Read My Sweetest Escape Online
Authors: Chelsea M. Cameron
Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #Contemporary, #General
break room. I am not, nor will I ever be, the
kind of girl who would do that.”
“That wasn’t… I never thought you
were…”
This thing had spiraled out of control,
and I was starting to get a little pissed. Why
in the hell did he have to be so freaking
frustrating?
“Look, Jos. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry
about…everything.
You’ve done nothing wrong. It’s all on
my side, and I wish I could just snap my
fingers and take it all back.” With that, he
strode by me, opened the door and shut it,
leaving me to wonder what the hell I’d
gotten myself into and how I was ever going
to get out of it.
Of course in all the confusion I had
completely forgotten about the party and
the fact that Dusty was coming to it. Instead
of potentially causing a big deal, I snatched
Hunter’s phone and scrolled through his
contacts and memorized Dusty’s number
before Hunter could notice. He was too
busy making googly eyes at Taylor, so I was
pretty much in the clear.
I wrote and deleted five messages
before going with one.
R U still coming tonite? This is Jos.
I felt like a moron, putting the identifier
at the end, but I didn’t want him to think
the message was from some random
person. I stared at my phone and waited for
a response. He was still at work, but I had
the feeling the cell phone policy at Bull
Moose was pretty lax.
Yes. I promised Renee I would. See you
later.
The words were blank and emotionless.
I couldn’t see his face to know if he was
smiling when he wrote them, but intuition
told me that he was either mad at me,
himself or both. If only he’d used a winky
face, I would have known he was joking. But
then again, Dusty didn’t seem like the kind
of guy who would use a winky face via text.
I typed out two letters and sent them.
OK.
“Are you sure you still want to do this?”
Renee said, coming up for air after studying
all day for an exam on a subject I couldn’t
even pronounce, let alone begin to
understand.
“I mean, I bought a dress, and Hannah is
all for it. I talked her out of her Carrie plan
by telling her that the best revenge was
living well. So now her plan is to look hot
and dance and have a good time to shove it
in their faces. We’ll see if it works. They’ll
probably be far too drunk to notice, but I
don’t think that will matter,” I said.
She sat down next to me at the dining
room table, where I’d been reading the
latest assignments for English from my
classmates. Most of them made me want to
gouge my eyes out. These people had no
respect for
their, they’re
and
there.
None at all.
“Has she ever told you what happened
to her? I mean, I can see that she’s had a lot
of reconstructive surgery. That’s why her
skin has that weird pattern on it. Skin grafts
from other parts of her body.” I knew that,
but I didn’t say anything.
“No, she just told me it was a long story.
Hannah’s the type of person who doesn’t
talk about something unless she wants to.
Reading between the lines it sounds pretty
horrific. Like one of those things you wish
you didn’t know. I’m sure she’ll tell me at
some point, but I’m not going to drag it out
of her. People keep secrets for a reason.”
“Like you, maybe?” She flipped my hair
over my shoulder, but I could see she
wasn’t mad. “I just wish you trusted me
enough to tell me.”
“It’s not that I don’t want to, or that I
don’t trust you.”
“Then what is it, Jos? We’ve been
through so much together.”
“I know, I know.” Trust had absolutely
nothing to do with it. It was more like…if I
told her, if I opened up that wound again, I
didn’t think it would ever close, ever heal.
It was better to put a bandage over it
and hope that it would heal on its own with
time. And besides, I should have this
wound. It was mine to bear.
She got up and put her arms around me,
resting her chin on my shoulder. “You know
that I love you, right? You’re my favorite
sister.” I put my arms up and hugged her
back.
“I know. You’re my favorite, too. Now
what do you want?”
She laughed.
“Nothing. I just felt like I needed to say it
since we didn’t when we were growing up.”
She was right. Mom and Dad and our
various stepparents hadn’t been big on the
affection.
That was probably why Renee and I had
such skewed views on love. It must be so
easy for those kids with two normal parents
that love each other to believe in the
existence of love.
Not that I believed it didn’t exist. Living
in a house full of couples who were crazy
about each other pretty much guaranteed
its existence. But was it only possible for
some people?
I mean, if love was so prevalent and real,
then why did so many people get divorced?
My parents had stood up with several
people each, claiming to love and honor
and all that forever and ever, and then
forever turned into yesterday. Were people
just wrong about love? Or did they just pick
the wrong people to love? How the hell did
you choose the right one?
“It’s a good thing to say,” I said, letting
her go as I went back to my homework.
There were only a few people on this planet
that I could really say that I loved, and one
of them was gone, and I could never tell
him again.
“Love you, big sister.”
I had to live the day, but I had to love it,
too. Just like he’d said.
This time I was allowed to do my own
makeup, but I had to borrow Renee’s and
Taylor’s again, since I still didn’t have my
own. Taylor had decided she was wearing
pants, but Darah and Renee went with
dresses so I didn’t feel too left out. Hannah
came over to get ready, and I watched as
Taylor, Darah and Renee gave her the
same treatment I’d gotten last time.
