Page 83 of 2204 Hunter Lane
Her eyes widened as she scorned me with chocolate eyes. “Excuse me?”
I took a step closer, towering over her baby carrot physique and let out a husky laugh. “You really think you can talk to me after the shit you pulled?”
“She was doing the right thing.” Winter combatted, lodging herself between Marley and me.
My gaze shifted to the firecracker in front of me, fighting Marley’s battles, covering up the coward behind her.
“With all due respect, Winter, I’m not fuckin’ talkin’ to you.”
“Buddy –” Josh tried.
“Back up, Josh.”
Marley placed a hand over Winter’s shoulder and faced me head on, glaring at me with daggers. The look she first gave me when I met her.There she is.
“This is between you and I, so don’t talk to her that way.”
I shrugged, unfazed. “She addressed me, I addressed her. No harm done.”
“You don’t understand, do you? Why I called the cops on you that night?”
I clenched my fist, remembering my dad ripping me a new one in the car, Payton’s uneasy stares and the bottles and bottles of alcohol I’d devoured in the past fourteen days because of her. Nowhere to go, nowhere to run. Stuck. Stuck. Stuck.
“What I understand,Marley, is that you were exactly the girl I always knew you to be. And I’m to blame,me.” I placed a twitchy palm over my heart. “Because I was dumb enough to think any different.”
A glossy sheen covered her eyes as her lip quivered in response. “Marley.”
That was all she said. All she said before she turned right around without her friend by her side, and walked away.
She left. She fucking left.
Winter flipped me the bird as she jogged after her, but Marley continued to walk like a ghost without a head. An empty shell, shoulders hung low, as she disappeared into the crowd.
I was up to my neck in emotion, heat, anger, pain. A lot of fucking pain as I stood in my spot and watched, waited for her to re-emerge from the crowd but she never did. She never showed her face again, as if her face was never there at all.
My eyes aimlessly searched the throng of people. What for? What the fuck for? She was the one who fucking destroyed me! Played with my emotions, got close to me just to crush me, and ruin me and fucking wreck me!
I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs, I wanted to bury something, hit something, drive off a cliff and land on a goddamn spike because this feeling was shit. It was shit and I needed to get out of here.
“I don’t give a rat’s ass if you’re listenin’ to me right now, Hunt. But whatever hope that girl had, just now, you crushed. And whether you’re happy with that decision, not mine to speak on. But that was outta line.”
I turned my back to the horde at the flea market and stalked away, shutting out the sound of laughter and happiness emanating from The Square.
“She deserved it.” I said to myself. I convinced myself. I tortured myself.
“She deserved it.”
“She put me in this position.”
“She fucked me up.”
“She fucked me up!”
I said it again, and again, and again until the anger seeped through my veins and infiltrated my skull.Comfort at last.
I had to say something.
I needed to.
