The Tenth Girl

by Aarons, Carrie

  I wept most nights, silently, the sobs wracking my shoulders as I hugged a pillow to my stomach. I couldn’t go three seconds without thinking of him, or the way he had looked at me. I cried in the shower, I cried in the horse pastures where no one could see me. Mom and Grandma knew that something was wrong, but they hadn’t prodded me too much. Hell, I barely showed up to dinner anymore. I just wasn’t hungry.

  At school, it was a mixed bag. Some of the popular kids still spoke to me, while most chose to ignore the weird new girl that Cain Kent had … what? We hadn’t dated. We hadn’t had sex.

  We were nothing. Not anymore.

  I still had MK and Imogen, and at least it was the week before a holiday, so most of the students and teachers were in that mode of just wanting to get the hell out of school.

  The only thing that distracted me was marketing my book. I’d found more than a few blogs who wanted to help promote it after reading advanced copies, and I spent endless hours emailing more to ask politely if they’d like a review copy.

  I made graphics and set up photo shoots for my slowly growing Instagram. I reached out to readers and read reviews on Goodreads, which sometimes backfired on me. I tried to stay positive and had decided for a publish date of early January. I wanted the book to get some traction with bloggers before I released it, so that maybe the word would be out there.

  But when my work was done, and I’d trudged through homework and studying for actual school, the cloud of heartbreak loomed so low over my head that I could swear it was raining at all times.

  He had broken me. Cain had done what no boy had done before. He had made me fall in love. So deeply and without a backward glance that I look back now at the stupid girl who had been convinced he was a good guy … and I want to smack her.

  The question I ask myself the most is, would I always feel like this?

  Other people had been heartbroken before, and they were still living. Still standing. So when did this stop? When did my heart glue itself back together? When would the pit in my stomach cease to exist?

  How could I possibly live with this gnawing desperation clinging to every bone and fiber?

  If I could go back, I’d run the other way the first day I saw that boy get out of his Jeep.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Cain

  “I am what you designed me to be. I am your blade. You cannot now complain if you also feel the hurt.”

  These are the only words I’ve received from Harper in the last text she sent me. That was over two weeks ago, and she’s cut off all communication since. With Thanksgiving coming and going, half days and holidays and midterms … I hadn’t seen much of her. But when I had, she looked past me.

  As if I were dead. A ghost, a memory she’d erased from her brain.

  Her Great Expectations quote gutted me, because she was right. I had designed our entire relationship on the premise of fucking her to win the competition.

  And because of my own actions, I’d used her as the blade that had cut my heart in half, too. I could barely sleep these days, nothing held enjoyment for me. Not watching sports news and seeing highlights of myself and my team winning state. Not going to parties with my friends. Not even going to see Gramps.

  Of course the rumors started the minute that she walked out of that library. Not that being in a relationship had stopped other girls from flirting with me, but it had been a nightmare now that I was single. Girls rubbing up against me, trying to walk to class with me, bringing me drinks at parties.

  I wanted none of it. The only person I wanted was Harper.

  And then of course, there was the rumor someone had started that I’d fucked her and then dumped her. That one was the worst of all. I tried to stem the bleeding, put a gag order on anyone I heard spreading that shit. But it didn’t work. They all thought, from my past reputation, that I’d boned the new girl and then sent her crying once I broke her heart.

  Twice, too, I’d had to threaten to beat the piss out of someone who was talking shit about her in my vicinity. At least it was nice to know that Harper still had MK, who shot me a death glare anytime she saw me in the hallway.

  “Yo, Kent, are you even listening?” Paul hits me hard with the back of his hand to my pec.

  It hadn’t taken long for me to figure out that it had been my idiot friends blabbing their mouths about the competition around school that had fueled Harper to break up with me.

  “No,” I deadpan.

  We were walking down Main Street, about to go try out the new taco place that had just opened up, except I couldn’t figure out why I’d come in the first place. I wanted no part of being around this crew right now.

