Page 68 of Ramsey & Emerson

“For now,” I told him truthfully. “That might change later.”

“Well, isn’t that fucking awesome,” Liam drawled out. “Like we haven’t done enough to the girl.”

“She came back on her own, Liam,” I reminded him.“Knowingwhat she was dealing with.”

“Ram’s got a point,” Deke added.

Liam just shook his head. “That’s what has me worried.”

I stopped in my tracks. “What do you mean?”

Deke and Liam stopped walking as well. “How do you know that she didn’t come back for revenge?”

Well, fuck.

“How do you know that she’s not here to ruin our lives?” he continued. “If I were you, I’d watch where I walk, Ramsey. It’s going to hurt like amotherfucker if she ends up pulling the rug out from under you. Fuck, from under us all.”

After a few seconds, I shook my head. “No. No…she’s back because she loves me.”

Liam’s blue eyes regarded me carefully. “I hope you’re right.”

“Well, isn’t this fucking fun,” Deke muttered before letting out a tired breath. “She’s either back because she’s forgiven Ram, or else she’s back to make us all pay. Lovely.”

“She’s back because she loves me,” I repeated.

“Just remember, this is a girl whose father killed her mother,” Deke remarked. “If she’s back here for revenge, I’d sleep with one eye open, Ramsey.”

I shook my head as I started walking across the schoolyard again, and my arrogance really needed to be checked if it never occurred to me that Emerson might be back here for revenge and not love. In fact, I could see her as the type of female that would have no problem cozying up to her worst enemy to exact a revenge worthy of her.

As I watched her walk beside Roselyn, my chest started to feel tight, and that’s when I realized that Emerson coming backwasher revenge. I’d taken into consideration all her doubts and fears, but I hadn’t taken into consideration any of mine. I was going to spend the rest of my life grateful to fall asleep next to her every night, yet terrified of waking up alone every morning, and if that wasn’t the best revenge ever, then I didn’t know what was.

“She’s not going anywhere,” I told them. “Not if she wants me to suffer for what I did.”

“All women want us to suffer,” Liam huffed.

That got a grin out of me. “Yeah, Roselyn’s feathers are a bit ruffled.”

“Good thing I know exactly how to soothe them,” he retorted, making Deke laugh.

Chapter 40

Emerson~

As soon as Roselyn and I walked through the front doors of Windsor Academy, the whispers started, and it was hard for me not to gloat, and not because Ramsey had dropped to his knees in front of these people. It was hard not to gloat because I was embracing a humiliation that most of these kids would never be able to face, and that weakness was the very reason why Ramsey had so much power over these people.

When I’d been staring at myself in the bathroom earlier, I had wondered how I’d feel at this moment, and I felt surprisingly okay. Yeah, I still felt a tragic kinship with my mother in choosing a boy that was bad for me, but I also wasn’t my mother. While she hadn’t been able to stay away from my father because of how much she loved him, though it’d hurt, I was certain that I’d be able to walk away from Ramsey a second time if I had to.

“Not sure if I’ve ever told you this before, but you’re my hero,” Roselyn quipped. “I so want to be you when I grow up.”

I chuckled at that. “I hate to break it to you, but heroes generally prevail at the end of the movie, and I have no idea what awaits me at the end of mine and Ramsey’s story.”

“Are you regretting coming back already?” she asked, whispering her question as the murmurs in the hallway got louder, alerting us to the fact that Ramsey, Deke, and Liam were right behind us.

“No,” I answered honestly. “I’m just not delusional when it comes to Ramsey Reed.”

Roselyn didn’t say anything further as we reached my locker, which was still next to Ramsey’s, and that small detail bothered me for some reason. Maybe it was because it felt too…easy. Just like how Jamie and his friends had tried to rape me, everyone was more than eager to just move on and act like I hadn’t been humiliated in front of the entire school, and that didn’t sit well with me.

Even though no one could ever accuse me of being a coward, what I was feeling was more than that. This moment was about more than just facing these people after what Ramsey had done to me; this moment was about calling them out on their bullshit and not letting them get away with it.

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