Kyle took a step back, his face twisting with repulsion. He felt no sympathy for Abby no matter how hard she bawled or how sorry she claimed to be. Neither her words nor her tears could change how Kyle felt about her.
Abby’s wailing and Kyle’s increasingly hostile body language caught the attention of the building’s doorman who was standing a few feet away from them. The doorman did not intervene but kept a close eye on the situation.
With his fists clenched, Kyle turned his back to Abby. He looked around the busy sidewalk for something he could punch. He desperately needed to relieve the pent up anger and frustration coursing through him. Shaking his head, Kyle ran a hand though his hair and held the nape of his neck. He slowly turned around and found Abby staring back at him with mascara smeared all around her glassy eyes.
“And to think I was going to propose to you,” Kyle said.
“You what?”
“Yes, Abby. I was going to propose to you.” His voice began to break again. “I went to Michigan to see your father a few days ago. I asked him for your hand. I was going to ask my mother for her engagement ring so I could give it to you. I was even going to fly your parents and your best friend in for the proposal. I feel like such a fucking idiot now.”
Kyle dropped his chin to his chest as he remembered how excited he was about that marriage proposal and how much thought and work he had put into it.
Abby felt as if someone had punched her in the gut. Learning that Kyle was planning to propose to her while she was cheating on him made Abby feel like the absolute worst person on earth. “I’m so sorry, Kyle. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen. It just did. I’m sorry. I would never hurt you on purpose. I love you.”
Kyle snapped his head back up and glared at Abby. The fire in his eyes could have scorched the entire city. “Don’t say that. Don’t you fucking say that to me. You don’t love me. You never have. You are just like all the others.”
With his hands on his hips, Kyle began to pace around in circles. Tears had begun to well in his eyes, and he didn’t want Abby to see them. After he had regained his composure, Kyle turned his attention back to Abby who was covering her mouth with her trembling hand. He rushed towards her, making Abby flinch and jump back.
“Tell me who he is,” Kyle demanded through gritted teeth, his chest falling and rising rapidly under his t-shirt. He gripped Abby by her upper arms, squeezing and shaking her to get her to answer him. “How long have you been fucking him?”
“Kyle please. You’re hurting me,” Abby protested, looking up at him with terror in her eyes.
Kyle dropped his gaze to Abby’s hands and noticed she was holding her phone. “Call him,” he barked, pointing at the phone with his chin. “Tell him to get out here if he’s man enough. Go ahead. Call him right now.”
Abby shook her head, blubbering and clutching the phone to her chest. She was terrified of Kyle, but she wouldn’t dial her phone. Kyle still didn’t know she was cheating on him with his own sister, and Abby wanted to keep it that way, at least for the moment. She remembered how violent Kyle got towards Brianna two weeks earlier at Ryan’s party. She feared that if Kyle, being as angry as he was, found out Brianna was the “other man,” he would do something regrettable.
Suddenly, the phone in Abby’s hands began to buzz.
“That’s him, isn’t it?” Kyle snarled. “Go ahead. Answer it. Tell him to get out here so I can pummel his face into pieces. When I’m done with him, he’s going to wish he hadn’t been born.”
Abby kept shaking her head and whimpering like an injured puppy. She wouldn’t even look at the phone screen to see who it was calling her.
Seeing that Abby wasn’t going to answer it, Kyle yanked the iPhone off her hands and looked at the screen. “Brianna? Why is Brianna calling you?” Kyle asked, frowning, still not realizing what was going on. “I thought I told you to stay away from her.”
“I’m so sorry, Kyle,” Abby cried softly, no longer able to look him in the eye. She braced herself. Kyle was too smart. Abby knew he was going to put two and two together soon.
“Wait?” It took Kyle a second, but he finally figured it out. Like a child who had just touched something icky, Kyle removed his hands from Abby’s arms and held them up. He took a couple of steps back as he stared at Abby with utter revulsion in his eyes. “Jesus Christ, Abby. Her? That’s who you are fucking? What the fuck is wrong with you? How could you?”
