I wanted to run and talk to her, find out who her date was. Maybe slap her on the butt and say “good game” in a husky voice to make her laugh. That’s what we did and who we were before. I wanted that back. Maybe Liam was wrong, and I couldn’t be normal ever again.
“Why are you tempting me?” The sensation of Liam’s breath on my ear made my knees come dangerously close to wobbling. “A promise is a promise, and I am a man of my word. Shall we dance?”
“Uh, don’t you want to go see some of your buddies?” I looked over to his Amazon-birds entourage in brightly colored shirts—and did a double take. Four guys. Four girls. Four sets of T-shirts in solid colors. His best friend, Chase, and his girlfriend, Meg, in purple. His other friend Jett, with his date, in yellow. And the fourth couple, in red, Jace the Ass Face with none other than One-Up Taylor.
“Is this a group date?” I asked Liam, horrified.
They were all looking at us now, some of them waving us over.
“Not exactly,” he said, holding his finger up to his friends, asking for a minute. “Traditionally, in high school, teenagers attend dances as a group. But…” He paused, looking at me. “We can do whatever you want.”
I tried not to feel trapped. “Did you not hear my objection to the awkward group-date thing?” I asked, just a little too snarkily. “Liam, Jace and Taylor both hate me!”
“Whoa.” He let go of my hand so he could cup my face. “I had no idea they were even coming. It’s not like they asked my permission,” he said, snarking right back. “But honestly, tonight we don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. We can keep our distance.”
“It’s not like I want to be the jerk girlfriend, but…” I didn’t know what to say without sounding exactly like a jerk.
“Hang on, did you just call yourself my girlfriend?”
Oh, double snap. Liam’s eyes crinkled with amusement.
“I didn’t mean to infer—”
“Wait.” He put one finger over my lips, looking like a retriever who’d just heard one of those silent dog whistles. “This is my song. Come on!”
As we slow danced to the cheesy remix of an ’80s love song, he drew me in tight and I laid my head on his chest. How many times had I dreamed of being this close to him? All I knew was that it was better than I’d dared to imagine. It was the way his hips moved against mine. The way his lips brushed my neck as he sang the ridiculous chorus lyrics. The way he assured me with every movement that he wasn’t letting go.
He knew me for exactly what I was, and he was still here.
I was disarmed, in every way.
In order to avoid spontaneous combustion, I had to distract myself, so I peered around the dark gym watching the lights trickling over the crowd.
Suddenly, a movement caught my eye—the outline of a man with broad shoulders in the dark corner of the gym.
“Oh no,” I whispered. “Not here. Not tonight.”
I stopped dancing—and breathing.
“What’s wrong?” Liam asked.
The figure couldn’t have been more than thirty feet away, but in the darkness my eyes strained to see him clearly. A jock couple in atrocious lime-colored TapouT UFC shirts moved directly into my line of sight. I wanted to tap them out.
“Follow me.” I untangled myself from Liam and pulled him through the crowd.
If it was Silver, what was he going to do? How would we stop him?
As we weaved around the dancing couples, my vision finally adjusted to the dim light. And there he was, plain as day—Mr. Holsum, our Calculus teacher, with his unmistakable floppy comb-over, pouring himself a drink.
I felt like a moron. Not to mention paranoid. “I thought I saw…” I trailed off, feeling suddenly shaky.
“Ruby,” Liam shushed me with his voice and touch. “You don’t need to explain. I get it.”
I looked into his understanding eyes.
“Maybe we should just go,” I said. “I suck at normal.”
“What, before my song is over?” His eyebrows pinched together in dismay. “I don’t think so.”
Just as he drew me back in close, the song ended and I pulled away, thinking I’d ruined the moment and probably the night. But then the DJ announced another slow track.
I exhaled. “I’ll try not to run away this time.”
Liam held on to me for the next three songs. In fact, he barely let go of me for the next three hours as we danced, whispered, and touched.
But the fear never left me. The fear that one of the dark shadows I kept seeing out of the corner of my eye would materialize—and Silver would come back.
In fact, I knew he would.
CHAPTER 21
I’d really outdone myself this time. Not only were Alana and my mom still giving me the cold shoulder, but Dr. T was, too. She’d been distracted and distant in our appointments. I wondered if the fight with my mom was the cause. I didn’t doubt Jane was vindictive enough to have done something to compromise my relationship with Dr. T because of my comment about my twice-a-week therapist being a better mom. Maybe she’d told her that it was unprofessional to get so emotionally close to a patient, or something like that. Maybe she was hoping I’d feel like I couldn’t lean on Dr. T after all, and would break off the relationship altogether.
My suspicions spiked even higher when I got a text from Jane:
Meet me at Dr. Teresa’s office after school today. 4:00 sharp.
She had never (as in ever) come with me to an appointment before. Something must have changed. I worried about what she could possibly want to say to me that she couldn’t just say alone. Maybe she was going to tell us that she wasn’t going to let us keep having our appointments or something.
It felt like an ambush, and I didn’t like it.
The tension between my mom and me was at an all-time high. I felt like I was still sitting at the breakfast table, holding on to the edge with white knuckles, waiting for her wrath. Like I had been sitting at that table my whole life.
When she finally showed up in Dr. T’s waiting room, she was late, of course. Gucci purse in one hand and a Venti Starbucks in the other, she came storming in like a celebrity.
“Hello, Ruby,” she said with the aloof formality of a stranger.
“Hello, Mother,” I responded with the sass of a neglected teen.
“Is Dr. Teresa not here yet?” she asked as she sat down next to me and started digging through her purse.
“I don’t think so,” I said. “I knocked a minute ago and no one answered.”
“Is she usually late?”
“No, not really,” I said, thinking back. Actually, I couldn’t remember the last time she’d been late.
“Well, I don’t have time for this,” my mother said, standing and power walking over to the door to knock again.
Shocker: Jane Rose didn’t have time for this.
“What’s going on, Mom?” I asked. “Why are you even here?”
“Dr. Teresa?” she called through the door, ignoring me. “It’s Ruby and Jane. Are you in there? Please open the door.”
I rolled my eyes. If she were in there, she would open up. What if she was with a client and didn’t want to be disturbed yet?
“Mom, are you even going to answer me?”
Apparently not. She pressed her ear against the door, listening for a sign of life, I assumed. “She should get a receptionist, for crying out loud.”
“Mom?”
“What, Ruby?” she answered harshly, looking at me like I was a petulant two-year-old.
“Why are you here?”
“I’m here because we need to talk.”