Kiss and Break Up

by Ella Fields

  Jackson sighed. “Apparently, she was all messed up over you, didn’t know how she felt and didn’t know what to do, so she slammed the brakes on and bit the hell out of his lip.”

  I said nothing, my vision still spotting.

  “You see the cut on his lip?” I frowned, remembering it and the way people had called Peggy a savage. “She bit him to make him get off her, then Willa and Daphne stopped the limo.”

  As Jackson kept talking, I remembered where I’d been while this was happening between her and Byron. Inside the dark warehouse feeling like I’d been stood up, like the sorry son of a bitch I was.

  She’d had to bite him to make him stop.

  I should’ve tried harder. I shouldn’t have left her with him to go drink my feelings away. I should’ve pushed even more. I was Dash Thane, and I didn’t stop until I’d gotten what I’d wanted. But this time, I couldn’t handle the challenge, so I’d stepped back, hoping that for once in my life, I wouldn’t have to demand I be given something. Something that couldn’t be bought or handed to me.

  Standing, I set loose a string of curses so foul that Jackson stared at me as if he was waiting for me to explode. “I’ll kill him next time. I’ll—” Jackson pushed me back onto the couch, and I stood back up, getting in his face. “Quit doing that, asshole.”

  His green eyes flared. “She was his girlfriend, and you fucked around, playing games instead of being straight with her.”

  “I was straight with her.” But then I’d bailed, leaving her confused, like a coward. I blinked, stepping back and scraping a hand over my hair.

  “Where’s Peggy?” Kayla asked, wrapping her arm around mine.

  I shook her off. “Get gone before I throw your ass out the window.”

  She gasped, then laughed. “You’re such an asshole.”

  “Hey, Kayla,” Lars said, a lift to his lips as he sank back into the couch cushions.

  She stopped, flipping her hair over her shoulder as she fluttered her lashes at him.

  “Word is that your boy just left with Annabeth.”

  Her brows pulled. “What?” A laugh tittered out of her, then her expression fell. “No way.”

  “Left about fifteen minutes ago,” Jackson said.

  Kayla’s lips cracked and her shoulders visibly shook as she raised a hand to her forehead. “You’re lying.” Yet her tone lacked conviction.

  I didn’t know if he had, and I didn’t care. So long as he was nowhere near me right now.

  “The hell would we lie about something like that?” Lars flicked a hand at her. “Never mind, believe it or don’t, just fuck off before we catch something.”

  Her face contorted in outrage, but she didn’t hang around, and neither did I.

  After stumbling to the room to find my phone, I made it to the stairs before Jackson grabbed my shoulder and hauled me back. “I swear to God, you keep manhandling me, and I’ll—”

  “You’ll what?” he asked, a look in his eye that said he could do with an outlet. “If you want out, I’ll take you home. You’re wasted. You’re not going anywhere else.”

  I needed to see her, and this shithead was intent on stopping me.

  Peggy. Fuck me. I wanted to throw myself down the stairs, guilt a pulsing beat in every vein in my body. It repulsed me to know she’d been mauled by that dog, but now I’d broken her too.

  Lars joined us as we filed downstairs, Raven nowhere to be seen.

  “Take me to Peggy’s,” I said as we climbed into his truck.

  “No.” The truck roared to life, the headlights illuminating a bunch of girls dancing in the street.

  “Yes,” I said, my head falling to the glass as it spun in hazy waves.

  Jackson said nothing, and I tried to lift my head, but I’d overdone it, and all too soon, blackness took hold.

  Lars and Jackson had hauled me out of the car and left me on the porch. Lars needed help getting back to the truck, so Jackson rang the doorbell and left me there.

  Couldn’t exactly blame him, but it did take my dad a considerable effort to help me inside.

  Showered and lying face down on my bed, I replayed the events of the previous night over and over. It never got any easier to relive. I was a masochist of the worst degree.

  But if I was going to feel like shit in every possible way, I was going to make sure I did it right.

