But you can’t go home.
Just then, the phone that we got earlier today after Rye and Jaz forced me to, rings. Quickly, I wipe my tears away as I grab it. I don’t check the caller ID.
“Hello?”
“Mia, oh thank God,” Nicky breaths and I shut my eyes. “I’ve been so worried about you. What’s going on? Are you safe?”
“Yes, I’m safe and you? How are you over there?”
“I’m safe for now. I can’t talk right now I just wanted to check if you’re all right.”
“Okay but before you go, please tell me, what did Nathan do to me? What happened to me?”
I’ve been racking my brain, trying to come up with an answer, but nothing. He hurt me, but where? The only scars that I have are on the side of my head where I fell and cracked my head while dancing. That’s it. He didn’t do that.
“Mia, forget about it,” she says. “Don’t get in contact with anyone. If anything happens over here, I’ll call you.”
And she ends the call just like that.
* * *
I’m walking down a long hallway. It looks and feels familiar.
I’ve walked this hallway before. Am I having a déjà vu moment? No, I’ve been here before. As I look around, I realize that this is the Fitz mansion. This is the same hallway that not only led to my room, but to…Nancy’s
Nancy!
I walk faster, feeling like my heart’s in my throat. But then, things start changing. No longer are the beige walls filled with priceless paintings. All the little trimmings and details that made this hallway elegant and homey, they all just seem to disappear.
As if that was the prelude, the beige start changing as well, until they’re now white. Stark white.
No.
Ahead of me, Nancy’s bedroom door is no longer the beautiful furnished brown it was the last time I walked toward it. It’s now white.
Stark white.
And I can’t stop myself from walking toward it or reaching for the doorknob or twisting it and opening the door.
When I do though, I’m assaulted by a flood of blood. It all comes rushing to me but in that sea of blood, I see mangled bodies, with limbs torn apart floating atop the thickness that rushes at me.
Among them are Nancy’s, Aiden’s, and my boys. Cole, Liam and Julian.
I scream…
“Mia, wake up!”
I gasp awake and immediately jump out of bed, with my heart pounding away so viciously I feel like I’m about to have a heart attack.
Frantic, I look around but I’m back in Rye’s house and there isn’t any blood here. I look to the bed… wait, I just got out of bed.
It looks like I slept in my bed all night and didn’t wake up on the bathroom floor with a razor in my hand, my wrists bleeding. Intense relief has me heaving as tears threaten to spill over. I didn’t slit my wrists this time. Oh God.
Does this development have anything to do with the phone call from last night? Or did Julian make a difference with the chaos in my head?
Before I can think more of it, I hear a quick rap coming from my door just before it opens and Rye peeks in her head in, a big smile on her face. God, she’s too sunny and smiley for my liking. She’s the one who woke me up, I realize.
“Mia, God, I swear you sleep like the dead,” she says with a whine. “Wake up! It’s D-Day.”
Oh fuck.
“I don’t think I’m going.”
“The hell you aren’t,” Rye says as she pushes the door open fully. “You’ve been practicing your heart out for years, but knowing you, I’d say you’ve been waiting for this day since you were a toddler.”
Yeah, back when I believed wholeheartedly that I had to follow in my mother’s footsteps. But now, everything is so damn uncertain that I don’t think I can do this.
“It doesn’t matter,” I murmur as I go walk over to the window to look out at the beautiful city of Paris.
It’s a good day to be let down, I can feel it in my soul.
“I don’t think I have what it takes.”
“Bullshit,” Rye sighs. “The Mia I know would eat those other bitches for breakfast and spit them right out. You’re a boss bitch and can dance circles around them, own it.”
If my life was still as it was before the Fitzgerald family wrecked it up, I would have been smiling with pride at that and done just that. Go over to the Paris Opera Ballet company and demand that they see me dance like my mother. But, she’s not my mother and she’s gone.
