My stomach sinks further and further the more she talks.
“You’re useless, you’ll never be any good and I’m gonna make sure that you’re done in this town. Why don’t you run on home to Daddy and Pop?”
I spin around and walk toward her door, my shoulders drooping and my entire body deflated. That is until I see Lexi’s eyes.
The eyes that look at me like no other ones ever have. The eyes that make me feel more like me than anything else ever has.
“You know what,” I spit as I spin back around. “You’re the one who will be done in this town. You need to check who you’re talking to.” I raise my brows. “You never took an interest in who I actually am, if you had any fucking idea what I could do.” I shake my head. “Fuck you, Geena. You’re nothing but a spoiled bitch.” With that, I slam the door closed and jog down the stairs and back to my car. Starting the engine and speeding off. Not knowing where I’m going but needing the open road in front of me and my foot to the pedal.
I drive for hours, speeding up and down the winding roads. I eventually calm down enough to drive back to Dad and Pop’s place, but when I get there all of the lights are off and I look at the dash, seeing 3:20 staring back at me. That’s the thing when I go for a drive, I lose all sense of time and only concentrate on the purring of the engine and the slide of my tires.
I sit in the car for a while, staring at Livvy’s house.
I used to go there every day to play with Seb and West. The three of us used to get into all kinds of trouble: thinking about the past now brings a smile to my face.
When we were eight, we decided to climb on top of the shed in
their back yard and jump off the roof. After all, we were all superheroes and would be able to fly.
Seb said that we had to go in age order, which meant he had to go first because he was born three minutes before West, and I was only a week younger than them.
So, West and I stood back as Seb went to the edge of the roof and dived off, the scream that followed echoed across the whole street and Livvy came running out of the kitchen just as Seb jumped up, telling us that it was our turn. But the blood running down his face where he had hit his head and cut it open had us backing out.
“What the!” My hand flies to my chest as someone knocks on my window. My head snapping to the passenger side just as it pops open and I reach into my secret compartment, ready to draw my gun.
“Sorry,” the soft voice whispers and I know who it is before she slides into the car.
“Lexi.”
“I’m sorry,” she says again. “I’m sorry I caused that earlier. I never meant to make you leave; they’re your dads and it’s my fault that you—”
I lean over the center console, putting my pointer finger over her lips, effectively cutting her off. “Lexi, stop.” She nods, her shoulders drawn up to her ears and her whole body tense. “It’s not your fault.”
“It is—”
“Didn’t I say stop?” I ask, a grin pulling up at the corners of my lips. “It’s not, trust me, it was bound to happen at some stage.”
I let my finger drop from her lips and I turn back to face the front of the car, the gravity of the whole situation once again pushing down onto my shoulders.
“I didn’t mean to word vomit… I just.” She huffs out a breath and I see her turn to face the front out of the corner of my eye. “I can never get the right words out.”
I smirk. “Yeah, I noticed.”
She chuckles and shakes her head. “I just wanted to say I’m sorry. I saw you sitting out here and I was awake so… yeah.” She holds something up, laying it over the center console. “I brought your jacket back too.”
My hand lands on the jacket that I forgot I gave her when I saw her walking in the dark a few days ago. I should have given her a ride home, at least then I wouldn’t have been shocked when she walked into Pop’s birthday meal.
My chest tightens as she grabs the door handle, and before I can stop myself, I’m whipping my head around and blurting out, “You don’t need to go.” I like how I feel when she’s around me: I like the confidence that I have, I like how she’s easy to talk to, how I feel like me.
“I…” She bites her bottom lip, her eyes swinging from mine to Livvy’s house. “I really should get back.”
I stare into her eyes, trying to tell her everything that I feel like I can’t say right now. I know that I shouldn’t be feeling the way I do. I just ended things with my girlfriend of two years. But yet, I feel like a weight has been lifted at doing so. I shouldn’t be feeling like this if the relationship was what I thought it was.
How has it taken a girl like Lexi to crash into my life to make me realize that I was effectively a doormat for Geena?
My brain and mouth are on a different frequency because as I ask her to stay with me longer, I hear myself say, “Okay.”
“I’ll see you Friday?” she asks, pushing the door open, her face still turned toward mine.