Worth It All (All #3)

by Marie Wathen

  Turning away from her, but unwilling to look at him, I deflect his question and request, “Take me home.” I refuse to feed Miller’s desire for more knowledge of what’s happening between us.

  Wordlessly, he captures my elbow roughly and guides me out the front entrance. I glance over my shoulder and spot Casandria, pushing her way past Miller and a large crowd that gathered to witness the spectacle. Watching our escape, she folds her arms over her chest and perhaps I imagined it, but I think she could be smiling. Marcus stops at the valet long enough to retrieve his keys and then continues on toward his Jeep, all while maintaining his grip on me. He jerks open the car door, assists me inside and then slams it shut. The throbbing, purple vein in the side of his neck indicates that he’s just as pissed off as I am at the moment. I don’t care how angry he is, I refuse to play the role of ignorant victim for his benefit another minute. What if he isn’t the good guy after all?

  “Where did you go last week?” I yell as he slides in behind the steering wheel. I scan his face, hoping my inner lie detector is working properly and waiting for deception to reveal on his face, like the glow of a lightening bug at midnight.

  Not surprisingly, he ignores my question and stomps his foot hard on the gas pedal swerving through the parking lot, passing several other vehicles also leaving the party. Recklessly, he races down the road. This time he doesn’t even bother with taking the back way, like before where he tried thwarting the last remaining hit-man’s plans to get me, if he’s even still stalking me. Cresting over the mountain’s sloped ridge that leads down toward the main highway, his crazy driving causes the passenger-side tires to drop off the pavement. Filled with the fear of plummeting over the edge, a scream rips from my throat, uncontrollably.

  “Slow down,” I demand. Fuming mad and driving crazily, he discounts my fears by speeding up. “You’re going to kill us.” He continues ignoring me so I provoke with the one weapon that I know will yield a reaction. “I was always just a job to you, wasn’t I?”

  Silence. I keep waiting for him to deny that I’m wrong, but he stubbornly refuses to pacify my need to know that he isn’t a player.

  Even without him confessing his role, I see everything clearly now. I trusted him too much. I trusted him with my heart. His charms worked on me, effectively covering his lies, but now I can read him like a letter. His mission was to stay close and keep me protected. Immature feelings and sexual desire blinded me from what was most important–my defenses. Staying in the shadows as Beatrice to find Anna and Waverly, wasn’t the only deception that I’ve been living for the past two months.

  He is a fake, too. There’s no way he could fall in love so quickly and deeply. Not with someone like me. His adoration was all part of the contriving plot to seize the trust fund left to me by my grandmother. I’m convinced that there’s no way he didn’t have prior knowledge about the profound secret billions. Watching him now, I’m positive that Mr. Perfect doesn’t exist, but Miss Fool is alive and well, sitting in this damn truck. Protecting and saving myself, are the only things left to do. Finally, we pull into my driveway. Immediately I jump from the vehicle without waiting for him.

  “Breesan,” he calls, stepping out of the Jeep, too. “I’m only going to explain this once and I hope that you’ll believe what I have to say.”

  Needing to face the end of us, I stop and turn around at the front door. What I’ve been sensing for the past couple of weeks is revealed tonight in the form of the breakdown of us. This won’t be simple. Every painkilling fiber must be eradicated. Like a junkie, Marcus is my means to euphoria, keeping me from sinking back into a broken existence. But it was all a lie. I must purge him completely, leaving behind no shake–crumbs to roll a joint. He climbs the steps quickly and stands directly in front of me. I cross my arms and stiffen my spine, focusing on him while masking my disgust with an indifferent look.

  “Everything I do is for you. I protect you because you are mine. Our life together means everything to me and no one will ever bring us down. What you think you saw was not what it was portrayed to be.” The sincerity in his eyes sparks my longing to trust him.

  Should I accept this plausible alibi to save what we have? More than anything, I want to believe him.