“Please Kyle. Let me explain,” Abby begged, wiping tears from her cheeks with the back of her hands. She tried to snatch the phone back but Kyle yanked it away and out of her reach.
Kyle glared at Abby, stunned that she had been capable of doing something so utterly reprehensible. The phone, which had stopped buzzing by then, had begun to buzz again. Once again, Abby tried to snatch the phone from Kyle’s hand, but Kyle wouldn’t let her get anywhere near it. Kyle looked at the screen. It was Brianna again. Kyle tapped the screen, ignoring Abby’s pleas not to, and answered the phone. He did not say anything when the call connected. He just listened.
“Honey, it’s me. You won’t be able to pay your cab fare because you left your wallet here. If you are in a cab, tell the driver to turn around. I’m on my way downstairs with your wallet. Hello? Are you listening? Hello…”
Kyle touched the screen to end the call. He just got the confirmation he needed. His girlfriend was indeed sleeping with his own sister. Kyle realized he had been wrong about Abby. She wasn’t like the other women who had hurt him. She was worse. He believed only a truly despicable woman could be capable of doing something as vile as what Abby had just done to him. He stared at Abby from under his eyelashes, but she wouldn’t look at him. Still holding the phone, Kyle dropped his hands to his sides and waited for Brianna to appear.
A few seconds later, the doorman opened the building’s front door and Brianna stepped out to the sidewalk. She had Abby’s wallet in her hands. She looked around, but because the street was so busy, she did not immediately notice Kyle and Abby standing a couple of feet to the right of the green awning. She froze in the middle of the busy sidewalk when she turned her head to her right and her gaze landed on Kyle’s face. He glared at her with fire in his eyes as tons of chatty New Yorkers rushed past him. Brianna also noticed Abby was standing in front of Kyle with her head down. She could only see the back of Abby’s head from where she was standing. A lump formed in her throat when she realized her brother knew everything.
“Kyle?” Brianna squeaked, her mouth hanging open and her eyes bugging out of her head.
Abby began to sob harder when she heard Brianna’s voice behind her. She held her stomach and stumbled a bit as if she were about to fall.
Concerned, Brianna rushed to Abby’s aid. She walked a short distance to stand behind Abby and placed her hands on Abby’s shoulders.
Kyle couldn’t stand the sight of them together and touching each other. He turned around to face the other side of the sidewalk while furiously running his hands over his hair, neck, and face. He was having a hard time getting enough air in his lungs.
Passersby continued to bump into the three of them and give them curious looks, but Kyle didn’t care. He was too stunned and too angry to see or notice anything or anyone. He turned back around. “You’re fucking disgusting, Abby,” Kyle screamed, stretching his arm and pointing at Abby with his index finger. “You’re a vile, disgusting whore.”
“Hey, don’t talk to her like that,” Brianna interjected.
“You shut up, you fucking freak,” Kyle barked, redirecting his finger towards Brianna.
The doorman realized it was time to intervene. “Is everything all right, Ms. Garrett?” he asked, walking towards the group and standing next to Brianna. He kept his eyes fixed on Kyle, who kept scowling at Brianna.
“Yes, Domingo. Everything is okay,” Brianna replied to the doorman, her eyes also fixed on Kyle.
“I’ll be standing right here if you need me, Ms. Garrett,” Domingo announced before returning t
o his post.
“Is this how you’re trying to get back at me, Brianna? By sleeping with my girlfriend? This is low, even for you. You’re such a twisted, sad, pathetic person. I shouldn’t have listened to our mother when she begged me not to cut you out of my life.”
Brianna stared at Kyle with a blank look on her face. She still had her hands on Abby’s shoulders. “What? What are you talking about, Kyle?” she muttered.
