Page 104 of Spin The Bottle
38
Worst mistake
I’m a coward.
It’s been almost a week and I still haven’t seen Leila.
Any time she texts, my chest hurts. I want to race to her apartment and wrap my arms around her. I don’t want this to end. I don’t want to give up on her, I just don’t know how to get out of this situation.
The pictures of my brother and mom constantly replay in my mind. There’s none of Brendan because he’s good at not getting caught. He’s also good at beating my ass until I’m black and blue. I remember the first and last time I tried to tell a teacher about what was happening at home when I walked in with a split lip. It resulted in the police getting involved and me ending up in a foster home. I stayed there for a few weeks before my mom appealed to get us back.
I never knew why she bothered. She didn’t care about me and my brothers. But that day when she showed up, she looked like a new person. She had to get clean before she could have us back and when I saw her standing at the door smiling at me my heart hurt.
She had never smiled at me before.This time,I thought to myself,this time will be different. She looked good. Healthy. I was so excited to go home and live my new life, but as soon as we got in the car, I realized that it was a ruse. She wasn’t happy to see me, she backhanded me and called me a snitch.
I never opened my mouth about it again. I was so scared of getting hit again, it never really left me.
But seeing Leila sitting on the doorstep outside of my house makes this fear take precedence. The fear of losing her. Of hurting her.
I can’t do it. I can’t. All I want to do is pick her up in my arms and kiss the fuck out of her. If I have to give up my future to do so, then so be it.
“Leila.” I take a step closer to my girl.
When she looks up, my heart breaks.
She knows.
Her eyes are rimmed with tears, and her lips are red and blotchy, and every part of me knows without a doubt that Jordan told her.
I stop in my tracks, looking down at her, my chest caves in. This is it. It’s fucking over.
She stands up, anger in her eyes. “I can’t believe I let myself fall for your lies.”
“Leila—”
“I don’t want to hear it,” she bellows. “I just had to see if it was true.”
“Leila.” I take two steps forward, grabbing her arm but she flinches.
“Don’t touch me,” she growls, looking at me with such disgust I feel it all over my skin. “You don’t get to touch me ever again.”
“Let me explain, please, gorgeous.”
“Don’t!” she yells, closing her eyes as tears fall down her face. Fuck, I can’t lose her. Please. Please. “Don’t call me that.”
“How did you find out?” I drop my hands, tears fighting to rise. I can feel my heart breaking. It hurts so bad.
She shakes her head, a bitter laugh coming out of her. “Not from you.” She glances over at me, hatred in her eyes. “Jordan told me everything. How he told you to get my number, how he told you to kiss me. All of it.”
The fact that she thinks I did all of this for fun breaks me in half. “I didn’t kiss you because he told me to do it. I kissed you because I wanted to.” Jordan might have told me to get her number but that first kiss was because she turned me the fuck on, because she liked teasing me and I liked teasing her right back. It had nothing to do with him and everything to do with us.
“Stop lying to me.” She sounds like she’s given up. On me. On us. She looks so tired, so exhausted over this. “I know everything, Aiden. I know it all.”
“No, you don’t.” If she thinks I’m with her because Jordan told me to, she’s fucking wrong. She has to know how much she means to me. I see the pain in her eyes, and I shake my head, trying to get her to believe me. “I am not him.” I know exactly what she’s thinking. I know she’s comparing me to her shit of an ex, but that is not what happened. Not even close.
Her eyes cut through my chest. “You’re worse. At least with him it was quick, he didn’t drag it out like you,” she cries out, tears falling down her face. “I told you what he did to me, and little did I know, you were doing the same thing. Playing me just like he did.”
“No.” Fuck no. That is not what happened. “Leila, Jordan blackmailed me. He had pictures of my mom, my brothers. He threatened to expose them, expose me. You know what that would do to my career.”