  The bulk of how truly horrible the events of my life have been since that fateful night in May when I agreed to a blind date is greater than a supermassive black hole. Because our relationship acceleration was as great as the pull of oceans to, as well as away from, the moon at high tide, it was clearly doomed for separation from the beginning. No one can maintain an act as vital as being the center of another person’s universe one hundred percent of the time, which explains his frequent trips. Distance from me keeps him in this two-faced game.

  “Whether you chose to believe it or not, I am telling you the truth.”

  I lower my eyes and turn my head away, contemplating his confession. Shutting down and blocking him out will hurt like nothing I’ve ever known, but I just don’t trust him anymore. Just thinking about letting Marcus go feels like a pregnant elephant is jumping up and down on my chest. My heart convulses, rebelling against the idea before squeezing painfully. My resolve dips and my shield to block him fails, just like before. My dark side, which I abandoned the moment his lips caressed mine for the first time, is summoning me to return.

  Marcus built you up with his love and it’s his deceit that will destroy you.

  “I need time,” I confess. He moves in closer and I shift back, needing distance and feeling slightly afraid of the stranger standing in front of me. I bump into the closed door and nervously claim, “We should–” he cuts me off before I can tell him that I want a break.

  “Fuck that, you belong to me,” he objects loudly, slamming both hands against the door frame on either side of my head, “You are being irrational.” I can’t look at him, but I can feel his demanding stare engulfing me and, like a wind-guided wildfire in the Talladega National forest. It is all consuming. “It doesn’t matter what I say right now, because you’ve judged me and decided that everything we have is a lie.” Uncertainty veils my face with this claim and he moves closer, tenderly brushing his nose against my cheek. Softening his tone, he states, “I see it in your eyes, Breesan. It’s all crashing down, and you don’t trust me anymore.” He pulls back slightly, the flame of desire burning in his deep, green eyes. His breath sweeps over my lips when he whispers, “But deep down, you recognize that your feelings for me are authentic and match mine exactly. You are mine and I am yours. Don’t give up on us.” I don’t respond. “I’m going to find my way back inside your heart. You know that we’re worth it, baby.” Perfect words are powerless and can fool me no longer. I finally see him. Like a tidal force, our attraction was always one-sided. Someone like Marcus could never really love someone like me, and I shouldn’t have allowed myself to believe that I wouldn’t get hurt again.

  “Goodbye,” I whisper, ducking inside and running up to my room, where I cry my heart out.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Anna

  “I’m going to use you,” I threaten, wearing a path into the dirt floor with my bare feet. “You are powerless, and can’t hurt or misguide me anymore. It’s time for a mind control takeover. When I’m done, I will be my own hero.”

  My survival has revolved around hiding facts; from my parents, my doctors and myself. In the name of self-preservation, I denied my reality, went to therapy and depended on others to help me endure my hell. Today, all of that changes. Focusing on random visions that have flooded my mind for the past few weeks, I can slow down the scenes and see things differently. The first memory I’m deciphering is the night of my twelfth birthday slumber party, one week after the end of seventh grade. For some reason, this has been the most prominent flashback, almost like it is demanding my attention.

  Before summer break, I invited my four closest friends over to my house and they all arrive on time with their overnight bags for a silly, all-girl weekend, everyone except Br
eesan.

  “I’ve tried contacting her and went to her house yesterday, but she wasn’t home,” I explain to the other girls. Zoe, Angela and Emily all frown, disappointed by the news. The doorbell rings, causing a giddy smile to snake across my lips and it’s mirrored on my three friends faces, too. We all make a mad dash toward the front door. “Chill out,” I warn them, stopping in front of the door and holding both hands up. “She will freak if we all spill out the door and smother her. I’ll handle it.”

  Reluctantly, they back away into the hallway and I answer the door. “You’re late,” I declare, pulling back the heavy door. Expecting to find Breesan waiting on my front stoop, I am completely disappointed when I see Miller Adams standing there instead.

  “I’m late?” she asks beaming excitedly. “You were expecting me?”

