Malicious

by Alex Grayson

  “Just….” She starts, but her words die on her lips when her phone starts ringing. She reaches into her pocket and pulls it out, immediately answering it. “Did you find him?” I watch relief fill her face. “Okay, yeah. That’s good. I’m going to stay with V.” She pauses, presumably listening to Zayden speak on the other end of the line. “Okay, I will. I love you, too.” She ends the call, her gaze slowly coming back to mine. “Zayden found him lying on the front steps of his dorm, barely conscious. He took him upstairs and he’s sleeping now.”

  As angry as I am with him, as hurt as I am, I won’t deny that I feel a small sense of relief knowing he’s home safe.

  “He’s going to stay the night there just to be safe. He said Oliver is in pretty rough shape.”

  “He was,” I confirm.

  “Well, at least now he’s sleeping it off. Speaking of which.” She glances at the time. “It probably wouldn’t hurt for you to get some sleep.”

  “I don’t think I could sleep if I wanted to.”

  “Come on.” She steps forward, sliding her arm through mine. “I’ll lay with you.”

  “What am I, five?” I grumble, allowing her to lead me down the hall.

  “You might be too stubborn to admit it, but I think we both know the last thing you want right now is to be alone. I may not be as sexually appealing to you as Oliver, but you should know by now that my snuggles are beyond compare.”

  I smile in spite of the fact that my insides feel like they’re being torn apart. I’ve never felt like this before. So torn up over the thought of losing a guy. But here I am, feeling like I’m seconds away from crumbling to pieces on the floor. And over a guy I’ve only been dating a few short weeks. Over a guy who’s shown me time and time again that he doesn’t deserve my tears. He doesn’t deserve my heart. And he sure as hell doesn’t deserve my love.

  I wish I knew how to turn it off. How to unlove someone I never should have let my heart love to begin with. And I would if I could. Because I’d rather feel nothing at all, than feel the way I do right now.

  Rylee turns down the blankets and waits for me to climb into bed before sliding in next to me. She doesn’t say anything, offering a silent comfort that she somehow knows I needed.

  It’s not long before my mental and emotional exhaustion starts to take hold. Rolling to the side, I pull my legs into myself and snuggle deeper into the covers, tears still sliding down my face as sleep takes me under.

  27

  OLIVER

  Hearing the click of my door opening, then the loud slam of it closing, I crack open my eyes and glare at the intruder. I’m not the least bit surprised when I find Zayden staring back at me.

  “Get out,” I grunt and close my eyes again.

  “Not happening.”

  “How the hell did you get in my room, anyway? The door was locked.”

  “Have you forgotten how many times we broke into your father’s office when we were kids to steal from his liquor stash?” My blanket is ripped off me. “Shit, Oliver. When was the last time you showered? You fucking stink.”

  “Then leave, so you don’t have to smell me.” I push up to a sitting position and lean against the headboard of my bed. “And he’s not my fucking father.”

  Zayden knocks a pile of clothes off my desk chair and takes a seat. Which means he’s not leaving like I told him to. I don’t have the energy for the conversation he’s going to try to have with me. And even if I did, I damn sure don’t want to talk about it. It’s why I’ve been avoiding him the last couple of days.

  “Talk,” he demands.

  “Fuck off.” I flip him the bird and grab the box of Red Hots from my desk. My mouth tastes like something died in it, so I use the cinnamon flavor to mask the awful taste until I can brush my teeth.

  “Again. Not happening.” He kicks back in the chair and throws his sneakered feet on my bed. “I’ll sit here all damn day if that’s what it takes. I’ve given you time to wallow in pity, but that shit ends now.”

  I grumble under my breath and fold my arms over my bare chest, staring across the room and pouting like a child. It only lasts for a few seconds before I realize how ridiculous I must look. I lean my head against the wall and close my eyes when my head begins to pound.

  “Paul isn’t my father,” I say, breaking the silence. “Apparently, my mother had been having an affair longer than I was originally told.”

