What is he doing to her?
I hope Frank hurries up and does his damn job.
“Erika!” Jason’s voice cuts into my thoughts. “That’s really bleeding a lot. Maybe we should go to the emergency room…”
“No!” The word comes out too loudly and Jason blinks at me. I clear my throat. “It’s fine. Really. I just bleed a lot.”
Jason tries to smile, but he looks pale. “And you wereworried aboutmechopping the tomatoes…”
The front door slams, and I let out a breath. Liam is home. Thank God.
My son stomps into the kitchen, still wearing his sneakers that have now tracked dirt all over the carpet and the kitchen floor. I’ve yelled at him for that many times before, but I’m not going to freak out over it right now. I’m just glad he’s home.
“Mom was worried about you,” Hannah speaks up before I can pretend the opposite is true.
“You were?” Liam looks surprised. “I just went out to Charlie’s with some of my friends from track. You just said to be home by seven. Right?” He looks down at his watch. “I’m not late.”
“No, it’s fine.” I grab another paper towel from the counter to replace the one that’s drenched in my blood. “Did you have fun?”
Liam shrugs. “Sure.”
The blood seems to have slowed down, which is a good thing. I was beginning to worry I needed stitches. I’ve never had stitches before, except for during childbirth. “Was it just the guys from track? Or were there girls there?”
I try to say it casually, hoping he might let something slip. But given the way Jason smirks at me, I don’t think I was successful.
Liam goes to the cupboard to grab some glasses, which Jason forgot when he was setting the table. Liam has set the table many more times than Jason has. “It was just the guys.”
Jason laughs. “He probably wouldn’t tell us if it wasn’t.”
He probably wouldn’t. And that’s exactly what I’m afraid of.
Chapter Sixteen
OLIVIA
“Tyler.” I frown as I say his name. “What are you doing here?”
The last person I expected to see when I got home was Tyler Martinson. He’s still got on his football jersey, and he’s sitting on the front steps of my house, his elbows on his knees. When he sees me get out of the car, he scrambles back to his feet.
“Olivia,” he says. “I’ve got to talk to you.”
“Tyler!” My mother has noticed Tyler sitting there. He knows her because Tyler’s mom is this crazy PTA lady. She’s always volunteering for this or selling tickets for that. All the other parents are always trying to suck up to her, including my mom. “How are you doing?”
“Good.” Tyler shrugs. Liam is always really polite around adults, but Tyler isn’t. I’m lucky he doesn’t curse my mother out. “Mrs. Mercer, I need to talk to Olivia for afew minutes.”
My mother hesitates. Even though she knows his mother, Tyler doesn’t look like the kind of guy you want to leave your daughter alone with. He’s big, he doesn’t look adults in the eye unless he’s pissed off, and he resembles the date rapist in some TV movie.
“Just for a few minutes,” Mom says. “Then I want you to come inside, Olivia.”
I nod, disappointed my mother wouldn’t give me an excuse to blow off Tyler. I don’t want to talk to him. Not for a few minutes—not for a few seconds. But when my mother goes back into the house, he and I are left alone together for the first time since that day he asked me out and I said no.
The thing is, Tyler isn’t bad-looking. He’s actually pretty good-looking. Not as cute as Liam, but who is, right? The reason I didn’t want to go out with him had nothing to do with his looks. It had to do with the fact that he’s a jerk. And a bully.
For example, when we were freshmen, there was this kid in our class named Greg, who was like the nicest kidever. But he was also really scrawny, wore super thick glasses, and was definitely pretty nerdy. For some reason, Tyler made it his mission to torture Greg. I had gym with the two of them, and Tyler was always trying to find a way to throw the ball directly at Greg as hard as he could.Which, in Tyler’s case, was really hard. I remember one time he threw it at him so hard that his glasses broke and his nose started to bleed.
He also started rumors about him online. I can’t remember all the details, but it was pretty bad. I think they also Photoshopped Greg’s face on all these embarrassing pictures. Then they sent the pictures to the whole school.
It was stuff like that the entire year. By the time June came along, Greg was so beaten down that he barely spoke anymore to anyone. And then he didn’t come back to school in September.