  Church slithered along my body, then his paws started kneading my back. I wasn’t wearing a shirt, so his nails were a bit of an issue, but he was one of the only things I loved, so I’d put up with it. Not like I didn’t deserve a bit of pain anyway.

  “Knock, knock.” Dad opened my door.

  I didn’t even bother looking at him and grunted. “Usually people knock, rather than say, knock, knock.”

  “I wouldn’t get smart with me, drunkard.” He paused, and I heard him take a slurp of coffee. I’d kill for some coffee, but I wasn’t sure my stomach could handle anything. “Now, I was eighteen once …”

  I groaned. “Not this shit again.”

  “Shut your mouth. I was eighteen once, and I remember with not a lot of clarity how much shit one can get into. However, this needs to stop, Dash. Get control of yourself.”

  “I haven’t lost control of a damn thing.”

  “Partying every weekend, getting suspended from school for beating someone up, and let’s not even get started on the lack of respect you have for me and your mother.”

  I coughed, my chest rattling. “Mainly just Mother Dearest.”

  He made a growling sound, and I cringed. Too far. “Fine, fine.” I waved an arm. “I’ll be better, do better, whatever.”

  Dad remained there, his judgment and the unspoken words he was keeping tucked away hanging heavy in the stale air of my room. After a minute, he sighed. “You have today to be hungover, then I want you up and out of the house. No video games tomorrow.”

  That had me rolling over. Church protested, his nails scoring into my back. I hissed. “What? What does playing a few games have anything to do with?”

  “You have brand-new bikes in the garage and acres of land behind the house to ride them on. Get out and do that, or I don’t know …” He threw around the hand that wasn’t wrapped around his mug. “Clean up this shit-sty of a room.”

  “That’s what Franny is for,” I said to his retreating back.

  “Franny said she doesn’t want to enter your dungeon anymore. Occupational hazards.”

  “Occupational what?” I glanced around at the junk lining the floor. It wasn’t too bad. Just food wrappers, clothes, textbooks, gaming consoles and cords, and some empty glasses and bowls. I harrumphed, then flopped back down on the bed to bask in my misery.

  Today, I would mope.

  Tomorrow, I would mope too, but I would do it while trying to win my best friend back.

  Peggy

  “Peggy.” Mom tapped at the door. “I need to head into town for a bit.”

  I rolled my head off my pillow enough to mumble, “Awesome.”

  A pause, then, “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  Mom waited a beat. “Okay. Call me if you need anything. Hopefully, I won’t be long.”

  I felt like reminding her that I was eighteen and I was quite capable of being left home alone, broken heart or not. That wouldn’t fly, and it wasn’t fair to take how I was feeling out on her, but I was beginning not to care.

  It cost too much to care, when all I could see were two figures moving in a bed, and hear the sound of Kayla’s moaning. In a continuous loop, it all circled and recycled. I couldn’t shut it off. So I tried to sleep instead, but even behind tear-swollen lids, everything chased me and demanded I look.

  Look at what you’ve done.

  Look at what we’d gone and done.

  A few kisses had changed everything. Or maybe it would’ve changed anyway. Who knew. I suppose we might never know. But it shouldn’t have happened the way it did. If we were always destined to wind up wal
king this path with each other, I didn’t think it was meant to be like this. Anything but this splitting ache that wouldn’t remove its teeth from my heart.

  Thudding at the window had me rolling over, and I blinked, wiping my mouth as a shadow appeared behind the curtains.

  “Pegs.”

  My heart plummeted, then bounced.

  He rattled the window. “Let me in, Freckles, or I’ll blow this cardboard box down.”

  “Go home, Dash.”

  “See? A box. I shouldn’t have been able to hear that, but I did.” He paused. “Or maybe I just imagined it, but whatever. Let me in.”

  I ignored him but watched as his palms slid down the glass trying to find enough purchase to lift the locked window.

  “Fine. You’ve left me no choice.”

  I frowned at the words, then my heart boomed as he wedged something beneath the old wood, paint chipping and falling as he tried to jimmy the window open.

  “Oh, my freaking God.” I threw the covers off and, clad in only an extra-long T-shirt, panties, and my hair a mess atop my head, I raced down the hall to open the front door.

