Page 38 of Bitter Lies

“Time? What time?”

Raising his glittering eyes to mine, he shrugs casually. “I only gave you the damn necklace because I had a bet with him to get in your pants first. I guess he won that round, hm?”

All I can do is stare because I don’t know what’s the truth anymore. Is this to hurt me? Or did he truly have a bet over something as fragile and precious as my fucking virginity?

“Is that right?” My throat is raspy with the primal scream clawing at my insides.

“Yep,” he says, shrugging for effect—or is it?

“You expect me to believe that you made a bet with Bobby over me?” I ask, disbelief written all over my features.

That can’t be—he was my best friend. The necklace. The sweet kiss.

With an impatient look, he grabs up his fork and twirls food around the tines. “Sure. Remember the jacket I wore all the time? The one with the baseball team?”

“Yes,” I whisper.

“Well, that’s what he won.”

I do recall Bobby wearing that damn jacket the following year. Although by then, no one was talking to me, so I never knew why.

“What did you bet?” Numbly, I watch as his mouth quirks in a cruel smile.

Glancing over my features and down my body, or what he can see of it from my seated position, his eyes flare before icing over as he says, “Fifty bucks.”

I’m speechless, shocked, and all I can do is stare into his eyes, glaring at me in challenge as I process his statement. My virginity, for fifty fucking dollars. Wow.

I loved him—some part of me still does—and this, well, it’s a knife to my heart.

Standing on trembling limbs, I say faintly, the blood whooshing through my ears so loudly I don’t hear the words, “If it was all just a bet, then why did it matter who won?”

His eyes flash with ice before he says caustically, “Because I put a lot of fucking effort into bagging you.”

“Hm, I hope you didn’t love that jacket.”

“Why?” he asks, his smirk fading under my dull stare.

Raising my hair, I rip the chain from around my neck and drop the necklace he gave me all those years ago on the table. Although I don’t wear it every day, it brings me peace when I’m at my lowest because stupidly I thought it was a genuine gesture from the boy who once cared for me.

“Because,Griff,” I sneer, hurt pulsing so heavily in my chest it’s all I can do not to grasp it, “Jason Macklemore popped my cherry.”

His eyes go so wide it’s almost laughable, but I don’t stick around for whatever he might say. No, I lock myself in my room and push my dresser in front of the door for good measure.

I’ll be damned if Griffin fucking Hathaway ever enters my room or my goddamned heart again.

Chapter Eleven

You can’t buy love—but apparently, you can trade it away for fifty bucks.

The next few days, I stick to my room or explore campus, as much as I can with my newfound fear of fucking everything, avoiding Griffin like the plague while rage circles my soul. It’s laughable, really, because I truly thought that someday, we would come back together, that Griffin would see he was wrong, and we would laugh about how stupid we were. But the only one who’s ridiculous is me.

I gave my heart to a boy who doesn’t understand the meaning, and the series of events that took place because of that pathetic emotion is something I can never get back.

And in the wake of his revelation, I’m left with the realization that nothing between us was real.

What a fucking mess.

I’m so fucking tired of his face that I find a new seat in Psych, half-amused when he looks around when I don’t appear, realizing I’m sitting in a new desk after it’s too late.

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