Secrets Look Different in the Light

Chapter 44

Dylan's POV

Jackie's already halfway down the corridor, her heels clicking sharp and fast against the tile. She doesn't turn when I call her name.

"Jackie—" My voice comes out too thin, too unsure.

She doesn't slow. I jog to catch up, everything in me pulsing with panic, adrenaline, whatever coke's still in my system. When she finally stops, it's at the trophy case. All those frozen grins behind the glass stare out at us, like this is just another night in the gym. Nothing broken. Nothing exposed.

"Jackie, please—"

She spins, voice low and shaking. "Don't."

Guilt rushes over me.

"I didn't mean for any of that to happen," I say quickly. "It wasn't like—"

"Don't lie to me." Her eyes flash. "Not right now. Not when May literally threw your stash at me on the dancefloor."

I flinch. I can't help it. Everything is crumbling around me and I'm grasping at straws trying to keep it together.

"You said it was one time," she says. Her voice cracks. "You said that.

"I was," I say, hating how fast the words come, how practiced they sound. "I've been trying to stop—May—she doesn't even know what she's talking about—"

"She didn't have to," she cuts in. "She literally pulled the shit off your body, Dylan."

I want to say something, anything, but my mouth just opens and nothing comes out. My hand twitches like it wants to reach for hers, but I know better. I know I've already lost that right.

"You used me," she says. Not loud. Just honest. "I thought this meant something. That you actually cared." She swallows. "But really, I was just a cover. A loose end you were keeping quiet."

"No." My voice is barely breath. "No, that's not true."

"You didn't love me," she whispers. "You just loved the way I made you feel like you weren't falling apart."

Her words hit harder than anything my dad's ever thrown at me.

I try to speak, to fix it, but nothing I say would matter now.

"Every time you kissed me, every time you asked me how my day was... were you high?" she asks, eyes glassy. 

I can't bring myself to answer. I can't bring myself to keep hurting her. I search for something to say, desperate.

"I didn't mean to hurt you," I choke out. Even if I don't know if that's true anymore. "I didn't—"

"But you did," she says. "You really, really did."

The silence after that is unbearable. She looks at me like I'm someone she doesn't know anymore. Maybe I am.

Then I hear it — the mic crackling from inside the gym, muffled but unmistakable.

"And now... the moment you've all been waiting for. This year's Homecoming King and Queen—"

As if the silence in this hall with me is more unbearable than the noise in the gym, she flees back inside.

I don't chase after her this time. I've done enough damage. I've broke the one good thing I had going. I did the one thing I didn't want to do.

"selfish, impulsive little boy who can't keep his shit together"

Proved my dad right.

Avery's POV

High School is a sick joke.