Roses and Rot by Kat Howard Read Free Book Online Page B

because I’d thought that it sounded perfect. Are you happy to be back?”
    “Melete, this part of the woods in particular—they’re among my favorite places. They feel right. So I always like coming back to them. Even when there isn’t such excellent company.” He smiled, and my blood fizzed.
    The wind rustled through the trees, shaking loose the seedpods from the maples to spiral in helicopters down the air and into the river. Goosebumps rose on my arms, and I shivered.
    Evan looked up at the darkening sky. “Storms can come in fast here. If you’re not the sort of person who likes to get caught in them, you might want to go in.”
    The wind grabbed at my hair, turning it to snakes, and the leaves were silver fish against the slate-grey sky. Thunder rumbled in distant echo. “Maybe next time, when I’m dressed for it.”
    “How will I find you, the next time there’s a storm?” Evan smiled. The rain fell, heavy drops that splotched his shirt.
    “Do you have a phone?” I asked. I very much wanted to be found.
    “Not with me.”
    “The old-fashioned way, then.” I fished in my bag for a pen, then scrawled my number across a notebook page. The wind nearly tore it from my hand as I passed it to him.
    “Until next time,” he half-shouted over the rising wind.
    The skies opened, bucketing rain. I ran for home.

    Soaked to the skin, mud-splattered, and dreaming of hot chocolate and a hotter shower, the sheer delight of dry clothes, I clumped up the porch stairs and through the front door. I toed out of Converse that squelched when I walked, and fought the urge to wring the water from my sopping hair. “Marin?” I called. “Are you here?” I didn’t want to drip my way up three flights of stairs.
    Face flushed, she stormed out of the kitchen. “What?”
    “I was hoping for a towel and dry clothes, but if this is a bad time . . .”
    “No. It’s fine.” She bit her words as if they were apples. “I’ll get them. And maybe while you’re waiting, you could explain to Helena that I’m not a whore.”
    “I—what?” Marin was already halfway up the stairs, so I stood where I was.
    “Your sister is fucking her mentor.” Helena slouched down the hallway. “Also, you’re disgusting, and I can see through your shirt.”
    “Good. Yes. Glad to know my secret plan to call down a rainstorm so I could flash my bra to the entire campus worked. Also, how is Marin’s sex life any of my business? Or yours?”
    “It’s not.” Marin held out a towel, leggings, and a T-shirt. “Which is what I’ve been trying to explain.”
    I peeled out of my soaked clothes and toweled off.
    “How do you not care?” Helena asked me, eyes ostentatiously averted from my nakedness.
    I did care, but I was pretty sure not for the reasons Helena did. I let the towel fall and pulled on the dry clothing. So much better.
    “I don’t care because Marin is an adult who is capable of making her own choices. So long as it’s consensual and she’s happy, it’s none of my business who she has sex with.”
    “It is, and I am,” Marin said, the color still high on her face.
    “Well, there you go. And even if it were my business, he seemed perfectly nice when I met him. So there really is no reason for me to step in here, and even less of one for you to.”
    “You’ve met him? Of course you have. Ugh.” Helena looked like she might spit right on the floor. She cut her eyes back to Marin. “He’s using you, and you’re too fucking stupid to see it.”
    “Still not sure how that makes me a whore,” Marin snapped.
    “Right. Because he didn’t promise you anything to get you to drop your tights. Whatever. Some of us have to actually work to get what we want while we’re here.” Helena stalked upstairs.
    “So, that was pleasant,” I said. “Want some hot chocolate?” I wanted it even more now, and it had been Marin’s favorite comfort food when we were growing up.
    “Yes. I’ll drop your gross clothes in the