“I watched you look past my shoulder and fall, deeply in love with someone else. You fell out of love with me the moment you spotted him, so don’t start lying to me now.”
I don’t think my heart has ever broke the way it is now.
“You’re breaking my heart.” I whisper.
“Must be nice, having an intact heart that actually works and not living in fear that it might stop beating in your sleep. Or that blood from the other die may mix with blood from this side. Or maybe there could be flooding. Or my personal favorite and why I’m here, again. There is a hole in the center of my heart that has been increasing in size every single day.”
My God.
I don’t even know what to say as I start trembling.
“But you are here, and I’m sure it’s not because you want to listen to me whine about my issues but to ask about the fucking marriage contact, am I right?” He questions, eyes on me, with that fake smile on his face.
“Emmett.”
“Marrying me isn’t so bad. I know you’re only doing it because you want to protect him. . . the one you love. . .”
Somehow the wat he says those words, in a mocking gesture that grates on my nerves makes me burst out as I push him but he doesn’t move at all.
“I love you!” I shout for him to hear me, my body shaking. “I fucking love you, okay.”
He looks at me seriously for a second then steps back.
If you mean that, then you’ll sign that contract and marry me.” His voice "What?” I question.
“You love me, and you’ll fucking marry me!” He demands, watching me with this look in his eyes, as if daring me to reject him right now.
“Emmett. . .”
“Oh for God’s sake, when will you wake up and smell the fucking roses and realize that asshole doesn’t love you!”
I flinch, taking a step back because of the harshness of his words but it’s not just that, it’s the harshness of the truth being served to me on a platter.
Because he’s watching me like a hawk and knows me well, Emmett starts laughing. A hard and cold laugh that is o unlike him that a shiver races down my spine.
““Let me guess, you told him that you love him, didn’t you?” He questions, taking a step closer to me, still chuckling like all this is amusing to him. My pain is amusing him. “Didn’t you?” He demands again.
Oh God, how does he know?
“Yes.” I answer, hating that my voice is weak but I can’t do a damn thing about that.
“And he didn’t say it back, huh?” Emmett mocks, a smirk on his face, his eyes dead to me and the rest of the world, as if he’s hiding himself in there. “I mean, you can count on King for one thing, he’s fucking honest. If he doesn’t care, he doesn’t fucking care and baby, if he doesn’t love you. . .” He trails off, eyes glued on me.
“Then he doesn’t love you.” I finish, the meaning and the truth loud and clear but that still doesn’t make me feel any better. In fact, I feel like I’m going to hurl.
Unable to keep my head up, I look down to the ground, but I can’t see a damn thing. Tears blurring my vision but soon I feel Emmett’s fingers, tugging my chin up, forcing me to look at him. Just like how Ace made me look at him as he silently destroyed me from within.
“I’ve loved you for a long time, Astraea and you know this. Marrying me isn't a bad thing. I know you feel it somewhere in there.” He says, looking deep into my eyes.
But ears keep coming, pouring out of me like a rushing river.
“Okay. . .” I whisper, looking at him. “I need you to explain all of this.”
He gives me that hard smile again, watching me. “It’s really not that hard. I get my surgery done, they try to close the damn whole in my heart. You turn eighteen in four nights. You sign the thing in front of a judge and voila, we are married.” He says, waving his hand dramatically, looking over my shoulder as if he’s waiting for something.
“Just like that, huh?”
“Yeah, unless you want to start having babies with immediate effect. We can practice right now, my bed is pretty comfortable, we can do it now you know.”
I gape at him, feeling like I’ve just been placed in a twilight zone where my Emmett, the sweet boy that I know, is someone completely different.
“What the fuck?” I almost shout and he smiles that cold, unpleasant smile again.
“Hey, you’re the one who wants to protect your thug of a boyfriend, who really isn’t yours to be honest. He’s probably busy kissing half of Westbrook Blues by now.” He says and I step back, taken aback by his mean streak.
