She turned her gaze to the side, her eyes momentarily clouded with something I couldn’t quite place. “Mason.”

The name barely registered before the calculations began, my brain working at an inhuman speed. Mason. Her classmate. The one who played on the soccer team. The one whose father was a lawyer. The one who always looked too long at girls who weren’t looking back.

I couldn’t stand entitled brats like him, who took whatever they wanted with this twisted sense of deserving. I’m a king in my daddy’s mansion, and I deserve this car I didn’t lift a finger for. I deserve that woman doing whatever I want.

“What did he do, Beverly? Please, I need you to talk to⁠—”

More tears. More shaking.

She looked so small that I ached to wrap her in my arms and shield her from the world, keeping her all to myself, away from anyone who might hurt her.

“I don’t know if I deserved it,” she choked out. “Maybe…maybe I sent him the wrong signals…”

My entire body locked up. She did not just say that.

I forced myself to breathe. Forced myself to stay still. Forced myself not to go ballistic because now, now I knew the worst thing of all—she blamed herself.

“What did he do?” I asked again, softer now.

She swallowed hard. “We were dancing,” she started, her voice barely audible. “Not in any way that would make him think I wanted something more. Just…having fun, you know?”

I nodded, but the word fun was already a memory she would never get back.

“He said he wanted to grab another CD from his room because I’d complained about the songs replaying,” she went on, her voice cracking. “I followed him. I felt responsible for making him change the music.”

“You were at his house?”

She nodded. “He was throwing a party.”

“What happened next?”

She tightened the towel around her body like armor. “He told me he’d show me a few CDs and I’d get to choose. He took me there and… I feel so stupid, Blake. I’m so stupid.”

“Tell me, Beverly,” I gritted out.

“He handed me a whole bunch of CDs, and as I was looking through them, he started rubbing my back. I moved away from him, but he kept coming closer. I could smell the alcohol on his breath, he was that close⁠—”

A thousand equations ran through my head.

The distance between the door and the bed.

The average strength of a teenage girl versus a boy fueled by testosterone and entitlement.

The likelihood of someone hearing her scream over the music.