Page 66 of Bitter Lies

Sinking in my seat, I glare at my fucking diabolical counselor, wondering if this is on purpose, but he’s not paying attention.

With a sour smile, I face my partner and mumble, “Okay, you first.”

“Okay, um,” he chuckles again, uncomfortably. “Don’t tell anyone, but I’m fucking terrified of spiders.”

Huffing out a laugh, I nod, even though the statement feels disingenuous at best. Whatever.

“How about you?”

With a sigh, I glance around and spy Griffin leaning toward his partner with an intense expression on his face, and jealousy clenches my heart as I say sadly, “Never being loved.”

The next round is more straightforward, as we switch partners, and I’m asked about my most outstanding achievement, to which I admit is the paintings I created in high school.

After that, it’s a whirlwind until we get to our last partner, and I’m sitting across from Griffin.

We eye each other uneasily, our past too broken to feel comfortable sharing our truths. Although Griffin’s eyes are cool, his customary smirk is absent as he clutches the piece of paper in his hand and reads it with a frown before saying out loud, “What you’re most ashamed of.”

Leaning back in my seat, I cross my arms over my chest and contemplate my answer. The truth or a lie? Does it matter? Griffin already has all the pieces of me. What’s one more?

Glancing down at the desk, I trace a swirl in the wood, my voice raspy. “Letting someone else hurt me.”

There’s a pregnant pause before he clears his throat because probably, he assumes I’m speaking of Jason, and I do regret that night vehemently, but more than anything, I regret giving a piece of my heart to a boy who threw it away.

“Hurting someone I loved,” he says gruffly.

Glancing at his face, I stare into his beautiful hazel eyes, my heart pumping in my chest at the darkness I see there, but it’s broken when Dr. Marks calls out, “Okay, time. Now, write a one-page paper about what you learned for the next class.”

With that, he dismisses us, and I grab my stuff in a daze. Griffin could just as easily have been speaking of anyone else, so why do I feel that confession was about me? And what does it mean?

“C’mon, I’ll take you home,” he says behind me.

He drops me off without a word spoken between us, and I escape to my room, distracting myself with homework to keep the painful hope at bay because hope is not something I can afford to have.

This is confirmed when later that evening, the sounds of Griffin fucking some chick come through my wall again. With a sigh, I cover my head with my pillow. My comforter and sheets, although washed, are still spotted with black paint that I left as is because in some way, it’s a reminder of my rage. But it doesn’t help, and I stare at the wall for hours while they have marathon sex on the other side.

∞∞∞

I wake the following day to the sound of laughter and roll from my bed curiously. The deep rumble of Griffin’s voice followed by Max’s inspires me to peek my head out the door and listen as they talk.

I haven’t heard or seen them truly spend time together in weeks which makes this even more of a curiosity.

“She was so fucking scared I thought for sure she’d refuse,” Max chuckles.

“Yeah, me too. But I’ll give her this. She never backed down from a challenge,” Griffin says, and I cock my head to the side at the softly spoken words.

“Mom was so mad, she practically had steam coming from her ears, but Halsey talked her out of grounding us. She always could get out of trouble.”

Do I detect a hint of grimness in his tone? And what are they talking about?

Frankly, it could be anything because those jerks were always daring me to do shit, and it’s true I never backed down. How could I?

I had to prove myself to the boys, or so I thought. Now I can only shake my head because I never proved shit, apparently.

“Well, at least we lived to see another day. Although I nearly had a heart attack when she fell. Shit,” Griffin says quietly.

“Yeah,” Max says, and they lapse into silence.

Backing away, I sit on my bed for a while before stepping into the shower with a sigh. My muscles hurt from sleeping tensely last night, and my head is a confusing jumble of pictures that tortured me all evening.

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