Page 53 of Bitter Truths

Frankly, after everything, I haven’t been able to fully take a breath without her, and even now, I can feel the panic tight in my chest. I have zero desire to relive the horror, but I have no choice but to take the risk because I’m a fucking dead man walking without her anyway.

She taps out a quick message while I stand next to her impatiently. When she’s done, I grab her hand again, smiling widely when she giggles. I’d slay the fucking world to hear that sound every day, and I vow with a ferocity that burns in my chest to figure out how to be that fucking person because I want to be the one who makes her world go round.

Except it all comes to a screeching halt when we’re halfway to my car. Miranda calls out behind us because I fucking forgot that I came with her. Fuck. I wouldn’t even be here if she hadn’t begged me, going so far as to dress us in matching nerd costumes, although hers is decidedly slutty. I forgot everything but my need to be with Halsey, just Halsey.

Closing my eyes, I rail against the world and my place in it before slowing to a stop and turning to her with a hesitant stare. Halsey follows suit, but she’s looking far more militant if the scowl is anything to go by. Fuck.

“Griff? Hey, what’s going on?” Miranda asks, glancing between us with a frown.

Halsey stiffens, her face dropping to ice. She pulls away with a grimace, and I feel that same fucking helpless feeling I get around her because no matter what I do, I can’t keep hold of her. She keeps slipping through my fucking fingers.

“Hals,” I say quietly, even though I don’t know what to say. I want Halsey, I always have, but bringing Miranda and leaving with Halsey is a dick move, and I’m trying not to be a damn dick for Halsey.

Ignoring me, she steps up to Miranda and glares at her with a ferocity that puzzles me. Miranda flinches away from her, bowing her head.

What’s going on?

Halsey smiles humorlessly, looking between us before she rasps, “I guess we’re all fucked in some way, but trust me, Miranda, the longer you stay with him, the more you’ll hate yourself in the end.”

Incredulous, I huff behind her as she walks away, her words penetrating the fog in my thick fucking skull. Shit. Rubbing my aching chest, I watch her go and try to breathe through the fist clenching my heart. I thought she might hate me, and I was okay with that. But she fucking hates herself?

Blankly, I stare after her, wondering how we came to be here and apart. All I’ve ever wanted was her. Was I a shitty person in another life? Fuck, I’m a shitty person now.

Turning away, I meet Miranda’s flinty stare because I forgot she was hereagain.

She raises a sardonic brow, and with a sigh, I mutter. “You know how I feel.”

“Yeah, I do. I just never thought I’d have to chase my supposed date across the parking lot while he held some other bitch’s hand,” she says harshly, her eyes gleaming in the lamplight.

Fuck. Ignoring the painful urge to follow Halsey and beg her to take back the words that circle my brain like acid, I open the door for Miranda, but she shakes her head and backs away slowly. “I’ll call you later.”

And with that, I drive myself home and sleep in my empty fucking bed and torture myself with images of Halsey hating me even as she hates her fucking self.

Chapter Fifteen

I’d burn the world to the ground to have you.

HALSEY

When I wake the following morning, it’s with an emotional hangover that leaves me cold. Maybe once upon a time Griffin loved me, but it must have been an infantile love born out of our adolescence because his version now isn’t love. I don’t even know what it is, but it’s not fucking that.

I knew he was with Miranda, and still, I sucked him off in a dark corner of a nightclub. It’s not a shining moment in my life, even if the actual act curls around my heart and will become fodder for my fantasies. It was wrong; I was wrong, and I’m tired of making stupid decisions in the name of the longing in my heart.

I’m tired of making them in a bid for a guy who doesn’t want me for the right reasons.

My phone dings beside my head, and absently I reach for it, opening the message from Max and reading through the text before clicking on the video.

Hey, did you see this?

The first thing that pops up is my face, and I stare confused at my dazed expression looking at the camera as Jason looms behind me with a leer on his. Once again, I’m looking at me completely wasted and out of it, and if anyone ever bothered to truly see, they’d understand I wasn’t even in a frame of mind to say yes or no.

My stomach clenches so painfully, I have to take deep breaths not to vomit as Jason fucks me from behind and Chris Doherty, one of his friends, moves in front of me. Jesus, exactly how many times did they violate me in one night? Fuck.

Thankfully, the video ends before anything more salacious happens, and it only really shows me with Jason and staring at Chris, but I know quite clearly there are more because I’ve seen them. I thought the videos were gone. I thought I was free of this, but apparently, I’m not.

I type out a text to Max with trembling fingers, completely horrified that my brother has a video of me being violated. My skin crawls once again at the agony as the ugly bubbles below the surface.

Hals: Where did you get this?

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