  “You mentioned something of the sort the other night, but I couldn’t make out much of what you were saying because you were so hammered.” He pauses. “Shit, man. That’s rough.”

  I snort. “That’s putting it mildly. I feel like my whole life was a sham. My father, or rather, Uncle Paul, claims he never thought of me as anything less than his son, but it explains so much. His treatment of me. The lack of compassion. The careless way he regarded me. I used to always try so hard to impress him, to make him love me, but it was all pointless. How could he love me when every time he looked at me, I reminded him of his wife’s infidelity? And the kicker is, I don’t really blame him for feeling that way. I’m not sure I would have felt differently if I were in his shoes.”

  I spend the next few minutes outlining my meeting with Paul. While Z tried to get it out of me the other day, I was too hungover to really explain anything to him. I just needed sleep and thankfully, he let me be. I should have known it was only a matter of time before he showed up demanding to know what the fuck was really going on.

  “Have you spoken to him since he told you?” he asks after I’m finished.

  “Fuck no. I’ve got nothing to say to him. He ceased to exist to me the moment I learned he lied to me my entire life.”

  Several moments of silence pass between us.

  “Have you tried to look at it from his point of view? To get a better understanding on why he lied?”

  I roll my head to the side and give him an icy look. “Who’s fucking side are you on?”

  “Yours. But I’m also trying to rationalize why he would keep this from you. I mean, what would be the point? Especially if he’s as heartless as you claim he is.”

  “Like I claim he is?” I growl. “You know the piece of shit father he’s been.”

  He nods. “I do. And I’m not excusing his behavior, but I don’t think it’s because he doesn’t care. If he didn’t, then he would have used the knowledge that someone else fathered you to hurt you.” He sighs, dropping his feet to the floor and bending so his elbows rest on his knees. “Some people don’t know how to be good parents. Especially those who were raised by shitty parents themselves. It doesn’t mean they don’t care. They just don’t know how to show that they do care.”

  I don’t give a shit what Paul’s excuse is. Maybe it’s the little boy in me who felt neglect by the man he idolized. Would I have been better off with my real father? The few times I heard my grandparents talk about Benjamin, they didn’t have many good things to say about him. He was the black sheep of the family who expected everything to be handed to him, but never wanted to work for it. I always thought of him as a spoiled brat.

  “What about your mother? Have you confronted her? She’s not blameless in this. She could have just as easily told you as Paul could have.”

  “I’m not ready to talk to her. I need time to come to grips with the fact that Paul isn’t my father before I deal with my issues with my mother.”

  “Understandable.”

  I grab my phone off my desk and check my notifications. Disappointment hits that there are none from Savannah. Why the hell would there be? I treated her like shit. Remorse has a knot forming in my chest when I remember some of the things I said to her. My memories of that night are fuzzy from the amount of alcohol I consumed, but I can very clearly remember the hurt look on her face right before I left her in the kitchen. Every time a flash of her broken expression comes to mind, I want to jam pencils in my ears to scramble my brain and make them go away. Instead, I forced the memory to appear over and over again as a reminder of
what an asshole I am. I never deserved Savannah, and my actions from that night prove it.

  I draw my legs up and rest my arms on my knees. Picking at a scab on my knuckle from when I punched the wall outside Savannah’s apartment building, I ask Z a question I desperately want the answer to, even though I don’t deserve to know.

  “How’s Savannah?”

  He takes so long to answer that I glance over at him. His jaw is hard and the pulse at his temple throbs.

  “Not sure if I should be telling you anything about Savannah. Not with the way you treated her that night.”

  I drop my chin and avoid his eyes, shame making my face heat. “You’re right,” I respond. “I was an asshole and there’s no excuse for my behavior. I was hurting and needed someone else to hurt too. I lashed out at the wrong person. I have no right to ask about her, but I am anyway. I know it doesn’t seem like it, but I do care about her.”

