Page 202 of Releasing 10
I knew my girlfriend. I knew how low her moods could plummet, but she wasn’t dangerous like Mark had portrayed her to be.
He told her parents that Liz attacked both him and Caoimhe on multiple occasions throughout the course of those weeks, which had led to them having no choice but to keep her sedated with her prescription of clonazepam. He even accused her of holding a knife to his throat.
Now, if he had said she tried to bite him, it would have been a lot more plausible, but oh no, he had to go with a knife.
I didn’t believe a word of it.
Not one fucking word.
“Actually, I’m the only one thatshouldbe speaking to her,” Mark replied, glaring at me. “Because I understand her. BecauseIwas with her that night,notyou. I hate to tell ya, Biggs, butI’mthe one she needs right now.”
My girlfriend proved him a liar when she sprang off the swing and dove for me. Trembling, Liz fisted my T-shirt and buried her face in my neck.
“Oh, yeah? Well, I find that really hard to believe given the circumstances,” I shot back, wrapping a protective arm around Liz. “I mean, it’s not like you have a good track record of being there when you’reneeded.”
“Howdareyou speak to me like that,” Mark seethed, jerking off the swing. “You have some fucking nerve to say that to my face.”
“Yeah, well, someone needed to,” I shot back, unwilling to show empathy to an asshole who didn’t deserve it. “The truth hurts, asshole, but it’s still the truth.”
“My girlfriend is inside that house laid out in a fucking coffin,” he snarled, stalking toward me with a bull-head expression. “You have no idea how much pain I’m in.”
“Yeah, and maybe if you had spent a little less time thinking aboutyourpain and a little more time thinking about your girlfriend’s pain, she might notbein that coffin,” I snapped back, keeping a firm hold on Liz, while I stood my ground. “Caoimhe’s death doesn’t give you a clean sheet, asshole. It doesn’t erase the shitty way you mistreated her for years, and no amount of lies you tell yourself will purge the hand you had in her decision to end her life.”
“I never mistreated Caoimhe—”
“That shit might float with Catherine and Mike, but don’t waste your time trying it on me,” I cut in, unwilling to listen to him feed me another one of his lines. “You mentioned earlier something about understanding whatmygirlfriend isgoing through because you were with her that night. Am I right? Hmm? Is that what you said?” I waited for him to nod before I continued. “Well, I was withyourgirlfriend on multiple occasions down through the years when you messed her around and fucked with her head.” Wholly enraged and unable to contain myself, I fired from all cylinders and let him have it. “You are incapable of understanding anyone because in order to do that, you would have to possess a conscience and that’s something we both know youdon’thave.”
“Shut your mouth, Biggs.” He narrowed his eyes in warning. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“You treated your girlfriend like she was a piece of meat. Like she was a subpar human, whose sole purpose on earth was to please you. Instead of taking care of her like a man is supposed to, you impregnated her and ruined her future!”
“I took care of that,” he seethed, looking truly rattled that I knew his dirty little secret. “I looked after my girlfriend.”
“Yeah, you did a great job of looking after your girlfriend when you ferried her off in the middle of her leaving cert.” I narrowed my eyes in disgust. “Boyfriend of the year in the making.”
“That washerdecision,” he roared, getting in my face, oblivious to the trembling girl clinging to me. “Or am I to blame for Caoimhe not wanting to keep it?”
“No. It was her body and her choice to make,” I replied, twisting sideways to keep Liz out of the firing line. “But you’re sure as hell to blame for putting her in that situation in the first place. I haven’t even turned thirteen yet and I know that. You weresupposedto protect her, and youdidn’t.”
“You are stepping over a dangerous line, Biggs,” he said in a deathly cold tone. “Don’t push me.”
“Kind of like how you walked over Caoimhe?” I shot back. “You trampled all over that girl like she was a fucking doormat,and you didn’t think twice about it. So don’t you stand here and tell me thatmygirlfriend needsanythingfrom a piece of shit like you when you both know you are theworsttype of cancer thateverentered her family.”
“You’re going to regret this,” Mark hissed, but I had already turned to walk away, deciding that I had already wasted too much of my energy on him.
Fucking cretin.
“You’ll get what’s coming to ya, Biggs,” he continued to call after me, as I led my girlfriend as far away from him as I could. “You better watch your back!”
“Ignore him,” I told Liz, who was trembling violently beside me. “Remember what I told you about bullies?” I added in a gentler tone, as I helped her climb over the fence, before jumping over it myself. “Bullies feed on fear, and if you don’t feed them, they starve.”
“And die.”
My head snapped in her direction.
Two words.
She spoke two words.
