This Hurt (This Boy Book 2)

by Jenna Scott

  I should’ve known it was too good to be true.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Camilla

  Hunter’s not home when I get there after going to the movies with Isabel and Emmett, so I go up to his room and crack open my book while I wait. It’s disappointing not to be greeted by his smile, not to find myself in the nest of his arms after spending the day away from him, but I’m full of anticipation for when he walks through the door.

  I’m so absorbed in my reading that I don’t realize half an hour has passed until I hear the front door open and check my phone. The door slams, Hunter’s heavy footsteps pound up the stairs, and I jump out of bed with a smile on my face. I can’t wait to throw myself in his arms the second I see him.

  But when he steps into the room, I see his face is lined in anger, and I freeze in my tracks.

  “Camilla,” he grinds out.

  “Hunter?” I ask. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

  He holds up his phone and shows me a picture. It’s from the dance, when Emmett kissed me, and it looks way more intimate than the lackluster peck it really was. My pulse kicks, my cheeks going hot. “Where did you get this?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Yes, it matters. And why is it even an issue? You already know what happened. You know it meant nothing.” I try to inhale, but my breaths have turned shallow. Who’d even think of taking this picture, and then springing it on him now, after graduation?

  I can see in his face that he doesn’t believe me. That once again, someone’s been talking shit about me, and everyone’s more than happy to believe the rumors because of a bad reputation that I never actually earned.

  “It doesn’t look like nothing to me.” His eyes narrow. “Especially given the fact that he’s the one who got you the scholarship to your dream college. Which you never mentioned. Along with the fact that he’ll also be going there.”

  My stomach drops. He’s right. “I never meant to keep that from you. I honestly didn’t even think of it. It was—”

  “Bullshit, Camilla,” Hunter cuts me off.

  Camilla. Not Milla anymore.

  I don’t know what happened to turn him so cold all of a sudden, but this feels like a slap in the face. And the scholarship…I feel queasy, knowing I should’ve told him that tiny detail about Emmett’s mom helping me, the same way I came clean to him about the kiss. But I’d been afraid Hunter would misread the situation, and now, he has.

  “Yes, Emmett offered to help me with the scholarship, as a friend,” I say. “His mom was the one who recommended me, because she’s an alum—but that’s because they’re nice people, not because I’m with him.”

  “That’s right, you’re not with him. Doesn’t mean you’re not fucking him. That you haven’t been fucking him all this time, thinking he could help you.”

  I’m stunned into stammering, “That is not it at all!”

  “Stop lying!” he shouts, the anger in his voice making me cringe. “I bet you loved having me chase after you at school. Messing with my head and playing me for a fool, just so you could laugh at me behind my back while you were fucking Ortega.”

  “I’m not fucking him! I never was, and I never did! Why are you saying this?”

  “Shut up.”

  I take a step back, hand over my chest. My breath’s getting harder to manage, my throat closing up, and I’m torn between how offended I am and how devastated I am at Hunter’s hurtful words and accusations.

  Sure, I may have omitted some of the details behind the people who helped me get the scholarship, but it in no way warrants this reaction, especially not after everything Hunter and I have been through.

  How could he believe these things about me? “I spend every free minute of my time with you, Hunter. When would I even have had time for someone else?”

  “You know what? Forget all that. Emmett’s part in this is not even the worst of it,” he growls, almost like a feral animal. “It was just a rumor about you and your English teacher, wasn’t it? Tell me again it wasn’t true.”

  He said he didn’t doubt me on that. He said he believed me over everyone else—so why is he asking? And why now, all of a sudden? But I’m so desperate for him to trust me that I scream, “Of course it wasn’t!”

  “Really.” Hunter lets out a cold laugh. “Then how come he got fired for sleeping with students? The man was criminally charged. I looked it up. I bet you worked real hard for that A, Camilla, didn’t you?”

  All the air goes out of my lungs.

  I don’t want to be crying right now, but it’s happening—it always does when I remember the things Mr. Harris tried to do once I let my guard down around him, the advances I had to keep rebuffing, that I ultimately had to run away from…

  “N-nothing happened with us,” I stammer. “He tried a few times, but I—”

  “Cut the shit and save your tears, Camilla. It’s not going to work this time. Fool me once, shame on you.” Hunter throws his phone across the room, shaking his head.

  “I’m not crying so you’ll take pity on me!” I want to tell him exactly what happened with my teacher, but it’s still too raw, and the words get stuck in the back of my throat. “You don’t know what it was like. You don’t know anything—”

  “And you know what? I don’t care anymore,” he cuts me off. “I was stupid to care in the first place. But whatever. It’s all in the past now. You’re with Ortega and going to school with him. Best fucking wishes. I couldn’t do long distance anyway.”

  This is breaking me. Tearing me not in half, but in pieces. “You don’t mean that—”

  “I do.” He lets out another short, humorless laugh. “Be real, Camilla. You think this cock can wait a week? Not fucking likely.”

  My heart stops beating. “I should have known,” I say through my tears. “That you were just like everybody else.”

  “Funny.” His smirk widens, and it’s the ugliest expression I’ve ever seen on his face. I never thought Hunter could be ugly, but right now, he is. “I was going to say the same thing about you.”

  I stare at him, at those blue eyes that used to regard me with such warmth and love, and find only disgust, pain, and anger.

  “Hunter—”

  “Get the fuck out.”

  So I do.

  There’s nothing left to say, or do. It’s over.

  We’re over.

  Also by Jenna Scott

  This Boy

  This Hurt

  This Love

  About the Author

  After growing up in the midwest, Jenna Scott moved to Los Angeles for the endless summer. As an introvert in the city, she loves to people-watch in coffee shops, writing down the stories she makes up about the other patrons. Besides her fiction habit, Jenna also enjoys photography and her collection of houseplants.