“Liam?” I prompt.
“I… we…,” she stutters, stepping closer to me. She wants to make a grab for the dress. I chuckle, shaking my head at the poorly executed intent so clear in her eyes.
“Here’s how this is going to go, Little Minx,” I start, getting up. “If you step closer, I’ll burn it. I’m going to ask you three fucking questions then I’ll tell you what I want you to do. If you lie or if I so much as taste the beginnings of one rolling off that tongue, I’ll burn it. If you make a stupid move that will end up with you hurting yourself, I will burn it and force you to watch, do you understand?”
She mutely nods, defiance tensing her body, ignoring the tears running down her cheeks. That’s what I love about her, she’s resilient. She knows I’ll make do on my word.
“Use your pretty little words, baby.”
“Yes, I understand, for God’s sake, Julian.”
“What happened Saturday night?” I start, watching her.
“I… I was invited to the prank night. We were going to vandalize your school, but you guys did it first and the next thing I know, everyone is going to the Devil’s Track which I hadn’t heard of, like ever.”
I believe her, so far.
“Continue.”
“I drove up with a friend, Kristine, and dropped her off so I could find parking, that’s when I ended up back there and you…then Liam.” She shakes her head, agitation and remembered shock making her tremble. “You know what happened. You were there with your hand around my throat.”
“That’s not what I’m asking you, and you know it.” I want to know about the moment she came barreling through the crowd, shouting my name, a frantic look in her eyes. She knew about the bomb.
“Julian…”
“How did you know?”
“I,” she sighs. “Shane came over after you practically assaulted me. Then he gave me this thing, he called it his lucky charm. Told me not to give it to anyone.”
I know, Liam told me about that on her behalf.
“Just like that, huh?”
“What?” she gasps. “I don’t—"
“What did he promise you?” It’s the last question and she starts shaking.
“He didn’t promise me—”
“Matthews is a slick asshole, but he’s also slimy as fuck. So, if he wanted you to do something, it means he promised you something.”
She shudders, a gasp leaving her lips. I flick the zippo, bringing the flame to the dress, burning a bit of fabric and she screams.
“No, stop! Please, Julian, I’ll beg.”
“I know you will, but that’s not what I want.”
“He didn’t promise me any—”
I flick the zippo and burn another piece, the smell of burnt tulle permeating in the room. I’ll have to take this outside before we trigger the smoke alarm and wake up the whole house.
With a yelp, she attempts to snatch the dress from me, but I move with ease, opening the French doors, we go outside. There’s a light breeze making it easier for the fire to catch quickly.
She follows, arms stretched wide for the dress that I can’t help but burn a little more.
“Careful, Mia, we wouldn’t want to completely ruin this beautiful legacy dress.”
Tears, fast and hot, start streaming down her gorgeous face. She looks devastated, destroyed and spent so I ask one more time, wanting her to face the truth.
“What did that asshole promise you?” I demand, walking backward toward the beach.
“He didn’t—”
I bring the flame to another part of the dress.
“A kiss!” she screams, making me stop. “He promised he’ll kiss me.”
With that admission, she falls to the sandy ground and starts crying, like really sobbing now, but I’m frozen.
A kiss…
I don’t know if it’s possible that the same girl can break me hundreds of times, over and over, each time much more brutal than the last; and I haven’t even fucked her.
A kiss…
Thank God for small, but painful mercies.
“So, that’s what you do?” I start, watching her, feeling so damn fucked up and destroyed over her admission. I want to punch something to death. “He gave you the detonator which you pressed. You wanted to blow my brother up—”
“No!” I gasp. “That’s not what happened—”
“—and it was all for a devious kiss.”
The sound of the waves washing up on shore and the light breeze mixed with her sobs are the only sound for a while, but even that can’t mask the tightening of my chest or the breaking I wasn’t expecting.
Fuck this all to hell, I knew I should’ve been careful when dealing with her.
“You took away my brother’s privacy for a kiss three years ago,” I start, the words are terse and clipped as she looks up. “And now, you gave my other brother’s life away to a maniac with a grudge against me, for a kiss.”
“Julian—”
“And it’s for that reason that I’m going to break you, hit you where it hurts the most, take away what you love and leave you aching for a life you’ll never have back.”
And with that, I take out the flask of whiskey in my back pocket, throw the damn dress to the sand, then douse it in liquor—
“Julian, no!”
—then I set it on fire.
She tries to run for the dress, almost diving for it, but it’s now engulfed in flames. Wrapping an arm around her waist, I hold her back. She fights and screams, but I lift her up then put her down on her feet away from the burning dress, Quickly stepping away from her, I watch her as she breaks.
“How could you?” she demands, her voice broken, tears streaming down her face, devastation and shock in her eyes.
I reach out and run my thumb across her left cheek. She shudders and I step closer to her, leaning in, I lick the tears on her right cheek, she shivers, stepping closer to me, wanting comfort, hungry for sex, desperate for an orgasm to dull her pain.
I run my thumb over her bottom lip, as a tremor moves through her, tears running down her face.
