Page 16 of How to Get Revenge on a Cheating Ex
She pauses with one hand still on the steering wheel, the other on the door handle. She turns back with a question in her eyes.
For a second I sit there with my mouth open and no words come out.
Her brows arch up and she looks torn between concern for me and wariness. “Zack, if you’re going through something...”
She clears her throat again and her tongue darts out to wet her lips.
She’s nervous. I’m making her nervous.
Awesome. Good start.
And yet I still find myself just...staringat her lips as my brain draws a complete blank. I’d been rehearsing what I was going to say for days. But right now, all I can do is sit here like a chump as the words refuse to come.
How was I going to start?
Shit, I’m seriously drawing a total blank here. Everything I’d planned to say sounds too harsh now that we’re here.
She turns toward me, her brows drawing down now. I’m suddenly facing avery seriousBailey. “Look, I know we’re not exactly close, but it seems like you’re going through something, and I…” She hesitates. “You know, if you need to talk...”
Okay, this is too much. I’m about to ruin her life and she’s decidednowis the time to be my friend again?
I draw in a deep breath and run a hand through my hair.
She touches my arm, and every muscle in my body tenses. She draws her hand back quickly, like she just realized what she’d done. “Zack, I’m here if you need?—”
“Grayson cheated on you.” The words spill out too loudly, and so quickly it sounds like one word.
She blinks. “What?”
And then she blinks again and I see the words register behind her eyes. I swear I feel it when the meaning of them settles inside her like a sack of bricks.
“What?” This time her voice is high and tight.
I know what she’s feeling. I knowexactlyhow she’s feeling. Like the world is off center and the ground is pitching forward.
I reach for her to…what? Hug her? Pat her back? I don’t even know. But she swats my hand away. “What are yousaying?”
“I’m sorry, Bailey. I really am.”
She’s staring at me with her features screwed up in confusion. Like she’s not sure why I’m saying something so stupid. She’s trying to figure out why I’m lying.
I let out a long exhale. I wish to God Iwaslying, if just to spare us both this moment.
“No.” She shakes her head as she turns away. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I saw them.”
She freezes, staring straight ahead through the windshield like she can read some hidden message in the faded paint of my garage door.
The sun’s sinking below the horizon and the world takes on that surreal orange glow. Quite frankly, it’s not helping matters. This moment already feels like something out of a movie. We don’t need cinematic lighting for effect.
For her, I know that unreal sensation is even worse. That disconnect between what she’s hearing and what she believes to be true, it’s growing wider by the second.
“No,” she says again, slower this time. “You’re wrong.”
“I have proof.” The words seem to hit her like a punch, and she jerks back like I literally struck her.
God, I hate myself right now.
