by Ivy Fox
Not that it helps.
We’re no longer alone.
Boy Scout’s rejection is a living, breathing thing, hovering above us and sucking all the air out of the room.
“I’m sorry,” I utter softly after a pregnant pause.
“I am, too.”
Gently, I pick her chin up so that I can look her in the eye.
“Will you hate me in the morning?”
“I hate you now,” she confesses.
I know a part of her is telling me the truth because, just like me, we both know that if it weren’t for the other, one of us wouldn’t be here—they would be in bed with Boy Scout’s arms around them, claiming him as their own.
“Do you want me to go?” I ask hesitantly.
“No.” She shakes her head. “Just stay with me until I fall asleep, at least.”
I give her a clipped nod, placing a tender kiss on her swollen lips before she nestles her head on my shoulder, snuggling her naked body to mine. I run my hand up and down her bare back until her breathing slows, announcing she’s fallen asleep. With everything that happened tonight, it’s no wonder she’s out like a light. Both her body and heart took quite a beating.
Logic rears its ugly head, telling me to get up and leave her to rest peacefully, but it’s my fractured heart that makes me stay by her side, needing to have Elle close, just for a little while longer.
We are both so lost.
So fucking broken.
Our hate, our passion, maybe even our love, found a way to bind us to one another.
She’s the only one that understands what it feels like to be cast aside by the person you love. To live our days with these gaping holes in our chests that only he can fill. Tonight, we might have sought comfort in each other’s arms, but when the morning comes, all of this will change.
She’ll be reminded that I’m the reason she doesn’t have his love.
Elle will eventually go back to hating me.
While I’ll pretend to do the same.
For her sake, as well as mine.
Chapter 3
Chad
I lean against the wall beside Elle’s bedroom door, listening to the two people I have given my heart to find the peace I couldn’t offer in each other’s arms. Every grunt and moan vibrating through the wall slices me up, and I relish the pain.
I deserve this.
Every prick of a needle. Every cut of a knife. Every stab wound to the heart.
I deserve it all.
It takes everything in me not to cowardly cover my ears with my hands and muffle the sounds coming from inside the room. I make myself endure every whispered endearment, every gasp and whimper.
Misery is my only companion.
In the nonstop war to decipher my feelings, I pushed them both away. It was foolish of me to think there would be any other outcome. Years have passed where my heart has been torn between two loves, and during that time, I tried to be responsible with their hearts but ended up only breaking them in the end.
I did this.
Me alone.
I might not be the pussy Saint accused me of being, but I’m not the man either of them deserves.
I fall to the floor, my own tears falling freely down my cheeks, as they both find their release. I bang my head repeatedly against the wall, praying the noises will stop, yet yearning that they continue, just so I can feel this pain a little longer. To wallow in this suffering feels like the only penance that fits my crime of hurting the two people that are most important to me.
The only ones that matter.
Once the noises stop, I sit there looking at dead space, oblivious as to when the early beams of sunlight decide to trickle through a nearby window. How cruel is it that this day wants to bring forth another beautiful morning when life as I know it has ceased to exist?
Elle will never look at me like I hung the moon for her and her alone.
Saint will never kiss me like his lips were made to mold themselves onto mine.
And the hope that swelled inside my soul, that one day I wouldn’t have to choose between them, has been stolen from me by my own selfishness.
When the door creaks open, I watch Saint’s bowed figure leave Elle’s room with feathered light feet. I don’t say a word as he closes the door behind him, a sleeping Elle undoubtedly inside.
It’s only when he’s about to head back to his own bedroom that he looks down and sees me sitting there on the floor. He keeps a wide berth between us and leans on the opposite wall from me, disdain and disgust tainting his gorgeously dark features. He crosses his arms over his chest, his searing stare scorching me from the inside out. I keep silent, too burdened by the weight of his stare. It’s as heavy as my soul feels.
“I never took you for a stalker,” he scoffs, finally slicing through the silence.
It’s his tone that flips the shame of last night’s actions into resentment. Suddenly out of nowhere, I’m overwhelmed with a sense of betrayal, when just a few minutes ago, all I felt was remorse.
“Well? Aren’t you going to say anything?” he spits out, anger still lingering in his voice.
“I told you once. You could have anything. Anything, Saint. Just not her,” I mutter under my breath, clenching my fists to my sides.
“It was just another one of your lies. I couldn’t have you.” He huffs.
I shake my head. “I just needed time.”
“We gave that to you in spades!” he shouts, uncaring if he wakes anyone up at this early hour. His rage, like my own, is just too strong to be contained. “You brought this on yourself, Boy Scout. It’s your own goddamn fault, so don’t sit there and try to put the blame on either one of us. That fucking dog won’t hunt, and you know it.”
I grind my teeth, preferring to keep silent rather than risk uttering some ill-gotten word. If I say anything now, then I’m sure the words I string together will only serve to increase the burning fury that lies just underneath our skin, ready to wreak havoc on us both.
