Page 18 of Hateful Games

Let the hateful games begin.

Chapter Five

Rosalie

(Eighteen years old)

“Do you really have to go?”

I dump another black lacy dress in the suitcase. “Yes.”

“How long will you be gone?” asks my best friend, Bianca, with a sad pout.

“A week, probably.”

“A week!” she squeals in shock, sitting up and leaning against the headboard of my bed. My pug, Maggie, startles at her reaction before settling down beside her legs. “Does Aunty Lily honestly think he’ll tolerate you, let alone keep you company for that long? You both can’t even stand in the same room for a few minutes without being at each other’s throats.”

“I told her the same but she likes to live in a bubble where Nova and I are hopelessly in love, eager to go off into the sunset,” I begrudgingly reply. God bless my mother, but denial is her best friend. Hell, her whole life is one big lie of a bubble she pretends is the truth.

Two years ago, she broke my trust with her confession that she had, in fact, played matchmaker to bind ours and Nova’s family together. I was given the most bullshit excuse to exist in history that I was a child and wouldn’t understand.

And yet, she didn’t bat an eye while giving her child to the enemy.

Our relationship hasn’t been the same ever since that breach of trust.

“Poor London,” she says sadly, disrupting my thoughts. “The city will be a bloodbath.”

I roll my eyes. “That’s quite an exaggeration, Bee.”

“Is it, though? I mean, you literally set his car on fire.”

“He burned my favorite book!”

“He could have died, Ro. And you would’ve ended up in jail,” she slowly says, always the voice of reason. “Then I would’ve been left without a best friend.”

“Why?” I gasp, aghast. Pressing my hand to my chest in mock hurt, I accuse, “You wouldn’t have visited me in prison?”

“I have to draw a line somewhere,” she mischievously replies. “I refuse to be best friends with a criminal.”

“Here I thought we were together for better or worse.”

“That will be one of your vows to Nova soon.”

“If I survive this trip first.”

My best friend’s shoulders slump at my morose tone.

Over the last two years, my mom’s lame attempts to fix my relationship with Nova haven’t lessened. In fact, they’ve gotten worse and more pathetic. Some days, I don’t understand why she’s desperately trying so hard.

Every time Nova returns home during his breaks from university, I’m overwrought with nerves, annoyance, and hatred. A fuse of turbulent emotions. It doesn’t help that Nova dutifully arrives whenever my mother invites him. As if it secretly pleases him to see me squirm to make an excuse to get out of them.

Honestly, I’ve run out of them.

There’s only so many times you can say you’re sick, have periods, or lie that your best friend has broken her leg and needs to be taken to the emergency room.

One would think the man would be scared to be in my vicinity.

But no… he’s become an unhinged and obsessive psychopath with a death wish.

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