STRIPPED Page 9

  In one quick motion, his arm forms a bar across my stomach. “No you don’t.” His other hand tightens around my wrist. “You need to come back to school with me. Not act like some slut following that dude in your pajamas.”

  My fingers start to go numb, and I open my mouth to tell him to fuck off when Torrin’s voice echoes from the tree ring behind us.

  “Call Quinn a slut again and you might have a bigger problem than the ridiculously uncoordinated outfit you have on.” He’s standing, one leg propped on the tree ring. Hair falls into his face; he doesn’t push it back.

  Inside, I laugh. Torrin and his fashion advice. To give him credit, Derek does look like an ass in his black jeans and white Nikes.

  I strain against Derek and he yanks my arm to my side, not releasing it like my skin is screaming for him to. Then he looks at Torrin.

  “Who are you and what do you want?”

  Broad shoulders pushed back, Torrin walks deliberately toward us, eyes zeroed in on mine, and the pesky thought that I’d much rather be standing next to him than Derek washes over me. I will it away. Torrin opens his mouth.

  “Do you treat all your girlfriends like this?” He says it in the same tone Derek used in the hall, down to the degrading tone. With a flick of his wrist he gestures to the hold Derek has around my wrist. He doesn’t look at me, and I kind of wish he would—I can’t tell if he’s serious or not.

  “Go to hell.” Derek levels his stare. “You have no idea what it’s like—”

  “Believe me,” Torrin interrupts with a low chuckle, “I know how frustrating she can be.”

  “Okay.” I heave a sigh. “I’m right here.”

  Out of the blue, Torrin smiles—he’s up to something—then tilts his head to the side. “And do you want to be right here?”

  “Not exactly.” I reclaim my hand from Derek’s grip and step through the door. “Can we talk? Torrin?”

  “So that’s it?” Derek says, all exasperated. “You’re choosing this guy over me?”

  I keep walking, don’t turn. “Go home, Derek.” Footsteps echo in my wake. A grunt, and then a string of curses in Derek’s prickly voice. By the time I’ve whirled around, Torrin has Derek pinned to the hallway floor, one hand around his throat and the other pressing on his chest.

  A stare-down ensues between the two of them, Derek huffing and Torrin’s hand bulging with veins. After a minute Torrin stands, rubs the welt of red growing on his chin where Derek must’ve hit him. Muscles beneath his T-shirt constrict as he closes the space between us.

  “Only a pussy would take a cheap shot like that,” Torrin calls over his shoulder then ushers me into my closet. Once the door is closed, he looks down at me. “Care to explain?”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Leaning against the closed door to my changing room, I start talking. Telling Torrin feels like stabbing a knife into my liver, twisting it around a few times. It makes me want to puke.

  I don’t lie to him about Derek. I don’t even try. I just start from the day Mom found Zoe lying lifelessly in her room and tell him how she killed herself because she loved Evan. I tell him I’ve never been in love before and for the past year I’ve done everything in my power to keep it that way.

  Sitting in front of me on a box, he rubs his hand over his face and says, “You said you didn’t have a boyfriend.”

  “I know.” My voice cracks, which I hate. “It’s not like what Derek says.”

  Fingering his jaw where Derek’s fist left a welt, he narrows his glare. “Then what is it, Quinn? Who’d I just get attacked by?”

  I inhale a deep breath, humiliation trouncing through every cell in my body. I’ve never admitted this to anyone before. “I thought by having him around—”

  “Other guys wouldn’t hit on you?” His face crumples. “That’s ridiculous.”

  I shake my head. “It’s more than that. Derek reminds me every day Zoe’s mistake was falling in love. If she hadn’t, she’d still be here today.”

  He thinks about this for a small, soundless moment then scoots over and pulls me onto the box beside him. There’s not much room. Our shoulders bump into each other.

  Focusing on the cluttered shelves in front of him, he says, “You’re scared because your sister took her life. I understand. But that was her decision. Love didn’t make her—”

  “Yes. It did, Torrin.” Tears blur my vision. “Zoe loved Evan and couldn’t live without him. It’s a fact. Not arguable.”