  “No,” I reply honestly. “What are you doing here?”

  “I asked my mom to drop me so we could hang out and to give you this,” she thrusts a small wrapped box into my hands. “Happy birthday, Anna.”

  Not wanting to be rude, I accept the package. “Thanks.”

  Before letting her inside, I look back over my shoulder at the other girls and find exactly what I was expecting. Angela’s hands are jammed on her hips and she’s giving me the death-stare, warning me not to invite Miller into our little group. Zoe shakes her head dramatically and then quickly slaps her hands over Emily’s mouth, barely stopping her from dropping the F-bomb. They can’t stand Miller. Honestly, I’m not a fan either, but I don’t want to make her feel bad after she came all the way here. Plus, she was sweet enough to give me a present, so I can’t just leave her standing outside. My mother would be so disappointed if I’m impolite to anyone.

  “Please come in,” I offer, smiling at her and stepping back to allow her inside. Her smile actually cranks up even more with my invitation.

  “Hey girls,” she tinges, her tone dropping and sounding a bit snappish. “I should have guessed you all would be here.”

  “Of course we’re here,” Angela defends just as equally pissed off. “We are Anna’s best friends.”

  “Okay, then,” I wedge myself between them before someone ends up with less hair because of a catfight. Needing to put more space between them, I suggest, “Let’s go out to the backyard. I’ll let my mom know where to find us, so she can send Breesan out when she gets here.” I physically turn Angela around and we begin following the other two girls down the hallway.

  “Don’t bother,” Miller states following closely behind me, “Breesan won’t be around for a while.”

  I stop, turn around and then demand, “What are you talking about?”

  “She left on the last day of school,” Miller starts. The other girls stand closely behind me, glaring over my shoulder. “Her stepmother told my mom last night.”

  “Dang it,” I grumble, saddened with my best friend missing the party. “I didn’t know she was leaving for her trip so soon.”

  “Apparently, it wasn’t one of her planned summer trips and she isn’t gone for three months this time.” Smugness eclipse Miller’s smile. “She’s not coming back.”

  “You’re a liar,” Emily charges, shoving around Zoe and Angela, pushing me out of the way and coming face to face with Miller. “Do you just make this shit up as you go along? Are you proud of being the mean girl?”

  “Kettle, Emily?” she tosses back, like Emily is a bitch without provocation. “Believe whatever you want, but it’s the truth.”

  At this point in the original memory, my disappointment turns into an anxiety attack that I don’t know how I mange to conceal from the girls. Fortunately, they’re too busy arguing with our unwanted guest to notice me sitting on the stairs with my arms clasped tightly around my legs like a zombie.

  Through my internal struggle, I deafen everything around me and zone-out while staring at the front door, willing Breesan to show up even though part of me knows that Miller is telling the truth. Breesan is gone.

  Using this new manipulation skill, I become an observer of the scene and watch things with a different perspective.

  “Why isn’t she coming back?” Zoe, the more patient of the three, takes over the inquisition.

  After a few frustrating minutes of half-truths and some ridiculous story about how she can only tell her what she’s heard through the grapevine, all while watching me, Miller plays her role impeccably, until Angela steps in.“If you’re finished telling us what you think will make us actually like you, why don’t you drop the act and tell us exactly how you know all of this crap.”

  Trying to rouse me, Miller calls my name a couple of times. Noticing that I’m basically catatonic, she closes the distance between her and the other girls, coming within a hair of Angela’s face. Within moments, I see more bitterness and hatred than I’ve ever witness in one person before in my life.

  “I couldn’t care less if you three don’t like me,” she growls before recounting her horrible attack on Breesan on the last day of school. Then to ensure they keep their mouths shut about her confession, she threatens to expose some scandalous secrets that she’s collected about each of them. “You are no longer needed or wanted here.” She insists that they make their apologies to my mom and leave immediately. Afterward, she escorts me up to my room–more like carries me because I’m completely out of it–and then she deposits me onto the edge of my bed.

