Was she wearing a dress?
“How do I look, Jill?” She smoothed her skirt, seeming uncertain. “Is this okay?”
“You look great,” I told her, not understanding. The dress was a black one she used to wear to nice restaurants when Dad would take her out. “Are you going somewhere?”
“Just out with friends,” she said, turning her back on me and facing her mirror. “Some people from work.”
“Oh.” I fidgeted in the doorway, unsure, too. I still wanted to run to Mom. But she looked almost . . . happy. Who was I to intrude on that?
Mom must have misunderstood my mood, because she added over her shoulder, “I hope you don’t mind. I know I should try to get some extra hours at the hospital now that I’m doing better. But Frederick thinks it’s important for me to have fun, too.”
Frederick. The beast who’d brought my mother back from the brink of oblivion. He’d healed my mother, but he was dangerous and violent . . . just like Tristen.
“Mom,” I said, struggling not just with my sorrow but with sudden fear for my mom’s safety, “do you think you still need to see Dr. Hyde? I mean, you seem like you’re a lot better.”
“Yes, Frederick agrees.” She smoothed her hair, eyes fixed on her reflection. “I’m not seeing him professionally anymore.”
I was so relieved by that news and so caught up in my own misery, my heartbreak, that I overlooked one key word.
“I’m going to my room,” I said when Mom kept staring at her reflection, seeming to forget about me. A small smile played on her lips, and I knew I couldn’t burden her with my sadness. “I’m kind of tired,” I added. “I might go to bed early.”
“Okay, Jill.” Mom flipped open her jewelry box, chose an earring, and stuck the post into her ear. “I’ll see you in the morning. Keep the doors locked!”
“Sure,” I agreed, closing her door as tears started to well in my eyes again. Would my mother ever be there for me again? Tristen certainly wouldn’t . . .
I wasn’t sure how I held myself together as I walked down the hall to my room. Tristen had committed murder. His secret had become my burden, had destroyed us, left me completely alone again.
When I shut myself in my room, I let the tears come flooding out, but as quietly as possible, burying my face in my pillow until Mom rapped on my door and called goodbye. When I heard the back door slam closed I really sobbed. But it didn’t help. Maybe I’d cried so often in the past year that tears didn’t hold the power they used to. They certainly didn’t wash away the anger and the hurt.
I wouldn’t give my heart, my soul, my body to somebody who had ended a human life—especially in the bloody, violent way that my dad’s life had been snuffed out.
Tristen should have been stronger, when his grandfather had begged for death.
He hadn’t fought hard enough.
No. I would not love Tristen Hyde.
But the whole time I cried, a small voice inside of me kept protesting that I still did love Tristen.
That voice . . . that’s what drove me to unzip the compartment in my backpack where I’d put the stolen formula. I’d planned to give it back to Tristen, telling him that I wasn’t sure how it had wound up with me. But that nagging voice, the devil on my shoulder, the opposite of my conscience—which insisted that loving Tristen was wrong—it was that voice that made me pull out the stopper and take a sip.
I just wanted to silence that voice. Maybe for a few hours. Maybe for forever.
Or did I want something else, like the freedom to be bad and wrong that the voice represented? Because I was in such pain, I wanted to do something bad. Maybe even hurt somebody else, the way I hurt.
I guess my reasons didn’t really matter as I fell to the floor, clutching my stomach, feeling the wicked pain course through my veins, shattering me and setting me free.
Chapter 60
Jill
THE DOUBLE ESPRESSO feels hot going down my throat. The new bra feels soft against my breasts. The stolen thong feels—
“What the hell are you doing here, Jekel?”
I smile up at Todd Flick, wondering what took him so long to approach me. What a gorgeous, detestable piece of shit he is. “What? Is this seat reserved for guys who lick Darcy Gray’s shoes?”
Flick stops smirking, and his pretty eyes flash. “What’s up with you lately?” he demands. “If you think having Hyde as a boyfriend suddenly makes you cool, you are so wrong. That guy is nothing.”
“He beat you up, didn’t he?” I laugh, pointing to Flick’s arm. “So what does that make you?”
“Hey—”
“And let’s face it.” I hold my hands about ten inches apart. “Tristen’s twice the man you are in other ways, too.”
“You bitch, “Flick snaps. “That’s bullshit!”
“Not according to the talk at school. I heard Darcy complain that you’re small—and you don’t know how to use it, anyway.”
“Shut up!” he cries. “Darcy never said that!”
“Look, Todd. It doesn’t matter to me. I’ll never have to endure your groping and grunting. Thank God”
“You couldn’t handle me!”
I laugh. “What? Would it slip right through my fingers?”
He stands mute, jaw flapping, so I down my espresso, plunk the cup on the table, and shove past him, making sure my tits graze his chest.
He watches me all the way to my car.
Chapter 61
Jill
I WOKE UP sprawled on top of my covers . . . and wearing new clothes. I felt them before I even saw them. A wire from the bra poked into my rib cage, and it felt like there was a string running between—
Oh no. I tugged at a tight skirt, trying to dislodge that string. What had I done? It was all hazy, like a dream I could barely recall.
Rolling out of bed, I ran to the mirror. My face looked the same, but my clothes . . . Where had I gotten them?
