“I don’t spend my time preparing for confrontations with anyone!”
This girl, whoever she is, always has to have her guard up. I’ve seen it often enough that it’s clear as day. She’s definitely going to be one of those power-hungry, popularity-seeking, queen bitches of high school—which is strange for a girl with a soft side like her.
I turn away from her, ignoring the throbbing pain in my hand and then start walking away.
“Where are you going? To punch another wall?” she calls from behind me.
I don’t respond, I just keep going. I’m not interested in drama or gossip right now.
“Who are you about to lose?”
I stop dead in my tracks, the hairs at the back of my neck standing up on end. In the next second, I’m right in front of her, looking down at her. I see her swallow but she’s trying to be brave, acting like she isn’t fucking intimidated right now.
“I’m not about to lose anyone,” I growl, but even in the back of my head, I know it’s only a matter of time until I do.
“Really?” she challenges, her face stoic, but it’s the look in her eyes that paralyzes me. I can see everything I’m feeling inside, in her eyes. “Because it sure didn’t look like it before.”
“If I were you, I’d watch the next words that come out of my mouth, especially when you don’t even know who you’re talking about.”
We stare at each other for a long second, her chest rises and falls so fast, my heart is pounding but she doesn’t look away.
“Sit down,” she softly says, watching me.
“What?”
“Sit down, jerk. You look fatigued and dehydrated. When was the last time you ate?”
Surprised, I just stare at her, at a loss for words. She blinks her large eyes, silently waiting for my next move, so, I take a seat, keeping three chairs between us. I wouldn’t want to be near her, for all I know she might be death in the flesh, if she can easily get a rise out of me.
Death has been dancing in the shadows of our cold, lifeless mansion since I was a little boy. We tried taunting her, throwing all the wealth and power we have at her. For a time, she went away but now…
I glance back at Aiden’s hospital door, ignoring the vibrating of my phone in my pocket. I know Liam will be back tomorrow from camp as school starts next week. And he has no idea what’s happening here.
“Why are you here?” I ask, keeping my voice low. I can feel her questioning eyes on me. She’s one curious little thing, and that might be a problem.
“It’s a hospital dummy, that question is irrelevant,” she counters, but the fire that was on her tongue before is now muted, not gone. A girl like her would never be caught dead without her ammo.
“Do you always avoid direct questions, or do you just have secrets in your pretty little head you don’t want me to know?” I look at her this time, catching her gaze but she quickly looks away.
“I would never share my secrets even if I had them,” she murmurs, looking away, her gaze fixing down the hall at another hospital door.
“Because girls like you don’t like juicy secrets?” I mock. She’s a rich girl with an attitude. She has the whole miss popular, lead cheerleader vibes going on,
“Secrets are fun when they’re not hurtful to you or anyone you love. Like who’s dating Shane Matthews, the cute guy from my middle school or who cheated on a stupid Math test that anyone could pass with their eyes closed. Those secrets are harmless.”
“Shane Matthews?” I question, turning around to look at her.
“Oh God, yes, he’s…”
“A self-absorbed fool and dumb as a doorknob,” I finish, thinking of his asshole brother from Clintwood Academy.
“Do you trash talk everyone or is today just an exception?” she questions.
I shrug, glancing back at Aiden’s door, my foot tapping as I look down the hall, hoping to see someone, anyone, my mother maybe, running down here to check on her firstborn son.
“Hmm, I’m going to go with…it’s part of your everyday lifestyle.”
I don’t bother responding to that either. I’ve lived all my life being judged, with everyone’s speculations about my life buzzing around me like damn flies. I’ve grown desensitized to all that shit. Besides, she’s nosy.
“Anyway, you do know that secrets come out one way or the other, right?”
Did she see last night’s headline flashing on the evening news? Did she see my father’s face and his latest whore making the rounds of every network?
“That’s the first sensible thing I’ve heard you say since you rudely interrupted me.”
