Beg You to Trust Me (Lindon U #2)(103)

If he wants to put this in motion, then he might as well take me back to where it all started. This is me opening up. Letting him help me.

Or try to anyway.

“Are you sure you really want to do that?” he asks, looking up at me with wariness crossing his features.

I shake my head. “No. I don’t want anything to do with this, but I don’t have much of a choice.”

“You always have a choice—”

I cut him off before he tells me what I’ve been trying to convince myself of for months. “You’re right, I do. And I’m choosing to let you in. I’m choosing not to let the past choices I made drown me. I want to move on. With my life. With you. I want this to work, Danny.”

He stops talking.

Presses his lips together.

And stands.

We’re silent as I follow him to his Jeep parked out front. I can feel Bea’s eyes on us as the door closes behind us, but I can’t find it in me to care. How many people have chosen to stare at me all semester? Chosen to whisper? To believe the worst in me?

Maybe now they’ll having something new to talk about.

As we drive to the football house, a place where I’ve taken up a lot of nights on the couch watching the guys play video games and in the kitchen eating whatever one of the players makes, I pull out my phone and text Aliyah.

Me: Did you go to the campus police about Ricky Wallace?





The message is marked READ within minutes.

But Ali never texts me back.





CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE





SKYLAR





I see Justin first when I walk in, noting the lack of crutches by his side. He’s got a knee brace on with a subtle limp as he walks from the kitchen with something that looks about as bad as it smells in his hand.

“Hey, Blondie,” he greets.

Ever since Danny started calling me that, his friends have begun doing the same. “Hi. How’s your knee?”

“Physical therapy blows, but it’ll get me to where I need to be,” he responds.

We wave him off and near the stairs, me trailing a few steps behind Danny and gripping the wooden railing. I recall each floorboard creak like it’s cemented into my memory from the morning after and wince at the sound.

Halfway up, I stop. The boy in front of me looks over his shoulder with a frown. “Skylar?”

I hold up my hand.

It’ll be quieter up here.

Has anyone ever told you how beautiful you are?

We can stop if you want to.

The breath I release is choppy as I clench my teeth and walk the rest of the way up. My fingernails drag along the wood of the rail, and I wonder if they leave marks behind.

We can stop if you want to, he’d said.

Danny watches as I pass by him silently and walk down the hall.

Three doors on the left.

I stop outside the door I’d crept out of, staring at the cracked wood as if something is about to happen. My fingertips drag along the wood design that’s twisted with two different color finishes—almost as twisted as me.

Looking over my shoulder, I see Danny shaking his head slowly back and forth. He peers between me and the room my hand is reaching out to open the door to.

“Skylar—” His voice is hoarse. “Are you positive it was this one?”

“I don’t remember a lot,” I tell him gravely, as if my emotions have been drained out of me slowly every single day leading up to this moment. “But I do remember this.”

My hand turns the knob and pushes it open, not caring who or what is about to be revealed.

But the room is empty.

Lights off.

Bed unmade.

Clothes scattered haphazardly.

I blink.

Blink again.

There’s a shirt that looks familiar thrown on the end of the bed, tangled in black sheets. The smell is vaguely familiar too…

“Skylar, that’s…it can’t…”

I turn to him.

“That’s my room.”

My lips part.

A door down the hall cracks open, and somebody says something, but I don’t know what.

“What?” I breathe.

Danny steps forward.

I step back, hand raising on instinct.

Pain fills his eyes at my motion. “I was at the party, but you have to believe me when I say I didn’t sleep in there that night.” There’s a desperation to his tone as he stares at me. Waiting. Expecting. Needing me to say something.

I can’t, though.

The words are lodged into my throat.

We can stop if you want to…

Blond hair. Or was it?

Was it darker?

His hands were big. Strong.

He smelled like alcohol.

His body was heavy.

Heavy on mine.

Prickly sparks shoot from my heart down my arms as I quickly dart around Danny and head for the stairs. I’m walking faster than the morning after, head clearer but still fuzzy for new reasons.

With confusion.

With unspoken feelings.

Unspoken truths.

Footsteps run after me, the heaviness of each step feeling like a chase that sparks adrenaline throughout my body and urging me to go faster. I’m out the door within seconds, Danny’s voice yelling after me.