“You keep offering these lips to just about every shithead, thinking there won’t be any consequences,” I murmur. Fuck, I want to strip her bare and fuck her raw. I can see the need in her eyes. “Remember that.”
I guess we’re going to live under this roof aching and angry, the same way we’ve been living apart for the last three years.
Always unsatisfied and lonely.
I press a kiss to her forehead, then whisper, “You should’ve stayed in your broken lane, than sell my family for kisses no one but me can satiate you with.
And with that, I leave her grieving the loss of a dress that she’ll never get back just like the hope I’ll never have when it comes to her.
25
The thing about breaking is that you never really see it coming. You never expect it to happen with a sudden viciousness, even though the warning signs are practically everywhere, screaming at you, demanding your attention so you take precautions.
They’re there in the way your heart pounds when you sense danger behind you, watching you, assessing you to see what you’re made of.
They’re present when you’re trying to pick up the ruins of your heart with the scraps of burnt tulle, your dreams and everything you’ve been working toward for years, now nothing but ash blowing away with the wind, sinking in the sand like it never existed.
That night Julian left me on the beach, every single part of me broken and spent, I cried. I’ve never cried the way I did that night, and he did nothing, walking away from me like I mean nothing to him.
I cried for my life that was tearing like an old, worn out cloth.
I cried for my mother who I’ve been hiding from, unable to face, let alone talk to.
I cried for the tutu that my grandmother handmade for my mother, intended to be passed down to me when the time was right.
I cry for my failures and disappointments of not being
my mother’s perfect child.
I cried for my father’s painful abandonment.
I just…cried, for hours on that beach.
I sat there, with dried tears on my cheeks. The shuddering and trembling of my body only stopped when the sun started rising. It was only when I stood up and dusted the sand off me that I saw him, watching me from the open door, sitting on my bed.
He never left.
Holding my stare, he watches me approach. It looks like he was there all this time, waiting for me.
He was waiting for me.
I can’t get over that. When he sees me coming though, he drops the zippo he used last night on my bed, then leaves, but not without glancing at me with hate still in his eyes.
I’ve never hated anyone the way I hate him right now. And myself. I hate myself.
I hated myself for caring. For thinking that he cared about me enough that he’d never think of hurting me the way he did. Or the way he hurled the truth I wasn’t ready to face in my face, forcing me to face it head on.
I hate that I had begun to think that maybe he had forgotten about what happened three years ago, and that his recent silence was code that he believed I wasn’t involved with anything to do with Shane and his car blowing up.
I hate myself for thinking I could even trust him or Liam.
Sometimes when things go south, it’s our fault, because we choose to blind ourselves to the harsh reality that’s always been right in front of us.
Julian has never given me a reason to be safe around him, yet I was. He never said anything other than the promise to destroy me and he’s doing just that.
Why then am I heartbroken and acting like he just destroyed more of my damn soul when I never gave him any part of me other than a single orgasm and my lips for angry kisses that he called devious?
After taking a much needed shower, I crawl into bed for a few hours but I can’t sleep. I’m missing school today. My phone’s been blowing up with texts, screenshots of the photoshopped image going around, then my old house was cropped in there.
Some creative asshole—and I’m betting it’s Casey—photoshopped my house to make it look like a whore-house. There was even a caption like ad; Fuck Mia for ten bucks to save her home.
The image already had a few thousand hits, retweeted just as many times and the hashtags were nauseating.
I don’t bother going to school. I stay home with Mom, helping Nurse Hayley take care of her. At one point, I ask her to take a much deserved break so I can take over for the day.
With my hair in a messy bun, my eyes red rimmed and puffy, I sit on the floor in front of my mom and reach for her slightly trembling hands.
She doesn’t speak a lot these days, but I can see the questions in her eyes.
“I know what you’re thinking. I’m not bailing on school and I have no intention to hit the road and be a starving artist.” I chuckle, thinking of our running joke of who I might’ve been or the life I might’ve lived had my mother been a hippie, or a struggling artist in New York City, or groupie for some band.
“I just needed a day off, Mama,” I start as we stare out at the ocean. “It’s become a bit much for me right now.”
The confession falls from my lips and in that moment, I feel like an utter failure.
I’ve never heard my mother complain about anything, not once in my entire life. It’s as if she was forged in fire, and nothing could hurt or touch her. I’ve only ever seen her strong, braving through the pain with a determined look on her face. Which is why ALS has reduced her to a shell of a person I hardly recognize.
“And you don’t need to tell me, I already know,” I start, my voice hoarse as a lone tear rolls down my cheek. “I know you want to tell me that I need to get my ass up, do what I need to do and not cry or bitch about it. I know that Mom, but God, today I can’t.”
I don’t really expect a response, but for a moment, I swear she squeezes my hand, then she says my name.
“Mia,”
I whip my head around so fast I almost hit my head on the leg of her new electric wheelchair.
“Mom?”
“Hey baby,” she croaks, her voice sounding unfamiliar but so familiar at the same time, the tears roll silently down my cheeks.
“Hey mommy,” I whisper, squeezing her hand. It’s been so long since she talked, not because she was at that stage of her diagnosis, but because she was so depressed, she chose not to.
