Who Breaks First: A New Adult Bully Romance (Clearwater University Book 1)

by Eva Ashwood

  I flash back to a vivid memory of me and Emma from high school—a moment when the two of us were walking through the park at night. We’d just had pizza with the guys, and they decided to go off and smoke weed while Emma and I went for a stroll. The conversation is burned into my memory. Every word that was said, I remember in exact detail.

  “There’s something I need to talk about,” Emma murmurs, her expression full of worry.

  “What’s up?” I shift a little closer to her, delighting in the fact that Emma’s confiding in me without the other guys around. Is it a sign? Is she going to choose me?

  Please, God, let her choose me.

  “I…” She trails off, then starts again. “I’ve never told anyone. But I feel like I need to. It’s eating away at me. I feel like if I don’t say it out loud, it’s just going to make me feel worse and worse.”

  “Okay.”

  I take her hand, trying to let her know that she can trust me. We step off the path into a small playground area, and I hold out a swing for her like I’m holding her chair at a fancy dinner party. She laughs, and my heart swells. Best fucking sound in the world.

  Then she and I sit on the swings, and we’re both silent for a moment. It’s a perfect night—tons of stars in the sky, no one around.

  “You know my mom died in a car accident, right?” Ems says finally, her voice small.

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, that day,” Emma begins, her eyes starting to fill with tears, “Mom and I… we got into a fight. Right before she got into the car.”

  “Are you serious?” I ask in shock.

  Emma’s mom died when she was twelve, so I never knew her. But I have a hard time imagining the girl in front of me getting into a bad fight with anyone. She’s so sweet, so loving.

  “Yeah.” She swallows. “It was a really bad fight. We were literally screaming at each other. Then she got into that car and just… I never saw her again. An hour later, Dad got a call from the hospital. She’d gotten into a terrible wreck. And I—I think she was distracted because of our fight.”

  Emma’s seriously crying now, and I reach over and take her hand.

  “You think you caused it?”

  Her body shudders, and she drags in a breath. “I think I had something to do with it, yeah.”

  “Emma, that’s crazy,” I say, trying to console her as best as I can. Her heart is breaking over this, I can tell. I get why she hasn’t ever told anyone, if she seriously thinks she’s part of the reason her mom died.

  How do I make her understand she’s not? That that’s not how the world works? That accidents just happen, and it’s heartbreaking and it sucks, but sometimes there’s no explanation.

  “But it makes sense, doesn’t it?” she insists, her eyes gleaming. “I mean, my mom was a really cautious driver. She always came to a complete stop at every stop sign, and she wouldn’t even think of changing lanes without signaling.”

  “It was a tragedy, Ems.” I take both her hands in mine, shifting my swing closer to hers as I rub my thumbs over her knuckles. “Sometimes tragedies have no meaning.”

  “But I want there to be meaning. I don’t want to believe that my mom just died because the world is completely random.”

  “And so you blame yourself?”

  “She was so mad and upset when she left the house. If we hadn’t been fighting…”

  “That’s not your fault. And a fight takes two people. It’s not all on you.”

  “I told her…” She takes a shuddery breath. “I told her I wished she would die.”

  I blink, sadness welling in my chest. Sadness for Emma.

  “Oh, shit. Ems…”

  Her face crumples, and she drops her head, a soft sob falling from her lips. “How could I have said that? What’s wrong with me? I made it happen.”

  “No.” My voice is firm. Full of conviction. “Emma, no you didn’t. You were mad, and you said something you didn’t mean. I get why you blame yourself, but your mom knew you didn’t mean it. She knew. If she hadn’t gotten into an accident, she would’ve come back and you would’ve made up and everything would’ve been okay. It’s awful that her accident happened when it did, but that doesn’t undo all the great moments you two had. All the good times. All the love.”

  She blinks at me, her eyes brimming with tears. She looks a little shocked. I’m a little shocked myself. I’m not usually all that good with words. But something about Emma brings it out in me. I could talk to her as long as it takes to make her understand this isn’t her fault.

