Page 58 of Salvaged Heart
“You didn’t give a fuck. It took Aunt Millie dying for you to come back into my life, and now you’re here, but I’ve changed. I’ve grown, but you have remained exactly the same as you always were. Completely selfish.”
That might have been the most words I'd heard my sister string together at any time. She was red-faced, with tears running in uncontrolled streaks down her cheeks, her whole body shaking with anger. But there was nothing for me to say. Every single word she'd fired at me was true. Beck had bore witness to every single vile thing she'd dragged up about my character, and the look on his face was one of pure disgust.
Laurel turned on her heels and bolted from the room.
Beck glanced between where I stood in shock and the door she'd just disappeared from as if he was trying to decide who he should follow.
The decision didn’t take him long.
Without so much as a word towards me, he pulled his sweats from the floor, slipped them on, and ran after her.
He’d made his choice.
It hadn’t been me.
28
BECKHAM
“You need to go back in there and apologize, Laurel. You don’t have a single clue what you’re talking about.”
Laurel was striding down the front steps of the manor in the direction of her black Mazda parked in the driveway. Her hair whipped out behind her, blown about by the late August storm rolling in over the lake. It rustled the leaves and chilled the balmy evening air. She didn’t turn around until she got to her car, making a grab for her bag that wasn’t on her arm.
“Fuck.” She cussed under her breath before finally whirling on me. “Go get my purse, Beck, then leave me the fuck alone.”
She looked half-crazed. In all the years I'd known Laurel, I had never seen her this angry. Her whole body vibrated with it.
“Go. Get. My. Purse.” She spat again, throwing her arms out as if trying to shoo me back towards the house.
But I stood my ground. “I will, Laurel. But first, we need to talk.”
She huffed, sending a lock of blonde hair flying from in front of her face. “I have nothing to say to you.”
“Then just listen.”
“It’s funny you suddenly have so much to say. Five minutes ago, I’d thoughthehad sucked your tongue right out of your damn mouth by how little you were managing to use it.”
Shame hit me.
I wasn’t sure what came over me in the kitchen. It was like my whole brain turned offline while Laurel threw hateful words at Anders. I'd told myself countless times that on her next breath, I would step in. The next insult she fired at him, I would put it down. One more minute and I would intervene. But instead, I just stood there. Unable to move. Unable to speak. Watching her tear into the man I cared so fucking deeply for, yet not doing a single thing about it.
I was a coward.
But not anymore. The second she stomped from the room, it was like all my senses came flooding back to me, and I was filled with the overwhelming need to chase after her and put her in her place. How dare she stand there looking down on me? Tapping her foot like she was better than the rest of us when she’d just shown her true colors. How ugly she was under that well-polished exterior.
“When did it start, Beck?”
“What?”
“Don’t play dumb. When did you start fucking my brother?” It was convenient that she suddenly viewed Anders as her brother again after always being so quick to disown him in the past.
“Jesus, Laurel. Don’t be so vulgar. What’s happening between Anders and me is more than that. I, I…” The words caught in my throat. The first time I professed my love for him would be to his face, not his sisters.
She scoffed. “So, a while then.” Her laugh was a brittle, bitter thing. “I asked you out right when things ended if your decision had anything to do with Anders, and you lied to my face.”
“You ended it with me, Laurel. I’d called to tell you everything, but as usual, you beat me to the punch, and it no longer seemed important.”
She rolled her eyes and looked back up at the house. I turned, expecting to see Anders had joined us, but the front porch was empty. The house, with dark windows, loomed over us ominously.