“You hate secrets?” she questions, choosing not to fight me on her level of intelligence. Wise choice, Little Minx.
“Like you said, secrets have a way of coming out, sooner or later.”
I think of everything that happened last night. I had to drive my brother here and now they won’t tell me what’s wrong! The fuck!
“You’re getting angry all over again.”
“Stop trying to read me,” I grit out.
“I’m not trying to read you. Your anger is palpable,” she starts after a while, her voice surprisingly soothing and airy. “So’s your anxiety.”
“Is that your own anxiety talking?” I counter, eyeing her from the corner of my eye.
“I don’t have anxiety.” She rushes to cover her face with her palms, massaging her temples. “Mom says anxiety gives people ugly wrinkles way too early in life. I’m too young for that!”
Figures that’s her motivation. I want to smile so bad, but I don’t.
“I guess you like your fairytales with more than a little sprinkling of glitter, with rainbows and unicorns, thinking the world is all good?”
“Eww.” Her disgust is as quick as her blinking. “Number one, I hate glitter, that shit is hard to clean out. And two, leave rainbows and unicorns out of this. You can hate everything else.”
I want to laugh at that, but the pain in my hand makes me wince instead. In a blink of an eye, the mysterious girl, without asking, grabs my injured hand.
I tense up, watching her through the slits of my eyes.
“What are you doing?”
“Checking your busted-up hand,” she murmurs, carefully unfurling my palm. “Please don’t tell me you play sports.”
“You really don’t know who I am?” I question, feeling skeptical all of a sudden.
“Please, the world doesn’t revolve around assholes who want to assert their need to let their anger out on inanimate objects in hospital hallways.”
Looking into her eyes, she shoots me a genuine smile that literally steals the breath out of my lungs. Good God, she’s stunningly beautiful when she smiles.
She doesn’t give me a moment longer to admire her as she gets up and turns to run down the hall, leaving a chilly breeze of loneliness and aching pain.
“Hey, where are you going?” I call after her. She spins around without actually stopping, looking like a butterfly in that moment, making my heart pound so hard in my chest. She might flutter away and be gone forever or…
“I’ll be right back. Don’t attack the chairs while I’m gone.” She turns around again, more like spins in a perfect ballet spin. But before she can run again, she looks over her shoulder. “Don’t even think about attacking that wall.”
And with that, she’s gone, her long mane blowing behind her. Who is this girl and why does she look like the face of my undoing?
My phone vibrates again. I ignore it, not knowing what I would say if I pick it up. Tell my little brother, who practically adores and worships the ground his older brother walks on, that said older brother is dying? I think not.
In her absence, my anger start building all over again, like a monster that was being held back by her presence. Fishing out my buzzing phone, I notice it’s not Liam, but the asshole who calls himself my father.
“What?” I snap.
“Julian, son,” he starts, blowing his breath through the
phone. “Where are you? Your mother is worried sick.”
“Since when have you cared about Mom?” I bite out, remembering the devastated look on her face. I lost my mother last night and no matter what anyone will tell me, I know she’ll never be the same after seeing her manwhore of a husband parade around a twenty-one-year-old, single brain-cell whore on national TV.
“Son, your mother and I…” He blows out another breath. I can imagine he’s running his hands through his hair. “It’s complicated.”
Sure, breaking someone’s heart and soul is always complicated.
“Stop using her as an excuse for your inability to control how many times you drop your pants to how ever many whores you sleep with, successfully ignoring your family. And we sure as hell don’t give a damn where you do it.”
“You saw.” It’s not a question.
“The whole world saw.”
Silence stretches between us for a second. There’s nothing he can say that will make me see him in a different light than the one he shone on himself.
He sighs heavily on the other end and I know he’s about to change the topic, again. He never answers a direct question, never admits to anything. I guess that’s a trait in cheaters.
“Where are you, Julian? Are you with your brother?”
“Which one?” I wait, feeling like I’m just a breath away from snapping. “Which brother are you talking about, Dad?”
