“I do not give a damn about your relationship with him,” I replied evenly. “You can have each other for all I care. But do you honestly believe a relationship built on lies can last? Do your friends even know what kind of person you are?”
That struck a nerve.
Her face flushed red with fury.
“Lie or not, I meant something to Ashton once,” she shot back. “Do you know what he told me five years ago after we spent the night together? He said I was different from his lying, cheating ex. He told me how you suffocated him with your dreams of leaving town, running away from responsibility, while his duty was to his family legacy. He always knew there was no future with you. That is why he applied to colleges far away. He said I was the one who could calm his storm. And that storm was you.”
Her words hit harder than I expected.
I told myself I did not care. I told myself the past did not matter. But hearing it laid out like that still hurt, and I hated myself for not knowing whether any of it was true.
“We were inseparable,” she continued, her voice trembling with emotion. “Night after night. Until he realized he was falling for me and panicked because your ghost still haunted him. You destroyed us. And just when everything finally fell into place, when we were given a second chance, you came back and ruined his life again. Haven’t you done enough?”
My chest tightened as she spoke of intimacy, of nights Ashton swore happened only once. But what did it matter now? There would never be an us again. That door was closed.
I felt myself slipping, and Lynda saw it. Her lips curved into a triumphant smile. Donna’s satisfaction was unmistakable. They thought they had won, dragged me off course.
They were wrong.
“You have really changed, Lynda,” I whispered, my words meant for her ears alone. Only then did I realize that the woman I once knew was gone. The person standing in front of me was someone else entirely, filled with hatred, arrogance, and delusion.
“I moved on. That is the difference between you and me,” she said coldly. “I clawed my way out of a miserable life to become a better person, while you are still stuck in the past.”
“A better version?” I scoffed. “Is this what you mean? You were willing to lie and burn the bridge we built, the one we called friendship, just to get where you are now. For what? For all of this?” I gestured around us.
Her lips pressed into a thin line. For a brief moment, uncertainty flickered in her eyes before it hardened into something cruel.
“You are so focused on what you want to achieve that you have trapped yourself in your own lies,” I said bitterly. “Now you do not even know what is real anymore.”
She let out a sharp, hollow laugh. “Our friendship means nothing,” she sneered. “You were the one who hid your relationship with Ashton, acting like you were better than me because you managed to snatch the richest boy in town. And when the news finally broke, you flaunted him everywhere, riding around in his expensive car like a trophy.”
Her eyes burned with resentment. “And Ashton was not enough for you, was he? You had to parade yourself in front of his own cousin too. You are desperate for attention.”
I stared at her, stunned, before a bitter laugh slipped past my lips. “Wow. I never realized that is how you saw me. Or our friendship,” I said quietly. “I should not have approached you at that party. I thought you were just a shy, lonely girl who needed someone by her side. I should have left you alone and let you drown in your own emptiness, since no one is ever good enough for you.”
Her expression twisted, pride hardening into something vicious. “I do not need you. I do not need anyone,” she snapped. “I got this far on my own, and I will destroy whoever dares to stand in my way. I am not nobody anymore. I am somebody in this town now. People listen to me.”
Then she smiled, cruel and deliberate.
“So you and your bastard son are not welcome here.”
Something inside me shattered.
My hand moved before I could stop it. The slap cracked through the air, sharp and unmistakable, snapping her head to the side.
Donna and Angela screamed. Conversations around us died instantly. Every pair of eyes turned toward us.
“That,” I said coldly, my voice trembling with fury, “was for letting your filthy mouth speak about my son. And he has a father, you son of a bitch.”
“I will kill you!” Donna shrieked, lunging toward me.
I was about to strike back when strong hands seized me from behind. I twisted, ready to fight, until I realized who it was.
Ashton.
“Let me go,” I hissed.
“Bailey,” he murmured near my ear, steady but urgent. “There are too many people watching.”
