Page 41 of Kings of Westbrook High

I lock my jaw, damn near cracking my own teeth I'm clenching down on them so hard.

Damon found her..

“Elijah and I never really got to know each other all that well before, but we bonded over the loss of the people we loved after that. We were in love and married just a few weeks later. I think that's why his sons never fully accepted me.”

Or maybe it's because you killed their mother and ruined their lives, you psychotic bitch.

The way she speaks of them, the way she tells the story of how her own husband and sister in law died, she shows no emotion. She feels no guilt or remorse for what she did, she’s simply stating facts and she's making me physically fucking sick. I keep my mouth shut before I say something I shouldn't, thankful when the waiter comes over with our food, distracting her from my anger and disgust.I take a breath to calm myself, frowning when the waiter sets my plate down in front of me.

“A double bacon cheeseburger?”

“What were you expecting?” Katherine laughs lightly, amused by my reaction, apparently.

“Frogs legs.”

She laughs for real now, picking up her fork to dig into her salad. “You remind me so much of myself when I was your age.”

“Knocked up and digging for gold?”

The waiter clears his throat and Katherine glares, warning me with her eyes, so I grin like an asshole. He scurries off once she's thanked him and I pick up my burger, taking a huge, unladylike bite just to piss her off.

“I'd have loved to have seen the look on your face the day Jason broke his knee.” I muse, speaking around my food. “The second you realized you'd gambled your entire life on nothing but a worthless high school has been with his kid already inside you? Bet it was fuckin' priceless.”

Her nostrils flare and she takes a breath to calm herself. “That's the story he told you? That I trapped him and got pregnant on purpose?”

“Never heard the end of it.”

She licks her lips, not even bothering to deny it. “I assume you collected his ashes while I was away?”

“Yep.”

“I was thinking we could scatter them together. Do you know where-”

“It's done.”

She frowns, lifting her eyes from her plate to me. “What did you do with him?”

“Tossed him in the gutter.” I shrug, hiding a grin when she freezes mid chew.

“Why on earth would you do that?”

“Because he deserved it.” I admit, offering her what I need to in order to rattle her. “You dated him for two years, right? I lived with the man you broke for seventeen. You didn't bother to stick around so he took all his shit out on me. He saw you every time he looked into my eyes and beat my ass for it every day until the day he died.”

She frowns, looking genuinely confused by me and my nonchalance over my admission to being abused. Little does she know it's just a mask, a big ass wall I've built to hide behind. I know I should be scarred and broken beyond repair after what happened to me, but allowing the thirteen year old girl inside me to feel her pain and self pity would have only gotten me killed.

I did what I had to do to survive.

Katherine stares at me for a long minute, swallowing a large mouthful of wine before she speaks again. “Surely there must have been some good times-”

“There weren't. Not ever. He was a monster, Katherine. He proved that the night he put a bullet in his own temple. That was probably one of the most selfish things he ever did.”

She licks her lips, unaware of the fact I know exactly what she's thinking.

He didn't do it, she did.

“Because you ended up here with me?”

“Because he deserved more.” I correct her, leaning back in my seat. “I wanted him to suffer. I wanted him to pay for his sins with blood and pain, same way I paid for yours. Instead all he got was a bullshit gunshot to the head. A quick death.”

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