  “He’s still pissed off about the new girl. She won’t ride his dick anymore.” Grady raise his eyebrows and laughs.

  “Eh, whatever, she’s yesterday’s garbage anyway. Cain wham bam, thank you ma’amed her.” Emmitt holds his hand out to me for a fist bump.

  I round on him, stopping our motley crew from moving any farther down the street. “Don’t you ever speak about her like that again.”

  He holds his hands up. “Ease up, man. It’s just a chick.”

  I run my hands through my hair, frustrated. “It’s not just a chick. I love her.”

  Grady laughs like a hyena. “What?! Love? Who the fuck are you?”

  I break off from them, knowing where I need to go. “Man, forget you guys.”

  Part of me doesn’t even feel like explaining to them, because they won’t get it. Hustling across the street, I walk toward the place I know I can go to find solace and advice.

  Ten minutes later, I’m walking through the doors of Sons of America, and Nanette looks surprised to see me. “It’s not Monday, honey.”

  “Does a guy need an excuse to visit his gramps?” I smile weakly at her.

  She points down the hall. “He’s in the recreation room, playing solitaire.”

  I walk toward it, knowing my way around the place because I was the grandson of the self-appointed mayor of the joint. When I enter the doorway of the rec room, I see a familiar figure hunched over at a table in the corner, cards laid out in front of him.

  “I don’t know how you play this game, it’s so boring,” I greet him.

  He doesn’t look up. “It’s called skill and patience, two things that your teenage behind won’t have for a long time, sonny.”

  I sit down in the chair next to his and watch him finish his game.

  When he does, he looks up. “So, you have girl troubles, huh?”

  My mouth drops open. “How did you know?”

  Gramps chuckles. “Boy, I might be old, but I’m not blind. You have heartbreak written all over your face. What happened with Harper? I like her, she’s a very nice girl.”

  “I screwed it up,” I grumble.

  “Well, what did you do?”

  I’m definitely not telling him about the competition. He is blood, but he still may slap me upside the head. “I told some friends some uh … things about our relationship. Things I should have kept between us. And she got upset, called me a liar, broke up with me.”

  There, that kind of summed it up for him.

  Gramps’ face contorts into a scowl. “You kissed and told, didn’t you? That’s the opposite of what a gentleman does.”

  “I know.” I sigh, “What can I do to get her back?”

  He studies me. “One time, after we’d been married for five years, I did something that hurt your grandmother. Now, I’m not going to get into it, but you should know that I had been a real jerk. And to make up for it, I groveled. You need to perfect your grovel, because if you love a woman, you’ll be doing it a lot. You need to be damn sorry, and then kiss the ground she walks on. Because women, they are the superior gender, even if we want to be stubborn about it. Apologize, because I can tell that you love this girl. You’re all torn up over her.”

  I was surprised, I’d always thought that they’d had the perfect marriage. “I can’t believe you two fought.”


  “Everyone fights, Cain. It’s what you do when you’re in love. You fight with each other, for each other, and against the world.”

  His poetic words renew a sense of fight inside of me. Even though I screwed up, so badly, with Harper, I was going to grovel. And then I was going to fight. For us.

  “Now, that hand looks brutal. You need to call your father, and get it looked at.”

  I hadn’t even been holding my hand out for him, yet he’d known it was hurt. “I swear, some days I think you are psychic.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Cain

  As if my heart wasn’t broken enough for the rest of my body, my finger was still throbbing every second of the day.

  I sit on the table of one of the best sports medicine doctors in Texas, as he pulls and pushes at my hand. He might as well have been slicing daggers into my fingertips.

  “Ouch …” I wince.

  “Yeah, I think that finger is broken. I’m going to have to splint it, and I’ll give you a cortisone shot before that. Hopefully with it immobile and putting you out of pain, will give it time to heal.”

