Twenty Seven.
"What did you do?" I shove Paul as hard as I can. He's not expecting it, so bashes into the edge of the pool table. The laughter from his friends turns us both red.
"What the hell, Bella? I've not done anything. Back off." He stands up and takes a step toward me, pool cue in hand. I reach out for it and try and rip it away from him, but Sam pushes between us. "Can we please just talk this through?"
"No, we can't," I grind out like smashed glass.
I roped Sam into helping me find Cullen, the only person with time to burn, an available car, and who was a willing accomplice. He'd been happy to be my driver while we tried to track down anyone who could fill in the ever increasing blanks. He's not so keen now.
Rage is pulsing through my veins like lava. I explode again. "You fucked with Cullen and now he's gone. Are you happy?"
Sam has turned around now, wrapping his arms around me and pinning them to my sides. "Cut it out, B. Let's just go."
I thrash around but he's stronger. "You'll get what's coming to you. Just wait and see." I spit though there's nothing I can do, but I'm too furious to see that yet.
"She's crazy." Ben laughs, his sneer full of malice and vindication. Without Cullen here he's back to his place at the top of the food chain, and enjoying every scrap.
"Let's go, Bella," Sam repeats, pushing me backwards without letting go.
"No, I want to know what happened, what they've done. They hate him and now they've got rid of him. Just as they wanted. I'm not stupid. You're not stupid. Tell me you don't think it was them?" I plead with Sam as he keeps walking me away from the fault lines. I'm shaking under his grip.
"We don't know anything other than he's been suspended while they investigate. They might be wrong, and you've not even spoken to Cullen yet. We don't know what happened. You have to hear his side first. There could be a reason he had the drugs."
I'm not picky in my anger so I swing it over to him like a lump hammer. "A reason he had it? What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means nothing. Just you need to hear his side first."
"You think it was him, don't you?"
Sam sighs and swipes his hair back from his face. "What do you really know about him, B?"
"I know he wouldn't do that."
"You've known him for two minutes." He waves as the gathering crowd behind us. "You've known them for years. I'm not saying he did or didn't do it, but just wait to throw the accusations around until you know, 'kay?"
Everyone's eyes are on us, punching holes in me. I can feel the pieces fluttering to the floor. Without anything to back me up I'm struggling to stand up against them. If I can't get anyone to believe in him, how will he ever want to come back? "You're supposed to be my friend, and his too, and I'm asking for you to help me."
"I said I'd help you find him, not start a fight."
"Well, I'm running out of ideas."
Sam leads me away from the pool hall, back into the reception. I slam the door on them all as hard as I can.
It draws Carmen out of her office like a startled rabbit. "What's going on?"
"Nothing. I'm just taking Bella home now." Sam tries to drag me away.
"Is everything alright?" She's the hardest person you could ever want to fool so I don't even try.
I let go of his hand, turning to face her. "No, but I'll be okay."
"Come and talk to me." She opens her door wider and gestures for me to come in, a hundred bangles jangle on her arm. It's an order not a suggestion.
My shoulders slump, and I give up for tonight, banking on him finally turning up tomorrow. "You can go, Sam. I'll get the bus back."
"I'll wait." He takes a seat outside her office and folds his arms.
"Go. Honestly, I'm fine," I say, and close the door behind me, 99% sure he'll be there when I come out.
"Do you want a cup of tea?" she asks, turning her small kettle on.
I shake my head, but she's makes one anyway, spooning enough sugar in to make my teeth fall out. I sit on the small patchwork settee by her desk and accept the steaming cup, sipping the sickly sweet tea. I realise I've not eaten anything all day so the sugar rush is appreciated.
Carmen sits beside me, tucking her wild hair behind her ears as she pushes her glasses onto the top of her head. "So, sweetheart, do you want to talk about what's happened? Is it the new boy?"
I'm not surprised she's heard about him and me. Carmen knows everyone and anyone who walks through this building. I'd be amazed if she didn't already know more about his life than I do. She will definitely know he's been suspended, but I humour her. "He was suspended from school. They found drugs in his locker … or one he was using. But I know it wasn't him."
"How do you know that?"
"I just do." I'm frustrated I don't have more to give, backup to explain the feelings I have about him. It's a sharp shock of realisation of how little I know. "I've been spending a lot of time with him, and he's never done anything to make me think he'd have any drugs."
"Perhaps there's another explanation?"
"Like what?"
"I'm not sure, that's what you'll have to work out, what you need to ask him, but you should wait for him to talk to you before you play the blame game. It'll only end badly if you're wrong." Her eyes are as blue as the oceans on the other side of the world, ones I've never had the chance to see. They're calm and reassuring, and I feel the dam ready to burst in my chest, wanting to spill out.
"Ever since they laid eyes on him, the night of the party, they've hated him."
She jumps on the titbit like a hawk. "Why, what happened then?"
I realise this is my chance to tell the truth about Ben and the party, to talk to someone who would know how to deal with it, an adult who can tell me what to do and to hold my hand through it all, something I've never had. But still, there is something that stops me. I shore up the flow before it becomes a tsunami. "Nothing really, just macho stuff. But it changed how they all think of him."
"So you think they'd, whoever they are, planned this?"
"I don't know, maybe." I'm so tired, I could curl up in her office and sleep for a week, hoping when I wake, things will be back the way they were.
"Why?"
She's worse than Cope. "To get back at him for me. For us being friends and … more."
"But surely even if they did that, it wouldn't stop you from seeing him outside of school, so it wouldn't be a very good plan."
"I suppose, but I don't know where he lives. I don't know how to get in touch with him unless he comes to find me at home or at school."
"He didn't tell you where he lives?"
"He lives in Adswood."
"I see." Carmen has a stream of kids from the estates through her door, she knows what growing up there entails, what it can produce from its deepest, murkiest depths. She's thrown numerous lifejackets out for them and saved many, but others try to drag themselves and everyone else back down with them. "You mustn't go looking for him there."
I nod, but I already know I will.
"He hasn't told me much. He's … private about his past. He got involved in some things … but he's changed," I say, and start to wonder why I think this is the truth myself. Carmen reaches over and takes my hand, brushing her thumb over the back of it. "Bella, if he wants to find you, he will."
The chance that he might not is one I can't imagine. He's inked onto my skin like the mural of the sea monster. Seeping into my cells so his absence has left a mark too deep to scrub away without causing damage.
I need to find him before I lose myself.
AN: Thank you for reading as always.
Love to Kim and Choc. Kim prettified this for me and she also sorted out last chapter, too. They're the best.