I stare at her, shocked, unable to believe what I’m hearing.
“Wait… you did write that?”
“No!” she exclaims. “I swear, this isn’t the article I submitted for publication. I mean… there was a private journal entry I wrote… but I don’t know how ICON would’ve gotten it.”
My knees shake and I stumble back to the bed, sinking down on the mattress.
“No… no, that’s… you wrote those things about me? I can’t… I can’t… ”
Rylee hurries toward me and grabs my shoulders.
“Zander, I can explain. Please, just give me a chance… ”
I shake my head in disgust. “Fuck… I can’t believe this! I should’ve known this would happen.”
She furrows her brow. “What does that mean?”
“It means I should’ve known better than to trust you,” I snap. “You never took this seriously. You were never going to give me an actual chance!”
Rylee looks shocked, her jaw dropping. “What do you mean? Of course I’m taking this seriously!”
“Holy shit,” Realization suddenly dawns on me. “I thought… I thought we’d moved past the mess with the app, but you never actually forgave me, did you? We never actually talked about anything… never worked through it. I assumed when you introduced me to your mom as your boyfriend that things were good between us, but I was an idiot to think that. Has this all been some fucked up revenge plot?”
She jerks back as if I’ve burned her, her expression stunned.
“I don’t know what happened!” she shouts. “I don’t know how they got this, but it was never meant to be read by anyone! I certainly didn’t plot against you… ”
“Then why write it at all?” I demand to know.
She throws up her hands in frustration. “I told you! I was just venting. I was angry and drunk and… ”
“Oh, well, that explains it then,” I hiss, standing and turning to my closet to grab clothes and get dressed.
“Explains what?”
“You were drunk.” I grab more clothes and start stuffing them into a duffle bag. “I shouldn’t be surprised. You’ve been drunk every time something bad has happened between us. I should’ve known it was only a matter of time.”
“What are you doing? Why are you packing?”
She doesn’t even acknowledge what I’ve just said.
Fine. I can’t do this anymore. I can’t keep fighting for her and trying to make her happy when she won’t do the same for me. When she’s still holding back and harboring these thoughts about me.
“I’m done,” I tell her, zipping my bag. “I don’t want to hear any more of your excuses, and I don’t want to keep fighting a clearly losing battle. I’m leaving and you better not be here when I get back.”
I storm past her and out the bedroom door.
“Zander!” she cries, and I can hear her coming after me but I don’t stop and I don’t look back. I make my way out the front door and slam it shut behind me.
Making my way down to the parking garage, I climb into my truck but don’t start the engine. Instead, I slam my hand against the steering wheel and roar out in rage.
This is going to fuck up my reputation! My family is going to read it… my friends and teammates. Mom and Dad are going to be so upset… so hurt…
The thought makes me want to vomit.
I don’t even want to think about the fallout this will cost me with brand deals. And what will this cost the team? This is supposed to be paired with the article about the Night Hawks as a whole - there’s no way this doesn’t bring everyone down with me.
Why would Rylee fucking do this to me?