“Things are different now, Rye,” I whisper. “I cry all day. I can hardly function and I… I just can’t do it.”
“Well, that’s disappointing,” a deep voice says, making me freeze the moment I hear it. No way.
I spin around and there he stands, his signature cocky smile on his face.
“Come on now, Cupcake, I was expecting more life in you,” Liam says, cocking his eyebrow as he looks at me. “Right now, you look like a fucking scarecrow with your eyes wide like that.”
It’s really him. I look to Rye who’s smiling from ear to ear, but I can see the lust in her eyes as she looks at Liam.
“How…” I stutter still unable to believe that he’s here, dressed like he’s ready to go clubbing or on a murder spree, you never know with Liam.
“How am I here?” he questions. “Yeah well, I know you better than you know yourself, Cupcake. I figured if you ever embarrassed yourself, or made a mess you couldn’t fix, you’d run away to join some biker gang or maybe even a cult where you’d have the perfect opportunity to sacrifice my family to.”
“She’d so totally do that,” Rye says with a giggle and I shoot her a look.
“I know right,” Liam says with a wink in her direction. Flirtatious much? Liam starts to slowly walk over to me, the smirk on his face fading as he studies me from head to toe. I start fidgeting with my sleeves, grateful that I put on a long-sleeved shirt before all this. “But then I thought, where would a broken heart go, to try and silence their pain? But not just any heart, your heart.”
More tears threaten to spill as I look into his eyes. God, this guy.
“You’re not like any other girl I’ve ever met, Cupcake, and I’ve met my fair share of crazy, predictable girls.”
“I’m not crazy,” I rush to defend, making Rye and Liam pause. I think I look crazy because they both stare at me with frowns on their faces. I fucked that up, didn’t I? “I mean, I’m not like all your other harem of girls.”
“Of course, you’re not,” Liam scoffs. “Have you met you? You’re Mia Montague, the motherfucking Ice Queen of Clintwood Academy.”
A ghost of a smile touches me as I think back to when he said exactly the same thing at the hospital when I visited him.
“And that’s when he reached out to me on the Gram,” Rye says.
“I thought I told you not to post pictures of me,” I whisper, slightly annoyed but even then, I’m unable to look away from Liam. He’s really here. Wait, if he’s here in Rye’s flat, then…
“He’s not here,” Liam whispers, a cloud of anger flashing across his face. “He needs a time out.”
I ignore the stab of disappointment that creeps up on me, shaking my head.
“What?” Rye questions. “I didn’t catch that.”
Not wanting her to know what Liam just said, I shake my head at her. “You didn’t answer my question. Did you post me?”
“I didn’t post you, silly,” Rye says with a sigh. “Liam really did reach out to me out of nowhere,” Rye explains. “Of course, I was already following him.”
“Of course,” I whisper, rolling my eyes. Is there a sane girl in this world who isn’t following this fool on social media?
“And I told him that you were staying with me.”
I stare up at Liam, waiting for him to judge me but instead, he just shakes his head.
“Thank you for taking her in,” he says, “I owe you one, Rye.”
Rye gives Liam a sly smile and I know what she’s
going to say. “Well, when you put it like that, I think I can think of a few things you can help me achieve.”
Liam winks at her again and I almost groan as I see him work a bit of his charm on Rye, who embarrassingly looks like a hyena in heat with the way she’s looking at Liam. If she could eat him up, I swear she would.
“Rye, can you give Mia and me a moment?” Liam questions kindly, which is so at odds with his usual demanding nature. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he’s hiding quite a lot of emotions right now and that makes my heart beat faster.
“Of course, if you need anything, I’ll be downstairs,” Rye says. “But don’t forget Mia, we have to leave in two hours to make it for your audition.”
“I said I’m not…” But before I can finish, she’s already out the door.
The moment the door clicks shut, Liam changes right in front of me. He goes from flirty to pissed off in a just a second.
“Liam?”
