“I think I should do this alone.” My throat actually feels sore from the workout it’s getting.
Her chest expands as she weighs the idea. “Give him hell, girl.”
“I plan to,” I whisper as my chest bucks unexpectedly.
“I’ll wait.” She points to her seat.
The cool air hits me like an icy slap to the face as I barrel toward the garage. I spot Blake in the back with his jumpsuit half off. He has a T-shirt on and a thermal underneath that. I love it when he’s dressed that way. Something about him reminds me of the first night we met. I remember that sweet smile I thought made the sun rise, and now here we are with this horrible truth smelling up the distance between us like horseshit.
“Annie.” He steps over with a heartfelt sorrow in his eyes, just enough to make my stomach melt and ache all at the same time.
I throw myself at him—wrap my arms around him so tight I can feel his heart racing against mine. We need to leave. Blake and I need to go to the carriage house where I can show him how much I love him—how sorry I am to ever be related to either of my terrible brothers. I pull back and wipe the tears from my eyes.
It was horrible.I show him my phone before continuing.My brothers ambushed me. They said you’re cheating on me, and there was this mean person pretending to be your girlfriend. She says she’s having your baby and that I should stay out of your life. That I should find a blind man to date! What kind of a monster says that?
Blake stares at the phone an inordinate amount of time trying to digest the gibberish I’ve just flung in his face.
My hand flies into his shoulder, and I push him a little too hard. “It’s ridiculous right?” I whisper so hard my throat burns from the effort.
Blake takes a breath and closes his eyes, and then I know.
“Oh, God.” I stumble backwards. “It’s true?” I hardly mouth the words.
Blake keeps his head down while looking at me. He gives a simple nod and nothing more.
“No.” I shake my head. “You would never do that to me,” I whisper as the tears shoot out like a fountain. “You couldn’t.”
“I didn’t.” He must have roared the words because I can feel them reverberating over my skin. “They took the truth and they molded it into something ugly. I’m sorry, Annie. I should have told you about Olivia right from the beginning, but I was fresh off Ben’s death and—”
“This is real?” I whisper through the razors lodged in my throat. “Stop using your brother as an excuse! You have a girlfriend that you conveniently forgot to tell me about?” My voice box engages on and off, but he winced when I said girlfriend, so I think he got the gist.
“No, I swear, Olivia isn’t my girlfriend. She used to be but—”
I put my hands to my temple and grip my hair because I want nothing but to pull every last strand out.
I squeeze my eyes shut and scream at the top of my lungs, “I hate you!” My voice shrills through my body, rattling my bones as welcome as an earthquake. There. Blake longed to hear me speak, and now he heard definitively how I feel. I look over at him with his mask of pain. He’s speaking, but I turn away and run straight to Roxy’s car.
There’s not a thing Blake Daniels has to say that I want to know.
The entire nextday I spend hugging my pillow and crying my eyes out. I don’t look at his text messages. Marley lets me know when he comes to the door, and I just lock myself in the bathroom until he’s gone. I don’t want any part of his so-called truths or apologies. My heart is raw, broken. I wish the whole universe would collapse in on itself like a dying star and disappear.
The next few days drift by in a blur.
Marley has officially broken up with that idiot who was stringing her along. He came down last night, and I walked out of the bathroom just in time to see her slap him right across the face.
“Aren’t we a pair,” she says, handing me a hot latte from Hallowed Grounds. She actually had it in her to get dressed and go to class today. I couldn’t care less about my classes. I could fail them all, and none of it would matter. Tristan came by this morning to see if everything was okay, and I told him I had a sore throat. I’m not sure why, but I was sensing an I-told-you-so if I let the truth spill out. It looks like I’m a liar just like Blake.
My phone buzzes for the umpteenth time only now it’s my mother.
Be there in twenty minutes.
Twenty minutes? Why would she be here in twenty minutes? Oh my, God she knows! I shake my head at the phone. The last thing I want to deal with is my mother and her there-are-other-fish-in-the-sea brand of wisdom.
You don’t have to. I’m fine, really.I bet my brothers couldn’t wait to tell her what a louse I’d hooked myself to. When did they turn into such tattletales? Not that I mind that they “tattled” on Blake. They did me a favor, and, ironically, I’m still too mad to thank them.
What are you talking about? You have an appointment in an hour at the Gentry Clinic. If all goes well, we can schedule the implants to be inserted before Christmas!
Oh that. I can practically feel her smiling. I make a face at the word “inserted.” My mother knows I cringe at the word surgery. She cares for me enough to cater to my fragile emotional needs unlike Blake. He barreled right over those when he decided to sleep with me behind his pregnant girlfriend’s back.
