Page 61 of Sinful as They Come
“You never take anything I say seriously.”
“But you meant that.” She rubbed at her eyes, keeping her hands there. “You think he doesn’t love me and I guess everyone else can see that too. And maybe it’s the truth. I love him, though! I love him with my whole heart, but he’s so… Why does he have to be that way? Why can’t he just… I just want him to love me the way I love him!”
Holly moved her hands away from her eyes, but I wish she hadn’t. There was so much sadness in them. She should have been pissed at me. She should have been angry. She should have been arguing with me, not pouring her heart out to the guy she hated. It looked like fresh tears were flowing. God, I felt like such an asshole. What had I done to her? What had Carter done to her?
“You don’t have to be with him,” I whispered to her. It shouldn’t have been me of all people telling her this shit, because being nice to her wassomething I had never experienced before. The words sounded so foreign as they fell from my mouth, but who else was gonna help her? “You… Look, I meant what I said. You’re smarter than this. You don’t have to be with a guy like that.”
“But I wanthim. But he’s so… Sometimes it feels like he hates me.” She sobbed.
“Dump him,” I said through gritted teeth. Did she not understand that she didn’t have to stay by his side? That she could get someone better? There were so many guys at school who were desperate to be Holly Sutton’s boyfriend.
“He wasn’t always like that,” she said softly. “He didn’t always treat me like that.”
“Carter’s always been an asshole,” I said hastily. “He’s not a good guy.”
She cried softly, wiping at her eyes. “He’s the best guy when he wants to be.”
“I don’t think hewantsto be a good person, Holly.” I should have told her about everything else. About Carter’s phone call, about how he was cheating on her with practically every girl in school. The words were right there, begging to be said out loud. But she was already so heartbroken. I couldn’t do it to her. As much as I hated her, I couldn’t break her even more. She had already been torn to pieces.
“I just wanna change him,” she said softly. “Or… I should change… I should be better… Different… Be the kind of girl that doesn’t make him mad—”
“Do not fucking change,” I practically barked at her. I shut my eyes, not quite believing what I was saying. “Carter is the problem. You need to understand that.”
“You hate him. Of course you’ll say that.”
“Well, I hate you too, don’t I?” I finally opened my eyes back up. Holly’s tears had at least stopped falling, but her eyes were still wide and wet with her pain. God, I hated it when girls cried so much. “But even I get that you aren’t the one who’s fucked up here. Or before.”
Holly sucked in a shaky breath and wrapped her arms around herselftighter. I had never seen Holly be so vulnerable before. Every day at school she seemed to just glide by. I thought everything was easy for her. And maybe it was. She had money. She had the popularity. She had the coveted label of head cheerleader and ran the school newspaper and always seemed have everything going for her.
But she was a mess. Part of her was a mess, anyway. She should have been confident. She should have walked away from me with her head held high before she punched Carter in the face and told him to get fucked.
Butshethought there was something wrong withher. She thought she had to change when Carter was the reason for all of her pain.
“Do you know how embarrassing it is that I can’t even trust my own boyfriend? He makes me do things I never would have done. He makes me question myself, and I hate it so much. You think I wanted to cut Brodie’s story?” she asked, a trembling hand pressed to her chest. “I hated doing something so mean. I hated myself, but that’s what he wanted and I didn’t want to upset him, because when he gets upset he makes sure I’m upset too.”
“Holly…”
“You know what the saddest part is?” She took in a long breath, a sad smile on her face that I wasn’t used to seeing in the slightest. “You don’t make me nervous or worried, you’re just annoying and loud and you give me a giant headache every single time I talk to you. I hate you and you hate me, but even when I’m around you, even when we’re all alone together, I’m never worried that you’re gonna…”
I raised my eyebrows at her. “Gonna what?”
“God, I can’t believe I’m telling you this. You probably think this is hilarious,” she said with a shaky laugh.
“Did I say that?” I mumbled.
“I know you think I’m perfect and that I have no problems, but there’s a lot you don’t know about me, stuff that no one knows. I keep waiting for the guy I fell in love with to come back. I don’t know what to do to get him back or how I’m supposed to fix this.”
“Why do you think you have to fix something? You aren’t the problem.”
“I just want him to go back to how he was, so we can have what we’re supposed to have.” She reached her hands up, fingers rubbing at her eyes. “It’s confusing. One minute he’s nice, and then the next he’s all mean, and it messes with my head so much. I don’t know why he does that. It makes me feel all confused and stupid.”
It was weird seeing her deflated. Weird and wrong and like being in a fucking episode ofThe Twilight Zone, because the Holly standing in front of me wasn’t the gutsy, trash talking one that I had experienced firsthand thousands of times.
“You’re not stupid, okay? You’re the smartest person I know,” I said. “And I know I live in a trailer park, but there’s a guy there who’s been getting free cable for years and no one knows about it.”
“The guy I fell in love with. He’s there. I know he is. But… It’s not supposed to be this hard, right?” she asked with a little whimper.
“I’ll drive you back home right now if that’s what you need,” I offered. “Do you want me to take you home?”
