Page 127 of Sincerely, Your Enemy

She seems hesitant. “Oh, hm… sure, I guess.”

I capture her wrist in my hand as soon as I have her consent and pull her out of the house through the front door. Dia lets her go reluctantly, worry flashing in her gaze.

The front lawn isn’t too crowded, thank God, but I still wish I could’ve done this elsewhere. This isn’t the time or place for a confession, but Aaron’s not giving me a choice.

Lacey removes her wrist from my hold, glancing around nervously. “TJ, what’s going on?”

“Lacey, I… I need to tell you someth?—”

“Back off, you shithead!” Aaron comes tumbling out of the house with Chance on his tail the next second.

Great.

An audience.

Just what we needed.

One look at Chance and I know he saw what was happening and tried to distract Aaron to buy me and Lacey some time alone. He and Aaron are the only people who know what I did.

“You’re drunk, dude. You need to sleep it off.” Chance tries to drag Aaron back inside the house, but Aaron shoves him off with all his strength. I appreciate Chance trying, but something tells me he’s wasting his breath. Sober Aaron is a vindictive little shit, so there’s no waywastedAaron isn’t going to hang me out to dry.

“You didn’t really think you could just run from this, did you?” Aaron slurs, making his way to us as quickly as he can, seeing as he can barely walk. “I gave you the whole fucking weekend to tell her. Time’s up.”

“Aaron, please don’t do this,” I choke out, the words coming out as a plea.

“I don’t have a choice! I can’t just stand by and watch you destroy her life,” Aaron shouts.

“What? What’s he talking about?” Lacey takes a step back as if to protect herself, and the front door swings open. Dia and Finn rush outside, alerted by Aaron’s screaming.

This is getting out of hand so fucking fast.

“Tell her!” Aaron screams at the top of his lungs. “Tell her why you wanted her to tutor you in the first place.”

No, no, no.

This isn’t how it was supposed to happen.

I open my mouth, but no sound comes out, the walls closing in on me, making it hard to breathe, let alone speak.

“Tell her how youpaidme to date her, all so your fucked-up little revenge fantasy would work. Tell her how you told me where to take her on dates, what to say to her. Tell her how you manipulated everything to make her fall for you.”

Color drains from Lacey’s face, and Dia sprints to her side.

“Tell her how you swore to do whatever it took to hurt her like she hurt you!”

I want to kill him. To peel off his skin, rip his head off, and make him swallow his own eyeballs. It would be so much easier to pin this all on him. To displace the blame so that I don’t have to take a long, hard look in the mirror, but I can’t.

At the end of the day, I’m the villain of this story.

I did this.Me.

“I’m so sorry, Lacey.” Aaron moves closer to her. “I didn’t know you then. I was the new guy, and I wanted to fit in, so I went along with it, but you’re a good person. You don’t deserve this.”

Lacey still hasn’t made a sound or moved at all, her mouth hanging open as she tries to process the massive bombshell he just dropped on her.

“Lacey…” I croak, losing my composure. “Baby, you have to believe me. It was only at the beginning. It wasn’t… It wasn’t like that once we?—”

“Right! It wasn’t like that. Because every nice guy talks about destroying a girl’s reputation. You said you’d make her fall in love with you, fuck her, and then dump her like garbage. You always hated her. Just admit it!”

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