Page 39 of The Worst Kind of Promise
My cheek is the first victim of the crystalline tears that rain down, streaking through my foundation and sluicing down my neck. Betrayal and heartache engage in a dogfight where neither one is guaranteed to win. The back and forth leaves me disoriented, delirious, and instead of having one overarching emotion take the reins, I’m bazooka-blasted with too many emotions to differentiate. My heart romps from the adrenaline rush, and my stomach knots. I feel like I’m about to be sick.
“I didn’t want to hurt your feelings” is the pathetic response Kit gives me.
The one I give him is just as pathetic. “This isn’t the Kit I know.” As hard as it is for me to keep my vision clear, I wipe globs of tears away to look him in the eye, to force him to watch as he breaks my heart.
“If you’re going to fucking talk to me like that, you’re going to look at me,” I growl, using what little strength I have left to grab his jaw and spin him toward me.
His eyes slide to mine. Dark pools of obsidian that couldn’t be more devoid of warmth, of the gentle tenderness that’s kept me whole for the past week.
“This has always been me,” he counters in a clipped tone. “I’m selfish, and I play to get what I want. If I want a win, I play hard on the ice. If I want sex, I play girls. It’s how I operate, and you know that.”
“You’re more than that.”
“I’m not. You were just so blinded by something you could never have.”
Could never have.He means him. He means a healthy, long-term relationship. He means love. He means I was never good enough for more than sex.
My wrath relights over and over again, but when it’s finally drowned beneath my sadness, there’s no chance of it surviving. I’m collapsing; my body is shutting down. I can’t…I can’t deal with what’s happening right now. I can’t accept it.
“Why are you doing this to me? Tous?” My stilted words pelt him, but as if they mean nothing, they slide off him like torrents of rain off a waterproof coat. I foolishly believe that this is all one terrible nightmare. A nightmare that I’ll wake up from with Kit’s reliable arms wrapped around me.
“There is nous. There never was. This was all a means to—”
“Sleep with a warm body,” I finish for him, indignation gleaning on my tongue, an incoming migraine knocking on my skull’s doorstep. My head is fuzzy in all the wrong ways, and I feel faint, the wall I’ve been clinging to the only thing keeping me upright. If I wasn’t so afraid of making myself look even worse, I’d fall to my knees.
The hint of a snarl weighs his lips down. “Like I said, it was a mistake.”
“What about everything you’ve said to me? How I confided in you? Was beingfriendsall a lie too?”
For the first time in our argument, Kit’s eyes flash with realization. It’s brief, probably unnoticeable to anyone not paying attention, but it’s there. The Kit that was treating me differently? He’s gone. This is the Kit I should’ve worried about. The one who charms, fucks, then moves on. I don’t know why I believed that I’d be the exception.
This is the last tug of an elastic band, the final stretch before it snaps completely. And I’m right there. Two broken halves that Kit Langley has destroyed with his bare hands.
He opens his mouth to answer me, but nothing comes out.
“I hope it was worth it. I hope this wasallworth it,” I say, wishing I could shout and scream at him right now, throw a tantrum, dosomething.
Even when fighting, even when my world is falling apart, we remain in the shadows. That’s all this will ever be. Something that will never see the light of day. Something to always be hidden away from prying eyes.
I don’t give him a chance to respond. I pick up the last remaining pieces of my dignity and flee the scene, pushing past partygoers as tears stream freely down my face. But this time, I know Kit isn’t right behind me. I know he isn’t calling my name.
* * *
I swirlmy feet in the cool water, watching tiny whirlpools form. I’m glad that everyone is too encompassed in their own lives to pay much attention to the girl crying her eyes out. I can’t get Kit’s words out of my head. Just like that, at the hands of a single person, my summer turns to complete and utter shit.
I’m so tired of feeling. I’m so tired of always wearing my heart on my sleeve. I wish I could turn my emotions off. I wish I could stop feeling.
I’m about to sayfuck itand retreat back to Kit’s bedroom when a large shadow occludes the sun cocooning me. With a grimace, I glance up through bleary eyes to see a figure towering over me. I can’t make out any defining features until the stranger comes into view. A handsome man whom I’ve never seen before sits down next to me, suspending his own rolled-up pant legs into the pool.
He's conventionally attractive with wild curls of hair peeking out from a backwards baseball cap, clear skin that looks like he’s never experienced the pain of a blind pimple, and a lean body that belongs on a walkway. His cheeks round with a smile, a dimple popping at the corner of his lips. But despite how handsome he is, he does absolutely nothing for me.
“You look like you could use some company,” he says.
I bite the tissue of my cheek, adamant about keeping my eyes down, partly because I don’t want him commenting on my tears. I will them to subside, wetting my throat of its dryness in case I have to speak to him.
“What? Cat got your tongue?”
More like Kit got my tongue.
