“Oh, trust me, everything she does is my concern, because she is my daughter, not some quick hookup! I doubt you are even capable of love!” she screams. “Just one look at you and I know that you’re trouble and will break my daughter’s heart. I’d rather save her from the pain before it can happen. If you have any feelings for her, which I highly doubt, you will leave her alone!”
Grey stiffens, and I step around them to find his eyes lackluster and all the color draining from his face, as if he saw a ghost. I want to ask him what she could have possibly said that made him crack, since he didn’t seem as fazed before, but I can’t just stand here and watch my mother attack him. I can’t, and I won’t.
“Mother, please! Stop! Just—just stop this!” I step in between them, gently moving Grey to the side. He does so, still staring at my mother with an unreadable expression. I reach down and interlock our fingers. He doesn’t say anything, just looks away and lets his fingers fall, but I hold on tight. I will check up on him soon, but for right now, I have to make her leave.
“Grey is right, I am an adult, and I have the right to do whatever I choose without you butting in,” I say and smile softly. “Mother, I love you and appreciate all you have done for me. You know that…but I can’t let you dictate my entire life. I will still finish college and have my career and build a family and the life you wanted for me. But for right now, I want this. I want—I want him.” I look at Grey, who still looks pale and hold my smile even though I want to drop it, push her out of the room, and wrap my arms around him until he tells me what’s wrong.
I look back at her angered features. “And I want you to let me do this.”
“He’s using you, Olivia,” she says, almost pleas.
“No.” I shake my head, rubbing my thumb on his. “He isn’t.”
She looks at me—more like glares—for what feels like forever until she huffs out.
“Don’t come crying to me when he breaks your heart, and he will,” she says, her tone deathly serious. Shivers run down my spine, but I hold my own and lift my chin in defiance. She snickers at me cruelly before steeling her perfectly red-painted lips and shaking her head. “Trevor will pick you up at ten. Be ready or he’ll leave, and you’ll disappoint your father…but not as much as you have disappointed me.”
I watch with a heavy heart as she spins on her white, six-inch heels and storms out of the room, slamming the door behind her. It pains me that this had to happen, that I had to blatantly push her away and talk back to her like that, but it had to happen. She had to see that I am serious when it comes to Grey. She may not see it, but he is a good guy. A good person. And he makes me happy, and he isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
I turn to him and breathe out in relief. “I thought that would never end,” I say and frown as he merely nods, his eyes glued to the door. I look at it, then back at him. She must have gotten to him, badly. Getting to people is one of her many talents. I bring my hands to his face and stand on my tippy toes and tilt my head with an encouraging smile. “Hey…you okay?”
He finally shifts his black eyes to me and nods with a clearly false smile. “Yeah…yeah, I just remembered I have to be somewhere.”
“What?” I laugh lightly, nervously. What is wrong with him, and why won’t he tell me? “Something is wrong, what is it? Tell me.”
“Nothing is wrong,” he says and grins before leaning down and kissing my forehead, though I thought he was aiming for my lips. I frown and crease my forehead as he pulls back and bites his lower lip with a contemplative look. “I’ll see you around, Princess.” He pulls away from me, and I stay still, trying to figure out what the hell my mother said to him that could leave him this…disconnected. I hate her for this. We were just talking about what we were, but now he’s leaving me without any reason.
I turn around in time to hear the door click along with my heart. “What did she say?”
Chapter Forty-One
“Y’all better love me for this; it’s pissing rain out there,” Mason exclaims as he enters the room. He shoves his rain-soaked hoodie and shakes out his hair, making the girls scream and yell at him in response.
I merely smile and accept one the warm cups of coffee he went out to get for the girls and me and him. After giving the girls their coffee orders and Jaimie her cronut, he shakes off his jacket and hangs it on the door knob before falling next to me with his own coffee up to his lips.
Classes have been cancelled for today because of the harsh rain storm outside. The storm came unexpectedly, but it proved to be fatal. Already, a few trees have been struck, one in particular blocking an entrance to one of the buildings—the English department, to be exact. To say Jaimie was bouncing from wall to wall in happiness would be a disgusting understatement.
While they plan on doing God knows what until the storm blows over, I plan on completing my essay for English Literature. But ever since Grey left me worried yesterday, I haven’t been able to jot down a single word.
Speaking of whom, he hasn’t been returning any of my calls or texts. I have been trying to make contact with him non-stop all day. Each time I get the robot-recorded voice telling me his voicemail box is full, I feel my worry grow deeper and wider until it resembles the Grand Canyon.
Why won’t he just answer me? I think. What could my mother have said that would make him become so cold and distant?
I replay every word she spat in hatred a hundred times on end but end up right back where I started—lost. I am so very lost. He was defending me one second and the next he’s leaving like he saw a ghost. How she was able to impact such a quick change like that is beyond me.
I wish he would just answer my calls or even one of my text messages and tell me what’s wrong. This is what I hate. What I want to change, if we can ever be something more, like he once told me. His need to be distant, leaving me in the dark as to what is on his mind. It’s not fair. Not on me.
“Is she dead? If so, I want her laptop.” Jaimie’s words snap me out of my thoughts. I look up from my coffee and find everyone staring at me.
