“Please, I’ll die without her.” My voice cracks. I can pretend I’m being dramatic, but I’m not. She’s everything. I don’t care how toxic it is. I can’t breathe or sleep without her. Without her, nothing matters.
“You’re eighteen, you’ll survive,” he says apathetically, but I spot a figure walking down the stairs from behind him.
“Addie,” I whisper breathlessly.
She’s standing next to her brother, dark circles under her beautiful eyes. I’ve seen her in so many ways over the years, through hundreds of different lenses. I’ve seen her angry, cold, happy, sad, but I’ve never seen her like this. So utterly empty.
“It’s okay, I can handle this,” she tells her brother and it seems like they’re talking with their eyes or something, but he relents and gives me one last glare before walking away.
“Addie,” I say, walking close to her, but she backs away instantly. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
She doesn’t make a move to let me in the house or to leave the house herself.
Her face is stoic, untethered almost. “It’s okay.”
“What?”
“I said it’s okay, Juliette, because I don’t care anymore.” Her voice booms with coldness. “You’ve spoken enough. I want you to let me talk.”
“But I need to explain—”
“I said, let me talk,” she repeats, calmly. So calm that it scares me. I clamp my mouth shut and she breathes in once, before beginning. “You don’t need to apologise because nothing you said was wrong. You’re right, this is nothing, becauseyou’renothing.” The pain hits me sharply and I can’t do anything, but listen dumbly. “I was wrong. I am capable of love, but I don’t want to waste it on a person likeyou.” She stares at me with a ferocious detachment.
“Addie, please—”
“I’ll find love Juliette, but you? You’ll always be a miserable bitch, rooted in the same place for the rest of your life.” She chuckles apathetically. “I’m not incapable of feeling things, but you know what? I wish I was, because I don’t want to feel a single thing for youeveragain.”
“Stacey was blackmailing me, Adaline. She means nothing to me—”
She doesn’t even flinch. “I don’t care why you did what you did, I don’t, because you know what Juliette? Nothing, and I meannothingon this planet could have gotten me to say those things to you,” she says, shaking her head. “But I guess that’s the difference between me and you, I don’t give up when things get hard.”
“I’m sorry, I—I can’t survive without you.”
“Get used to it,” she tells me, her stoic mask breaking and her voice cracking. She slams the door shut in my face.
I’m not sure if it’s the wind or the ache in my chest that pulls me to my knees, but somehow, I’m there, crying like I’ve been spread open from head to toe. She’s not giving me a chance to explain myself, but somehow, I can’t be angry at her for that. Anger isn’t at all what I’m feeling, I’m incapable of it at this point.
She doesn’t open the door, not now and not for the next few hours that I spend crying and pleading for her to open it. When the exhaustion takes over my body, I feel a pair of hands picking me up, almost cradling me in a sense. It’s Victoria. She picks me up and takes me to my car, I don’t stop crying, not then, not ever.
Chapter FOURTY-TWO
A d a l i n e
Isthis what my father felt? Agony? Torture? I could lay here forever and not move an inch, sinking into my feelings and wallow into my misery. I wouldn’t feel guilty about it either because that’s the thing about what I’m feeling, it’s selfish. It doesn’t care about anyone else, nothing else matters, not even myself.
People say that you can’t sleep or eat when your heart breaks, but I don’t seem to suffer from that problem. I eat. Sometimes, I stuff my face until I’m too distracted to think. I sleep too, because she’s there in my dreams. I’m not sure how much time has passed since I slammed the door in Juliette’s face. I know it’s been days, I’m not sure how many, but I know that Adam's wedding is in two days. I can’t even fathom getting out of my bed for that, but I have to.
I can’t get her words out of my head. “Stacey was blackmailing me.”It should have been enough for me to forgive her; she was scared of being outed, so she broke my heart. But it’s not enough, it’s not a good enough excuse.
She’s probably lying anyway; I saw her holding Stacey’s hand and how she protected her against me, she wants her. I can’t let her back in, not when she’s a selfish bitch who only thinks about herself. That’s all she thought about when she spoke to Stacey, when she degraded me—her own reputation, her own feelings.
Well, it’s time I put my own feelings first—so I’m moping, crying, doing whatever I want—until I can purge Juliette out of my mind.
That’s why I stood by the door or rather sat. I heard Juliette crying, every sob. It was horrifyingly upsetting, but I was frozen in place.God, I hate thinking about it, as much as I hate thinking about her face when I spoke to her. How dare she stand there and cry?
A knock on my door snaps me out of my thoughts, but I don’t answer. It’s probably Adam. He’s been very worried about me for days, but I didn’t tell him what happened with Juliette and I.
Kai has surprisingly been checking up on me, but he’s given me space too. I wanted to tell my friends, but it seems that Juliette has manipulated them because anytime they speak to me, they try to convince me to forgive her. So, I’ve blocked their numbers. I’ve also told Adam not to let them in. I don’t have the time to deal with anyone who wants to vouch for Juliette. I’m too furious for that.
