Page 69 of Resurrecting the Enemy
I lowered the camera and looked at him. “How’d you find out?” There was only one reason he’d be here, and that was because he’d, somehow, found out the truth and knew I hadn’t cheated on him.
“Eden.”
I thought about that, and I realized I wasn’t surprised. Eden was the best kind of friend, and I knew it was only a matter of time before she snapped. I knew I looked a mess. I knew I was pushing it. I just thought she’d say something, but she hadn’t. She hadn’t said a word about talking to Ramsey.
“Not that I have proof, but I still don’t know why he did it,” I told him, and I wasn’t even sure why I was telling him anything at all. Maybe it was part of the vindication. “I don’t remember much, but Eden said he kept yelling that, if I knew what it felt like to be drugged, I’d forgive him.” Ramsey eyes flared right before they slid away for a second.
Guilt.
When his gaze met mine again, I knew. I choked out a pathetic laugh as I shook my head. “Of course, you know why.”
“Erica hates you,” he said simply. “Jealous of you, actually.”
“Which is stupid,” I remarked. “Anyone with a pair of working eyes can see that.” Again, I wasn’t talking myself down, but Erica was undeniably beautiful, even if she was ugly on the inside.
“She went after Metcalf as soon as you guys started dating,” he went on, ignoring my statement about Erica. “He kept turning her down, so she got creative.”
“She drugged him,” I surmised, and that would make sense and fall in line with Curt’s claims of not remembering anything. “He’d been telling the truth all along. He really never meant to cheat on me.”
Ramsey nodded. “My guess is he found out or, for whatever reason, she told him, and he got it in his head that you’d understand and forgive him if you experienced the same thing.”
Anger came swift and potent. “How do you know this?”
“The same way I know everything else,” he answered.
“When did you find out he’d been drugged?”
“The same day I drove you and Eden home from school,” he confessed.
The implication shook me to my knees.
Ramsey’s been manipulating me from the very beginning, and now he was asking me what it would take to forgive him.
But fool me once…
I looked at the boy who I gave my heart and virginity to and answered his question. “I never want to see you again.”
His brows shot downward. “What?”
“You asked me what it would take for me to forgive you,” I reminded him. “That’s the answer.”
Ramsey immediately started shaking his head. “I can’t do that.”
“Then I guess you’re not forgiven.”
“Anything but that, Lake,” he replied, and to most people that would sound like begging, but it wasn’t. Ramsey Reed Jr. would never beg for anything. It came out like the demand it was.
“That’s all I want,” I insisted, even though it was a lie. The pathetic part of me wanted to go back in time and erase this ugly misunderstanding, but I wasn’t going to tell him that. Instead, I went for fighting fire with fire. Or, in this case, pain with pain. “Unless you can find a way for me to go back in time and keep Curt from going to that party where Erica drugged him. Can you do that? Can you give me back my boyfriend who cared about me? Who loved me?”
The tick in his jaw was prominent. “No. I can’t.”
“Then just leave me alone,” I repeated. “That’s all I want from you.”
He shook his head. “I can’t do that, Lake.”
“Well, then, I don’t know what to tell you,” I told him. “If you can’t send me back in time where I was happy with Curt, and we were just a simple couple, enjoying our senior year of high school together, then I have no need of you.”
“Even if I could, I wouldn’t do it,” he admitted. “I’ll never let you end up with anyone else, besides me.”