  As if this was his plan, he was already there, a blinding grin on his face as he stepped inside, making me stumble back a step. “You look like hell.”

  “Are you serious right now?” I shut the door, not to keep him in, but to keep anything that might be said away from any neighbors walking by.

  He tipped a shoulder, then walked into the living room, leaning against the back of the couch with his ankles crossed. “I’m here to grovel.”

  My bleary eyes widened as I laughed. “Who actually says that? Instead of just doing it?”

  His smirk was going to have my nails clawing at his face if he didn’t wipe it off. “Clearly, I do. Want me to get on my knees? I haven’t put my mouth on you yet, but if you sidle on over here, I’d be more than happy to service you.” His eyes journeyed down my thighs, his teeth pinching his full bottom lip even as his fists and jaw clenched. “To rid any and all remnants of the scum who touched you.”

  Saliva thickened over my tongue, and my throat swelled. “You’re such a dick.”

  I went to the door, about to open it, when he said, “Okay, okay. That was probably too soon. I’m sorry, okay? Like insanely fucking sorry.”

  I stopped moving, my body tensing all over.

  “I’m self-centered, but we know that.” His footsteps neared, boots heavy on the wood floor. His voice became a soft plea. “I didn’t know you were so confused, Peggy. I didn’t think you even liked the guy. But even so, I know I went about this all wrong. I’ve fucked it all up, and I’m sorry.”

  My lungs froze, air puffing out of me on a dry exhale. “You’d have known if you’d have listened to me at all these past weeks. I told you I liked him. I told you what we were doing was scaring me.”

  “Again, I fucked up. But the thought of you letting him touch you like that,” he said on a harsh exhale, “it tore out my damn heart.”

  “Funny, I didn’t realize you even had one.”

  “I deserve that.”

  I swallowed, my eyes burning as I turned to his tortured expression. He looked like hell, too, but the best kind. His blue eyes were more vivid over the pillows cushioning them, and the careful mess he made of his hair was flattened in ten different ways. His white shirt was crinkled, as were his jeans, and his boots unlaced.

  Heat coalesced at the same time hate and hurt wrapped tight around my heart. It didn’t seem fair that standing before me, I was able to finally appreciate everything he was as more than just a friend but also be too wrecked to even want it. “How’d you come to this miraculous realization anyway?”

  “That doesn’t matter.” I frowned, because it did, and he took a few steps closer. “I wish I’d made sense of what I was feeling before all this happened. I wish I’d swallowed my pride before I let it get the better of me. I wish I was capable of thinking before I act. I wish for so many things, but wishing is pointless because here I am, unable to make any of them come true.” My tongue felt too thick to talk, so I didn’t. “Freckles, I’m done with wishing. I only want to make this right.”

  My eyes closed. They reopened as his hand met my face, his thumb brushing over my skin as he stepped even closer and peered down at me. “I love you. I’ve always loved you. And I don’t know when exactly that love changed, or why it had me acting like more of a dickhead than normal, but I know it wasn’t recent. I know I’d be lying if I tried to say it was all brand new.” His throat bobbed. “Because it’s not new. What’s new is that I can finally recognize what I feel and admit it.”

  I felt my heart beating through every limb, every vein, and every breath as I absorbed what he’d just said. “You …” I couldn’t even talk, my vocal cords had become cotton candy—flimsy, unreliable, and too damn soft.

  Dash nodded, his thumb reaching my bottom lip and grazing beneath it, eyes tracking the connection. “Yeah, no more bullshit. I’ve always said what I mean and mean what I say.” His lips twitched. “Until it came to admitting how I felt about you. Which says something in and of itself, yeah?”

  My lashes drooped to his lip, where a tiny cut still resided from his brawl with Byron. I wanted so badly to absolve him of all that’d happened, but as I stared at that lip, I couldn’t stop myself from thinking about Kayla. “You knew you loved me, yet you were okay with having sex with someone else?”