  I look up at the ceiling, push out a breath and try to swallow the tears collecting in my throat. “I’m going to have to report this to my university, aren’t I?”

  The doctor, a guy with sandy brown hair in his mid-forties, sighs and his mouth drops into a frown. “I’m afraid so. I’m also going to have to give them my report, but if I were you, I’d call them first. I’ll give you time to do that. Luckily, you have almost nine months to recover from this, which will be more than enough time. You should go see the orthopedic surgeon to get a second opinion about surgery. I’ve looked to make sure everything in there is attached and straight before we set it in the splint, but you’ll need to get an MRI. And I can give you the number for the surgeon.”

  The words surgery and recovery echo in my ears, and I try to bite down the bile working its way up my throat. Even though it was a minor injury, my brain still rattles with fear knowing that my hand is my golden goose.

  I leave the doctor’s office with a splint and a referral to an orthopedic surgeon. My hand is numb from the shot the doctor dispensed into it, and I figure I have to call Dad with the news.

  As I’m crossing Main Street, I look into the alley beside the coffee shop. The one where Harper let me touch her for the first time. Where she gave her trust to me.

  I was a fucking idiot.

  I shake my head and keep moving, until I see a flash of white-blond from the window inside the cafe. There she is, in her favorite spot by the window, the warmth and coziness of the shop making my bones chill as I stand in the shade of a cold December afternoon.

  Harper is intensely typing on her laptop, the one that looks like it had come straight out of the nineties. I wonder, offhand, if she has published her novel. She had let me read only snippets of it, and before I’d thoroughly ruined our relationship with my lie, I’d been begging her for more. I argued that she couldn’t let me read part of a mystery and not get to know the ending.

  Either way, I’d been searching Amazon in the time we’d been apart, to see if Harper Posy was a published author yet. I planned to buy the book as soon as it came out.

  Gramps’ words hit me right where it hurt. I’d screwed up, but I also hadn’t fought for her. I haven’t done a thing to show her how much I love her, that I would take bombs, bullets and bad guys on for her.

  Losing Harper has taught me that there are more important things in life than fame, fortune and football. I wasn’t sure why I was thinking in such alliterative phrases, but I guess heartbreak would do that to a guy.

  Before her, I’d been resting on my laurels, tapping into my athletic talent and playing around with girls. I hadn’t wanted anything serious, had pushed it away with my complex about females leaving me. But once I’d lost Harper, it was like something inside of me broke. That shell I’d been protecting my heart with had cracked and crumbled to ash.

  Why the hell have I been running away from one of the best things that has ever happened to me? I sabotaged our relationship with that stupid fucking competition, and then after she found out, I tried to lie about it.

  I hadn’t tried to talk to her, not seriously, since our split. I’d half-assed begging, had tried to talk to her girlfriends, had sent sappy, sad text messages. But I’d been consumed with my heartbreak. I hadn’t really considered what it would take to heal her splintered love.

  Staring at her through that coffee shop window, I know that I need to prove it to her. To show that I am going to fight for us.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Harper

  Holidays weren’t a big deal when it was only you and your mother living in a trailer in a part of the world where it didn’t even snow.

  Our Christmas in Florida had consisted of opening one present each and then eating Mom’s braised chicken at the kitchen table, where the tiniest lit up tree from Walmart sat.

  But in Texas, they did everything big. And even though you’d think Grandma was too grouchy to deck the hall … man, did she deck them.

  Tinsel, ornaments, even cutting down our own enormous tree on the outskirts of the property. Grandma grew evergreens specifically for the purpose of having a fresh one in her house for Christmas. She had carols on all the time, since Thanksgiving that was the only music we’d been allowed to listen to at home. And she’d warned us that we better bring our present game, because she didn’t mess around.

  “Was she always like this growing up?” I whispered to Mom one day when we’d been helping Grandma make a dozen batches of Christmas cookies.

