“Okay,” he agreed.
He waited while I went inside and locked the door behind me. Then I watched from a window while he disappeared into the night, praying that he hadn’t lied about going back to the school.
Chapter 73
Jill
“JILL, I’M GOING TO WORK,” Mom said, poking her head into my room. “Don’t stay up too late painting, okay?”
“I won’t,” I promised, checking the clock. Tristen would arrive in about a half hour. “I’m wrapping up soon.”
She stepped into the room, joining me at my easel. She stared first at the painting and then at me, seeming confused. “I thought this portrait was due soon.”
“I’ll finish in time,” I said, with more conviction than I felt.
“You’d better add some eyes!” Mom teased with a grin. She was subtly pressuring me to finish my assignment, but I didn’t mind. I was just glad for the genuine smile.
“Do I ever let you down?” I asked—and pushed away a twinge of guilt. Mom would be very disappointed if she knew what I planned to do with Tristen that night. But we had to be together. It was like I didn’t have a choice. I checked the time again. “You should probably get going, huh?”
“Yes,” she agreed, giving me a kiss on the cheek. “Have a good night.”
I would. I definitely would. “You, too.”
I listened as she got her coat and keys, and when the back door shut behind her, I abandoned painting, too nervous and excited to work.
Was I ready?
I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. Did I look okay?
I straightened my back, checking myself in profile, then went to my dresser and reached into my drawer, feeling for the black bra, thinking that I would look better in that and that a guy would like it. But when my fingers touched the silky fabric I hesitated. I hadn’t chosen it, stolen it . . .
I shoved the bra farther back, thinking it felt tainted somehow, and wrong for the night I wanted to have. As wrong as the formula, which was also hidden in there.
I didn’t need that either, right?
But I could keep it in my nightstand, just in case I got nervous . . .
I was just about to wrap my fingers around the vial when I heard a knock on the front door and yanked my hand back, horrified by my own behavior. Tristen was here. He would be sickened if he knew I’d stolen—tasted—the formula.
Slamming the drawer shut, I raced down the stairs and threw open the door. “Tristen . . .”
But it wasn’t Tristen who stood on the other side.
Chapter 74
Jill
“BECCA, WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?” I asked as she stepped into the foyer, uninvited.
“I have to talk to you,” she said. “Now.”
“This isn’t a good time.”
But Becca barged past me into the living room. “It won’t take long. I just need to tell you something. About Tristen.”
I knew, before she went any further, what she wanted to talk about. I knew that I was about to learn the truth about what had happened between my friend and the guy I loved over the course of the previous summer. And from the look on Becca’s face, that was a truth I didn’t want to know.
“Not now, Becca,” I said. “Please. Not now.”
Not right before Tristen was about to walk into the house, go with me up to my room . . .
“I know you guys are together,” she said. “But I also know a secret about him, Jill.”
I shook my head. “Becca . . . you don’t have to tell me—”
“I was with Tristen this summer,” she blurted. “We had sex. By the river. And he changed, Jill. Tristen changed, and it was scary. It was like he got . . . rough.”
Becca probably thought all the blood rushed from my cheeks because she’d just told me that Tristen had a violent side. But I’d lived through that. It was the admission that they’d had sex, that’s what sort of killed me. I’d suspected that they’d hung out. Kissed, maybe. But sex? “That’s enough,” I said. “You don’t need to tell me more. Please.”
“Jill.” She rested her hand on my shoulder. “You need to know this.”
“I don’t . . .”
“We were on the riverbank,” Becca continued, ignoring my protests, “and Tristen was kissing me, whispering this amazing stuff in my ear.” Although she was telling a story that was supposedly terrible, a smile started to play on her lips. “I swear, I was thinking that Tristen Hyde was, like, the best guy I’d ever been with.”
“Please, stop touching me,” I begged, pushing her hand away. Her hand that had touched Tristen. “Stop telling me this!”
But she was lost in memory and still had that small smile on her red lips. “I mean, we couldn’t tear each other’s clothes off fast enough!”
“Becca.” I couldn’t bear picturing Tristen undoing buttons on Becca’s shirt, her hands moving to his jeans . . . “Please!”
“Calm down, Jill.” She interrupted her story, jerking back to reality and shooting me a look of frustration. “It didn’t mean anything! We were just at a party and got carried away! You don’t have to get all jealous!”
I stared at her, speechless. How could I not be jealous? Becca had Tristen first and it hadn’t even really mattered to her. I knew that I was being irrational. They had been together before Tristen had even noticed me. And yet I couldn’t think logically. I just kept picturing them down by the river, Tristen whispering in Becca’s ear, removing her clothes . . .
“But suddenly,” she continued, “and I mean, right at the big moment, Tristen got different, and I was scared of him.” She paused, then added, like she was doing me a great favor, “I don’t want that to happen to you, Jilly.”
I glared