“You have no idea. . .” But before I can even finish that statement, Emmett quickly steps into me and wraps me in his arms in a tight hug, then with one hand, he tilts my head in a position where our gazes locked.
To the outside and for anyone watching, it looks like we’re kissing, locked in a passionate embrace but right now, his eyes have softened, watching me.
“Just trust me, we’re being watched.” He whispers in my ear. “And I know you love me, Raea, but not in that way. Right?” His voice is sad and full of melancholy but before I can answer and demand to know what’s going on, the door behind us bursts open.
But before I can jump out of Emmett’s embrace, he’s ripped away from me, knocking the wind out of me with the speed and the force to which it’s done.
I shake my head and look around in confusion, only for my eyes to focus and zero in on Ace, punching the shit out of Emmett who lays on the floor, not fighting back at all. He just lets Ace do his thing as if it doesn’t hurt him.
“Ace!” I scream in horror, as I watch him as if he’s possessed, unable to move from my spot to stop him, gripped by horror as I watch the love of my life, beat up a boy who I’ve just found has heart defects.
Make this hell stop.
“Stop it, Ace!” I scream again but he doesn’t stop, he keeps going.
“I’m going to kill you!” He growls at Emmett who starts laughing, but doesn’t even bother to fight back.
“Somebody help!” I scream and soon enough, nurses rush into the room and they try to sperate Ace from Emmett who is now a bleeding mess on the floor.
“How could you?” Ace shouts and growls at Emmett, a wild look in his eyes.
“You sonofabitch!” Ace growls, his voice almost unrecognizable with the anger that seems too have been doused in hate. "You have always wanted her, haven’t you? Don’t know the fucking meaning of brotherhood! I’m going to end you.”
“Oh my God, Ace stop!” I cry, feeling his hate in the pit of my stomach, his blue eyes no longer blue—now dilated and black.
Noah comes running into the room, his hair disheveled, out of breath. He takes one look at me, then at Emmett on the floor and Ace being held back by nurses and he dives right in.
He goes straight for Ace and starts dragging him away from Emmett whom the nurses are fussing over and towards the door.
“Calm down King, calm the fuck down.” But Ace tries to shake him off, as if wanting to go back to Emmett and finish what he started.
“Ace.” I say that one word, his name for me, that he actually fits to a tee right this second.
He looks like he is the messenger of death, like he’s been kissed by death and if I dare touch him, I’ll die too.
His gaze swings to me and locks.
His nose flares as he looks at my lips, then my tear stained face. His eyes harden but this time not with the stuff that gives me butterflies, but with a hate so consuming, I feel it on every inch of me.
“You lied.” He growls, watching me as he stills completely.
“Sir, we have called security, you need to leave now.” A nurse says but Ace ignores her as he watches me.
I can hardly say a thing or try to explain myself. I can’t even say another word.
“I’m going to destroy you.” He vows.
It’s a vow that I feel. It’s not light. It’s not simple. It’s heavy and it’s the fucking truth.
He is going to destroy me.
“Ace. . .” I breathe out but he looks at me one more time, pushes away Noah who stands in front of him and he storms out, like a tornado headed to destroy its next target.
But as he goes and chaos remains in the room, I can’t help but feel like things are going to be different—and much worse than ever before.
“Oh my God.” A soft, heartbroken voice says to my left and I turn to look who it is and my heart fucking stops. For the third time tonight.
Three is a charm but when you get three strikes, we all know it means you’re out. Right now, I’m more than out as my eyes widen with tears, spotting Ivy.
She stands there, with two bubblegum slushes that are now on the floor. It doesn’t take me long to figure out that she saw Ace steam out here. It doesn’t take me long to realize that she saw and heard everything that just happened. And it’s also clear to see that those two slushes were for her. . .and the boy she’s been in love with since forever.
And I destroyed that for her. Again.