“So, what now?” He cocks a defiant brow.
“What’s done is done.” I shrug nonchalantly. “I can’t turn the hands of time back any more than I can change the way I feel.”
“And just what exactly do you feel?” he provokes, trying to get a read on me.
Unfortunately for both of us, my emotions are as chaotic as they’ve always been. They range from blinding anger to excruciating anguish—two sentiments that circle one another on a tormenting loop, until all I’m left with is this hole of apathy etched between them.
“I feel nothing,” I finally reply, giving him the only answer I can put into words.
At this very moment, I’m numb.
Saint goes to his haunches, lowering himself just enough so we are at eye level. He grips my shirt by the neck and pulls me off the wall until I feel his breath against my cheek.
“You don’t deserve her.”
“I never did,” I concede.
“You don’t deserve me either. Bet that comes as a surprise to you.”
It doesn’t.
I never deserved him either.
“Nothing surprises me anymore.”
My throat tightens at the way he’s staring me down. His black eyes look like burnt tar—deep and empty. I no longer see my reflection in them, just an endless abyss of nothing—an exact replica of my soul. His nostrils flare, his contempt so thick that I can almost taste it.
But that’s not all I can taste.
He still smells of her.
Of my Elle.
I want to strangle him on the spot as much as I want to kiss him. Kiss him so fiercely until both he and Elle are the only things fueling my bloodstream, pumping blood into my dead heart, breathing life back into it.
His jet-black stare narrows on me, sensing where my head is at.
“How long have you been sitting out here?”
“Long enough.”
“So you heard?” He a
rches his pierced brow.
I nod, unable to put into words how I sat here listening to them both, incapable of moving.
His devious smirk only adds insult to injury. He leans in closer to me until his breath tickles my ear, raising the fine hairs at the nape of my neck.
“I told you one day someone wouldn’t be as chivalrous as you were where Elle was concerned. I bet you never thought it would be me. Did you like hearing her moan out my name?”
I bite the inside of my cheek to keep me from killing him where he stands, but Saint doesn’t care that he’s pushing all my buttons. In fact, his black eyes start to shine triumphantly, witnessing my rage.
“Did it make you hard listening to how I popped her cherry? How her pussy swallowed me whole? How she begged for me to fuck her? Harder. Faster. How from this day on, every other fuck she has will never measure up to the one I just gave her? Because that’s exactly what I did. I fucked her long and hard. Fucked every memory of you out of her system.”
The numbness that had taken over me subsides suddenly, and in its place, a blessed seething hate takes over. I tap into it, closing my eyes and letting Saint whisper his cruel words in my ear.
“She tasted so fucking sweet. I could have eaten her out for days, but she was too desperate to ride my cock. And believe me when I tell you that she rode me hard. I barely did a thing and let her virgin pussy pound on me like it needed my dick more than she needed air to breathe.”
“You bastard!” I yell out, launching my body at his.
We both fall to the floor, swinging punches left and right, wanting to be the one to do the most damage. He never ceases pounding into my ribcage as I slam my fists into his gorgeous face. It surprises me that no one has come out of their rooms to stop us, especially considering how maliciously loud we go at it.
Not that I care.
Right now, everything is right in my world.
Every punch Saint inflicts on me makes my heart expand with delight.
I’ve never been the type of guy who favored violence as a way to solve his problems, but beating the fuck out of Saint while he also takes his pound of flesh is oddly liberating.
This type of pain I can handle. It camouflages the one that had me comatose not a second ago. It frees me from the iron cage of misery I’d been confined to, making me yearn for more of his sweet torture. I want him to bruise my skin, cut me deep with his words, and make me bleed with his fists. I need him to rearrange my outsides to look as mangled and distorted as my insides feel.
Give me more, Saint.
Give me everything.
I silently repeat my prayer with every swing and miss. His teeth sink onto my shoulder, piercing my flesh through my white T-shirt. When red smudges coat the fabric, my heart shudders with relief. But that’s not the only thing that awakens back to life. My cock hardens with every wound he inflicts on me. Unfortunately, in our brawl, Saint becomes aware of the change, too.
Repulsed, he pushes me away from him, shuffling back on hands and knees as far as he can. Meanwhile, I’m left wishing that this one reaction didn’t hurt me more than his fists ever could. We’re both panting, staring at each other, listing in our heads the superficial damage we’ve done. His brow is cut, while my upper lip is busted. There will be some bruises to his jaw and cheek, while my chest feels like it was set on fire.
The only thing that breaks our staring match is Elle’s bedroom door creaking open. My gaze lingers on her small frame. She’s only in a T-shirt and panties, her eyes still swollen from last night’s implosion. But so are her perfect cupid bow-shaped lips. Her glare bounces from me to Saint, and I wait on bated breath for her to say something.
Anything.
But instead, she closes her door on us both, her amber eyes looking as empty as I feel.
The rest of our ski trip is tense, to say the least.
Both Elle and Saint avoid being alone with me at all costs. Not that I make much of an effort to seek them out.
