Forgotten Rules (Rules 4)

I hold my breath.

“Pinky swear. Spill.”

“Well, you know how I told you Miss Perfect didn’t want me with her brother…”

My stomach twists.

“You slut! You didn’t?” Callie gasps.

“Let me finish. Since she made me swear off her brother, I had to find someone else. I mean… a girl has needs.”

Somehow, I don’t need to hear another word for my heart to break. The pain settles in pre-betrayal. I know she’s about to hurt me by naming someone a best friend shouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole.

“Wait, so you didn’t sleep with her brother?” Callie asks, her goldfish brain struggling to keep up.

“No, I slept with her ex.”

There it is.

“That Blake guy? Her first?” Callie’s laugh drives the knife deeper into my chest. How the hell does she know so much about my life? How many of my most intimate moments has Zoey shared with her?

“Yeah. He came to pick up his friend Alex, but he couldn’t find him. So, after Sean kissed that whore, we…” She laughs

into her palm. “We did it in the bathroom.”

Zoey slept with Blake.

My best friend… that I’ve known since I was five. The girl I defended when she treated me like disposable garbage. That same girl slept with my ex. The ex I cried about in her arms. The guy who dumped me over text.

“And between us… it wasn’t the first time.”

“What? When was the first?”

“Callie, I swear on my life, if you tell anyone about this, you’re dead.” Zoey hesitates.

“I won’t! Come on, you’re killing me.”

“Okay. Okay… It started back when they were together.”

Cue the waterworks.

The silence that ensues suggests even Callie is judging her, which causes Zoey to backpedal.

“Hear me out—I wanted to stop, I did, but he kept coming back. Every week. Like clockwork. The first time was at the back-to-school bonfire. After Kass passed out, he came to find me and… Well, I don’t need to draw you a picture, do I?”

A beat of silence.

“Damn, Zoe, that’s… kind of cold,” Callie accuses.

Kind of cold?

It feels like I’m being gutted on repeat.

That night, after I gave Blake my virginity, he…

They…

I can’t fucking breathe.