Dare You to Hate Me

She tries, and fails, to jerk away. “And I don’t like being grabbed but you obviously haven’t gotten the memo that people don’t like being manhandled.”

Instantly, I let her go and she doesn’t expect the sudden change. Her body nearly topples from the bed, but I capture and steady her. “In my defense, you usually need to be stopped whenever I decide to manhandle you.”

“That’s not true.”

“Oh, yeah. I’m sure you would have had a wonderful sleepover with Remi. He wouldn’t have touched you at all. Perfect fucking gentleman, that one.”

“Fuck off.”

“Don’t think so, Chaos.”

She makes a noise and gets out of bed. “I don’t even know how we got onto thi

s topic. Forget about that asshole. I was never planning on sleeping with him. It’s not my problem that you don’t seem to believe it.”

This is going nowhere. “Come to Thanksgiving with me. Don’t try bullshitting me into believing you have other plans because I’ll call you out on it.”

There are footsteps nearing the door and I’m halfway out of bed thinking she’s leaving when the light flicks back on. I blink rapidly to adapt to the sudden change before seeing her unamused expression. “Who says I don’t have plans? Maybe I’m going to Bea’s.”

I sit back down, leg bent and propped on the mattress with the other foot on the floor ready to push off the bed in case she tries leaving. “If you had her to go to, which you could if you weren’t so damn independent, then you would have never even entertained the idea of leaving with him.”

She has no response to that because it’s obvious that I’m right. “You don’t want to go home, and I can’t even pretend to understand. Your parents suck. You don’t talk to Porter.” I stop for a moment and eye her. “You don’t, do you? You’ve never said a word about him. You don’t say anything about any of them.”

Her eyes go to the wall where a few random pictures hang of me and my family. I’ve caught her looking at them more than once since she started staying here.

Every time I’ve tried bringing up her family, she changes the subject. But something is different tonight, and I’m thankful she says, “I looked him up online once. Found his Facebook. But Mom and Dad…they weren’t worth my time when I realized the feeling was mutual.”

Interest flares in my chest. “And?”

She walks over to the furthest photo of me and my old dog Captain who passed away a year ago, her fingers lifting to touch his image. “I didn’t have a reliable phone or anything at the time, so I didn’t bother sending him a message. I wasn’t sure when I’d be able to go back online or text him. Eventually, I stopped bothering to go on because there was no reason.”

I let out a disbelieving breath. “No reason, huh?” Scrubbing a palm across the side of my face, I ask, “Did you look me up? I tried searching for you. Never found anything.”

Hesitation takes hold of her tongue. “I had a fake name. Didn’t want Mom and Dad finding me, not that I think they would have tried. And yes, I looked you up every time I had a computer nearby. Most of the phones I kept didn’t have internet. They were prepaid junk. Cheap, you know? The one you gave me fell into a mud puddle and stopped working, and I didn’t exactly have easy access to money then. But I’d go to public libraries and use their computers for a while. Your mom tags you in a lot of photos. I got to see your sports stats and the selfies Judd and the other douchebags you hung out with always took. You never smiled in any of them. You always looked annoyed.” Her shoulders lift as if it doesn’t matter. “It was nice to see that you were doing well enough though.”

“And what? No message? No indication that you were okay? Did you not expect to extend me the same courtesy you got?”

“It didn’t matter, Aiden. There was no way I could have told you where I was because there was nothing you could have done about my circumstances. Not without leaving everything you worked for behind.”

“Don’t.” I stand and prowl over to her. “I thought you knew that you mattered. It matters. We matter. Every time you shit on yourself and the past, it feels like you’re shitting on whatever the hell was going on with us then and what is now. I may not have had the resources back then, but you have no damn idea what one little message from you could have done for me.”

“I…” Her eyes drop. “I’m sorry.”

“Your apology doesn’t do me much good now, Chaos. I spent a long time feeling guilty over not convincing you to stay. I should have tried harder.”

“This is what I mean.” Her finger gestures between us. “This right here is why I don’t talk about it. We can’t change the past. You trying to get me to stay with your family until you were blue in the face wouldn’t have changed my mind. I made my choice and I have to live with it. That’s how life works.”

“If I told Mom about the situation—”

“Then what?” Ivy snaps, tossing her hands in the air like she always does when she’s angry. She talks with them, her gestures never making any sense. “I love your mom, Aiden. I’ve always been jealous mine couldn’t have been like her, but that’s not the hand I was dealt. And thinking about how much I despised my own parents enough to ruin my life has made me realize that I could have had worse. They could have hit me, and they never did. They could have pulled me into their arguments, but they didn’t. I know there are kids out there who wish they could have been in my shoes, and what does that say about me?”

I don’t reply.

She palms her face for a moment before brushing hair behind her ears. “I don’t like to talk about them because it makes me realize how good I actually had it. My life didn’t go to shit until I decided to up and leave. And Mom tried telling me that. I told her over and over that I’d run away, and she always said I’d come back because I had it better than I thought I did. But I was a prideful brat who thought I could do better for myself.”

She drops her head, her hair falling to shield her face as she takes a deep breath. “She gave me a bus ticket.”

“Who did? Your mom?”