Page 83 of Wicked Surrender

Ignoring him digitally was the easier route of cutting all ties with him.

When he tried to reach me in person, I struggled to maintain my composure. He followed me on campus. He showed up at my classes. Those were infinitely trickier to deal with, but I didn’t falter. I didn’t fall and surrender. Keeping my head high, I ignored him, literally pretending he wasn’t there.

He even showed up at the house, stalking me at my home and knocking on the door to get a chance to talk to me.

That was what he begged for, just one more opportunity to talk to me.

How ironic. It really was. When I woke up in his bedroom, that was all he seemed ready to do. To talk and blast me with complete honesty.

Now, I never wanted to hear from him again.

Kristin wasn’t safe, either. He’d taken to approaching her and trying to get to me through my friend. Fortunately, she was on my team. She didn’t try to set me up to speak with him, and she didn’t give him any indication that she’d try to convince me to meet him, just one more time.

But she did act as a means of communication I didn’t want.

“I don’t know,” she said the day before the symposium would start.

I glanced at her as we walked toward the parking lot. It wasn’t the same route we normally went, the simplest and most direct way toward our cars. I’d had to change up my path and routine to avoid Jason seeking me out.

“He seems really sorry.”

I rolled my eyes and faced forward.

Instead of going home and fuming after Jason told me why he targeted me, I went to her place and spilled it all. Going all the way back to the beginning, when I first met him through the tutoring sessions, I laid it all out. I didn’t leave any details out, sharing with her how we butted heads, then merged into sort of getting along, and then how we had sex. It wasn’t a word-for-word account, but I made sure she got the point that Jason and I had dived into a secret relationship. Last but not least, I told her about how it all ended, too, when he explained the reason he'd targeted me to bully.

“I’m not siding with him,” she added, “but he seems like he genuinely wants to make amends.”

“No. There’s no coming back from this.”

“I’m just pointing out that from what he said to me, it looks like he’s really fallen for you.”

I pressed my lips together as hard as I could, bottling in a scream of frustration at the idea that the one man I trusted and cared for could’ve fallen for me after using me as collateral damage like that.

“And he seems to want to make things right.”

“No.”

“You won’t talk to him at all?” she asked with a cringe.

“No.” I shook my head. “Not a chance in hell. I trusted him, Kris. I believed that no matter what motivation he had to hurt me, the feelings he had for me would be stronger.”

“Maybe they are?—”

“No. They can’t be when he wouldn’t give it up. Not even when he saw that I couldn’t be collateral damage. Not like that!” I stopped to vent at her. I wasn’t mad at her, but it was cathartic to talk to her about this and use her as a sounding board. “I could never be a source of collateral damage where my father is concerned. He’d have to care about me. He’d have to be upset that I was being bullied. I never told him what Jason did. I didn’t bring up the issue of my being bullied to him because I damn well knew he would not care. That’s how little importance I have.”

She frowned, seeming caught between wanting to hug me or let me say my piece.

“I know that. And when he realized that my father wasn’t reacting to what he was doing to me, that should’ve been a clue that his revenge plans weren’t working the way he might’ve wanted them to.”

I turned to walk again, only to stop and face her, not finished. “I’m done with him. I have to be done with him because despite knowing that he wanted to hurt my dad through me, I’m still so fucked up over him that I am madder that he told me at all. I’m still this hurt and enraged that he had to ruin this happiness and thrill with him. If he’d never opened his mouth at all, I wouldn’t have to feel robbed of what I had with him.”

She cringed. “That is a little messed up.”

“A little?” I shook my head. “It’s all very messed up. But it’s also done. I can’t trust myself with him. I can’t lower my guard anymore. Not with him.”

“I get it,” she said, shaking her head as we walked again. “I’d think the same and be just as defensive.”

“I do have him to thank for showing me one thing that I’ve been very late to accept in life,” I confessed. “I can thank him for being the biggest push for me to fight for what I want. I fought for him. I fought to accept him and let him in when I knew I shouldn’t. I fought against my resistance because deep down, he was what I wanted.”

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