  “I…” She shakes her head. “I just don’t know if I can ever forgive myself.”

  “Try, Ems. Pick something else to blame it on if you want to find a reason, but you can’t put this on yourself,” I say, bringing a hand to her cheek.

  The way she looks into my eyes makes my heart melt. I want so badly to lean over and kiss her, but I know that it would be the worst timing on earth, so I let the urge pass.

  “We should go,” Emma finally says, breaking the tension that hovers around us. But before she stands up, she grabs my hand again, threading her fingers through mine. “Thank you, Reese. I—thank you.”

  “Of course, Ems. You can tell me anything, you know.”

  “Yeah, I know.” Her smile is soft and sweet, and more dazzling than all the stars in the sky.

  Looking back on things, I still think there has to be a reason Emma confided that private heartbreak to me, and not the other guys. I guess I’m looking for meaning too, just like Emma was after her mom died.

  I’m still gazing at her through the window, and I shake my head with a start.

  Fuck. I probably look like some kind of stalker right now. But honestly, I need a moment to get my shit together before I face her. There have been so many things stirring up inside me since Emma came back, and I need time to process it all.

  I never told the other guys about that night and what Emma said—not before she betrayed Trent, and not after.

  I figured if Trent had that information, he would use it to utterly destroy her. What we did to her was bad enough. I couldn’t hand over her deepest, darkest secret to Trent, even if he is my blood brother. I knew, somewhere deep in my gut, that if that secret came to light, if it was used against Emma, it would break her. It could even kill her.

  When she told me, I did the best I could to make her see that her mom’s death wasn’t her fault, and even so, she never really forgave herself. It’s a tender wound that’ll never fully heal, and knowing this secret feels like holding onto a piece of her soul.

  I may be an asshole sometimes, but I don’t take that lightly.

  The guys still don’t know, and I’m glad. It’s our little secret; Emma’s and mine. I’d like to think that ties us to each other, in some way.

  Maybe it’s that thought that makes my feet move again, that sends me striding toward the door of the laundromat. I honestly considered going back to the house and giving Emma a reprieve—but I can’t. I’m drawn to her like a moth to a flame, even though as she, Trent, West, and I circle around each other, we all seem to get burned.

  Besides, the washer and dryer at our place have been busted for weeks. The landlord keeps promising to fix them, but he’s been slacking.

  Emma looks up as I enter, and the peaceful expression on her face immediately fades. Her posture stiffens, and a little line appears between her brows.

  “I won’t bite.” I chuckle, walking up to set my basket down on a machine next to hers. But fuck, now that I say it, I realize I really would love to bite. And suck, and kiss, and all the rest of it.

  “I didn’t think that you would,” Emma replies, looking away. Although it’s making her uncomfortable to have me so close to her, I don’t move away. She’s not running from me, so I haven’t set off her prey instinct yet. Good.

  “You looked like you did.” I lift a brow, letting a little innuendo seep into my voice. Her cheeks flush a gorgeous pink color, but she ignores my comment.

  �
��So, what are you doing here?”

  I laugh, jerking my head toward the basket I just set down. “I’m doing my fucking laundry.”

  “Right.” She chews on her lip, her blush deepening.

  “Seems like on a Friday night, you’d have better things to do,” I say, narrowing my eyes a little. I know why I’m here, but I wonder what the fuck she’s doing here. She has friends on campus, I think. I’ve seen her hanging out with that Leslie chick a lot—her roommate.

  “I’m lame,” Emma says, grabbing a soft green sweater and beginning to fold it. “And I have three loads of laundry.”

  “Yeah, I’m lame too.”

  “I find that hard to believe.”

  “What do you mean?” I flip open a washer and start loading clothes into it.

  She scoffs. She’s still blushing a little, but there’s a spark of challenge in her eyes now. “There are girls around you constantly, Reese. I would think that you’d be… with one of them now.”

