Page 8 of The Vengeance You Crave
It should be a new year, a new semester, and a fresh start, but I can't seem to drag my ass out of last year.
Pulling my cell from my pocket so I can put some music on in the hope of drowning out my misery, I find a stream of messages from Dad.
"Fuuuck," I roar, throwing the thing across the room until it collides with the wall with a satisfying bang.
Stumbling back, I crash into the door and slide down until my ass hits the floor.
Tipping my head back, I suck in some deep breaths.
Leon's right. I know he is. But that knowledge pisses me off as much as all the other shit.
As kids, I was always the one who appeared to have my shit together while he was the loose cannon with his emotions but as the years have passed, we seem to have switched roles and I fucking hate it.
He manages to keep a lid on everything and moves through each day smoothly, where I feel like I'm wading through quicksand, sinking faster than anything else.
* * *
"Oh look, it’s booty call time again," a voice says from the darkness behind me.
"You a fucking stalker?" I shoot over my shoulder.
"No, but you could well be. That or you're about to rob a bank," he says, appearing from the kitchen and walking around me, taking in what I'm wearing.
"What I'm doing has fuck all to do with you, bro."
"I'll remind you of that when I'm bailing you out of whatever shit you're getting yourself into."
Shaking my head at him, I march toward the front door without so much as a glance at him.
Where I'm going is the only place that makes sense right now. Seeing her is the only thing that makes everything fade into nothingness. The anger of my life dies out and gets replaced with something even more toxic.
My need for her.
As I have been every night, I’m in the space at the very back of the almost empty lot. Hidden under the low-hanging tree which scrapes across the roof of my Audi when I park.
I turn all the lights off and slide down in my seat as I begin my wait for her to slip out the back.
Thanks to Leon's interruption, I'm later than I have been the past few nights, and she doesn't make me wait long.
My heart jumps, my pulse thundering so hard I can feel it in every part of my body as the light from inside the building fills the other end of the lot as she emerges and, with her head down, heading for her own car.
My fingers curl around the wheel with my need to get out and see her, but once I do that, all of this is over.
She's wearing an oversized hoodie. A man's, probably. A boyfriend's? That thought makes bile rush up my throat.
The thought of someone else having her makes me feel murderous.
She was always so pure, so innocent. There’s not a second of our time together that I've forgotten before she ruined everything with her lies.
But all that's gone now, hasn't it? She's working in Dad's seedy, exclusive sports bar, shaking her ass for any asshole who wants to look at it.
What happened to her?
The Peyton I knew would never have done that. She was desperate to hide in the shadows and it took all of my persuasive skills to get her to dance with me at school dances. She preferred to just let me get molested by the cheerleaders than to be up there and being judged by them.
I never cared though. I loved that she wasn't one of them, that she cared more about a person than their appearances or the hobbies or sports they played. Same with Letty.
I know for a fact that if Peyton never said what she did, if her mom didn't drag her away then I never would have touched a cheer slut, or a jersey chaser.