“You ran,” he starts, his voice clipped and hoarse.
“Liam, I…”
“For all your supposed strength, and your well put together persona to match your confident, bitchy attitude, in the end, you ran, Mia.”
Mia, not Cupcake.
I’m so shocked by what he’s saying that for a moment, I just stand there, staring at him.
“I mean, you had my mother pass on your little run away message, you couldn’t even grow the balls to tell me to my face?” he demands, now pacing from one end of the room to the other, clenching and unclenching his fists.
“Seriously?” I whisper and he stops pacing, stopping to look at me. “That’s what you’re here to say?”
“Well, no, it’s just the beginning,” he says, and I feel the sobs coming.
“Because everything is about you, isn’t it?”
“Well, yes.” He says that like it’s pretty obvious and I should be in the loony bin for suggesting otherwise. Can’t fault him for being honest.
“You know what, Liam? If you’re here to judge me and make this all about how I’m a coward for running when the woman who I thought gave birth to me died, then you can turn around and leave,” I whisper, as tears start running down my cheeks.
This isn’t how I imagined this day would go.
“Ahh, so you snarl and bite now?” he questions with a smirk. “Good.”
I stare at him, stunned into silence. This guy…
“I’m serious, Liam. Your brother has made it pretty clear how fucking disappointing I am, I don’t need you to add insult to injury, so please, go.”
Liam’s face falls when he sees me crying. I’m a hot mess, God, I quickly turn around so I don’t have to see the look on his handsome face.
“Cupcake…” he whispers, but I’m done. I wasn’t expecting for him to make me feel this horrible, just like his brother did.
“Honestly, could you tell me one thing. Where do you and your brother get the nerve to come all the way out here and judge me when it’s your family that has hurt me over and over again?”
“Mia…”
“It’s like you can’t rest without destroying someone to the very core.”
It’s unfair to pin all this on Liam—or Julian for that matter. As far as I can see, they weren’t part of Courtney and John’s scheming but then what? What’s their part in all of this?
“Fuck, Cupcake, I didn’t mean to make you cry,” Liam whispers.
“Well tough shit, asshole, you did.”
“Cupcake, I didn’t just rant like that to make you feel awful,” Liam starts. I can feel the heat of his body right behind me and he wraps his arms around me from behind, then whispers in my ear. “I didn’t mean to make you cry, Cupcake. I’m sorry.”
“Then you need to reevaluate your word choices and intentions because that was shitty.”
“I will admit, I wanted you to feel bad for leaving me,” he whispers. “Don’t you know by now? If you wanted to run, you should’ve come to me.”
“Why?” I sniffle, and he tightens his hold around me. “So you’d stop me?”
Liam sighs, then turns me around in his arms, but I can’t look him in the eye. He brings two fingers to my chin and tugs so I can look at him. That’s when I see the soft smile on his face. Not judgmental at all like I feared it would be, just nothing but understanding and warmth. This guy… why couldn’t it be him for me?
“No,” he whispers. “I would have put gas in the car and we’d get on the road and run together.”
That makes me smile for some reason. God, I didn’t realize how much I missed him until seeing his face just now.
“You’re crazy.”
“Cupcake, you knew that the moment you let me dance with you at that party ages ago.”
“You’re right about that,” I whisper. And just like that, more tears start falling down my cheeks.
“Please don’t cry,” her whispers
“Oh, Liam…”
Maybe it’s because I’ve always felt this intense connection with him. Or maybe it’s his calming effect he has on people, making them relax. Or maybe it’s him, his eyes filled with worry, but I don’t know, I just take one step forward and the next thing I know, I’m wrapped in his arms so tight.
I can’t help but cling on to him, as silent sobs wrack through me.
“It’s all going to be all right, Cupcake,” Liam whispers in my hair. “I’m here now.”
“I wish I believed that,” I whisper. “But I’d love to.”
“That’s all we really have, Cupcake. Faith.”