  I laugh to myself yet again. “Well… I did get a booty text.”

  “See!”

  “But I’m taking a break from pillaging women.”

  I see that this last one makes Emma smile, and I grin to myself. I used to make her laugh all the time. She liked my wild stories and the way I’d say whatever came into my head.

  “And why is that?” She looks away as soon as she asks, like she doesn’t want me to think she cares about the answer.

  I move around to the other side of the machine as I pour the detergent in, catching her gaze before I speak. I look deep into her eyes, hoping that she can see the truth without me having to explain it, but I don’t actually utter the truth.

  “Dick rest.”

  She bursts out laughing. “Dick rest?”

  “Totally. It’s a thing. Sometimes, the poor fucker just gets worn out, and I gotta take a holiday.”

  “You’re hilarious.” She says it with an eye roll, but her smile is genuine now, and the tension in her body has eased slightly.

  “That’s my game,” I say, feeding some quarters into the machine and pressing the button to start the cycle.

  When I turn back, Emma is still smiling to herself, and I’m suddenly overwhelmed by how gorgeous and effortless she looks. There’s something about the fact that she’s alone on a Friday night doing laundry which makes her even more appealing to me. She’s… real.

  “I won’t ask about your recent conquests,” I finally say, lifting my brow. Although, fuck, I want to. I want to know if my suspicions about her and Trent are true. He was evasive about it after our group project meeting, and that only makes me more certain I’m right.

  But maybe it’s better if I don’t know.

  Because as long as it’s not confirmed, she’s still fair game.

  Emma runs a hand through her messy blonde hair, glancing down at the floor. “Why?”

  “Just don’t want to know.” I shrug. “And I don’t want to try to picture you having sex with that Peter guy.”

  “I haven’t had sex with Peter.”

  “You plan to.”

  “I don’t plan to.”

  I look up toward the heavens and clasp my hands in prayer. “Thank you, Jesus.”

  “And I don’t know why you should care anyhow.” Emma shoots me a glare, less entertained by my antics this time.

  “Because, despite everything, I do care about you.”

  “I find that hard to believe.”

  “Well, it’s true.”

  Maybe it’s a bad idea to be this honest with her. I don’t know where things stand anymore. Trent was dead set on breaking her for good, on sending her running out of Clearwater with her tail between her legs. But he seems to have laid off that plan for the time being, so where does that leave me? Do I still owe it to him to keep my walls up around her?

  Emma grows quiet for a moment, thinking about my response. When she looks up at me, her voice is soft and her brown eyes seem to contain a world of emotion.

  “I still can’t believe you never told anyone.”

  “About that night?” I ask. There’s nothing else she could be talking about.

  “Yeah,” she whispers.

  “That was just between you and me. You made me promise not to tell, so I didn’t.”

  Emma blinks. “I didn’t make you promise.”

  I knit my brow, resting a hand on the washing machine as I move a little closer to her. “Yeah, I guess you didn’t. Maybe I just made myself promise.”

  “It means a lot to me, that you’ve kept this secret.”

  “It means a lot to me that you had the courage to tell me. That you trust me.”

  “I did trust you,” she says, looking down at the folded laundry. Her tone clearly suggests that she doesn’t trust me anymore. Although I guess I can’t blame her for that.

  There are so many things I want to say in this moment.

  I want to tell Emma that I wish things didn’t get as fucked up as they did. I want to tell her I hate the thought of her having sex with anyone else, because the only bed I want her to be in is mine.

  I want to apologize to her. To promise to take her away from here. To protect her.

  I know I can’t say any of that though, partly because I know she wouldn’t believe me. Actions speak louder than words, and my actions to her have been shitty enough to justify a lifetime’s worth of distrust.

  But I kept her secret. And I know that means something to her.

  “You can still trust me, Ems,” I murmur, even though I don’t know if my words are true.

