BAD WICKED TWISTED: A Briarcrest Academy Box Set (46 page)

Then it happened.

She turned around to pick up a piece of paper the teacher was sending around for us to sign. My world … my fucking life … altered when her eyes connected with mine for what seemed like a long time, but it only had to be a few seconds. They were blue. A peacock blue with hints of green.

She would never be plain.

She smiled, just a tiny one, kinda like the smile you’d give to any human who you happened to make eye contact with by accident.

I blushed. I have no idea why. Maybe because I’d imagined fucking her in every position that was anatomically feasible.

Flustered, I looked down at my desk, fiddling with my notebook, feeling confused and self-conscious.
Me
. The guy who could have any girl he wanted was freaking out over some girl who didn’t even register on the who’s who of BA.

When I glanced back up, she’d already turned back around.

I didn’t hear a thing the professor said that day, my eyes on Dovey, picturing me and her together. Falling in love.

So stupid
.

Because falling for a girl like her was a terrible idea.

As soon as the bell rang, I bolted from my seat for my next class.

When the following day rolled around, I took a seat far, far away from her. No reason. Just thought maybe I needed a change of scenery is all.

LATER THAT WEEK, I walked in our house after a post-season workout at the gym. Mom had texted earlier, checking to make sure I was on schedule to arrive on time. She’d specifically asked if I’d be home by four o’clock, and her reaching out sent alarm bells off in my head. It was odd. Why did she care what time I came home? Unless …

She was fine
, I kept telling myself.

Yet, I’d made sure to be home.

I didn’t see her in the den or the kitchen or outside by the pool, where she liked to hang out sometimes and read. With queasy flutters in my stomach, I made my way upstairs. I knocked on her locked door, but got nothing. I pulled my phone out and called her. Sure enough I could hear it ringing in the background inside her bedroom.

“Mother, are you in there?” I yelled into the wood.

Nothing but silence.

“Open the door, please,” I begged her, my ear pressed tight against the door, aching to hear at least a sniffle or something from her. Nada.

My stress level skyrocketed. She
always
answered me when I knocked.

I banged again and got nothing but an empty silence.

“Dammit, I’m coming in there,” I called out, ramming my shoulder into the door. It thudded, loosening a little but not opening. I grabbed a credit card from my wallet, my gut screaming at me to
get to her, get to her, get to her
.

Finally, after some jiggling, the credit card popped the lock, and I rushed in.

She wasn’t in bed, so I ran to the bathroom, coming to an abrupt halt, a dawning sense of horror growing in me at what I saw.

My mother, her honey-colored skin pale, lay nude in a bathtub full of water, blood oozing from her slit wrists.

Fuck me.

I yelled until my throat gave out, running to her and pulling her out of the water and into my arms. Craziness hit me, making me forget every first aid class I’d ever taken.

“Please don’t leave me,” I choked out, my adrenaline finally kicking in. I grabbed towels from the nearby shelving and pressed them to her wrists, applying pressure.

“Mary-Carmen,” I shouted in her face, using her given name, praying her eyes opened. My fingers found a faint pulse on her neck.

“Thank God,” I whispered, sitting her on the marble tiled floor so I could pull out my phone.

I called 911.

Sixteen agonizing minutes later, I watched the paramedics wrap her wrists and then strap her in a gurney they’d put in her bedroom. One of them had an oxygen mask on her.

“Is she going to be okay?” I asked, clutching my stomach, holding in the nausea that I couldn’t let out, because I had to keep my shit together. For her.

No one answered me.

My nerves broke, and I rushed for the bathroom, puking my guts out in the red-smeared bathroom. I closed my eyes, wishing Dad was here and not out of town. I’d called him while they worked on her, and he’d left immediately on the private jet the Mavericks owned.

Later in the hospital as I sat by her bed, I gazed into her face, self-loathing eating me inside, tearing me down. Her destruction had begun with me. I lay my head by hers and … shit … I fucking cried, hating myself.

A WEEK LATER, my mom agreed to check into a treatment facility for depression. Thankfully, she’d cut herself horizontally and not vertically, missing her vital arties. From her hospital bed, she’d promised us it was a mistake. That she hadn’t meant to go so far. Dad got her another new therapist. I just felt numb.

And perhaps that is why on the day I went back to school, my feet automatically went to the one place I’d been denying them: straight to the desk behind Dovey in history class.

I sat down, my eyes entranced by the way her hair fell down from her high ponytail. I wanted to wrap my hand in it and tug on it until she turned around. I wanted her to face me so I could—

Well, shit, I didn’t know why I wanted her to face me.