I make sure to put as much mockery and sarcasm in that moniker that John Fitzgerald, the CEO of the great conglomerate, Fitzgerald House, deserves.
“Julian…”
“Which brother?” I press, my words clipped and low.
If I close my eyes right now, I swear I can see the look on his face whenever he’s unfortunate enough to see Aiden in the house, Aiden playing on the beach, Aiden in his fucking life…
Since I’ve been old enough to understand and read a room, I’ve known that the topic of Aiden has been hard on him. He never talks about him. Never mentions him. He just pretends like Aiden doesn’t exist.
“You know who I’m talking about—”
“Aiden,” I cut him off, standing up now, unable to remain seated a second longer as if my life isn’t hanging by a thin thread and that my family isn’t about to be ripped apart. “His name is Aiden John Fitzgerald. He’s your firstborn son. He has your name and you will fucking acknowledge him because he’s still your fucking son!”
Not that he has had the decency of referring to Aiden as anything less than a mistake.
“I know his name…”
“So why don’t you ever mention it?” I demand. “For you, he just doesn’t exist. Your world would be nothing short of perfect if he wasn’t here, huh?”
“Julian, I—”
“Is it because you’re a coward who runs away from his so-called problems? Or maybe you’re not man enough to recognize that your son has Down syndrome and with that comes other health risks?”
I feel her before I hear her sharp gasp coming from behind me.
I close my eyes, the fight leaving my body as tension, pain, grief, anger and helplessness all come crashing down into my soul with a vengeance that weakens my knees and my voice.
“Julian—”
“Mom isn’t doing well, but the doctors want both of you down here. Right now.” And with that, I cut the call, but I don’t turn around.
I need a moment to compose myself.
I have a lot that I need to do. I need to make sure that this girl, whoever she is, doesn’t breathe a single word about what she just heard to anyone or I will ruin her life.
Glancing down at my bleeding knuckles, I try taking a deep breath, but my chest is tight. Everything is tight and heavy.
Should I be feeling this way or are those just side effects of knowing that your older brother is going to die soon and your parents—who should be here protecting him—don’t give a damn?
My phone rings again, but I can’t bring myself to answer it.
Before I can react, a small, soft hand with light pink—or is it purple?—nail polish reaches for my bleeding knuckle and suddenly I stop shaking. I didn’t even know I was trembling this hard.
She grabs the ringing phone, and without blinking she answers it, pressing the iPhone to her ear.
My head shoots up so fast, catching her gaze, a sharp retort on my tongue, but it dies down the moment I lock eyes with her.
“Listen here, you selfish, shitty parent with no morals. Instead of harassing your son, why don’t you come down here and be there for your family! Stop calling and stop making excuses. Just come down here!”
And with that, she cuts the phone, switches it off, then delicately slips it in my front jean pocket, all while holding my gaze.
It’s in that moment that a tidal wave crashes into my chest, washing over me to a point where I feel like I’m going to drown. It’s like standing over a cliff with sharp rocks below and I’m about to happily fall over, drawn by her overwhelming allure. It’s her.
This girl.
She. Sees. Me.
Every single inch of me, she sees me.
I suck in another labored breath. It seems I’ve been doing this since I first saw her dancing in the rain, but now, I think the axis of my entire world is shifting as I stare down into her beautiful eyes.
I don’t dare blink as we stare at each other in that lonely hallway, reserved for the worst cases—I think.
Grief lingers in the air, death looming over us, but somehow, I sink into the unknown depths of her eyes. Into the captivating, tortured depths of a girl I was sure was going to break my heart into shreds.
It didn’t take her long to do just that.
Westbrook Blues Series:
Reckless Hate, #1
Vicious Hate, #2
Broken Hate #3
Ruthless Lies
Petty Rage
Poison Aches
It’s Just High School series:
Devious Kisses
Cruel Kisses
Bitter Kisses
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Frosty Blues: A Westbrook Blues Novella Page 20