  His fingers lace together and he lowers his voice. “Did you ever think there could’ve been another reason? Something you didn’t know about?”

  “Impossible. We knew everything about each other.”

  “Maybe not,” he whispers softly. Even so, I flinch with the words.

  “How can you say that? Of course we knew everything about each other. I know she liked her tuna with relish and ranch dressing. I know she was really talented making things out of wire, but only when she was in the mood, and that she couldn’t stand to leave the house with wet hair. I even know who tore her hymen.”

  His scrunches his nose. “All I’m saying is just because she was happy on the outside doesn’t mean she didn’t have other issues, ones she kept hidden.”

  “Yeah?” I wipe my eyes with my sleeve. “Like what?”

  “Does it matter?” Facing me, he looks straight into my eyes. “You’re you. And whatever happened with your sister happened to her.”

  What he doesn’t understand: Zoe’s death didn’t just happen to her. It happened to all of us, affecting everyone around her. Dad’s ability to make smart decisions, Mom’s ability to accept reality, my hope of finding true love turned to outright fear…

  I don’t respond, mainly because I don’t know how. Zoe didn’t keep secrets from me. I know it because I would’ve never kept a secret from her.

  The tap of his foot and echo of my breath soon become the only sounds in the stuffy room. A long minute passes. Classes let out, students talking and laughing out in the hall then he gently slides up the sleeve of my robe, revealing streaks of red around my wrist where Derek’s hand was gripped.

  “He’s done this before, hasn’t he?” Tracing the outline of Derek’s fingermarks, he waits for an answer.

  “No….”

  “You sound like you wouldn’t have fought back if he had.” Silence. “Are you crazy?”

  I don’t deny it and a small chuckle bubbles off my lips. “You have no idea.”

  His stare doesn’t waver. I sigh.

  “It’s like what you said the other day; your past shaped you. My sister dying shaped me. Or, I don’t know, made me a different shape. And I’ll never be able to go back to the way I was before.”

  Torrin’s whole body stiffens. “So you need someone to leave marks on you?”

  I shake my head. “I need someone to remind me not to make the same mistake she did.”

  “I’d love to see where that gets you in a few years,” he all of a sudden snaps, standing. “Or a few months at this rate.” Fists clenched tight, he heads for the door.

  “You wouldn’t understand.” I start to follow him, but stop when he turns. He blinks hard. “You have no idea—”

  “You think my family’s perfect?”

  “Yes! Even though your parents are separated, they still have money, you still go to a great school, you’re captain of the rowing tea—”

  “You have no idea how fucked-up my family is! But you know what? No matter what I go through, no matter how shitty things around me become I’d never do something so self-destructive.” He slices me with a glare. “I’d never let someone leave bruises on me as a reminder not to make another person’s mistake.”

  He stomps out the door, metal latching shut behind him.

  The room falls silent and I collapse onto the crate, bury my head in my hands. Tears soak into the pink terry cloth at my knees. What a mess.

  For some reason, I think Torrin may be right: keeping Derek around isn’t exactly helping. An
d according to the way Derek acted today, our casual relationship may be more than casual in his eyes. Not sure why else he’d act so jealous.

  After a few minutes, I dry my face and slip into my clothes. I don’t really want to go back to school right now, don’t want to deal with Derek. Or anyone at Loyola for that matter.

  In the hallway, Torrin is leaning against the wall. His arms fall to his sides the moment he sees me. I can’t explain the feeling just then—the way my body relaxes and stiffens at the same time. I like being near him, which makes my next words easier to say.

  “My sister was my best friend. I looked up to her. Wanted to be exactly like her.” I drop my duffle bag to the ground, stand in front of him. “And then she was gone. No note, no warning, nothing.” I swallow hard, the lump returning in my throat. I push my hair from my face realizing unless I want to be a blubbering mess in front of him, I need to stop talking about Zoe. “I’m sorry if I offended you.”

