Brows pinching, I asked, “Have what?”
Her eyes looked around the room before meeting mine again. “It. Do you have it? What I gave you?” My lips parted for a moment before snapping closed.
“Oh my god.” Oh god. The purse in my lap suddenly felt heavier. Much heavier. I hadn’t thought a lot about what I’d kept hidden in the inner compartment since the day I’d dropped it in there.
Kat’s eyes widened wider than mine. “I messed up, Della, but I’m trying to fix it. You have to believe me.”
“What are you—”
“Give it to me,” she whispered urgently, her hand snaking out toward my bag. I kept a firm grip on it, jerking it away. “Della, I mean it. I’m not trying to use. You can’t have it.”
“Are you crazy?” I hissed, getting off the stool and glaring at her. Was that why she made me come? Why she’d been crying? Because she was coming down and needed another hit? “You need help, Kat.”
“I’m not going to use it—”
“Is there a problem?” The bartender looked between us again, his eyes focused on Kat and her shaky hands and red-rimmed eyes. I didn’t blame him for being suspicious. She was clearly unwell. And I’d walked right into it.
“No,” I told him after a moment of breathing. I didn’t want to cause a scene, and certainly didn’t want the cops called. “We’re all right,” I assured him when he didn’t move. It took him a moment before he bobbed his head and walked back to the other end of the bar as an older gentleman called out a food order.
Turning to Kat, I gave her a once over again. Slowly. I was beginning to understand why people always talked about my appearance. It was easy to see when other people were falling apart, even if they hadn’t experienced it firsthand. Watching Kat, her ticks, her harsh breathing, her darting eyes, I’d seen what everybody probably saw of me for so long.
A broken girl.
“You need help,” I told her again, hoping she’d listen to the urgency in my own tone. I didn’t want to see her break. I’d known what that was like and wanted to help. I knew Ren, Tiffany, so many people, have told me not to worry about other people’s problems. I couldn’t ignore it. Kat had been my friend once. We were long past that, though. Our friendship was a distant memory.
Taking a hesitant step toward her, I took a deep breath and added, “It’s okay to admit. It doesn’t make you weak, I promise. People will probably say it does, but you just need to surround yourself with people who will support you instead.”
I swore I was getting to her when I saw her eyes soften. Then, at the last second, her jaw ticked, and she scoffed. Scoffed like she had the day I walked away from her at her place when I wouldn’t join them. The day she’d given me what she was after. How could I have forgotten I’d had it? It wasn’t like she’d given me counterfeit money. I had drugs in my purse. Drugs that I kept because I thought she’d been right at one time. I believed I’d needed that escape, that possibility of what she said it could do for my weight and energy.
How stupid was I?
She stood, pushing herself up from the counter and shaking her head adamantly. “I’m not asking for me. If you care as much as you pretend to, then listen to me. I want to help.”
“And I want to help you—”
“Samantha’s father is after you!” Her rushed words caught more than just my attention. A few people sitting around us looked our way with drawn brows.
“What?”
“Samantha’s dad, Richard Pratt.” She stepped toward me again, but I didn’t move this time. “I messed up. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I can’t fix it if you don’t give it back.”
Samantha’s dad? Wasn’t that who Theo had warned me about before? He hadn’t liked any of the girls or their families, but he warned me with a conviction that was beyond riches and selfishness. He knew something that he wasn’t telling me, and Kat knew too.
“What is he trying to do?”
I could tell how badly she pleaded for me to listen, but I needed something. Handing over what she wanted could end just as badly as not. Where would that leave me? Us? “You need to tell me something that would make me believe you’re not just asking for…” I gestured toward my bag, hoping the prying eyes didn’t know what was going on.
The bartender was watching us a little too carefully in between customers, and I wanted to move the conversation somewhere else but needed the comfort of a public place for protection. I wished I hadn’t felt that tinge of panic in my gut, the mistrust, but it was going to save me in the long run from people like Kat.
What she said was something I hadn’t expected, hadn’t anticipated at all. “Everybody knows that you and Theodore West are each other’s weaknesses. You love each other, Della. Richard Pratt wants to exploit that like he’s done before.”
I stared.
Unblinking.
Unbreathing.
“You love him,” she stated. There was no question, no doubt in her thickened words. “He loves you too. Sam’s dad uses people’s love for those they care about against them. He’ll do it to you too.”
I swallowed. “You don’t know that.” I hadn’t been talking about Sam’s father.
To my surprise, she knew that and smiled. It was sad and distant but knowing. “But you do.”
Closing my eyes, I counted to three and inhaled slowly. The thump thump thump of my heart was hard and heavy in my chest, echoing throughout my body as I reached for my bag and unzipped the
