Page 59 of Love Sick

I hate him.

I hate that I respond to him this way when all he’s ever been is bad news. He’s not good for me; being here proves that. But I can’t stop the pull I feel for him, and it has nothing to do with Misha’s heart.

A memory crashes into me—when I first heard Dutch’s heartbeat. I was drawn to it. I was drawn tohim.

Misha’s heart may give him life, but I am in love with Dutch. The heart which beats within his chest is a part of me as much as it is a part of him.

In some twisted way, Misha brought us together and I’ll be damned if my son’s death is in vain.

“He doesn’t talk. I don’t know where his parents are. I know nothing about him.”

“Why does Alanna have him?”

Dutch steps forward; I take two steps back.

The distress on his face is apparent, but it’s going to take a lot more than his pretty face to have me forgetting what I saw.

“I think she was afraid of me and was using Bobby as protection, knowing I wouldn’t hurt her in front of a child.”

I don’t fail to notice his use of past tense. “She certainly didn’t look afraid downstairs.”

“Luna, let me explain.”

“What’s there to explain? She wasn’t rubbing your cock then?”

“Yes, she was, but…I don’t understand it. I hate her, but I think I am that fucked up, I am somehow using that hatred to write music. Like a coping mechanism, perhaps? I don’t know and I fucking hate it.”

“So she’s your muse? You need the antichrist in heels to play? Is that what you’re telling me? Because I hate to break it to you but your muse is going to meet a tragic ending when I cut off her fucking head!

“Do you know what she did to me? I can’t remember anything. I can’t remember my son because of her!”

“He knows, Luna.”

Enter the bitch in question.

“He knows because he was the one who handed you back over to me once you escaped.”

And just like that…it all comes back to me.

I remember the air of freedom.

I taste forbidden kisses.

I feel the sting of being dragged back to Parkfields because Dutch…betrayed me.

“I thought I was doing the right thing,” he solemnly says, his regret clear.

But the sting of betrayal is too hard to stomach and I look at him through new eyes—he didn’t trust me, and now, I don’t trust him.

The only thing that matters is getting out of here…but not before I take from Alanna what she took from me.

Her heart.

“Hurts, doesn’t it?”

I don’t take the bait, but Alanna gloats because she’s won this round.

“Hurts to watch the man you love, want somebody else.”

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