  Maybe she knows I’m offering a promise I might not be able to keep, because her expression closes, her gaze hardening. She’s building up her defenses again.

  Fuck.

  A flash of frustration fills me. I want to crack her facade, to keep her from shutting down and turning away from me, so I play a card I’ve been hanging onto since I first walked into the laundromat.

  “What’s Trent up to tonight?” I ask, and watch as her entire body stiffens.

  “I don’t know. Why should I know?”

  My shoulders lift in a lazy shrug, but my intent gaze doesn’t leave her face. “Because it seems like you two are on solid ground again.”

  “That’s not true. I’m not on solid ground with any of you.”

  Her words hang in the air between us, tangled up in a mess of unspoken apologies, desire, and anger.

  Jesus, that’s the fucking truth.

  19

  Emma

  Reese is staring at me like he has something more to say, but he’s holding back. I want to push him, to find out what he’s thinking but not saying. But I’m already playing with fire by talking to him at all—and I’m not sure it’d be a good idea to know the full contents of Reese’s mind.

  I drop the subject of the secret I told him, happy to move away from it. I’ve spent a long time thinking about the fight before Mom’s accident, and I still haven’t forgiven myself for what I said to her. I’ll carry that heartbreak and guilt with me until the day I die, and I’m okay with that. Sometimes it feels like I need to carry it with me, to remind myself never to take love for granted again.

  And I meant what I said. I truly am grateful to Reese for keeping my secret, even when he and the other Icons decided they hated me.

  But I still don’t know if I can trust him. Maybe he had his own private reasons for not turning my confession around on me and using it to destroy me. I can’t let one moment of kindness blind me to his capacity for cruelty.

  As the washing machines hum beside us, our conversation keeps going from light to tense, tense to light—but that’s to be expected between me and Reese. It’s always been that way. And I do sense that he cares for me, but there's so much other fucked up stuff between us that I don’t know if it matters.

  Over an hour later, Reese opens up the dryer that just wobbled to a stop. “I’m almost done here.”

  “Me too.”

  “I’m feeling like the king of the wor
ld right now, what with so many fresh shirts,” he says with a grin.

  I roll my eyes at him, chuckling. “King of the shirts, maybe.”

  “Hey. As long as I’m the king of something.” He waves a shirt around in the air like a flag. “All hail the king!”

  How is it that, no matter what happens between us, Reese can always make me laugh? It’s like his fucking super power or something. Honestly, I think that he uses it to his advantage, lulling me into feeling more comfortable with him than I should, by all rights. But he’s the one I’m most at ease with out of the three Icons, and that’s saying a lot.

  “Do you always come to this laundromat?” he asks.

  “Are you trying to say, ‘do you come here often?’” I joke, and Reese’s easy laugh settles in my chest, way too close to my heart.

  “I guess so.” He grins, pulling his full bottom lip between his teeth. His green eyes gleam with amusement and… something else. Something heavier and hotter. “So, do you come here often?”

  “No.” I twist my hair around my fingers. “I usually do my laundry at my dad’s, but only when he picks me up. I don’t have a car, and it’s hard to bike with a basketful of laundry. It’s only a ten-minute walk here from campus, so I can walk.”

  “You walked?” He looks vaguely impressed, like I trekked up a mountain to come here instead of just walking a few blocks.

  “Yeah.” I fix him with a fake scowl. “Don’t act so surprised. I’m not that much of a delicate flower.”

  The heat in his eyes burns brighter, and his voice drops a little. “Oh, I know, Ems.”

  Flushing under the burning warmth of his gaze, I stand up to start gathering my things. “I only walked tonight because I didn’t want to bother Dad. I figure he’s spending so much time with Claire that I have to give him some space.”

  The real truth is that I find hanging out with my dad and Claire incredibly awkward. I can’t look at her without thinking of Trent, and that sends a confusing mix of emotions spiraling through me.

  Reese raises his brows. “Trent’s mom?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How’s all that going?”