My heart just can’t bear their presence right now.
Shame, guilt, and jealousy plague my every minute.
It suffocates me to the point that I don’t recognize the person I’ve become.
My parents and Elle’s brothers also sense that something isn’t right with us. It was either my busted lip and Saint’s black eye that gave them an inkling that something was awry, or it was the cold shoulder that my best friend inflicted on us both that was the dead giveaway. Thankfully, neither my parents nor Ash and Ollie say anything.
I won’t deny that Elle’s reluctance in spending any time with Saint eases my agony somewhat. Knowing that she has built a fortress around her so high that even he can’t climb does soothe my aching heart.
I hate thoughts like that.
It makes me feel petty and small.
I always thought I was better than that, but I guess all decency flies out the window when it comes to Elle. To know that Saint somehow got close enough to her heart for her to offer her body to him still stings.
Fuck that.
It doesn’t sting.
It fucking eviscerated me.
In my mind, I always thought I’d be her first and her last. Her one and only. But what kind of hypocrite does that make me when I would have given my own body to Saint, happily and willingly?
The worst kind, I guess.
All of this misery we are currently suffering is my doing and mine alone.
I hesitated to pull the trigger, and now the death of our love spills through my murderous fingers.
These are the thoughts running through my head throughout the rest of our ski trip. On the day that we have to go back to New York, I’m all too eager to return to a place that doesn’t feel so foreign to me. When I get on the plane, I’m not surprised to see my mom on the seat next to mine instead of Elle. I don’t question the change, but if I expected my mother to continue not to broach the subject of why my best friend is no longer talking to me, I’m kidding myself.
“Everything okay, Chadwick? You’ve been off lately.”
“I’m fine,” is my clipped response, hoping she takes the hint.
“You don’t sound fine.”
“Well, I am.”
She purses her lips into a tight frown, but thankfully that’s the only protest I get out of her.
“Asher is returning home today,” she says as a way of changing the topic.
“Yeah, he told me a few days ago.”
“He’s made a lot of progress since he’s been with us. I hope he doesn’t set himself up for failure in trying to reconnect with his siblings.”
“Asher’s problem isn’t Elle or his brothers. It’s his father. It always has been.”
“Hmm. I think the issue is more complex than having daddy issues.”
“Well, you’re the shrink, so you should know.”
“You’re being very passive-aggressive, Chadwick. It doesn’t suit you.”
I slant my eyes away from her and stare out the window again.
She’s right, though.
I am being a dick, which isn’t something people expect from me.
But loss has made me bitter.
“I think you’re right, though. Asher going back home will be good for him. He needs to heal those raw wounds inside him by making amends to those he has hurt and cares about. Sometimes to mend a broken soul, all you need to do is ask for forgiveness and mean it.”
I furrow my brows, snapping my head toward my mother.
“Not everything can be fixed with an ‘I’m sorry’, Mom.”
She lets out a small exhale.
“Well, of course not, dear. But it is how healing begins. Forgiveness is a very powerful thing. Especially when a person forgives themselves. There is nothing more crippling than carrying around guilt.”
I thin my lips, drying my sweaty hands on my thighs.
“What if you can’t forgive yourself? What do you do then?”
Mom grabs my hand and gives it a soft squeeze.
“True forgiveness doesn’t come with a deadline. Everyone deals with it differently and at their own pace. Sometimes we need to give ourselves space to feel every painful emotion to fully understand ourselves. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t give us the same freedom to forgive ourselves as well as those who have wronged us.”
“You’re not talking about Ash, are you, Mom?”
Her green eyes stare patiently into mine.
“I’ve noticed that you and your friends have been going through something. I won’t pressure you by asking what happened between the three of you, but I do know it must be quite serious. Serious enough for you to break your pacifist ways and for Saint to lose his temper. Serious enough for Elle not to want to be near you.” She lets out another soft sigh when I don’t make an effort to explain. “I love you, Chadwick. Whenever you want to come to me and talk, I’ll always be here to listen.”
I give her a curt nod and tilt my head back to the window.
“Sometimes talking isn’t enough.”
“No, you’re right. It’s not. But it’s a good start.”
When school starts, I come this close to bailing altogether, dreading how my new existence will be without the pieces of my heart to accompany me through Pembroke High’s halls. I’m a nervous wreck when I pass the iron gates, not that anyone could tell with the glowing smile I offer to everyone.
After Mom’s talk with me, I must have picked up my phone a million times to talk to Elle and Saint. I started endless texts to them both but never found the right words to start a conversation with them. In the end, I did nothing. My go-to move, and the reason why I haven’t seen or heard from them since we came back from Aspen.
But today, I’ll have to face them.
When I step inside the classroom, Saint is already seated at his desk, pretending to be asleep. Elle is scrolling on her phone, acting impervious to my presence, so I take a seat in between them.
Funny how I thought I was the glue that kept our friendship going.
Now I’m the odd man out.