"Fuckin' Rory is lookin' so hot tonight, Forbes. You're lucky as hell," Robin's friend Mark slurs.
I hear a familiar chuckle from his other friend, Tommy. "He ain'tlucky.He's cursed. That girl's got the face of an angel, the body of a temptress, and the attitude of a fuckin' nun! He ain't even gettin' any!Lucky, my ass!" More laughter.
"Temptress?Kinda a grown-up word for you, Tommy, in't it?" Mark cajoles his buddy.
Embarrassment and shame paint my cheeks in a blush and tears prick behind my eyes.
"That'senough!" Robin roars.
My jaw drops so hard it practically bounces. He's defending me to his best friends.Holy. Shit.
"You motherfuckers don't look at her body. That's fuckin'mine.And she ain't no nun. She's just a good girl. Not like all your bitches who open their legs on the first fuckin' date. Ya'll think I didn't know what I was gettin' myself into with her? I don't mind puttin' my damn time in. She's the kinda girl you marry."
Silence.
"You serious, Forbes?" Mark asks tentatively.
There's no verbal response, but Robin must make some expression or gesture because Mark whistles dramatically.
I'm about to reveal myself and act like I've only just found them when Robin speaks again, but softly. "Anyway, just cause I ain't gettin' any from her yet don't mean I ain't gettin' any."
There's a chorus of howling laughter and guffaws of reverential male approval.
It doesn't mean he isn'tgetting any? My heart stops beating and I freeze in place.God, I'm so fucking stupid!The pain of Robin's duplicity lances though my chest, and it's only now, as I stand here doubly affronted by his betrayal and his remorselessness, that I realize just how deep my feelings for him have managed to take root. How much I really care for him.Cared. Care.Shit!
I'm flooded with wave after wave of shame and outrage. And worst of all - hurt.
No, Robin never said we were exclusive, but this is a betrayal. I take a few inexorable steps back, and then break into a run away from my aggrieved indignity, and the man who apparently doesn't hesitate to dishonor the girl he claimed to "care about".
I hurry away, desperate to put as much distance as possible between me and the stupid fucking party, and into the trees that surround the lake.
I was right about the perfume. Of course I was. I knew it then, and I know it now. I'm just a foolish girl who clung to denial like so many before me. Robin went out, did God knows what to God knows who - probably Maddie - and then came upstairs to make out with me. And he's just broadcasted it to all his friends.
My feelings for Robin - just hours ago a beautiful tree, slowly but surely blooming and growing, is losing its leaves like in autumn. Is it hibernating for winter, or dead? In my mind I try to rip it out like a weed, but those damned roots, they're too deep, too strong, and the harder I pull, the more I just tear apart the heart they've dug their brambles into.
I can't remember the last time I cried like this. I feel like such a fool. My phone buzzes, but I'm immobile. I sit next to a tree and hug my knees despite my dress, unable to quite can't catch my breath. I've never felt like this before. I feel humiliated, pathetic, betrayed. I am a joke to them. I am a joke tohim..
It's a long time before I calm down enough to look at my phone. They're texting me. All of them. I ignore Lacey and Robin and hastily scroll through Cam's concerned texts. I hate that I've worried him, and he is the only one I bother replying to.
I direct him to where I am and ask that he please come get me and take me home.
Less than five minutes pass before I hear his footsteps crunching on the leaves and sticks of the forest floor.
"Ror?" Cam asks as he cautiously approaches me. I keep my face buried against my arms. "Rory girl, what happened?" He's horrified. I know seeing me upset hurts him deeply, and I've had some time now, so I rally to pull myself together and stand.
"Please take me home, Cam," I murmur. He steps forward and flings his arms around me, hauling me tightly to his chest.
"What happened, Ror? You need to tell me," he whispers into my hair.
I shake my head. "Please, please, just take me home."
"Aren't you stayin' with the Forbes?" he asks, confused.
I shake my head again. "Could I stay with you instead?"
"Of course, Rory girl." Cam takes a deep breath and releases me. "He do somethin' to hurt you?" he asks carefully, his voice deathly quiet.
I can't lie to him, but I can't have him going after Robin right now either. "Not in the way you think, Cam," I assure him.
