, wiping at my face with the backs of my hands. “I'm sorry. God, I'm sorry. I think…I may have overreacted a little.” I try not to groan when I notice the front of his grey t-shirt is soaked, a unique Rorschach pattern of my grief staining the material. Alex's eyes are no longer calm. They're on fire, blazing, the muscles in his jaw jumping angrily as he looks down at me.

“Don’t. Don’t do that,” he growls. “I’m the one who’s sorry, Silver. I fucking…” He fists his hands into his hair and pulls, elbows crooked around his ears. He looks like he’s about to hit the car window himself. “I’ve done a lot of stupid shit, but I’ve never been this fucking dumb,” he mutters. “I didn’t even think what would happen if I just showed up on the doorstep. Of course you’d be afraid. I scared the shit out of you. I’m a goddamn moron.”

Under any other circumstance, I’d agree with him, but he’s so obviously furious with himself that I don’t feel the need. Still, that leaves me with nothing to say, because he did scare me…

He drags a hand down over his face, inhaling sharply. When he faces me, I realize that this is the first real sign of true, proper emotion I’ve ever seen on him. He looks like he’s about to lose his shit now. “I’m sorry, Silver. I’m a fucking idiot. I did not mean to do that.”

I feel small. Vulnerable. Honestly, I feel a little ashamed for having such an epic meltdown. “It’s okay,” I whisper.

He shakes his head, chewing on the inside of his bottom lip. “It isn’t. It’s not okay. None of it is. You’re allowed to say that.”

I can only sigh, suddenly exhausted, drained down to the very roots of my soul. “How did you even know where to find me?” I ask. Seems like the only pertinent question right now.

He looks off into the darkness, into the expanse of shadowy trees, his brows pulling together into an unhappy frown. “Halliday,” he says tightly.

“Halliday?” A sharp pain lances through my chest. What the fuck? It makes sense that he’d be on speaking terms with Halliday, since she was there in that video, just as naked and just as drunk as Kacey and Zen. It feels wrong that she’d be talking to Alex about me, though. Out of all the girls, Halliday has been the only one who hasn’t made it her sole objective to make my life a living hell. It makes me feel awkward, uncomfortable in my own skin. Alex must see the look on my face.

“She’s been working at the Rock. The bar where I work. Your brother hangs out with her brother or something? He told her you were here. She gave me the address.”

Halliday, working at a bar? She looks mature for her age, but there’s no way she could pass as twenty-one. Makes no sense.

“Look, I really fucked up. I shouldn’t have come up here like this. I should have waited ’til you were home or something. You weren’t replying to my texts, though. I wanted to tell you—” He runs his tongue over his teeth, shaking his head again. I can feel his frustration from here. He was holding onto me a moment ago, comforting me, running his hands up and down my back, stroking my hair, but now it seems as though a gulf has opened up between us, yawning wide, and he doesn’t know what to do with himself. “Fuck!” he yells, and the word echoes out into the forest. “I should go,” he says. “This was a huge fucking mistake.”

“You're here now.” I sniff, pulling the sleeves of my hoodie down over my hands against the cold. “Say what you came here to say. You might as well.”

He huffs. Looks like he’s battling with himself, trying to figure out what he wants to do next. What he wants to say. “I just…I realized after your text that you saw that video. Jacob’s been sending it out to everyone at Raleigh. He thinks it’s fucking hilarious for some reason. Kacey doesn’t even seem that bothered—”

“She wouldn’t. She uses her body like it’s a weapon. She gets naked at every available opportunity. She’s probably told Jacob to send it to me.”