Page 81 of Eden's Deliverance

She finally looks at me for a fraction of a second before dropping her shoulders in defeat. “Okay, but you have to promise not to be mad, alright? It’s really not a big deal and your life is so good right now with Dario, and the apprenticeship, and school that I don’t want you to get in your head and start overthinking and—”

“Penelope.”

“I slept with those guys…the ones you used to see at Eden before you met Dario. I don’t want it to be a big deal. I know you liked them, but you said I could go for it, and so I did. But you were totally right about them having no boundaries, and he won’t stop texting me now, and he threatened to tell you if I don’t…” She pauses to take another deep breath. “So here I am. Telling you.”

There it is.

There’s the other shoe.

She lets out a massive sigh of relief, like all her sins have been absolved because she finally told me the truth. Except, someone had to force it out of her. She justadmitted that she knew what fucking them would do to me, else she wouldn’t have gone on a fucking rant about how fucking perfect my life is.

Yeah, it’s fucking peachy.

“When?” I ask, standing from the couch and carefully placing the bowl of popcorn on the coffee table.

“Huh?”

“When?” I repeat. “How long have you been fucking them? How long have you been keeping this to yourself?”

She jumps up, but I take a step backwards when she tries to come near me. She’s crying now, the tears streaming down her beautifully pinched cheeks. “Scar, please.” She cups her hands over her mouth and nose, shaking her head. “Please, I’m so sorry.”

“Fine,” I concede with a titter, pulling my phone from the pocket of my hoodie. “I have his number too, you know? If my best friend can’t be honest with me, maybe her fucktoy will.”

Penelope panics, throwing her hand out to stop me. “Three weeks!” she shouts. “It’s been three weeks since it happened. It was only once, I swear, babe. Please-please-please—”

“Three weeks…”

I don’t bother finishing the thought. Looking up to meet her gaze, I take in a different kind of horror than the one I was expecting to experience tonight; her face is blood-red, which doesn’t mix well with the pale complexion of her skin.

All I do is nod my head at her and turn on my heel to go to my room—locking the door behind me to keep out the remnants of our frayed friendship.

I’d much rather have finished the movie.

I wasn’t bluffing earlier.

I sit on the balcony for hours—a cigarette always lit in one hand and my phone in the other—with Broody’s text thread open on the screen. I’ve been contemplating what I should say, or whether I should say anything at all.

Penelope’s right about one thing; I shouldn’t care. I told my diary as much, and that’s why they did this. They knew it would hurt.

So did she.

Just because they knew, doesn’t mean I’m not still an asshole for caring. I have Dario, she’s right.

Dario, who I’ve been falling into the same comfortable habits with as I did when he was The Prince. Dario, who knows how to love me on paper, yet there always seems to be something missing. Dario, who if I really consider it, could probably sleep with Penelope and I’d be more angry at him than her.

Something’s missing from this relationship, and I think there always has been. Something’s missing fromme. Casanova and Broody didn’t just break me into a million pieces for the fun of it—they strategically cut the glass of my soul to fit their own shattered fragments.

To make us one.

Reading through the text messages we’ve sent to one another, there’s obviously more passion on this screen than whatever I have with Dario.

That’s fucking sad, but it is what it is.

One stands out in particular, giving me an idea for my rebuttal. I know how much they like to recycle words on me, so I type out my message with a beaming smile, forcing the tears in my eyes to retreat.

“Why do I feel like you’re not being honest with me,diavolina?” He’s accusing me of lying as if he already knows—and yeah, I’ve been omitting the truth—but he can’t be certain.

There’s no reason for me to hurt him any more than this already is, and it’s not like I cheated or anything. I knew he wouldn’t take it well, but I wasn’t expecting to sit here and overexplain it for an hour.

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