  “If you do, then why haven’t you tried calling her and asking her how she’s doing?”

  My head thumps against the wall, jarring my teeth. “I’m sure she’s already deleted and blocked my number. And if she hasn’t, she damn sure won’t answer. I’m the very last person she’d want to talk to.”

  “You won’t know if you don’t try.”

  “I don’t deserve her. I’ve known that from the beginning, but I was selfish and went after her anyway.”

  “Do you really think if Savannah felt that way, she would have gotten involved with you?”

  I grit my teeth so hard my jaw aches. “She wouldn’t have known better because I didn’t show her the real me. She got a taste of that when we first met. She hated me because of the shit I did to Rylee. I’m no better than the man she originally thought I was.”

  All of a sudden, the pillow I’m leaning against is jerked out from behind me, and I thump against the wall.

  “What the fuck?” I growl, sitting up to glare at my best friend.

  “You are so fucking stupid,” Zayden says calmly. “I’ll give it to you that you have a shitty way of dealing with stress, but that doesn’t make you a shitty person, Oliver.”

  I rub the back of my head where it banged against the wall, then sling my legs over the side of the bed. The movement has the air stirring. Shit, I really do stink.

  “The only reason you say that is because you’re my best friend and you have to say it.”

  “Stop being a fucking girl fishing for compliments.”

  Getting up from the bed, I glower at him as I cross the room to the tiny closet. “Fuck you, too.”

  “Look.” He sighs and jams his fingers through his hair. “I’m not perfect either. I did shit to Rylee too last year. Do you think of me as a piece of shit?”

  “Right at this moment?”

  His lips twitch.

  “Yes, but in general, no,” I answer and turn away from him. I yank down a hoodie and a pair of jeans from their hangers.

  “Do you really think you’d be my best friend for as long as you have been if I thought you weren’t a good person?”

  My answer is a grunt. Pulling out a pair of boxers and socks, I send them sailing across the room to the bed.

  “And to answer your earlier question, Savannah’s in rough shape.”

  I jerk around to face him, fear lodging itself in my throat. “What does that mean?” I croak.

  Tossing the pillow on the bed, he crosses an ankle over his other knee.

  “Relax. I just mean the shit you pulled the other night really hurt her. She’s strong and tries to hide it, but she’s got dark rings under her eyes, man. I don’t know what all you said to her, but knowing your sharp tongue, it wasn’t nice.”

  My gut clenches and a sharp pain stabs me in the chest. I wasn’t just ‘not nice’, I called her fucking fat. I used the worst weapon I had because that’s what I do. I hurt the ones who mean the most to me.

  “Is she taking care of herself?” I voice my question through a dry throat.

  When Zayden doesn’t answer right away, I glance over at him. Concern draws his brows down and the look sends panic through me.

  “I don’t know. I haven’t been around much so they can have girl time, but Rylee’s concerned. Savannah’s been pushing her away, opting to stay in her room most of the time when she’s not in class or at work. Anytime she comes out, she acts like nothing’s wrong, but Rylee says it’s fake.”

  “I’m sure Rylee wants to maim me right about now.”

  Z smirks. “You’re definitely on her shit list. But she knows you were hurt and lashed out because of it. It doesn’t excuse your behavior, but she understands it.”

  I grab my clothes, along with a bottle of shampoo, and stuff everything into a gym bag. Turning, I hunt down a towel and put that in my bag as well.

  “What are you going to do?”

  Without looking at him, I mutter, “Nothing.”

  “Oliver—”

  I cut him off and turn to face him. “Even if I did deserve Savannah before all this went down, I damn sure don’t now. Not after what I said to her that night. Besides,” I blow out a breath, “she’ll never forgive me.”

  “You don’t know that if you don’t try,” he says stubbornly.

  “And what happens the next time something shitty happens in my life? I keep hurting her and she keeps forgiving me? That’s not a healthy relationship. I won’t keep doing that to her.”

  Before he has a chance to respond, I snatch up my bag and stalk to the door.