“Don’t look so sad.” She breathes between each word.
I chuckle, wiping my tears away. I don’t want to upset her.
“Sorry, I’m a mess.”
“You should…be a…mess more…often.” She smiles, her intelligent eyes staring down at me. “It’s okay…to cry.”
I’m stunned into silence as I stare up at this monumental woman, with a legacy that’s so far, unmatched.
“I thought crying gives ladies puffy eyes and we don’t need puffy eyes?” I start with a smile, deliberately making light out of this.
“Well…that was before,” she says. “Before I thought…about death.”
I suck in a deep breath, a chill coming over me like someone just drenched me in ice water. It’s a shock to my system.
“Mom, you don’t have to—”
“It’s…something we…have to talk…about, baby girl.” She breathes and for a moment, I’m struck by fear all over again that she can’t breathe but then she blinks and looks at me. “I’m sorry…that a lot of…responsibility…fell on you…these past couple…of years.”
“Mom, you have nothing to apologize for,” I start, kneeling now. “You’re my mother, I’ll always take care of you.”
“You’re so…brave.” She smiles, her eyes glistening. “So…strong.”
“I’m all that only because of you, Mama.” Everything she’s ever accomplished has made her a woman to look up to, so who am I to be weak and be bullied by some bitch who thinks I’ll take her guy away?
“I know life’s been… sucky…these days…with Nicky…your dad—”
“We don’t have to talk about that,” I cut her off, shaking my head. “I don’t want you to be upset.”
“Or maybe…you don’t want…to face it all.” She watches me, a knowing look in her eyes. I look away, pain piercing my heart.
“Facing it won’t change anything Mom.” And it’s true, if I faced it all, what difference would that make. If I faced how I was feeling, would that change how he feels about me? And how stupid is it of me to think of Julian right now when there’s a photoshopped picture of my parents floating around on the internet.
“It might…or it might not,” Mom says, her voice ever so soft.
“I’m going to go ahead and say it might not, Mom.” I chuckle but it’s bitter and so out of character.
“Facing it…might change…the way you react or…think about it.” Her head tilts to the left, and I quickly right it again, then notice the frustration in her eyes.
She hates this. The lack of movement, the fact that she’s in a wheelchair and not doing what she loves to do.
“I’m sorry…I’ve been a burden,” she starts, jerking me out of my own pain. “I’m sorry…I checked out…on you…when you…needed me.”
She starts wheezing and I get up, running into the house to grab her portable ventilator. With tears blurring my eyes, I attach it to her, watching helplessly as she slumps in the chair, defeat and pain clear in her eyes.
“You never checked out on me.” The lie rolls off my tongue just as Nurse Hayley and Aunt Nicky walk into the room, a monitor in Nurse Hayley’s hand. Mom makes a sound, so I remove the mask from her face. She holds my gaze for a long second as Aunt Nicky rushes over, a worried look on her face, but Mom just stares up at me.
“Are you alright, Nancy” Aunt Nicky questions and mom rolls her eyes.
“Obviously…not,” she mutters then looks at me.
“Mom?” I whisper, my voice hoarse, afraid of the words she’s about to say.
&
nbsp; “You were never…a good liar, baby girl,” she whispers, then she looks over my shoulder at my aunt. “Take me…back inside. I want to sleep.”
The nurse shoots me a sympathetic smile, the she presses a button, and off they go, back into her room that has more medical equipment now than ever before. She even has a cabinet full of all the medicine she’s supposed to take. She hardly eats anymore because it’s getting difficult to swallow and let’s not forget the way she has to be turned at least fifteen times during the night.
“Hey, my love,” Aunt Nicky starts, her voice soft. “You’ve been avoiding me.”
“I’ve had school,” I mutter, feeling that urge to slip out and go back home, to my studio.
“School has never been hard for you, not once in your entire life, and there’s the fact that you didn’t go today” she says stepping closer to me. “What’s going on, Mia?”
“Nothing.”
“This is so unlike you.”
“Yeah, well, this life you’ve plunged my mother and I into is so unlike us.”
I don’t intend to be a drama queen or to stomp out, but I run down the little path toward the beach, ignoring my aunt when she calls my name. At some point, I stop to remove my shoes but then I keep running, with both shoes in each hand, breathing in the salty air, feeling the overwhelming need to cry.
I couldn’t stand talking to my aunt anymore, even though once upon a time, we were so close.
I check my phone almost every second, hoping that maybe I’ll see a text from my dad, but there’s always nothing. It’s like to him, I don’t exist anymore.
And then Mom…
I wasn’t expecting Mom to say everything she said, hell I wasn’t expecting her to speak at all, but she did. I wasn’t expecting an apology but now that she gave it, without me even asking it tells me one thing—I had begun to silently resent my mother.
She did check out on me. As soon as she was diagnosed, the light in her eyes was just, snuffed out. Mentally, she left me alone. Kept her voice to herself and just didn’t care.
For two years I just shouldered on like it doesn’t matter.
But Julian was right all along.
Devious Kisses: A Bully Enemies -To-Lovers Romance (It's Just High School Book 1) Page 31