As I struggle to look at her, I can’t help but think that the two melting ice drinks on the floor are a symbol, representing her and me. Hearts laying on the floor.
Broken. Bleeding. And irreparable.
But this time, it’s me who did this, as if the roles have been reversed.
“Ivy.” I start but she immediately turns and runs away.
I turn back to look at Emmet and I notice his jaw is clenched tight. His eyes are hard. His chest is moving up and down erratically and the nurses are bustling around him, trying to calm him down.
“Did you see. . .” I start but he raises a hand to stop me from saying her name, his body somehow weak, heart beating so damn fast, I can hear it through the machines they hooked him up to.
“Doesn’t matter. She’s poison anyway.” Is all he says and then he turns away to look out the window, with Noah looking between us with a loom of horror on his face.
What have we done?
In the days following after that night, you would never have guessed that the Blue Boys were in all sorts of disarray and mayhem, simply because they were hardly here.
But if you were everyone else at Westbrook Blues High, you knew that Astraea Fields, George’s unfortunate wombmate, has finally fallen from grace and is now absolutely nothing to those very boys.
Which means, I was fair game for anyone and at the very bottom of the food chain.
The bullying started soon after Noah moved away from me in Chemistry and didn’t even talk to me when I tried to. Students started snickering and laughing at me.
Apparently the flavor of the month had ran out of essence.
All the girls were happy, the boys made lewd comments. This morning, my seat in Calc was covered in freshly chewed gum and a big sign behind the chair that read, Blue Trash. But the thing is, even I knew that this was only the beginning of the bullying.
“There you are, tell me, how does it feel to be a whore?” Someone mocks, shouting at me as I walk down the hall to my next class.
“Hey, can you help me take my virginity. I mean, I could pay you and your mother.” Someone else leers.
“You guys, we have to be nice to charity cases.” Some unoriginal, snotty freshmen say as I pass them.
“Meet me after gym class, I can definitely tap that. Heard that Montreal spread you eagle in the lockers. I want to do that too.”
And so on and so forth. But I think the worst one was the latest rumor I heard, that the Blue Boys were only using me to ruin me, like they did my brother. Ending his life.
I felt hallow inside, like I was slowly dying with each day that passed, stuck within the halls of this school.
I have never really been the at the receiving end of this much bullying before. I guess it’s because when I was younger, there were four boys that protected me, kept an eye out for me so people didn’t mess with me as openly and as intense as this.
And now, one of those boys is dead, the other is in the hospital fighting for his heartbeats, the other avoids me and the last one—is the one responsible for this hell that I’m in.
The rumors from the hospital came out but they were not what you’d expect. Or rather, they were not what I expected at all. Apparently, Alexander fucking King broke up with me because I was tested positive on an HIV test and now all the boys don’t want anything to do with me.
Blue Trash indeed.
I have never felt so down before or so damn lonely for that matter. Ivy isn’t even coming to work, according to Kim. She requested to have her shift in teams. As for Kim herself, she’s been distant, sympathetic yes and still talks to me, but she feels different. And guilty as if something is weighing on her conscious.
Even Noah doesn’t pick me up for school anymore. Trumbull does that now, much to my dismay but at least Kim drops me off. And think of the devil. . .
“Ignore them, Astraea. That boy isn’t worth a damn anyway.” Kim says, a nasty ‘go fuck yourself’ look on her face as she silently challenges that guy who just made a disgusting pass at me about the gym.
“This is bad.” I mumble, feeling like a cloud of doom hangs over me but the suicidal thing I’m doing is that, I’m coming to school every single day, knowing that I’m going to be treated worse than scum.
But the most pathetic part? Each day I hope to get a glimpse of him.
Each day he denies me himself.
“Oh, you have no idea. I don’t think we should go for cheer practice today.” She says as she hooks her arm through mine.