She moved, getting a book out of her backpack, the simple motion causing the air to stir and giving me my first scent of Dovey. She smelled sweet with a hint of spice about her, like the wild flowers that grew at our lake house in White Rock.

I stared at her so long and hard, I wondered if she could feel my gaze. Could she feel my intensity? Did she sense that her lightness was the perfect foil for my darkness?

When the bell rang and she stood, I did too. I opened my mouth to say … hell, I have no idea what I was going to say … but I didn’t. I was nervous and jittery, my confidence shot.

She flicked her eyes at me, seemingly not interested.

“I’m Cuba,” I said to her in a rush. She’d been turning to go, but paused and looked back at me.

She blinked up at me, blushed, and then smiled. “Dovey,” she said, hitching her book bag up on her shoulder.

We stood there and she gave me an expectant look, and I fidgeted, realizing it was my turn to talk.

But I had nothing. The guy who’d been with so many girls I’d lost count; the guy who didn’t care about love or relationships or all that mushy stuff. I just stood there like a total idiot. And because I felt panic rising, I ducked my head and walked around her. Pretty much snubbing her. God, I’m an ass. I had no clue how to treat a nice girl.

“Dream bigger than your fears.”

–
Cuba

THE NEXT DAY, I walked in the cafeteria for lunch, and Dovey was the first thing I saw, sitting alone at one of round tables in the back.

I stopped and stared, remembering a sickeningly sweet dream I’d had the night before about her.
How could I get this girl out of my head?

Maybe I just needed to go for it with her.

I mean, it was obvious I had a thing for her. And fuck it—I was tired of running from my feelings. Maybe, just maybe this one time, I could be responsible and really just … put someone else first.

With clammy hands and sweat popping out, I walked to her. She didn’t even notice me as I stood right in front of her. Maybe this wasn’t a good idea. I’d only screw it up in the end.

Yet …

Did I want to wonder about what might have been? Life doesn’t give you do-overs. Luke Skywalker didn’t get one when he blew up the Death Star. He’d had one shot, and he’d nailed it.

Yeah.

I took a deep breath and sat down directly across from her.

“I had a dream about you. A good one,” I said, right as she took a giant bite from what I think was a peanut butter sandwich. A glob of strawberry jam slid out of the corner of her mouth, and she wiped it off and looked up. To be honest, she kinda glared at me.

“Yeah? Is that so?” she said, arching a brow.

I nodded.

She talked around her chews. “What’s the joke? Did Spider put you up to this?”

What?
Why would Spider put me up to something? I didn’t even like that asshole.

I shrugged. “No joke. I dreamed about you.”

“Do tell,” she said, eyeing my black knit shirt, her gaze lingering over my chest. Some of my confidence came back. Thank God. I was starting to wonder where the hell my balls were.

I leaned in. “You may not know this, but my mother’s a gypsy. She tells me what my dreams mean.”

“Really?” she said. “I thought your mother was Brazilian. Aren’t gypsies Romanian?”

“My father’s side is Romanian.”

“Nope.” She packed her lunch up. “Your dad is Archie Hudson, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, and as American as apple pie.”

“True. But I did have a dream about you.”

She made a scoffing sound. “Hello, I’ve been here since freshman year, and this is the first time you’ve noticed me? Face it, I’m not part of your little group over there.” She pointed out the cheerleaders and jocks at a table in the back. “Not buying it.”

Then she got out her math homework and ran a quick finger down the page like she was checking over it.

She was ignoring
me
. When most girls would have be falling all over me.

“So what clique do you belong to?” I asked, eyeing the empty seats around her.

“The non-conformist one. I don’t fit in with the Goths or the geeks or the choir people or the skaters or the druggies. You get the picture. I like being alone.” She shifted her body out of the chair and stood. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a math class to get to.”

I stood too. “Wait.”

“Why?”

“You didn’t ask about the dream. Don’t you want to know?” And then out of nowhere, I felt myself blushing, and she saw it too, because she went still, taking in my fire-engine-red face.

After one more searching glance, she settled back on the hard chair. “Dream, huh.”

I sat back down. “And by the way, I’ve noticed you even before our class this year. You’re different.” My voice went low. “And I saw you dance.”

“When?”

“Back in the fall. The football field has a clear view into the windows of the Symthe Dance building. You have ballet practice there every day from two to five, and I had practice at three. It was bound to happen.”