  “You can’t trust anyone, Anna,” she suggests strolling over to my window and staring out toward my best friend’s house. “Breesan is toxic and you shouldn’t be anywhere around her. Luckily, she will never be returning.” Biting down on my lip to battle my sadness, I taste the metallic tinge of blood coursing down my throat. I can’t respond to anything she’s saying because my breakdown is spiraling out of control. With her help, I curl into the fetal position in the middle of my bed. “Don’t worry,” she whispers, sitting and taking my hand into hers. “I’m here. I’ll be your best friend. And I promise that I’ll never leave you like she did. No one knows this, but my dad works for her stepmother. What they have planned for that little miss goodie-two shoes will more than likely end things between you anyway.”She glances at the bedroom door before leaning in close and whispering, “They’re removing her memories. She won’t remember you, and I couldn’t be happier.” She laughs and then moments later my mom comes into the room.

  “Hello, Miller. Anna? Baby, what’s wrong?” Mom pleads, rushing over and lifting my face up so she can get a closer look. “What happened to her?”

  “I’m not sure, Mrs. Knight, Grace,” she lies and boldly uses my mother’s first name as if she were family. “She just stretched out across the bed and hasn’t said anything for the past few minutes. I was just about to come get you.”

  “Call your mother and have her pick you up. I’m taking Anna to the hospital.”

  This incident put me in the hospital for a week where I was subjected to speaking with a psychiatrist, who insisted on therapy that lasted for a year. Losing Breesan destroyed my last tether to reality and I lost all hope. Up until that day, Breesan and I were inseparable, not only because we were neighbors, but because she needed an escape from Julia’s torment and I survived my hellacious real-life demons, drawing strength from her. Once Breesan finally did return home, she wanted nothing to do with me and her stepmother forbade us from seeing each other. My health deteriorated instantly, like she was my Achilles heel. It didn’t take my mother long to figure out that my survival depended on Breesan’s friendship.

  After a lengthy confrontation, Julia relented and allowed me to hang out with her, but Breesan was different. She was scared, confused and insisted that we never were best friends. Although I was suffering through my own bull crap and should have folded after her declaration, I wasn’t discouraged and I refused to give up. For one reason, I need her. For the other, she needed me. Just being around Breesan kept me out of the hospital and even though she proclaimed that she didn’t want me around, I knew she didn’t mean it. I would n
ever give up on her.

  Of course, Miller stayed close by at all times. Because I dated Tristan, she hooked up with Marcus just to be closer to me. Looking back now, I see that she was sick and twisted. I’m glad that I can see her true colors now.

  Over the next few days, I continue to dissect each memory that I have and soon I can conjure up specific memories without waiting for them to come. One such memory circles around my captor, Tox.

  “I’ll be back,” I tell Tristan and Breesan, excusing myself and heading to the ladies room. Because they are so engrossed in the semifinal round of the big dart competition being held tonight, they don’t even hear me. I giggle and walk alone down the corridor. I get why the guys dig this dumb game, but seeing Breesan getting wrapped up in it is hysterical.

  “Hello,” a male voice calls from the dark end of the hallway. Being lost in my musings, I glance up and spot a tall man walking toward me. “Anna, right?” he asks closing the distance between us. His tailored Goth attire is epic. Slicked-back shoulder-length, black hair, a deep red suit paired with a brilliant white tuxedo shirt and wicked, glowing eyes make him seem demonic and angelic all at once. I always dress casual when we come to Toxic, but I like all of the different personas people hide behind here. His appearance is stellar and professional. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this man before though.

  “Yeah,” I answer. “Do I know you?”

  “No, but I met Tristan last month. He told me that his girlfriend usually comes here with him. I just guessed that since you are with him you must be the girlfriend.” He smirks at his deducing skills.

  “You’d be correct.” I smile back and then tease, “And do you have a name smart guy?”

  “Tox.”He grins mischievously.

  “As in the owner?”