Page 70 of The Pretty Psycho

"Fuck you!"

"No, thank you!" She was breathing heavily, frustrated, angry, and I felt the same. She had no right to tell me all these things. She didn't know. She had no idea.

"You're so fucking stubborn, Vega, that you don't see the good thing in front of you. You're so fucking stubborn that you would rather push him away and fuck yourself up, rather than let him in and show him that the fear you feel is because you love him. You love him, you idiot."

"No!" I yelled out. "I don't love him." I couldn’t.

"Yes, you do."

"No!" I shrieked, my voice breaking. "I can't. I can't love him. I can't fucking love him!"

She pushed and pushed, until I could no longer take it. The box was open, the contents spilling out, and as if she knew which buttons to push, she managed to let me feel it all. And I hated feeling it all.

I hated feeling anything related to my mother, to my past, to Adrian.

"I was all alone!" I yelled. "I was all alone because she left me. She left me with them. She let them take me." My heart hammered in my chest violently, trying to escape my own body. "She left me with those monsters and then she died."

"There we go. Let it out, Vega. You're angry at your mother, aren't you? You're so fucking angry."

"Yes!" I spat out. "I hate her and I love her and I can't love Adrian because he would leave as well." There it was. The unspoken truth; the unspoken fear of mine.

Not many people got to experience my love, but the ones that did turned out to be the ones that had left me or had fucked me over. And I didn't want Adrian to be on that list.

"I can't have him only to lose him." I closed my eyes. "I can't."

"But don't you see?" she said, making me look at her. "You're already losing him, Vega. You're already pushing him away, punishing him, when it isn't his fault. He loves you, you idiot. He fucking loves you and you're punishing him for his love."

Was that what I was doing?

Oh my God. My hand flew to my mouth as the realization slammed into me like a freight train.

I was selfish. I hadn’t tried to understand him and see how my behavior could affect him. This whole time I’d been repeating the 'me, me, me' pattern, only thinking about self-preservation, fucking with his mind. I understood his reaction now. I understood Yolanda's reaction.

I was terrified of happiness, she was right. I was terrified of having it and then losing it. I was so fucking scared that this special little thing I could have with him would be stolen from me, which could destroy me. I wasn't strong enough for something like that to happen. I wasn't strong enough to feel and accept his love, only to have it taken from me.

"I'm sorry," I cried, sobbing, my vision turning blurry. "I fucked up."

"Well, I think both of you fucked up," she said unabashedly. “Look,” she said seriously. “I think you both have a lot of things to work through, but you gotta stop pushing each other. He’s pushing, you’re pulling, and then you switch those roles. It’s like a game you’re playing and I don’t think it’s healthy. I don’t think it’s sustainable.”

We were playing games. We were both fucking it all up, weren’t we?

"I need to find him," I said, jumping off of the sink. "I need to fix this. Help me find him."

"I can't," she mumbled.

"What do you mean you can't?" I didn't like the look on her face. I didn't like the fact that she looked to the side, as if she wanted to hide something from me.

"Your brother sent me to find you, Vega, because the rest of them were going into Wolfhöle. A package was sent to the Academy. A package for Adrian."

"Oh no."

"His father has one of the teams, Vega," she murmured, her eyes plastered to the wall. "He has the Russian team held hostage and he wants Adrian to come into town."

"Please tell me he didn't go alone," I said, taking a step closer to her. "Please."

She looked at me, shaking her head. "He left shortly after reading the message. Jax, Dante, Arseniy, Vin, and Dimitri all followed after him, but I can't be sure that they caught up with him. He apparently snuck out and… Where the fuck are you going?"

I pushed by her and headed straight for the door. There was no time to spare, no fucking time to waste on talking about inconsequential things.

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