Page 13 of The Retaliation You Deliver
“All those times we joked about secrets, never did I think that—” She hiccups, cutting off her words.
“It’s okay.”
“No, Leon. It’s not. It’s really fucking not.” Her bottom lip trembles as she speaks. “He hurt you, he r-rap—”
“Shh,” I comfort her when her voice cracks on that word. “It was a long time ago.”
“I don’t care, Leon. He had no right to do that. You were a kid.” She trembles with anger for me as she holds my gaze.
I’m so fucking relieved that they’re full of fire and fight instead of pity and sympathy.
“I want to fucking kill him for you.”
“Why do you think I’ve been looking for him, Cupcake?”
Her eyes widen.
“No. No, Lee. You can’t. If you get caught then he’ll completely ruin your life. Fuck, please. Don’t do that.”
“Jesus, Let. I’m not going to walk up to him with a gun in public and shoot him point blank for the world to see.”
“O-okay, g-good,” she sniffles. “So what are you going to do?”
I shrug.
“You know where he is though?”
“Thanks to Macie, yeah.”
“Fucking hell. Macie. What have you done to her?”
“She’s in Miami at her uncle’s place.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
“She knew, Letty. She stormed into his office one day and… she saw what was happening.”
“Holy shit. Did she know it was you?”
“You think she would’ve let me anywhere near her if she knew it was me?”
“Macie is a good person, Leon. I’m sure you’ve figured that out over the past couple of weeks.”
Have I? Or will my opinion of her always be tainted by our past?
“It doesn’t matter. I needed her to help me find him, and she led me right to him.”
“So that’s it. Everything between you was fake, everything you said you felt for her was a lie?”
“Means to an end.” I shrug. It’s cold, I know it is. But it’s the truth.
Macie was right. Me and her, we’d never work.
The player and the nerd. It’s not exactly how things go.
I’m sure she’s got a plan for her life and following me to whatever city I end up in probably isn’t at the top of her to-do list once she graduates. Not that I think we’d ever have made it that far should anything have continued.
“That’s bullshit, Lee, and you know it.”
