That caused me to glare at him. “You did what?” He told the fucking police everything I’d said? Oh, great. Now they’d look into me. What if they found something to do with Ray? What if they found out everything I was trying to hide?
“I told them what you said, because I was confused. I didn’t know if you were talking about what happened with Will, or…” Declan shrugged helplessly. “You were hit by a car, and I just couldn’t stop thinking about what you said. Over and over, it replayed in my head. It was all about you.”
Fuck me. I never should’ve said any of that. I leaned my head back on my pillow, staring at the sterile white ceiling, biting my tongue.
“If someone’s after you,” Declan said, his voice gaining a firmness that made me snap to attention, “I’m not going to sit back and let them hurt you. I sat back and took it for the last year, but I draw the line with you. I won’t let anyone hurt you, Ash. You mean too much to me.”
His words were almost enough to bring tears to the eye. Almost, but not quite. And it wasn’t just his words, it was how he said it, too. The way every word was pronounced, how his jaw muscles clenched and his eyes slightly narrowed. I believed him, but then again, Declan had no idea just who he was dealing with.
In a fight between Declan and Ray, Ray would win.
Which was exactly why I could never let Declan enter the ring in the first place. He’d only get hurt, beaten down, maybe even killed. I didn’t want to live in a world that Declan wasn’t a part of, even if Declan was no longer in my life or my heart.
And, unfortunately for me, he still took up residence in that dark, dank place.
Never thought I’d fall for any of the rich, uptight guys at Hillcrest, but here I was, fallen for not just one, but multiple. I was fucked every which way, wasn’t I?
“Stop,” I whispered, mustering up the courage to sound like a bitch. Ice cold, my words like knives. “Just stop.”
Declan blinked. “What—”
“I don’t need you to protect me, Declan,” I practically spat out his name, hating myself all the while. I turned my gaze to him, sending him an expression I hoped was a glare. “I never asked for your help.”
“That’s what people do who care for each other,” Declan said. “They help even when the other person doesn’t ask—”
Again, I interrupted him, “Did you ever think that maybe I don’t care about you as much as you care about me?” Holy hell, I…I hated saying the words, and yet I couldn’t stop myself. I kept picturing Declan on the floor of the bathroom, cut open, left for me as he bled out. His skin pale, his body unresponsive.
Call me stupid, call me mean and awful, but I couldn’t let anything like that happen again.
Declan’s dark brows furrowed, and his mouth dropped open. He clearly hadn’t expected me to say anything remotely close to that, and I didn’t blame him, because it wasn’t so long ago that I told him he’d never lose me. My own promise made me into a liar. “Ash…”
I blinked, turning my head in the opposite direction, refusing to let him see me tear up. “Just go.” When Declan made no moves to get up, I muttered, “Please, go.”
Declan must’ve stared at me for a while, waiting to see if I’d change my mind or take back what I said, but I wasn’t going to. After a minute, he got to his feet and left, saying not a single word as he closed the door to my room.
Ray was going to destroy everything in my life anyway. Why not get a head start? Why not start isolating myself now? It might just save their lives. I was at the point where I didn’t think myself savable.
Or, maybe, it only prolonged the inevitable. There was a chance Ray would go after them regardless because he’d seen us together.
This life…my life wasn’t an easy one. It was hard, harder than I ever thought it would be. Sometimes I wanted to give up. There were days when I wondered if it was all worth it, if I’d ever truly break free of my past, and then there were days like this: horrid, terrible, gut-wrenching days that made me face the truth.
I could never run from my past. He’d always find me, no matter what.
Chapter Eight – Declan
Did you ever think that maybe I don’t care about you as much as you care about me?
Ash’s words rang through my head, bouncing around in my brain as I left her room. My skin felt clammy for all the wrong reasons, and I was like a zombie as I meandered down the hall, passing busy nurses and doctors. When I found the nearest chair, I sat down, slumping over in it. Over and over again, her harsh question rang in my head, and I couldn’t help but wonder if she really meant it, or if she was lashing out because of what happened. She definitely didn’t seem too pleased to hear that I’d told the police what she said to me before she ran off.