  His lips tightened, and his thumb ceased moving. “There’s not a lot I can say besides I’m sor—”

  “You’re sorry, yes, we’ve established that. But Dash”—I laughed, backing up and losing his touch—“I couldn’t go any further with Byron because it made me sick. Because I was beginning to think that maybe I was in love with you, too.”

  “Peggy, fuck.” His hands balled at his sides. “I want this. Us. More than anything else in the world. And if we could just start over, you know I’d never do that—”

  “But I wouldn’t be able to forget.” I squared my shoulders, infusing enough steel to straighten my spine and strengthen my voice. “I can’t forget what it felt like to see you in that bed with her, of all people.”

  He came toward me, but I backed away. He stopped, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I-I don’t even know what to say. I was fucked up, and I fucked up, but I’m not the type to wait around for someone to decide they finally want me, Peggy.” A harsh laugh erupted. “I’m the type who’ll fuck someone else to help me forget someone else. And we weren’t together. I never thought we’d speak again.”

  Tears dripped, and I flicked them away, my heart squeezing. “While that may be true, it’s all too big a mess now. So there’s really no point in having this conversation.”

  “There is,” he ground out through a tight jaw. “There is because we’re us. We couldn’t live without each other even if we didn’t fall for each other, and now we definitely can’t.”

  “You didn’t feel that way forty-eight hours ago,” I had to remind him.

  He tossed his arms out. “Because I hated your fucking guts forty-eight hours ago. You destroyed me, Peggy. If I’m being honest, knowing you were making out with him, knowing he touched your cunt in that limo is still destroying me.”

  I flinched. “See?” Emotion smeared my voice, tainting my vision. “Just go. We’re wasting our time and only making this worse.”

  “No time with you is wasted even when we’re breaking.”

  My fingers curled, nails striking my palms. “I don’t want to break anymore. I want you to leave.”

  “Over Kayla? Come on,” he said. “We’re more than this bullshit.”

  How he so easily discarded the pain that he’d caused from his actions had something dark and all-consuming cracking open inside me. “Don’t you dare belittle how I feel.” I was seething, my teeth clacking. “But you would because that’s what you do. You’re Dash Thane, right? The boy who ignores how others feel and does and says whatever he wants, and forever gets away with it.”

>   His nostrils flared. “That’s not fucking true.”

  “It is. It is fucking true. But not this time.” I marched to the door, flinging it open. “Get out.”

  He didn’t move. “This is a mistake. We’ve both made enough mistakes. Can we please not make anymore and, instead, find a way to move past this?” His eyes were begging, but his words were far from enough.

  My laughter cracked and ebbed in the air around us. “Go, Dash. Now.”

  “No, just listen to me,” he growled.

  “Why should I when all you do is downplay what you’ve done? The way you hurt me?”

  “Because I love you.”

  “Well, I don’t want your damn love. Not now. Not tomorrow. Not in ten years.”

  Shock painted his features a paler hue. “You don’t mean that.”

  I picked up the oriental vase from behind me, one of the only items Mom took from Dad’s place, and threw it at him. I missed. On purpose. But it was enough. It made his feet stumble to the door, and I pushed him the rest of the way out.

  “Peggy!” He pounded on the door when I slammed and locked it. “Peggy, don’t fucking do this.”

  “It’s already done. And it never should’ve started,” I yelled through the wood. “Go home before I call the cops.”

  He didn’t move for at least five minutes. I felt him there, like a smothering blanket in the heat of summer, while I sat on the floor with my back against the door and cried.

  I stayed in bed the rest of the day, my tears drying on the pillow until I had enough energy for new ones to dampen it again.

  I’d wanted this. I’d wanted to know what it was like to fall for someone and experience all the things the girls at school experienced. Even if I’d gotten hurt. But those who hadn’t had their heart broken were nothing but foolish dreamers to think they could handle it. And had I known just how completely love could ruin me, I never would’ve set out to find it.

  For what I found loomed closer to home than I ever saw coming, which only made it all the more devastating.

  Mom had given me space, and I’d been grateful, but she’d apparently thought she’d given me enough when she entered my room later that night and curled up behind me.