Total pages in book: 117
Estimated words: 111676 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 558(@200wpm)___ 447(@250wpm)___ 372(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 111676 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 558(@200wpm)___ 447(@250wpm)___ 372(@300wpm)
“Hendrix is never right.”
“He said I should watch my ass.” I crammed the toast into my mouth, thinking about how the guilt of having that video, even though I knew no one else would see it had damn near killed me after I’d kissed her that first time.
I felt like a hypocrite. But Jade hadn’t seemed to have a problem keeping that penguin in her backpack, evidently carrying it with her everywhere she went. A loaded gun to use the moment I fucked up. That wasn’t love. That was… I didn’t even know what to call it.
“He’s always said that a woman scorned couldn’t be trusted farther than you could throw her.”
“I mean—”
“Did you forget about the time Drew rammed her Porsche into your car?”
I knew Bellamy wasn’t about to try to argue with me. If anyone knew about a woman scorned, that dipshit sure as hell did. His girl had a temper rivaled by few—well, few outside of Dayton…
A low chuckle bubbled from Bellamy’s lips. “Yeah. I remember.”
“So, don’t act like Hendrix and his wiffle-ball bat injured brain aren’t right about that.” I hated to admit it, but he was.
I couldn’t help but wonder if maybe all of this between Jade and me had been some petty form of payback. Like her being in this house had become an opportunity to get back at me for trying to move on before her. Maybe all she’d wanted was to remind me of how much I needed her, just to screw me over, and take it all away again.
He sipped his coffee. “Jade wouldn’t do anything to hurt you. Set your truck on fire, sure. But turn you into the cops?” The kitchen chair creaked when he leaned back in it. “No way.”
I wanted to believe him, but the image of Dog ripping the head off that penguin, the pills exploding everywhere, wouldn’t leave me the fuck alone. It meant she didn’t trust me. That no matter what we’d said to each other, how we’d touched each other, the way we’d looked at each other like nothing else in this shitty world mattered.
No matter how much I loved her, some part of her still saw me as the enemy. And maybe she was right. Maybe there was too much resentment and hurt between us for any of this to work. Maybe I was mistaking it for something worth saving when there wasn’t anything left to save.
Thirty-One
Jade
I resented the cheerful morning sun that spilled through my bedroom window. It made the world seem somewhat happy when I was anything but because not only had I lost Wolf for a second time, but I had a horrible hangover, compliments of the bottle of Rumple Minze I’d downed yesterday—on a Sunday night, no less. I shifted on my bed and tugged the gap in the curtain closed before glancing at Mav and Goose in their cage. The cage Wolf had dropped off with Monroe yesterday, along with a note that read: I’m not your rat sitter, a nearly empty can of deodorant, and my toothpaste. I guessed that was his petty response to my drunken Lonely Fans message—the one where I’d taken a racy picture of myself and sent it to him, along with a message that read: I’m not your charity case, so here’s something for your money. Then I’d deleted my account. Which may have been stupid since I needed every penny I could get.
Sighing, I collapsed back onto my bed. In my room. In my apartment. The place I had been desperate to be only a few weeks ago now felt hollow. An empty space to go with the empty void in my chest.
I kept staring at Mav and Goose running around in their cage, trying to think of some upbeat affirmation. I had nothing. All I could do was wallow in my misery.
The last time Wolf and I had broken up, the descent had been a slow, bitter glide over weeks and months—we’d barely seen each other. There had been distance and doubts.
This time, it was a free fall, while the ground beneath my feet crumbled. There was no distance. For the last few weeks, we’d been with each other every spare second, like we had back in high school. Even a short taste of his love had felt like the most perfect lifetime. The only thing left in its absence was the crippling knowledge that no one else could ever match up.
Sure, I’d survive, but I was intimately acquainted with every sharp, stabbing step of the climb out of this pit of despair. For now. Though, I wanted to lie there, on the cold, dark floor of my fuck up. Would it have been such a fuck up if he really cared about me, though? He didn’t even let me explain. After all those words about needing me and loving me, he had tossed me out like unwanted trash. But, if he didn’t care, then why had he helped me get money, sent me money on Lonely Fans… Maybe he just wanted a reason to be the one to break up with me, give himself some kind of closure.