Did Ash not care about me? Did I mean nothing to her? Were these feelings budding inside of me useless? I loved her. I did. I cared for her more than I ever thought I would.
When she first moved in, when I saw her, I fought the feelings, not wanting them to plant their seeds and grow. I didn’t want to care about her, for dozens of reasons. I didn’t want her to hurt me, didn’t want others to use her against me, and I…above all else, I was afraid. Afraid to feel again after so long, after losing the one and only girl I’d ever loved. After being blamed for her death in her own suicide note.
But that was the thing about love. You might try to stop it, but stop it you cannot. It grew where it wanted to, regardless of whether you were welcome to it. It didn’t care if you wanted it or not. Love was one of the most powerful forces out there, and I could feel my heart already starting to break.
I was losing Ash before I even had her.
Why?
Why was she pushing me away right now? Didn’t she need me the most during a time like this? She was just hit by a car…she shouldn’t be alone. She should have friends, family…a boyfriend there to protect her.
My hands balled into fists, and I bent my back, resting my forehead against my fists, lost in my own head. Whatever I’d hoped to have with Ash was probably stupid, anyway. Someone like her would never fall for someone like me—and I didn’t mean the differences in socioeconomic status. I meant…I meant she was too good for me. Better than me. She was perfect, and I was a broken man who spent the last year sullen and moping because his ex-girlfriend committed suicide.
She needed a better man. Ash needed—
“She in there?” A deep voice broke into my head, and when I looked up, I found out who it was.
Travis. She didn’t need Travis. Travis was…wrong in so many ways.
Travis’s head was turned toward the nearest room, his tattooed hands in his pockets. The only reason he wasn’t currently lighting one up, I knew, was because of where we were. If we were anywhere else besides a hospital, I knew for a fact he’d have a cigarette in his hand. He was practically born from the womb smoking.
“No,” I said, “she’s farther down.”
He started walking, but stopped after a step. His blue eyes found me again, seeming quite bored, considering the circumstances. “How is she doing?” No questions about Will, because Travis didn’t care about Will. He only cared about Ash, which I suppose I couldn’t fault him for.
If it wasn’t for Will, we never would’ve been in this hospital. If it wasn’t for Will getting attacked, Ash never would’ve been hit by that car.
I ran a hand over my mouth, refusing to get to my feet to address him. I was lost for a moment, wondering if I’d ever get to kiss her again. I could count on a single hand how many times our lips had met, and if I was honest, it wasn’t nearly enough. I wanted to kiss her so many times I lost count. I wanted more, desperately desired to be more. Why couldn’t Ash see that? Why did she push me away once I came out with my feelings toward her?
Maybe she was afraid. Maybe, I hazarded a terrible thought, she thought I killed Sabrina, threw a rope around her neck and strung her up. Maybe she didn’t want to be the next victim.
No. We were past that point. She
knew I was innocent, even if the note blamed me. Besides, if I did it, why would I have her write a note blaming myself, therefore incriminating myself? It didn’t make sense.
“She was hit by a car,” I answered. “How do you think she’s doing?”
“But she’s awake?” Travis hedged, and I nodded. “That’s good, at least. Being awake so soon. She’s tough.”
I nodded again. “She is.”
“A hell of a lot tougher than Sabrina,” Travis spoke something that made my blood pressure rise. Ballsy of him to say that, considering he and Sabrina had been together behind my back on multiple occasions. “But anyone who considers suicide is weak, in my opinion.”
I felt insulted on so many different levels. “Funny,” I growled out through bared teeth, like a rabid dog in the face of a meaty steak. I wanted to tear Travis apart, but if I lost my cool now, I’d never get it back. “Because I don’t remember asking for your opinion.”
“True” was all Travis said before walking away, peering into the rooms he passed until he found her, and then he went in, disappearing from my sight.
