I’d made such a mistake in coming here in the first place. It was over for me here. With these people. They were never going to accept me – not truly.
Not a single person came to my defense except Ace, and when Aiden punched him, they all went after him – not to check if I was alright.
They were never going to want me around. Never specifically me. I was good for making up the numbers in a group, but that was all.
I needed new friends.
A new start.
Hell, maybe I needed to go to a new country to get away from the infamy the video had given me, but whatever it took – I needed to get away and start again.
That was the only way I was ever going to feel wanted.
I had to stop packing to take a deep, shuddering breath, feeling the pain of it ripple through me. My past was never going to leave me. I’d made a mistake – a big mistake, yes, but I’d been so young.
No one was ever going to love me again.
I swiped a hand across my eyes and continued to stubbornly stuff clothes back into my bag, focusing on at least trying to breathe. That was overly melodramatic. At least I’d have a chance if I got away from the same people I’d been hanging out with since college.
The first step to finding someone who would accept me for who I was had to be leaving this place.
I zipped up my suitcase and grabbed the handle, swinging it to the floor –
And froze, hearing the sound of the door lock clicking from the other side.
Ace
I opened the door and stopped. I’d known I would find him here – or guessed, really – and I’d known it wasn’t going to be pretty.
But this – again?
I stared at him for a moment and dropped my arm, relaxing my pose as I turned to close the door behind myself. Once it was shut – keeping the rest of the world out and us in – I turned to face him again. I didn’t move away. Right now, my physical body was the only thing between him and the chance to run away forever.
A very strong part of me did not want him to run away forever.
“You were just going to leave without saying anything?” I asked evenly, looking down at his suitcase. “Again?”
Brody swallowed, looking down. There was something about his face… something raw and dark. Like I’d caught him crying, only his eyes weren’t red. I had a feeling the storm was inside him.
“It’s for the best,” he said. His voice cracked slightly, then recovered. He gestured towards my eye. “I don’t want anyone else getting hurt.”
“Physically, or emotionally?”
He swallowed again and looked away, not meeting my eyes. That argument wasn’t going to work anyway, clearly. He already had the stuff I’d said about Keaton before in his head. If that wasn’t enough to stop him from leaving then repeating it wasn’t going to work this time.
I sighed and shifted my stance. “You’re not even going to help me? Like, put ice on my eye or anything?”
He blinked. “You had everyone else around you – I… I thought…”
“You’re the only one who knows his way around the kitchen staff,” I said, in an attempt to make things a little more lighthearted.
He didn’t smile. Not even a little bit.
“You said it didn’t hurt,” he said. His voice was small like he was afraid of getting in trouble and was trying to explain himself. “You told me you were fine.”
I rolled my eyes. “Obviously, I just said that to make you leave me alone,” I said. I pulled my swimming towel down from around my shoulders, feeling self-conscious now about the fact that he was fully-dressed and I was still only in shorts. “Of course, it hurts.”
Brody seemed to physically shrink in front of my eyes. Shit; I said the wrong thing. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I… I didn’t mean for you to get hurt.”