  He sticks his hands in his pockets.

  “You didn’t.”

  “I didn’t mean to imply your family is perfect. I know you’ve gone through stuff too.”

  His face is so serious, like he doesn’t quite know what to think about all of this. Then he draws in a breath.

  “It’s okay.”

  I take a step closer. Only a few inches separate the two of us.

  “Thank you.”

  He nods, eyes on me.

  “You’re welcome.”

  ~*~

  “Uh…what do you think you’re doing?”

  “I’m sitting, brainiac. What does it look like I’m doing?”

  “Missing the bus.” Torrin points to the covered bench in the distance where a bus idles in front.

  I shrug and sling my bag off my shoulder. “Guess I’m catching the next one then.” My goal: to kill as many hours as I can before returning to Loyola. I tug his jeans. “Why don’t you join me?”

  “I…I don’t—”

  “You have somewhere else to be?” I look up at him, square my shoulders. “A girlfriend’s house?”

  Pink deepens his cheeks, his gaze scattering to the left where Kingsley Library looms over the grass. He sighs.

  “No girlfriend.”

  “Fantastic.”

  He lowers on the grass beside me, crosses his legs and leans forward, a crease between his eyebrows.

  “Maybe I should know the rules,” he says softly.

  “Pfft. I’m not a game.” I reach out to poke his shoulder and, unexpectedly, he catches my finger.

  “Sometimes, I’m not so sure.” He’s not smiling, which is really hard to look at. So I stare at our entangled hands for a second. Or two, three, four, then I wriggle my finger out from his hold. He makes it sound like a bad thing.

  And then we get all quiet and I start thinking about money and moving, but I don’t want to think about any of that so I take a stab at a question. A nice one.

  “Will you tell me something about you?”

  Torrin rubs his jaw and stares off at a couple of students shuffling by.

  “What do you want to know?”

  “I don’t know. Anything. Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

  “One. Courtney. She’s sixteen, lives back home with my mom.” His expression falls and his attention’s back on me. “My turn. Why didn’t you tell me you were a model?”

  “So you could watch me like you almost did today? Negative.”

  “I wasn’t coming to watch you.” His face grows redder and his hands start to fidget with his shoe and inside I laugh because there’s nothing more entertaining than watching someone squirm. “I was going to—” He pauses, giving me an appraising look. Then shakes his head. “Never mind. It’s pointless.”

  He’s keeping me out of the loop. I hate being out of the loop.

  “What’s pointless? What were you coming to do?”

  Classes must be starting up again; the campus is all of a sudden empty. It’s just the two of us on the lawn. He hesitates a moment longer then—

  “I was coming to ask you out. But…you don’t have to worry about me doing that. I’m not. Now.”

  I scratch my head. “Okaaay.” He’s not going to ask me out. I should be happy about this—it’s what I wanted wasn’t it?

  Suddenly, I’m not sure.

  “Hypothetically…” I take a breath, trying to keep my voice light and conversational and not sounding like a little girl who’s lost her kitten. “If you were going to take me out…where would we go?”

  Leaning back onto his hands, he weighs each of my words to see which one is venomous.

  “Hypothetically…” He draws out the word and the silence after and I lean forward because I’m perversely curious about what he’ll say. “I’d take you to dinner, probably some hole-in-the-wall burrito joint. I’d make you pay for yourself because you seem like that type of girl who’s all equal rights and shit, and then afterward I’d take you to the beach. We’d hang out on the lifeguard tower doing shots of tequila off each other’s bodies until neither of us could walk anymore. Then I’d take you home. By bus, of course, because I don’t drink and drive.”

  My mouth falls open. I try to close it, but it’s too late; Torrin noticed. He licks his lips then cracks a smile.

  “Now you know how I feel when you speak without your sensors.”

  Hmm. That’s a point for him.

