But I glance over at my sister who looks unsure, but has decided herself to let it go. This is between the five of us, our choice to make. She wasn’t here for this; she has yet to know what we’ve been through with Landon and his friends. But I still feel a stab of guilt over her silence, for her not betraying ours. My dad is her dad, too, and she knows he deserves justice.
At the same time, Jessa also looks like she knows something we don’t. I try to question her with my eyes, but the cop speaks again.
“We’ll see what we can pick up on the cameras,” he says to my father.
Cameras?“They’re cameras?” I ask.
“Not inside,” Dad says. “But right outside the door. I’m going to get more for inside now, don’t worry.”
Landon, Nate, and Max could show up on the cameras.
I was hiding before they could see me, so I didn’t get to see them, to know if they had disguised themselves somehow.
One apprehensive look around at my friends says we’re all thinking it.
“All right, I just have a few more questions, and then you’re free to go,” the cop says to me, then gives a dismissive nod to my friends who begin to disperse. Dad stays behind.
“Meet me at the guest house?” I say to Tommy.
“Yeah,” he says with a soft smile and a nod, then lets me go to meet up with the rest of them. I watch Banks bounce up next to my sister, and Julian pull Camille into his side as Camille gives Tommy a playful shove with words that are too far away for me to hear now. But I catch the blush he turns back to me before they’re out the door.
“Reyna, I’m so sorry about your showcase,” my dad says through a sigh, his hands reaching out in a helpless shrug, and a fresh lump clogs my throat. “But you’ll get another one,” he promises next, loosening the lump some, but having little success in stopping the fresh tears. “Your work can be replaced. But you can’t.”
And those are the words that cause me to break again. That I can’t be replaced. Said to me by my father.
He reaches out again, for me, his hands touching and squeezing my shoulders before pulling me into his arms to let me cry into his shirt.
This is our first hug.
And it’s this hug that seals the cracks.
34
The Terror and the Thrill
Thomas
I’m pacing the kitchen in anticipation for Reyna, worrying over what has happened to her and how I can be there for her.
Over bringing what has been private between us to the public.
I kissed her. In front of everyone. Sparking questions from Julian and Camille I still don’t have answers to.
It was instinct. Reyna put her wellbeing above her art for my wellbeing. And I had to touch her, every feeling I had in that moment drawing me to her, needing to comfort, and apologize, and thank her all at once.
I thought of you.
I’ll never not feel guilty about that, but I’ll never not be so fucking thankful.
Julian and I should’ve been more vigilant. More prepared. We failed Reyna,again, and I’ll never not feel guilty for our oversight, either.
“Hey.”
Reyna’s soft, low voice halts my pacing as I face her, and my entire idea of what this night is supposed to be modifies itself to an anticipation I can’t touch the moment my eyes latch on to her dress.
She took the time to change clothes before coming to me. She’s now wearing my favorite holiday. Bats, moons, black lace.
Her smile is slight, half shy when my gaze drags back up to hers. “You said I should wear this again.”
