Page 16 of Taming Georgia

The blame lies on me, too. I had known better. I released my defenses one by one, letting her seep into my heart. We were young, and my fascination with her was short-lived, but the betrayal I experienced stays with me to this day, and it still hurts. I know that teenagers can be mean, but honestly, my heart wasn’t strong enough to hold any more pain.

I still don’t like people much. Ethel’s the exception, but that’s only because she won’t go away. She doesn’t give me the option to be without her.

Everyone else though? I could spend the rest of my life never interacting with humans again. For the most part, they’re vile creatures—selfish, cruel idiots. And yet no one has ever created such an immediate reaction in me as Georgia Wright does. Just the sight of her makes me sick, deep in my gut. She makes me feel out of control.

I’ve gotten really good at not allowing another person to affect me. In this business, you have to. I have my blinders on. I do what needs to be done and have no time for distractions. It’s worked well for me for quite some time.

Yet, regardless of how much I want to be unaffected by Georgia, I’m not. And I think that’s what infuriates me the most.

4

“Ironically, the person who hurt me the most is also the catalyst for my strength.”—Georgia Wright

Ugh, I hate him.

I sit on the edge of my bed, my legs dangling. I hardly slept last night, unable to get his words out of my head.

Why do I care what he thinks?

It drives me crazy that all these years later, his words still cut so deep. I’ll never admit it to him or anyone else, but he broke my heart.

I was young, innocent, and opening up to the possibility of love, and then…BAM…with a couple of sentences, he shattered my heart. Truthfully, he shattered my spirit, and I’ve been fighting to get it back since.

The old phrase,What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, applies here. Ironically, the person who hurt me the most is also the catalyst for my strength. He took all of the insecurities I had and threw them in my face, making me question everything. It’s not easy when someone I love—or thought I loved—uses my deepest worries to cut me wide open.

All I’ve ever wanted to be is a good person, someone who is worthy of this life. I have no control over some aspects of my existence, but the quality of person I am, that’s all on me, and I try to be a kind one.

It shouldn’t matter what the asshole I knew briefly in high school thinks of me, and I hate that it does.

I have to go back.

I fall back on the bed, throwing my forearm over my face.

I don’t want to.

The easy choice would be not to. There are endless causes that I could give my time to. But not returning to face him would seem like admitting that everything he thought he knew about me was true. I can’t let him live the rest of his life believing that he’s right.

There’s a knock at the door.

I drop my arm to my side to see Paige peek her head in.

“Hey, just popping in to make sure you were up. You’re usually up before me, so I wanted to check that your alarm didn’t fail to go off before I left for work.”

“No, it went off. I didn’t feel like running this morning,” I say glumly.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, just dreading going into the shelter.”

She nods knowingly. “It’s rough, yeah?”

“Yes, it is…but not because of the work.”

This piques her interest. “I sense there’s a story here.”

“There is.” I release a sigh.

“Let’s get Chinese tonight and discuss everything.” She smiles wide. “Sorry I was unavailable last night.”

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