The Dare (North Woods University 2)

“What did you mean last night? You keep saying I lied, but I don’t know what you mean. If I knew, maybe I could understand, maybe I could make this…” She moves a hand between us. “Make this hate go away.”

I think maybe she has a death wish… bluntly attempting to act innocent right to my face.

“Are you fucking serious right now?” I can feel my skin heating, the zing of anger pulsing through me. For so long, I’ve held that pain inside, I’ve let it eat away at my soul, my spirit and now she’s here, the cause of it, right in front of me and all I want to do is make her own it. Make her take it from me.

Dropping the fork to the marble, I curl my hand into a fist and slam it down on the counter, making her jump in her seat and my head throb at the clatter. Pain radiates through my hand and up my arm, but I love it. I fucking love it. It reminds me that I’m still alive and that the pain is real. There’s a tiny tremble to her body, her chest rises and falls and a pink flush creeps onto her cheeks. She looks scared, but she also looks…I don’t let myself finish that sentence. Instead, I bask in the glory of hate.

How dare she sit here and pretend she doesn’t know what I’m talking about? Liar, all the fucking lies. Every word off her tongue is a lie.

I can’t stand to be in this room with her a moment longer. Shoving my seat backward, I let it topple over, slamming into the hard floor. The sound makes me wince, the throbbing behind my eyes becoming more and more annoying. That coupled with her presence and I’m a second away from losing my shit.

Grabbing my plate, I stomp to the trashcan and dump the rest of my food into the garbage before throwing my plate in the sink. It lands with a loud clack, most likely breaking. Hell, it wouldn’t be the first time I broke something in this house in a fit of rage.

“Your pancakes taste like shit, just like the fucking lies that you spew,” I yell, turning around to face her, to drive the knife a little deeper. Her shocked face peers up at me, and my fingers curl into the countertop. It’s either I grab this, or her, and I don’t want to touch her, not right now. Not with this much anger, this much madness spiraling out of control inside of me.

I lean into her, ignoring her scent and the fear that circulates through her eyes. She needs to know that I fucking mean what I say, she needs to know that I’ll only ever hate her. Always.

“Just tell me, Vance.” Her bottom lip juts out and it looks like she’s about to cry. She’s begging me to tell her what happened, but she already knows. She’s the one that did this, not me. The sound of my name falling from her lips sends me over the edge and I release my hold on the countertop and instead grip her by the chin, pulling her forcefully into my face.

“Oh, how the mighty fall. One day you had it all and now you have nothing… it’s strange how the tables turn, how one lie can make an entire world crumble overnight.” My lip curls with hate, her tiny hand clasping onto my wrist in an effort to get me to release my hold. But I’m not done yet, not by a long fucking shot.

“You might be able to shed some tears and get other people to feel sorry for you with that look, but believe me when I say this, you’ll never get an ounce of pity from me. You deserve everything you’ve got and everything that’s coming to you!” I release her like she truly has the power to destroy me and stomp out of the room before I do something I can’t take back.

My intentions have always been to hurt her, to break her down, to show her that she’s nothing, but having her here, smelling her sweet scent all around me, feeling her skin, it’s almost like she’s hurting me instead of me hurting her. And I can’t let that happen. She’s already owned too much of me, of my thoughts, of my past. I’m Vance Preston. I lost my heart years ago, because of a lie that destroyed my family, because of a threat that wasn’t true.

Had she told the truth…had she never made me out to be the criminal then maybe I wouldn’t be the man I am today. Maybe there wouldn’t be a gaping wound inside my chest, maybe I wouldn’t need to taste her fear, to feel her pain.