“What? Why are you all staring at me?” I ask, my voice hoarse. I clear my throat and shift my position on the bed. I stretch out my legs and lean against the wall, absentmindedly toying with the lip of the coffee cup. “It’s making me uncomfortable,” I murmur.
“Something happen between you and lover boy?” Julia asks with a raised eyebrow.
“You mean Grey? No…no, nothing happened,” I answer with a smile to sell the lie and fiddle with my charm bracelet.
“Then why do you look like a sad zombie?” Jaimie jests. “Here, have a glazed cronut. It’ll cheer you up. Plus, I like the chocolate ones better.” She tosses me the paper bag before I can politely decline. I catch it and sigh as I set it beside me and go back to staring at the blank paper underneath me.
“I still say you drop the psycho,” Mason adds.
“Mason,” Jaimie snaps and hits him, to which he counters with an annoyed groan. “She’s obviously hung up about the guy, and you are not helping.” I can clearly hear her low whisper. But it’s the thought that counts, I guess.
“He’s a fucking psychopath!” he counters, raising his voice. “He beat me up before being a fucking douche to her, remember? That among other plenty of other things.” He mumbles the last part, but I heard him clear as day.
“To be fair, you did throw the first punch,” Jaimie says.
“Because he was being fucking crazy—”
“He’s not crazy!” I shout and gain three wide-set eyes. “He’s just a little…misunderstood.” I clear my throat and tear my eyes away from their curious gazes. Even if he is being a selfish prick leaving the way he did, I still care for him. And I love Mason, I do, but him calling Grey those…words are neither helpful nor true. He’s not crazy or psychotic or anything like that. They just don’t know him.
“You don’t know him like I do—” Mason says, shaking his head.
“I think I know him a little better,�
� I cut him off, my words sharp. The air has been sucked out of the room, leaving me panting and my eyes to well. I think I’m going crazy with worry and fear. Fear that my mother scared away the one person who was making me feel so alive here.
Silence washes throughout the room, leaving Mason and I to stare at each other. This is our first dispute, ever. And it’s over a guy who is blatantly ignoring me. How pathetic…
“As much as I would love to see the battle of the nerds, we gotta go or I’ll miss my appointment. And I am not waiting another month for another one,” Julia says, slicing through the tension. She stands, looking between us with an annoyed expression. “Well? Put on your rainboots and ponchos, ladies and gent.”
“Where are you going?” I ask, shifting my eyes to her.
“To the tattoo shop to touch up one of my tattoos,” she answers, pointing to the fading black rose on her collarbone. It disappears when she tugs on her leather jacket and plays with the collar. She looks between Mason and me and rolls her eyes. “Come on, now.”
“Why do we have to come?” I’d rather stay here, in my room, reading and texting a guy who has probably turned his phone off to avoid me. Sounds much better than sitting in some tattoo shop while it’s raining like a tropical thunderstorm.
“To keep this one company,” she tells me with a sigh, pointing to Jaimie, who is absentmindedly sucking chocolate residue off of her thumb. “Whenever she comes along, she tries to get a tattoo. She almost did last time, but I caught her just in time.”
“I’ll pass,” Mason says, staring at me with an unreadable expression. I look away from him and listen as he leaves the room. There’s a silent pause before I clear my throat. I’ll talk to him later. He’s just protective over me and doesn’t want to see me get hurt, but he has to understand that, like I told my mother, I have to make my own decisions without anyone’s interference.
“Why can’t she get a tattoo?” I ask curiously.
If she wants one, she should be able to get one.
“Ask her what she tried to get last time,” is all Julia says as she shoves her feet in a pair of combat boots.
I turn to Jaimie and smile softly, shrugging. “What did you almost get?”
“Just a purple dragon breathing Julia’s name,” she says with a proud, wide smile.
Oh…I see why now.
“I’ll get dressed.”
***
Thirty minutes later, we arrive at a tattoo shop called Marco’s Designs—Tattoos, Piercings, and More. I’m curious as to what the “and more” entails, but at the same time, I don’t want to know.
The shop is quite lengthy. The walls are painted pitch-black with trims of red along the sides. Black leather adjustable chairs with metal trays and tattoo equipment line each side of the large room, a red strip of carpet splitting the middle. Along the right side of the room are long, rectangular mirrors with smudges, while on the other side, there are glass showcases of works done on customers and displays of tattoo designs.
The place smells of hot ink and cheap beer, and my ears feel uncomfortable with the low buzz of tattoo works in progress.
I eye the tattoo artists arranged along the aisles, concentrated solely on their work. They are all tatted, some with bright intricate designs, while others are covered from head to toe in black and white ink. The artists are working with metal music playing throughout the shop. That mixed with the intimidating aura they give off and their appearances makes me a little intimidated, but they’re possibly sweet people. I don’t know them at all, so I won’t make assumptions based off how they look. I refuse to be anything like my mother—judgmental.
“Any of you see Marco anywhere?” Julia asks the entire shop as she shrugs off her soaked jacket.
