Tully sighs, glancing up at her brother. “Do we have to?” she asks, looking across at me with pleading in her eyes, silently begging me to make her torture end. But I can’t. Not this time. I’m on team Noah now. They’ve both kept this from him for so long and he deserves to know the truth.
“Just…please, Tullz. I know you don’t want to talk about it, but I need to know. I promise I won’t ask you about it again unless you want to talk.”
She looks across at Rivers who looks as though the world is sitting on his shoulders. “You know, I’d change it if I could, right?” he tells her with his fingers still trailing over her arm.
“I know,” she sighs before looking back at Noah. “The next morning, I woke up feeling like maybe we were going to make it work. I was over the fucking moon, but I got to school and the second I saw him, I just knew. He shut down and pushed me away, claiming that for some godforsaken reason that he wasn’t good enough, and it fucking hurt like nothing before.”
“That’s what all those stupid dates and whoring around were about?”
“Yeah, but don’t worry. It was all innocent, just a ploy to get under Rivers’ skin, which I think was working by the way, until I decided that I wanted to hurt him right back and ended up fucking it all up.”
Rivers scoffs as Noah narrows his eyes on her. “What do you mean?”
“Nothing,” she says, glancing away.
“Nothing?” Rivers grunts in disbelief. “You fucking slept with Spencer. How is that nothing?”
“What?” Noah roars, flying to his feet. “Tell me that’s a lie. Please, Tully, for all that is fucking holy, tell me it’s a lie.”
I cringe as let’s be honest, there’s really not a lot else I can do right now.
Tully sighs before looking across at me to avoid the gazes of the two angry as fuck men around her. “Alright,” she says. “I’ve slept with him a few times. I dated him last summer and then slept with him again a few weeks ago at Kaylah’s party.”
That puts Rivers on his feet. “What?” he demands, his head spinning her way. “You never fucking told me you dated him last summer.”
Tully’s not finished yelling though. “What’s the big fucking deal?” she throws back at Rivers, giving him just as much attitude as he threw her way. “It’s not like you tell me about all the whores you’ve been with, and believe me, from the stories I hear coming left, right, and center, there’s a fucking lot of them.”
I smother a chuckle and resist fist bumping her. That shut him down.
“Wait,” Noah throws in. “Don’t tell me you’re not with her now because of Spencer?”
Rivers growls. “It’s got nothing to do with him. I was pissed about it for all of thirty seconds.”
Tully looks back at Noah. “Can we please get back on track?”
I grab the back of his shirt and pull him back until he’s sitting down once again. “Fine,” he grunts, “but for the record, I’m not fucking happy about this.”
Tully salutes him just to get on his nerves. “Noted,” she smirks before continuing. “So, just when I thought he was finally coming around, Rivers overheard me telling Henley about Spencer-”
“Whoa,” Noah butts in, his head swiveling towards me. “You knew about this too?”
Damn it. “Of course, I fucking knew,” I snap back at him. “She’s my girl.”
“Noah,” Tully yells. “Get the fuck over Spencer. This is about me and Rivers.”
“Fine. Whatever.”
She lets out a frustrated huff but goes on. “So, he heard what happened with Spence and that was it, it was over before it even began, but I guess I was stupid to think that there was still a small chance. After all, it didn’t take a genius to work out that he’d regretted being with me.”
“Whoa,” Rivers cuts in, demanding her complete, full attention. “Hold the fuck up, babe. I don’t regret it. Not one fucking bit,” he tells her.
“But-”
“No,” he growls. “How could you possibly think that?”
“You don’t want to be with me,” she throws back at him. “No matter what your excuses are, you pushed me away. What the hell did you think was going to go through my head? All this time you keep telling me that you’re not good enough, but all that does is make me feel not good enough.”
“Fuck, no, babe.” Rivers grabs her chair and spins her around to face him straight on. “I told you this was about me,” he demands. “Not fucking you. Never you. You’re fucking perfect. I didn’t fall in love with you and put us through all this bullshit for you to come out the other end feeling like that.”
Tears fill her eyes. “So, you just decided for us then? That we don’t even get a shot? It’ll never happen?”