  “I’m hitting the shower.”

  I leave before he can say anything else.

  As much as I want to go to Savannah and beg for her forgiveness, I know I don’t deserve it. I’ve already caused enough damage and I refuse to do anymore.

  Even if that means the pesky organ in my chest feels like it’s slowly being shredded by a meat grinder.

  28

  SAVANNAH

  “Hey, V, will you do me a favor and take this order?” Rylee pulls my attention away from where I’m restocking cups to the register. “I have to pee so bad,” she says in way of explanation.

  “Yeah.” I nod, setting the sleeve of cups onto the countertop before heading toward her.

  “Thank you.” She gives my arm a squeeze, her eyebrows knitting together when she does. “Your arms are nothing but bone,” she tells me, but I ignore her comment and turn my attention to the group of college kids on the other side of the register from me—proceeding to take their order.

  I feel her eyes on me for a few long seconds before she turns and walks away. I know she’s concerned. If I didn’t feel like I was dying inside, maybe I’d be concerned too.

  Things have gotten bad. Like really bad. I can’t eat. I can barely sleep. And each day seems to drag on forever, like there will never be an end to the pain that’s consuming me from the inside out.

  I feel like a walking zombie. I have no energy. No motivation. No drive to do anything. Hell, this is the first time I’ve even been to work in nearly a week. I’ve missed just as much school too. And while I feel like it shouldn’t hurt this bad—losing Oliver after a few weeks together—it does. It hurts so bad that sometimes it’s all I can do to force myself out of bed.

  I finish making the coffee order and I’m setting the finished drinks on the pick-up counter when Rylee comes back out of the bathroom, a damp paper towel still clenched in her hand.

  “Thanks for that.” She tosses the towel into the trashcan and sidles up next to me.

  “Sure.” I turn to go back to what I was doing, but her hand on my forearm stops me.

  “V.” She waits until my gaze swings to hers. “I’m worried about you.”

  “Me?” I ask like I don’t understand why she would be. “I’m fine,” I lie the same way I’ve done for days now.

  The truth is, I’m not fine. I know it and based on how she’s looking at me, she knows it too. But the last thing I want to do is talk about Oliver. In fact, I haven’t so much as spoken his name out loud since the night we bro
ke up.

  I had a good cry and that’s all he’s getting from me. Or at least, that’s what I keep telling myself, even if it’s so far from the truth it’s laughable.

  “You look awful,” she tells me point blank. “You’ve barely come out of your room in a week. I haven’t seen you eat once during that time. Your cheekbones are sunken in and it looks like you put your eyeshadow on under your eyes—that’s how dark they are.”

  “Wow. Thanks.” I snort, not trying to hide how offended I am by her comment.

  “I’m serious, V. You look like death.”

  “I already told you….”

  “Yeah, you’re fine. I got that,” she cuts me off.

  “What do you want from me exactly?” I snip, growing tired of this conversation.

  I know she’s only trying to help, and I love her for it, but right now I want to be left alone. Maybe I’m treating this situation like it’s a bigger deal than it should be. Maybe I really should be fine. But I can’t force myself to feel any way other than the way I feel. And right now, I feel like something in me is broken, and for the life of me I can’t figure out how to piece it back together.

  “I want you to talk to me. Tell me what I can do.”

  “Erase the last two months of my life. Think you can handle that?” I bite out in frustration.

  “Why are you treating me like I’m the enemy all of a sudden?” She draws back, a little taken aback by my tone.

  “I’m sorry.” I blow out a slow breath, trying to calm myself. I don’t know what’s wrong with me all of a sudden. The last couple of days I feel like I’ve been hanging on by a thread. My emotions are all over the place, and I find myself having these intense bouts of anger where I want to break everything in sight.

  I’m upset by what happened. Hell, I’m devastated. But something tells me this isn’t only about Oliver anymore. Something is going on with me. Something I can’t control. I feel like I’m losing my damn mind.