  “Sounds like fun,” I recover and fall back onto the grass. “Too bad I’ll miss out on that one. Body shots are my favorite.” An airplane the size of my fingernail sails across the sky. Torrin settles beside me.

  He clears his throat. “Why’d you lie to me?”

  “Technically I didn’t.”

  He starts to get up and I grab his arm.

  “No. Wait.”

  “Why, Quinn?” He glares at me. “So you can skate around the truth some more?”

  Fine. Fine. Fine.

  “My dad lost his job,” I say, covering my face with my hands. I won’t tell him about my dad—who he is or what happened with the Kingsleys, but I’ll tell him the other stuff. “And my parents can’t afford my tuition anymore. I’ve been trying to help them out. Modeling pays more than any other job I could’ve gotten, and I didn’t tell you because it’s not really classy, you know?”

  “You? Classy?”

  I kick his leg. “Shut up.”

  He nudges me back and rolls onto his side. “You shut up.”

  My eyes follow the plane until it disappears into the sun-lit horizon then I turn to stare at him. Our faces are close. I-Could-Kiss-Him close. And if I were a normal girl this might be the moment where I lean in and press my lips to his. I try to imagine it. Kissing him. His lips would be soft. His hand would caress my cheek, my hair, my neck. My heart would flitter in my chest and it would be amazing and perfect and—

  Forget it. I’m not a normal girl. I press my shoulder further into the grass.

  “Why’s college so important to you?” he asks, and I close my eyes because they keep drifting to his lips and if I stare at him any longer I might do something really stupid.

  “Why do you assume that?”

  “Most people who can’t afford their tuition would just drop out. Not take such a radical job. Makes me think there’s more than a degree driving you.”

  I guess it wouldn’t hurt to tell him this either. “It’s not important to me—it never has been. Honestly, I couldn’t care less about graduating. But it was to my sister.” I open my eyes, but don’t look at him. “Ever since we were little she talked about getting a business degree, running her own PR firm. Her grades weren’t that great in high school though—she was a bit of a wild child, and didn’t get accepted into any universities. She started at Oceanview and said it was okay, said she’d work hard for two years then try to transfer somewhere else as a junior. But…she never got the chance.”

  “Let me guess, you’re on track for a business degree too.”

  I meet his intense stare, my cheeks warmin
g at how exact he is. “I don’t even like business.”

  He leans back, just enough so that the heat from his skin dissipates. “What would happen if you graduated with a different degree? Or not at all?”

  I shrug, not needing to think about my answer. “I’d let her down.” My words trail off into the sky and a moment of silence settles between us.

  After a minute, he gently brushes my hair back over my shoulder and says, “When I was little, my mom used to tell me a coincidence was like finding a penny on a rainy day.”

  “No offense to your mom—I’m sure she’s really nice and all, but that doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Sure it does.” His hot breath caresses my face. “Find a penny on any normal day and it’s just a penny. Find one when you’re having a shitty day and it’s like some ironic twist of fate. Good luck on a bad day.”

  I pull up a smile. “Am I your penny on a bad day, Torrin?”

  His eyes are all big and round and looking like he’s about to say something I may not like and I should look away, but I can’t and that’s when he says it.

  “You can trust me.”

  I bite my cheek, debating.

  Right now, I could get up—should get up—and end this, but my body’s not listening to my brain and it’s not moving like it should be so I do the next best thing. Try to shock him into silence.

  “What’s the raunchiest move your virgin-ass has put on a girl?”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Sociology. Derek settles into the seat beside me, thumbs to temples, looking like a homeless version of himself: rumpled shirt, one shoe untied, hair greasier than usual. His elbow bumps mine and, suddenly, every organ in my body reacts with the memory of his forceful hands on me.

  No.

  I shove the feeling away. I will not be scared of him and his douchebag ways.

  “Rough night?” I clear my throat then say because if I’m stuck in the chair next to him for the next ninety minutes I might as well get this conversation over with. Besides, it’d be such a waste to let that hangover face go without comment. He meets my gaze and it’s not at all what I expect.