Page 18 of How to Get Revenge on a Cheating Ex
This feeling of distance, like I’ve taken three steps back from my brain? It’s not gonna last forever. And part of me doesn’t want it to end. Because if Zackisn’tlying...?
But he is. He has to be.
“Should I get Mom?” The worry in Jane’s voice only ratchets up the adrenaline in my bloodstream. My breathing is getting shorter and quicker by the second, and my insides feel like they don’t fit inside my body.
I need to calm down. I need to breathe.
There’s an explanation for all this. There has to be.
I drop my hands to find Jane frowning down at me, her face so close I can tell she’s been snacking on tortilla chips and salsa.
I swallow down another wave of nausea.
“Bailey? Should I get?—”
“No…Mom.” Crap I’m panting outright now and I curl into myself, my nails digging into my palms. But my parents can’t help and I don’t want them to worry.
“You gonna be okay?” Jane’s voice is weirdly nice.
I nod.
No. Not really.
And then panic takes over completely. My heart races out of control and I try to calm the urge to writhe, and pant, and clench, and scream.
It’s not pretty and it feels like hell.
But Jane doesn’t go anywhere, which is also weirdly nice.
It’s never awesome to have someone witness an attack, but she’s seen it all before, and she sits with me until the worst of the panic attack passes and exhaustion makes my limbs feel heavy.
She shifts beside me. “Want to tell me what brought it on this time?”
I shrug and go to tell her it was nothing.
It wouldn’t be the first time I’d had an attack I hadn’t been able to explain. But something about the way Jane’s watching me has me blurting out the truth. “It was Zack.”
Her eyes narrow and she lets out a hiss. Like, an actual hiss, like she’s a freakin’ snake. “What did he do to you?”
I feel a hysterical laugh forming, along with a surge of gratitude.
We might not be friends—and most of the time Jane seems to hate my guts—but she’s still my sister. And my sister has my back.
“What did he do to you?” She asks it louder this time as she gets to her feet.
For a half a second I think about letting her go just to see what she’ll do. But then again, the last thing I need right now is to make a trip to the police station because my little sister’s taken a bat to the neighbor boy’s car.
With Jane, you never know.
I stop her with a hand on her arm and she goes still. She’s waiting.
I open my mouth and have to close it to swallow. It sounds so silly when I go to say it aloud that I know it can’t be true. “He said Grayson’s cheating on me.”
Jane’s jaw goes slack and her face grows paler than usual.
“But he’s lying,” I say quickly. “He has to be lying.”
Jane perches on the edge of my bed, more tentative than she’s ever been around me. That makes me nervous. “Bailey, why would he lie about that?”