“He’s in the back, waiting for you,” a burly man with a large skull on the side of his neck answers, glancing up from a tattoo he’s working on. I think it’s a mermaid.
“Thanks, Herb.” She nods at the man and receives a brief smile. She turns to Jaimie, who has pulled me down in a little nook of leather chairs against the front windows. “Here, you can use it—since yours died in the car—while I’m back there. You know the code. I won’t take long, promise.” She hands her phone to Jaimie and gently kisses her lips. With a small smile, she pulls back and waltzes to the back while joke cursing at the Marco man.
“Have fun!” Jaimie sing-songs, waving her girlfriend goodbye. Then she leans against the window, types in the password, and scrolls through what I assume is social media. I watch her in curiosity, a question singing in my mind.
“She trusts you with her phone?” I can’t help but ask.
“Of course.” She chuckles with a perplexed expression. “Does Grey not trust you with his?”
“On the contrary—I don’t trust his phone. It’s like the root of all evil,” I say with a sad smile that easily turns into a frown. “Every time we’re in a good place, he either receives a hookup call from Diana or just chooses to find another way to hurt me. Sometimes I just want to smash it to pieces, or him, doesn’t matter which, but something has to get smashed.”
She laughs but stops when I look at her glumly. “Sorry…is that why you two are estranged…again?”
“No, it’s because of my mother.” I lean against the window and look off into space, crossing my arms over my chest, absentmindedly playing with my charms. “She popped up at the dorm yesterday and completely lost it. She was screaming at me, as usual, and telling me how horrible Grey is, and then he countered, and everything just went to crap from there. But she said something specifically that caused a shift in him. Almost like something switched on, and he switched off…but I don’t know what, and he won’t tell me. I’ve been trying to contact him all day, but he’s been ignoring me. I just want us to be able to be in a happy, secure place without his fucking phone ringing with that she-devil’s name on the screen, or my mother butting in, as usua—”
Jaimie’s hand clamps on my mouth before I can continue my rant.
“Breathe, honey, just…breathe,” she instructs. I look at her, gulp, and follow her instructions. I close my eyes and breathe in and out, in and out. She drops her hand and watches me. It takes me a good minute to get my rapid heartbeat under control. “Good. Now, let me speak. M’kay?” I nod.
“To me, you two have got to learn how to communicate with each other. It’s obvious that you really like him, which is hella surprising—but that’s you, so you do you—and you will drive yourself crazy getting this worked up. Tell his ass that he has to drop his hoes and pay more attention to you and forget about the past, including exes. If he doesn’t want to do, either, then he’s just not ready to be in a relationship, but it’s clear you are. So if he does not whole-heartedly want you, sorry to say, you have to drop his ass. You’re too damn sweet to have your heartbroken. Not by that confusing asshole. Understand?” she says firmly, raising her eyebrows in expectation.
“Yes, I understand.” My voice is choppy. I didn’t realize I had started tearing up until now. Who knew Jaimie could be so wise?
“Good.” She smiles and reaches into my jacket pocket. I watch as she pulls out my phone and holds it out to me. “Now, pull up his number and text him one last time.”
“What should I say?” I ask, completely trusting her since I have never had to deal with something this stressful before, and she seems to know what she’s talking about.
“Tell his ass that, if he doesn’t step up his game and commit to you, he can have the door hit his ass on the way out.”
“I don’t think his ass would like that very much,” I joke, scrunching up my nose.
She laughs and pushes my shoulder playfully and nods to the phone. “Come on. Do it. I can even type it if you can’t…” she suggests, arching her eyebrows.
I glance down at the phone then back at her with a smile and shake my head. “I think I can do it.” I take the phone from her and turn in the seat. She scoots a few inches back to give me privacy.
I ope
n up the messaging app and stare at the absurd amount of times I have texted him. I most likely went overboard with the messages, but I was and am still worried about him.
You should have seen how pale he looked. It gives me shivers just thinking about his face practically melting onto the floor.
Sucking in a deep breath, I force my thumbs to move.
If you can’t tell me what’s wrong, we can’t move anywhere from here. I thought you wanted more…
I press send and let out a large breath of air.
“I feel better,” I tell Jaimie. But if he doesn’t respond, then I know we’re over before we even started, which is depressing to say, but it’s true. I need to be able to talk to him without him using witty remarks or just turning off from me altogether. It’s ludicrous how much he’d rather me be out of the loop than to know what’s wrong with him.
“You should,” Jaimie says with a smile, encouragingly rubbing my knee. “Wanna go run over to Joe’s Pizza’s while you wait? There are barely any people out, so—” Her words blur out when I hear three particular sounds that tear my soul to shreds.
The bell over the front door chirping, my phone signaling a new message, and Diana’s horrendous laughter.
I whip around and feel my heart slide across the floor to be crushed by her bright red wedges.
My heart slows and so does time as I watch her enter the shop, flinging her red hair back, letting out mighty laughter and hitting his arm. Grey’s arm. He bears a cocky smirk as he runs a hand through his wet hair, with his other hand on the lower part of her back, guiding her into the shop.
I feel my heart stop.
Chapter Forty-Two
I glance down at my phone with misty eyes and close them as pain wraps around my heart.
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