“Ouch!” she said as Taylor tried to
finger-comb Hannah’s hair.
“Sorry! I thought mine was bad, but this
is crazy. What do you use for conditioner?”
Hannah winced again.
“Coconut oil. It’s the only thing that
works.” Hannah and Taylor started
swapping hair tips and tricks as I lined my
eyes. I was doing a toned-down version of
the smoky look they’d given me for the
engagement party. For a moment, I was
back in my old life, doing my makeup every
day. I shook my head. I had to stop thinking
about that.
Once again, the guys were left waiting
downstairs, and I could hear them having a
loud and violent video game battle.
“I swear, it’s like they never grow up,”
Darah said as we came downstairs and the
guys were so wrapped up in their game
they didn’t notice at first.
“Maybe we should just go naked,”
Taylor said loudly.
“But then we might get cold,” Renee
said, just as loud.
Every single male head snapped around
at the word
naked.
It was like they were trained or
something.
“Hopeless,” Taylor said. “You’re all
completely hopeless.”
“Hey, it’s not my fault,” Hunter said. “If
you didn’t look so good naked, I wouldn’t
be thinking about it. All the time.”
“What he said,” Mase said as Darah
glared at him.
Dusty got up slowly, as if he didn’t want
to join us. Or maybe he didn’t want to join
me. I’d seen his head turn along with the
others, though.
“You all can just keep it in your pants,
thanks,” Hannah said, putting her coat on.
“I have some revenge to get to.”
We ended up taking three cars, just in
case someone needed to bail and to make
sure no one got stranded. I rode with
Hannah and Dusty, and this time, I made
her take the front seat. It meant that I saw
Dusty’s eyes sparkling in the rearview
mirror frequently, but at least I didn’t have
to be within touching distance of him. He’d
been mostly silent, and hadn’t even
commented on the dress I was wearing.
Hannah chattered away to fill the
silence, and I reminded myself to thank her
later. I hadn’t given her complete details on
the Dusty situation, but she was smart
enough to read between the lines. Plus, she
was a bit distracted by her upcoming plan.
Dusty was still vague on the details.
“It’s like in
Legally Blonde,
when these
girls tell Elle the party they invite her to is a
costume party, but it’s not and she shows
up dressed like a Playboy bunny and then
she just acts like she meant to do it,” she
said. As if Dusty had ever seen that movie. I
would die of shock if he had.
“Didn’t they do that in Bridget Jones,
too?” I said.
“Yeah, they did. Huh.”
“So shouldn’t you be in a bunny
costume?” Dusty said.
“No, you are completely missing the
point,” Hannah said, frustrated. “Oh, in
Pretty Woman,
when she gets treated like
crap by those women in the clothing store,
and then she goes back after she’s cleaned
up and gotten new clothes and shoves it in
their faces.”
“Isn’t that the one where she’s a
hooker?” Dusty said.
Hannah threw her hands up in
frustration. “Can you focus for two
seconds? My God, I swear all you guys have
a direct line from your brain to your dicks.”
“Who says we don’t?” I saw a shade of
the Dusty I’d known, pre–kitchen incident.
Hannah just grumbled the rest of the
way. Of course, there was literally no place
to park that was within range of the house,
so we ended up parking in the lot by the old
steam plant that still churned out disgusting
air that you always smelled when you were
on campus and within wind range.
“You sure you can walk in those?” Dusty
said as we got out. The heels I’d gotten
weren’t that high, but I didn’t plan on
having to trek from the parking lot to the
house.
“I’m fine,” I said, stepping in front of him
and taking Hannah’s arm. We walked in
step away from the car, seeing the rest of
our gang all hanging out by their cars.
Renee pulled me and Hannah aside.
“If I catch either of you drinking, or
doing anything that you wouldn’t do in
front of your grandmother, I will make you
regret it. I have scalpels, and I know how to
use them.
Understood?”
We both nodded.
“Okay, let’s get this over with,” Renee
said, and Paul offered her his arm.
“Your sister is hella scary sometimes,”
Hannah whispered to me as we fell in line
behind the rest of the group. Dusty was last,
behind us. He looked like he’d rather be
eating glass while simultaneously getting a
colonoscopy.
“Tell me about it. She’s gotten worse
now that she knows all this medical stuff.”
I was shocked the party hadn’t gotten
broken up already, because it was so loud
you could feel the bass beat in your chest
from a half mile away. It only got worse the
closer we got.
By the time we were standing in front of
the house, I was second-guessing my
willingness to go along with this. I’d been to
plenty of wild parties, and if my past
experience was any indication, this was a
rager. I hadn’t been around one of these in
quite a few months. In fact, I barely
remembered the last one. It was a wonder I
hadn’t gotten raped, or had anything else
happen to me, but Kelly and Mac had
always looked out for me, and if things got
crazy, we usually went back to his place and
just drank with his friends. I’d gotten a few
texts from her, but I’d ignored them.
“You ready for this, Han?” Her arm had
tightened on mine the closer we’d gotten,