Page 82 of Pretty Broken Things

I’m not sure why her words almost make the sob I’m holding in escape, but I try and cover it with a laugh. “Well, I hope you never do. This isn’t about Ford anymore. I need to do this for me.”

We continue to chat, and it feels almost like it used to. I admit to hating Jen for the longest time because of her relationship with Ford. She says something pretty important though, without her relationship with Ford she’d never have met Shane. I wonder if someday Raven and I will be able to look back and see something good come out of that night.

The planning session evolves to a complicated scheme to lure Jesse into a party at Ford’s warehouse gym. Of course the guys push back against Raven’s suggestions, because they don’t want to risk the safety of the girls, at least not Raven, Jen, and Amber.

Amber introduces the idea of the four of us hiding up in the loft with rifles. Apparently we don’t only have sleeping with Ford in common. Well, except for Amber, I think. Turns out we’re all accomplished markswomen. It takes some convincing, but finally the guys agree to let us be snipers.

With all the plans set, Sin snaps and decides to work out some of his tension on Raven, which means the rest of us need to get lost or bleach our eyeballs.

ChapterThirty-Five

Ford

It waseasy to push Tessa out of my mind when she wasn’t right in front of my face. The rest of them don’t know her the way I do, partly because I made sure she was never able to get too close to them.

I know it was a dick thing to make her out to be some heartless bitch who toyed with my affection for years. The thing is, it felt true. It didn’t matter if I was the one to force myself away from her every time I wanted to pull her into my arms. I took the fact that she didn’t beg me to stay as another rejection. In my mind she was the one who had to prove she would stay, and I couldn’t let her break me again.

She never let me see how much I was breaking her in the process of protecting myself. Perhaps that’s just another excuse, and the truth is I wouldn’t let myself see it. In my head I kept repeating that she is the one who left me. I had to recover without her by my side. I was the one who lost their chance at playing D1 college football. Along with that, I lost any chance I had at being drafted into the pros.

Shane has tried to make me see over the last couple of years what she has been going through, but I refused to listen. If I did, then I’d have to admit my part in this mess.

Tessa has always reminded me of a wounded bird. Protecting her gave me a sense of pride and belonging. I knew I’d seen horrors she couldn’t imagine, even with her shitty family life, and I was determined to protect her from ever experiencing the things I’ve seen.

Now she’s closed off from me. I can’t read her eyes like I once could. Once so expressive, she couldn’t lie to me to save her ass. She still can’t honestly, but only I seem to be able to see through the line of bullshit she’s been spreading. Telling everyone that she’s been working with Jesse, that she gave him the photo of Raven and I at the cabin. I believed all of it, until she was the one in front of me saying it. While I might not be able to read her as well as I once could, she has other tells. She fidgets, looks away, and her voice grows softer than normal.

It’s moments like this, when I’m alone, not very common these days, that all my mistakes are laid in front of me. With Tessa here, they’re practically slapping me in the face. Still, she’s going to have to stay somewhere, I just don’t have the guts yet to face her.

Shane comes out into the backyard and sits next to me. There’s not a whole lot of places to go considering we’re trying to be laying low from crime bosses and apparently sex traffickers. Going inside while Sin and Raven are going at it isn’t much better.

“Out here beating yourself up?” he asks.

Yeah, he knows me pretty well. I just nod. I don’t need to tell him what’s bothering me. It’s always the same thing.

“Well, I’m going to join you in emotional self-flagellation. We fucked up. Tell me I’m not the only one who saw that she lied her ass off about helping Jesse.”

I shake my head. I just don’t know what to make of it. If she hasn’t been working with him, then what has she been doing?

“She looks—” he pauses while he searches for the right word, “haunted.”

That’s exactly how she looks. “We don’t even know what she’s been through. It could be nothing, and she’s playing us.”

Shane gives me a look that says he thinks I’m stupid. “We both know what kind of person Jesse Wilson is. Do you really think if she spent time with him nothing happened to her? And, I might have gone along with the way you’ve twisted history, because you were in pain, but that doesn’t mean she’s the manipulative bitch you’ve made her out to be in your mind.”

Rage unlike anything I’ve ever felt fills me, as well as a feeling of failure. Once Tessa was mine to protect, she’d probably be mine now if I could get past my pride and fear. “I know,” I finally murmur.

“As much fun as hanging out in their backyard is, I think I’d like to go home with my girl,” Shane says and goes to find Jen.

Amber, Ted, and Lucien disappeared somewhere. With what I’ve learned about their relationship dynamic, I don’t think I’ll try and find them. I’m not sure exactly how their throuple works, and I’d like to keep it that way. That just leaves Tessa and I as the odd ones out again. Only we aren’t together, or even speaking to each other.

I find her sitting on a bench in front of the house watching the sun sink behind the hills. Her knees pulled up to her chest with her arms hugging them tight. This is the real Tessa, vulnerable and very lonely. She’s not blameless in our story, but she doesn’t deserve the amount of blame I’ve heaped on her. It’s time I start to reexamine how I see our past, and her. Letting go of hurt and anger isn’t an easy thing, but it’s been over two years. I need to move past this for my sake, if not for hers.

There must be missing pieces here, because even as pissed off at her as I still am, I can’t see her ever doing this. I’m not arrogant enough to believe she’d help a known rapist help abduct a woman, because she’s jealous I have feelings for her.

Yet, I don’t know how to explain why she was there in the first place. It’s been a few months since the last time I saw her, which I guess was on the ride back down from that horrible trip to the cabin. I know life has been chaotic since Sin, Raven, and Lucien entered our lives, but no one knew where she was for months and we were supposed to be her friends. They all sided with me that day, and I let them. She was cast out, and apparently forgotten.

All I’ve done since she came back over a year ago is judge her. I never gave her a chance to explain what happened the night she left. I wanted her gone, but couldn’t stay away from her. Still can’t it seems.

“What are you doing out here alone, Contessa?” I know she hates that name, but she seems so listless pissing her off usually stokes the fire she has inside of her.

---