In the past two days, Kim has turned into my bull dog bodyguard. She doesn’t leave my side and she doesn’t allow me to indulge in the gossip and rumors going on about me. But the way rumors are designed though, they’ll reach you even past death.
But today, everything is a too blunt. It’s too much. It’s too real and I can feel it in my stomach that something bigger is about to happen today.
“Why?” I question her but I don’t give a fuck about cheer practice. I don’t think I want to see the look of pure glee on Brittney’s face today or any day for that matter. All I know is, I can’t go home because Amanda is there and she has a ticking countdown of her own over my head.
“Well, I think we can pick a shift at The Haven. Only thing is, Ivy will be there.’
Ivy. The same girl that caught me and maybe the boy she has always loved in a warm lover’s embrace. I bet she, like Ace, thought that something more happened between Emmett and I, and now, she hates me for real.
There is nothing like the hate of a heartbroken girl.
I should know, I feel it too.
I’m hardly able to sleep at night, but who am I kidding, I’ve never slept well in forever. Only when Ace had his large arms around me, I felt enough peace to shut my eyes for a few hours. Now, even that is gone.
I’m unable to get Ace’s parting words from the other night out of my head. Each time I close my eyes or blink I hear them, screaming in my soul and now, I’m standing in the evidence of his words.
I’m completely unable to erase the look of absolute hate and devastation on his face when he looked at me in that hospital. Just like before, he didn’t stop to ask or even demand an explanation, he just burst in and became the judge, the jury and executioner of my life in one breath.
And then there is the marriage thing.
“You know what I don’t understand about all of this?” Kim questions but I can hardly hear her, stuck in my head as we walk towards the cafeteria for lunch. I think I’m even moving and behaving like a damn zombie. Dead and rotting inside.
I haven’t eaten or slept in days, maybe I am turning into one.
I don’t care for life right now. I just come here because I have to escape Amanda somehow. And see Ace, even just a glimpse of him.
Pathetic.
Pathetic.
I’m pathetic.
“What?” I say, knowing that she’s waiting for me to respond. Kim has been patient with me these past couple of days. I
wonder if she’ll still be when I eventually give up on existing—because even now, I can feel that part coming.
“Why aren’t the boys doing something about all of this?” She questions, echoing the same question that has been giving conscious nightmares—I heard it’s a thing. “I mean, they hardly speak to you anymore.”
“Try, they don’t speak to me AT ALL now.” I mumble, keeping my head up but my eyes down.
“Yeah that. You know what I think? I think something is cooking.” She says, as if she is fully convinced about that.
“If you say so.” I say as we head towards the cafeteria.
“Are you sure you want to go in there?” She questions me, a look of concern and anger across her beautiful face.
“It’s fine, Kim. None of them will be there anyway.”
And that’s the part that probably hurts the most besides all the bullying I’m facing right now. I can’t even begin to describe the gaping hole in my chest. Or the agitation I feel every hour, feeding the anxiety, the stress and the sadness that washes over me like strong waves crashing into me.
Kim pulls open the cafeteria doors and as if lightning just struck, all eyes fall immediately on me. EVERY EYE like fucking magnets. I want to scream at them and demand to know why the fuck they’re looking at me but instead, it’s like I have nothing left in me.
Ace even took my voice.
“Kim, I need you to do something for me.” I say as I start trembling again as we take our seats at the very back of the cafeteria, neither one of us even bothers with getting food.
“Yeah sure. How can I help?” She questions, sympathy marring her features as low whispers grow louder around us. It’s like they want me to hear what they are saying.
“I can’t drive just yet.” I start. Even the thought of driving makes me flinch, remembering that night. The night everything and I do mean everything, went to shit.
“Yes?” Kim questions and I jerk out of my reverie, feeling tears now coating my eyes.
“I uh,” I start, clearing my voice. “I need you to drive to the hospital.” I murmur, my voice barely above a whisper.
Vicious Hate (Westbrook Blues Book 2) Page 36