Faith? There was no way to cling to that when the facts have presented themselves already.
There’s obviously something wrong with me.
Nicky is hiding it.
My father is the cause of it.
Then there’s the thing with Julian and his future—a future I’ll never be a part of.
“What happened between you and my brother?” Liam questions, making me sigh.
“Things between Julian and I…” I trail off, not knowing what to say. Each time I look in the mirror or look down at my arms and wrists. I see Julian’s tortured face. And now, there’s a possibility that Liam might see it too, my vicious attempt to take my own life. “They are complicated.”
“Fucking understatement of the century, Mia,” he mumbles. “He’s a good guy though. His problem though is when he cares, Mia…”
“He cares deeply,” I finish for him. “I’m afraid this time he’s grown to resent that flaw in himself.”
“A flaw?” Liam scoffs. “It’s the biggest trait I adore in my brother. Don’t get me wrong, he’s an asshole, but he’s the kind of asshole other assholes can’t even dream of being.”
“So, do you boys just sit around and aspire to be assholes?” I mock. “I mean, girls like good boys too.”
“That’s a lie and you know it,” he mutters. “Oh, and heads up, I’m probably going to fuck Rye or Jaz or both.”
I swat his arm, shaking my head.
“You’re unbelievable.”
“I’m honest, Cupcake,” he smirks.
Yeah, that he was, when he wanted to be. A comfortable, soothing silence falls over the room and we just stand there for a while.
“I wish you could promise not to hurt me.”
“Me or my brother?”
“Both of you,” I whisper. “And Cole.”
“Ah, Cole would never lie to you, for some reason you bring the honesty out of him.”
Hmm, Cole was sweet. “What about the Fitz brothers?”
He’s silent after that, giving me my answer. I guess I shouldn’t be disappointed. He isn’t feeding me fairytales and lies. I respect that.
“I’m so sorry, Cupcake,” Liam whispers. “I know she meant the world to you and I know your world makes no sense anymore, I can relate.”
“You can relate?”
“Fuck, Mia, you’ve met Courtney. You’ve seen what she’s made of.”
The anger in his voice is too raw to ignore. I
turn around and look u into his stormy eyes.
“What happened?” I question, my heart now in my fucking throat.
“The sky fucking fell, Mia,” he growls. “That’s what happened.”
It’s the look in his eyes, the same one that I saw in Julian’s that makes me pause. How fucked up can kids be? Is this just high school anymore?
21
“I’m sorry love, what did you say your name was again?” the lady with the big hair and super red lips questions, her French accent thick as she looks down at her iPad, scrolling for my name.
“Mia,” I mutter, breathing hard and fast, I just danced my heart out, with my eyes closed, allowing myself to dance from my soul as the notes from the song crooned in the room.
I bled my heart out, like Liam told me to before he kissed me good luck and I even talked to Cole on the phone who told me not to fucking break my leg. Exactly in those words.
In the large room, with mirrors covering every wall, I swear I could feel Nancy’s ghost, like she was there with me. And now, I have ten pairs of eyes staring at me, all of them with varied looks of awe on their faces.
“You really are Nancy’s daughter, aren’t you?” the older lady questions. When I came in the first time, she looked at me funny when I told them my full name, like I was making it up or something.
“Yes.”
“I’m so sorry for your loss, love,” she says, her eyes welling with tears. I guess she was really moved by Nancy. “Your technique, it’s…”
“So exquisite,” another judge says, his eyebrows joined together like a single line. Well then. “You danced with your broken heart, like your entire body felt it.”
I look down at my ballet flats, my heart starting to race as tears well in my eyes at their words.
“Honestly, you’re one of the best dancers we’ve ever had here,” the older lady says, looking at me like she’s about to say something I’m not going to like. “Unfortunately, we can’t take you.”
“What?” the other judges mutter, looking outraged.
Cruel Kisses: It’s Just High School #2 Page 23