“Yes, Brianna. You heard right. Our mother is a saint. Despite all the lies you tried to spread about her and our dad, despite all the shame you brought to our family, our mother still wanted to give you a chance. But you’ve proven you don’t deserve a second chance. You’re pure evil. You’re going to burn in hell for this.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about Kyle,” Brianna snapped, walking around Abby and standing between them. “Our father was not the saint you think he was. He…”
“Shut up, Brianna,” Kyle yelled, cutting his sister off. “I don’t want to hear any more of your lies.” With revulsion twisting his face, Kyle tugged at the bottom of his t-shirt. He felt like he needed a shower and a bucket to puke in after that encounter on that sidewalk. He began to walk backwards, bumping into passersby walking the other way. “I need to get out of here. I can’t stand the sight of either one of you right now.”
“Please Kyle, let me talk to you. Let me explain,” Abby wailed, rushing towards Kyle and attempting to grab his hand.
Kyle stared down at Abby like she was a diseased rat and jerked his hand away before Abby could touch it. “Go fuck yourself, Abby,” he yelled. Abby looked like she was about to have a nervous breakdown, but Kyle couldn’t care less. He cleared his throat in the loudest, most obnoxious manner before spitting the gooey contents of his throat and nasal cavity at Abby’s feet. He then held his hand up and let Abby’s phone fall from it and hit the concrete. He shot Brianna one last spine-chilling look before turning on his heel and walking away from her and Abby.
Chapter VIII
Kyle had made it to the end of the block and was about to cross the street when Abby decided to chase after him. She picked her phone up off the ground first before going after her boyfriend. Still sobbing, and with tears streaming down her cheeks, she waded through the sea of pedestrians while screaming Kyle’s name. She ignored Brianna who stayed put outside her building yelling for Abby to come back.
Abby chased Kyle for about two blocks before losing him in the crowd. She stood in the middle of the sidewalk sobbing while people bumped into her and looked at her funny. One rude, self-involved, middle-aged man even yelled at her for being in the way, but Abby didn’t pay him any attention. She was too devastated and heartbroken to care. All the things Kyle said to her hurt her deeply, but she felt she deserved every single one of his insults. She was more concerned about him than she was about herself. She had never seen Kyle so angry and distraught and feared he might do something stupid.
Since she had no idea where Kyle could have gone after she lost track of him, Abby decided to get in a cab and go back to their apartment to wait for him. She needed to talk to him and apologize to him some more. He hated her guts, and their relationship was over. Nothing was going to change how Kyle felt about her, but Abby felt that she had to talk to him and somehow make things better.
From the cab, she texted Kyle. She wrote to him that she was sorry. She told him she was going to be at their apartment and was going to wait all night for him if necessary. After she was done texting, her phone buzzed. It was Brianna. Abby answered it.
“What happened?” Brianna asked.
“I lost him in the crowd. I’m going to go home and wait for him. I need to talk to him and explain.”
“Let me come over.”
“No. You being there will only make things worse. I need to talk to him alone.”
“I’m worried about you. He looked pretty angry just now. I’m afraid he’ll hurt you.”
“He won’t. I know him. Don’t worry about me. I’ll call you afterwards, okay?”
“Okay. I will not go to sleep until I hear from you.”
Abby ended the call. Minutes later, she was back at her apartment. She found Kyle’s luggage sitting in the middle of the living room and his laptop bag resting on the kitchen table. Kyle, however, was not there, not that Abby expected him to be. He had not replied to any of her texts either. Abby wondered where he could have possibly gone.
She lay down on the couch and began to cry again. She had never felt more confused and conflicted than she did that night. When she told Brianna the day before that she loved her, Abby meant it. But after seeing Kyle again, she realized she still loved him. Yes, he had said really terrible things to her, but his insults were justified. Abby realized that while she loved Brianna, she wasn’t ready to let Kyle go.
Part of Abby wished she could turn back the clock and not cheat on Kyle. Her life, although a little boring and predictable, was better then. Lately, it had become nothing but heartache and tears, and she was getting tired of it. With her phone clutched against her chest, she curled up on the sofa, closed her eyes, and waited for Kyle to come home.
****
Meanwhile, on the other side of town, Kyle stumbled through the streets of Manhattan without a destination or a purpose. He just walked and walked. The homicidal urges he had been feeling had all but disappeared. Numbness was all that was left in him. He didn’t see or hear anything around him. Nothing mattered to him anymore. His world had been turned upside down, and he felt lost.