  “Not as intense, but I think after Grandpa died, she thought she had to uphold the traditions for both of them,” she’d whispered back.

  We were spending Christmas Day just the three of us, with church in the morning and a big old feast in the afternoon. But for Christmas Eve, we’d been invited to spend the day with Michael and Annabelle, and my mom had accepted before I could make up some excuse of why I couldn’t go.

  So here I am, sitting on Annabelle Mills’ couch with a glass of eggnog, trying not to bolt out the door. I would try hard for Mom, but this just isn’t natural.

  “We chopped it right down. Well, I laid on the ground while Annabelle held the tree, probably texting as I struggled with a blunt hacksaw.” Michael laughs, putting his hand on my mother’s knee.

  I look down into my drink. Even though it’s Christmas and it’s supposed to be a festive time with family, I can’t help but let the sorrow wash in. I think about Cain every day. And even though I should hate him … I still love him so much.

  It feels like there is a gaping wound in the middle of my chest that only I can see. How I’m supposed to function, much less get through the school year in the same building as him, I’m not sure how that’s going to happen.

  Michael asks Mom to help him in the kitchen with dinner, and Grandma goes to check out the collection of hunting magazines that Michael keeps in his study.

  Grandma and Mom definitely know there is something going on with me, but they’ve been kind enough to not ask about the constantly red eyes or mounds of tissues in my trash can. They don’t ask why Cain doesn’t come around anymore, because I have a feeling they know. I’m not sure they realize how badly he broke my heart, but they’ve given me space and I’m glad. I’m not sure I can even formulate words to describe the kind of anguish my heart and pride are in.

  “He really does love you.” Annabelle is staring at me from the loveseat across the room.

  My mouth goes dry. “Excuse me?”

  “Cain. He might have done an asshole thing, but he’s a guy. They can be assholes.” She shrugs. “But, if you’re hurting as bad as he is right now, you might consider forgiving him.”

  I’m stunned. Actually, literally shocked. The same girl who had tried to ruin my life in Haven from day one was trying to tell me to get back together with my ex-boyfriend. The one she’d called dibs on and then trashed me
to.

  “I’m sorry, this is none of your business.” I stare her down, too numb and heartbroken to put up with whatever game she’s playing.

  “I know you don’t want to hear anything from me. I know I’ve been a bitch … and maybe it’s just because I didn’t want to see Cain happy with anyone. But now that you guys are broken up … part of me just feels bad. Prior to everyone’s belief, I’m not so bad. Damaged, yes. But not bad. And I’m telling you, that boy loves you.”

  My arms cross over my chest. “Did he tell you this?”

  Annabelle’s face breaks into a small smile. “He didn’t have to. He’s barely spoken to his friends in a month, proof that he feels guilty as all hell for starting that dumb competition. Cain also hasn’t shown up to any parties since you split, and he won’t even look in another girl’s direction. He hurt his hand for you, broke his finger punching Josiah to defend your honor even though it could have meant the end of his career before it started. He also has been radio silent on social media or texting, and the way he looks at you …”

  “How does he look at me?” I lean forward on the couch, not caring if I seem desperate in this moment.

  Annabelle isn’t looking at me, but out the window. “Like he’ll break into a million pieces if he can’t be next to you. Like if he was in a desert and there was a choice between you or water, he’d pick you.”

  She looks back at me, focused. “When a guy looks at you like that, you need to recognize it. Don’t take it for granted.”

  My heart is thumping in my chest. While her advice is sound, I have a feeling it comes from a deeper place.

  Annabelle takes a sip of her eggnog, and then opens her mouth to speak again. “You know that he’s having surgery today, right?”

  A pang echoes in my heart. If we had still been together, I would have been there. I would have brought him chicken soup, or a cheeseburger with extra hot sauce, his favorite. I can’t describe the feeling that runs over my skin. Desperation? Anguish? But the pit in my stomach makes me feel bereft, as if I’ve left him hurting instead of the other way around.