Good, I didn’t want to see him, and I sure as hell didn’t want to talk to him. Still, though, while he was gone in her room, I couldn’t help but wonder what they were talking about, whether she was telling him off as she’d told me off…or if, for some strange reason, she was choosing him, just as Sabrina did, in the end.
No one ever chose me. No one ever picked me. I was just Declan Briggs, the forgotten one.
I didn’t mind, at least, not at first. I was more than okay with being chosen last in all aspects of my life before Sabrina. When it came to Sabrina, I cared more than I wanted to admit, and stepping back and letting her go off and do what she wanted during the breaks in our relationship hurt me like no physical weapon could. With Ash…God, I wanted Ash to be different. I wanted it so badly I could taste it, could taste her on my tongue.
I didn’t want to be the forgotten one when it came to her, and I’d learned my lesson from Sabrina.
Getting to my feet, I stormed over to her room, walking in even though the door was closed. Both she and Travis looked at me, an annoyed expression on Ash’s face and an unreadable one on Travis’s. The door swung shut of its own accord behind me, and I stood tall, even though Travis was a few inches taller than me.
This was not going to be a repeat of Sabrina. Ash was different, and I was different. I was not the same person I was a year ago, and even though I hated to admit that Travis was right, Ash was worlds stronger than Sabrina ever was. I was going to fight for her, even when the fight seemed hopeless.
“If you think I’m just going to sit by and let this happen,” I started, focusing on Ash, “you’re wrong.”
Travis opened his mouth, but said nothing. Odd, because he was never at a loss for words.
“I told you I was going to fight for you,” I went on, oblivious to the awkwardness around me. “And I meant it. I meant every single word I told you, Ash. I’m going to fight for you, even if you say it’s pointless. I refuse to give up on you. You don’t give up on the things you care for, and especially not the people you love.”
That was as good a declaration as any; I just hated that Travis was there to hear it all.
Ash’s expression didn’t change. “You think I was choosing Travis over you?” she asked, smart enough to know, especially after reading Sabrina’s pink diary, that I had experience losing to Travis.
A vein in Travis’s forehead throbbed, and he muttered quietly, “She asked me to leave.”
“Oh,” Ash spoke, forcing a clearly fake smile on her face as she glanced between Travis and I, “you’re forgetting the rest of it—and I didn’t ask. I told you to go. Big difference there, Travis.” She paused for a moment, as threatening and intimidating as any girl could be while stuck in a hospital bed. “Go and never come back.”
Wait.
What?
I stared between her and Travis, confused. I knew I wasn’t Travis’s biggest fan—for obvious reasons—but hearing her tell Travis to leave and not come back was…strange. She was telling both Travis and I to go? It didn’t seem right.
“I’m not going to—” Travis started, but Ash silenced him with a look.
One look was all it took to shut Travis up, which stunned me to my core. Never had a girl been so in control when it came to Travis. Travis was the dominant one, I knew.
“If you don’t leave right now, I’m going to call those cops back and tell them everything,” Ash threatened, and even though I had no idea what she alluded to, I knew she was serious. “So I suggest, if you don’t want that to happen, you get your ass out of here.” Her storm grey eyes turned to me. “You too, Declan. I want you both to leave.”
Travis stared at her for a while, keeping to his silence. I was about to ask what the hell she was talking about—because it sure seemed like she and Travis shared some kind of secret, which if I was honest, made me all different kinds of mad—but Travis set a hand on my arm, pushing me toward the door, taking me out with him.
Once we were in the hallway, the door separating us from Ash, I pulled away from him, shooting him a glare. “But I—”
“She wanted us to go,” Travis muttered, gazing steadily at the floor.
I was growing so very tired of everyone interrupting me, as if nothing I said mattered. I mattered. What I felt mattered. What I wanted to say mattered. Everyone around me was too lost in their own head to show a shred of common decency.
“What did she mean?” I asked, taking a step toward him. I wasn’t above fighting in a hospital. It would get us both thrown out, though—and that would stop me from seeing Will. As hard as it was, I had to hold it in and hold it back, at least while on hospital grounds. Once Travis and I were out of the hospital, it would be no holds barred.