He no longer trusted anyone except his mother. He hated Brianna. He hated Abby. He hated himself for not doing a better job of keeping Brianna away from his girlfriend. Suddenly, the image of Abby and Brianna in bed together, holding each other, doing things to each other kept popping into his head, taunting him, torturing him. He needed to find something, anything, that could erase those images from his head.
He had walked so much he had no idea what part of town he was in. At an intersection, he looked up to gaze at the street signs. “86th Street” read one sign. “Broadway” read another. He couldn’t believe he had walked over thirty blocks. He looked around trying to spot a bar. He needed alcohol, lots of it, to numb the crippling pain in his heart. He needed to erase everything that had happened over the last hour from his mind. He was certain copious amounts of whiskey would do the trick.
It didn’t take Kyle long to find a bar. He went in and sat on a stool. He drank for hours, ordering shot after shot of whiskey. He got pretty hammered, but unlike the last time he was at a bar, there were no flirty blonds, parking lot blowjobs or angry ex-boyfriends distracting him from the task of getting shit-faced.
When the bartender refused to serve him any more drinks, Kyle cursed at him and stumbled out of the bar. Disappointed that the booze had failed to make him forget the hellish nightmare his life had become, Kyle wandered the streets of New York City some more.
He didn’t want to go back to his apartment. He had checked his messages while at the bar and saw that Abby was there waiting for him. He did not want to see or hear anything she had to say. The sight of her revolted him. He remembered that Ryan, the closest thing he had to a best friend, was still in town. Seeing that he had no other options, Kyle stumbled into a cab and asked the driver to take him to Ryan’s apartment.
****
“Jesus, man. It’s three o’clock in the morning. What are you doing here?” Ryan, wearing nothing but boxers, said after opening the door of his apartment and finding Kyle, drunk out of his mind, on the other side of it.
“Can I come in?” Kyle slurred with his forehead resting against the wall. He couldn’t keep his eyes open and reeked of booze and smoke. “I have no other place to go.”
“Sure. Come on in. What the hell happened to you?” Ryan asked while Kyle staggered past him.
Kyle almost collapsed in the middle of the living room, but Ryan caught him before he hit the ground.
“How much did you have to drink, Kyle?”
Ryan asked.
“Not that much,” Kyle mumbled while Ryan wrapped his arms around Kyle’s waist and dragged him to one of his couches. Kyle lay down on the sofa with his head propped on a cushion.
Ryan sat on a chair across from Kyle and gazed at his friend with a concerned look on his face. He had known Kyle since freshman year and had partied with him many times. But he had never seen his friend get as drunk as he was that night.
“I thought you were going to be in Montana for another week. What happened?” Ryan asked.
Kyle closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. “I had to come back early. Abby’s cheating on me.” Kyle no longer trusted anyone, but Ryan had been a good friend to him and he needed to tell someone. Otherwise he was going to lose his mind. The pain was eating him inside.
Ryan stared at his friend with his mouth hanging open. “You’re joking, right?”
“Nope. She is cheating on me, and you won’t believe with whom.”
“Who?”
“My own fucking sister.”
“Holy shit, man. Are you sure?”
“Yes. I’ve been spying on Abby for days and just confronted the two of them together.”
“I’m so sorry man. I can’t believe Abby would do something like that. She was so in love with you. She looked so innocent. I’m in total shock.”
“Join the club.”
“What are you going to do?”
“What do you think? It’s over. I don’t want to see her ever again. The sight of her turns my stomach. I can’t go back to my apartment because she is there right now waiting to talk to me. That’s why I came here tonight. I was hoping I could spend the night here. I have no place else to go.”
“Sure thing man. You can stay here as long as you need,” Ryan replied. Ryan had the apartment all to himself for three months because all of his roommates had gone back home for the summer break. Ryan didn’t need roommates to be able to afford the expensive apartment because his rich dad paid for it. He had roommates because he just liked having friends around.
Betrayal: Kyle's Revenge (The Betrayal Series) Page 10