Page 14

“I didn’t mean that you would,” he said, his tone softening immediately. “I just meant that she knew you’d turn that anger on me. Not that you’d be violent with her.” He chuckled, though there was clearly no humor in it. “Whoever she is…she’s fucking smart, though. Because damn, it worked.”

“Oh my God,” I whispered. “And those rumors that went around school about me having a small dick, about my inability to get it up…”

“I never heard any of that,” he said, his eyebrows rising as his lips quirked at the corners. “And I certainly never said it. How the fuck would I even know?”

“I just thought you said it to get back at me for bullying you,” I admitted.

“Unfortunately I’m not that devious,” he said.

“Why didn’t you ever fight back then? You just…took it. And all this time, you never deserved any of it.” Wow, I was a fucking asshole. Not that I hadn’t been all along, really. But I’d tortured him for years for something he never even did. That was some next level villain shit and I deserved everything and anything he decided to throw at me for retribution.

“That’s not really my style,” he offered. “What the hell kind of priest would I be if I threw punches or verbally assaulted someone?”

“What the fuck are you talking about, priest?”

“I’m going to be a priest,” he said, as if that clarified anything. “That’s why I’m at St. Catherine’s. To become a priest.”

I backed away from him and leaned against a table, my gaze locked on his and my brain still not wanting to understand the words coming out of his mouth. How was it possible that I didn’t know he wanted to be a priest?

Then again, there seemed to be a world of things I didn’t know about Andy Simpson. Like he was gay and therefore had never stolen a girl from me. Had never started rumors about me.

And was going to become a fucking priest.

“Cat got your tongue?” he teased. “Look, it’s not a big deal. It doesn’t change anything, does it?”

That was an interesting question. I mean, it changed a whole hell of a lot for me. But his hatred had to still be seething beneath his calm exterior. I’d been a prick to him for years. And now it turned out that there was no reason for it.

Of course, to him, there’d never been a reason for it because he’d known all along that he’d never done anything to instigate my treatment of him.

“Don’t!” he said firmly, as if he knew that I’d been about to apologize to him. “Seriously, Trevor. Just don’t.”

I couldn’t blame him. I wouldn’t have accepted an apology either. Not after all this time. But still…I felt as if I owed him something.

“So, what?” I challenged him, crossing my arms over my chest. “You just want me to keep being mean to you?”

“Yes.” His cheeks flushed pink as his eyes widened and he sucked his lower lip between his teeth. “I mean, no, of course not.”

“Oh, Princess,” I whispered, shaking my head as I watched his body tense up, his legs backing him up further from me. “What the hell am I going to do with you?”

“Just let me go,” he said softly. “Trevor. Please.”

“Go on then,” I said, nodding my head toward the door. “Email me my paper tonight.”

“Fuck off.” He kept his gaze on me as he moved toward the door, then turned and moved quickly, though not quite running, back out into the hall.

I stared down at my hand, cracked and bloody, and cursed myself for being so fucking stupid for so fucking long.

It would be easy to say that I’d been a kid, I’d been stupid, but it was more than that. I wasn’t just a child who’d kicked dirt on a playground. I’d thrown punches. I’d physically and verbally abused that man for years.

And now he was going to be a fucking priest.

There was probably a special place in hell for someone like me. And Catholic school or not, I wasn’t sure there were enough Hail Marys or Our Fathers to fix what I’d broken.

I headed back to my apartment, lost in thought about how I was going to make this up to Andy. Not that he wanted me to. But this was the first time I’d ever felt guilty over what had happened between us in the past.

And I should. Because I was wrong. The whole time. He wasn’t a girlfriend-stealing, rumor-starting asshole. He was just a messed up kid, like everyone else had been in high school, and I’d caused him so much extra pain he hadn’t deserved or needed.

My chest constricted as guilt burrowed even deeper inside me. Good God, Catholics actually liked this shit?