Travis was silent, glancing at the room. The curtains had been drawn, and he couldn’t see her.
So many possibilities ran through my head at that point. It really was better for everyone if Travis just told me what Ash meant, because if he didn’t, my mind would automatically pick the worst possible thing to go with. And I didn’t think any of us wanted that, because it involved Sabrina.
It had crossed my mind before, the possibility that Travis had strung Sabrina up after forcing her to write a note. I’d read the diary Ash had given me, and I knew Sabrina was afraid of him. Ash had been a distraction, but of course my mind wondered whether Sabrina had tried to break things off with him, tried to end it and come back to me, and Travis didn’t like it, so he killed her.
How could my mind not wonder that?
“I said—”
“I heard what you said.” Travis looked up, glancing at a nurse walking by. The nurse was a young one, pretty, and she nonchalantly checked both of us out as she went past us. “Come on.” As he shoved his hands in his pockets, he turned on his heel and started walking away, not even bothering to wait to see if I would follow.
I would, mostly because I wanted answers. I needed answers.
Since I apparently had nothing better to do, I trailed after him, though I was not happy about it. I never wanted to spend any time with Travis, and yet here I was. It was like fate had suddenly decided it wasn’t done with us yet, and threw us together just for the fun of it. At this point, fate could fuck off, and I didn’t say that lightly.
We headed to one of the exits, and Travis took me to an outside sitting area. The metal bench had been in the sun for the last five hours, so I was certain it was beyond hot to the touch. It was fine, though, because neither of us made any moves to sit down. The conversation we were about to have wasn’t one you had when sitting down and relaxing.
“I’m assuming by now she showed it to you,” Travis said, eyeing me up as if I was some experiment on display, a new species he couldn’t quite figure out.
I had no idea what he was talking about, so I asked, “Showed me what?” Ash had shown me a lot of things, and most of them involved me learning to live
again and not shut out the entire world. What that had to do with Travis, I didn’t rightly know.
“The diary.”
Two words. Two words were all it took from Travis to make me want to strangle him. He always had a knack for it, saying exactly what would rile me up. He could read people well, even though he wore a bored expression most of the time. In reality, you never knew what was going on inside Travis’s head. Too bad I’d learned that lesson too late.
I knew without asking whose diary he meant, but what I really wanted to know, what I was dying to know, was how the hell he knew about it. “How did you know?” My hands clenched to fists at my sides, and my arms trembled. I wasn’t one to get into fights, but right here and now? I really, really wanted to.
“Ash has been unpredictable in every way,” Travis said, sighing. The way he spoke of her…it sounded like he cared for her as much as I did, which was ridiculous. Travis, in the end, cared for no one but himself. “Where most people would hide the journal, fearing the repercussions of having it, I figured she’d show you eventually. She found the diary in my room.” As if that proclamation wasn’t enough, he added, “I had it.”
“You had it?” I echoed. At the rate this day was going, I was lucky I still stood on my feet, the way it kept trying to knock me down. “How?” Or maybe I should’ve asked why. Why did you have it, Travis? Were you keeping it as a trophy, to remind you of your kill? Standing there, glaring at him, I couldn’t help but rehash all of my old feelings for him.
We were friends, so very long ago, and now we were strangers, united by one thing: our yearning, our craving of Ash.
“Unlike you, I wasn’t forbidden from stepping foot in the Salvatore’s house. After it happened, I found it in her room.” Travis shrugged, as if the explanation was so simple, so easy. Like he didn’t just paint red on his hands. “I missed her, Declan, just like you did.”
“Seems a little fishy to me,” I said, refusing to back down. I might’ve been a pushover before, but no more. “You having Sabrina’s journal, the same one where she wrote that she was afraid of you. Why did you keep it after all this time? You have to know how guilty it makes you look.” He had to; Travis was smarter than that.
Skank: A Dark College Bully Romance (Hillcrest University Book 3) Page 6
