Page 19 of Stray
“Bullshit,” Marissa seethed. Her friends had moved in closer to her, ready to either offer consolation or backup depending on how the conversation went.
At the moment, Ella was betting on the latter. All she could do was stare frozen as they argued in front of her. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Bishop watching from across the hall.
Now he really wasn’t going to want anything to do with her.
All at once, Axel ceased pretending to care for any reason other than his own selfish interests. “You know what? Fine. I wasn’t going to embarrass you, but if this is what you want, yes. I’m breaking up with you.”
The look of shock on Marissa’s face made it clear that she hadn’t fully believed her accusations. Not until that very moment. “What?” Her voice broke and Ella felt a pang of guilt. For what, she wasn’t sure.
“I’m done with you,” Axel said, drawing his words out slowly as if he was speaking to a child. “We’re through. Finished. Get it?”
His voice was dripping with condescension and as soon as he’d finished, the hallway fell so silent Ella could hear her heart pounding in her ears.
When Marissa finally recovered, she raised a hand and struck him right across the face. The slap was hard enough that the sound echoed through the hallway and Ella watched in the same breathless dismay as everyone else.
Sure, plenty of people had probably wanted to hit Axel over the years, and Ella counted herself among them. But no one was actually fool enough todoit.
Marissa’s eyes were burning with rage and tears, but her trembling hand, still raised, made Ella think even she was surprised at what she’d done. Axel hadn’t so much as flinched, and the fact that his expression hadn’t changed at all was even more unnerving than an outburst would have been.
As if woken from a trance, Marissa turned angrily and ran down the hall, but not without one last murderous glance in Ella’s direction.
Of course she blamed Ella. When had a member of the Hill family ever been held directly responsible for their actions?
Marissa’s posse ran after her and one look from Axel was all it took to scatter the other onlookers. No one wanted to be the object of his bottled up fury.
Ella was going to leave herself when he turned back to her, his left cheek turning red even though he didn’t seem to have noticed.
“What the hell was that?” she demanded, unable to stop from staring at him. Of all the things she’d ever seen him do, this was by far the one that had shocked her the most.
“That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?” he challenged, taking a step toward her. “For me to choose you over her.”
“Choose me?” Ella echoed, her brain shortcircuiting from the absurdity of his words. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Come on. It’s me,” he said knowingly. “Don’t pretend like you haven’t been madly in love with me all these years. You’re finally getting what you want, and Marissa was humiliated in the process, so you should be happy.”
It took Ella a few seconds to process his words, let alone remember how to speak. The utter callousness was what she couldn’t get over. Not because she had any warm sympathies for Marissa, but because she didn’t want to believe that Axel, even Axel, was that cruel.
“You’ve been together four years. You’re really willing to throw all that away just because she turned out not to be who you thought she was?”
“Yeah,” he answered without hesitation, driving the nail in her chest even deeper. She was as heartbroken as if it was her he was throwing away without a second thought, because for fourteen years, it had been.
Now the other students were focused on them, but Ella was too stunned to care or even notice. She couldn’t find the words to express what she was feeling, and she wasn’t exactly sure herself. The ones that finally came out were words she never imagined she’d have the courage to speak to anyone, let alone him.
“You’re disgusting.”
He blinked a few times, as if he hadn’t heard her correctly. Or maybe he was just struggling to believe that was actually what she’d said. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me,” she spat, tightening her grip on her bag, feeling her claws ready to come out. If she didn’t get away from him, she was going to shift, and turning into a six-pound cat was not exactly the way she wanted to make a dramatic exit. “I think you’re disgusting, and you should be ashamed of yourself.”
With that, she turned and left him to puzzle over what was probably the first time anyone had actually told him the truth. At least the truth that was now as heartbreakingly plain to her as day.
Ella heard him calling her name, but she kept walking, tears stinging her eyes, and headed straight for the administrative offices, which were the only area of the Academy where she was reasonably sure even he wouldn’t follow her.
She ducked into the broom closet and pressed her back against the door to catch her breath. She still couldn’t believe everything that had just happened, least of all what she’d said to him before walking away, but more than her embarrassment or the dread of the consequences that were surely to come, both for her actions and his, she was overwhelmed with grief.
Marissa was the one he’d broken up with, so why the hell did she feel like she’d lost him all over again?
Chapter 8
