Page 66 of Into the Woods

He spun and grabbed his phone before hurling it into the wall. It shattered into a hundred pieces.

My heart pounded, but I forced my outward appearance to stay calm, unruffled, as I grabbed my coffee and took a sip. “I thought you were waiting on Ash to send you something.”

“I can’t win with you,” he hissed, shaking his head.

“Wait, have you actually been trying?” I asked, not willing to give him another single centimeter.

Court pinched the bridge of his nose. “What do you want me to say, Becca? I never claimed to be a damn monk.”

“Did I ask you to be?” I shot back.

“Seems like that’s what you want,” he returned, just as pissed as I was now.

Good. It was easier to hate him when he was mad at me.

Bishop cleared his throat. “Maybe you guys should take a step back. Neutral corners and that shit.”

“No. Court wanted to talk, so let’s talk,” I retorted.

“Not about this,” he gritted out, crossing his arms. “You know what? Let’s just do what Bishop said. We’ll take a minute and cool off.”

I pointed to my chest. “I don’t need to cool off. What could I possibly need to cool off for? I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Except jump to the wrong conclusions,” he said flatly. He scrubbed a hand over his face.

“Why does it matter?” I pressed. It was kinda like when you had a bruise and you kept pushing on the spot to see if it still hurt.

It totally did, but I couldn’t seem to stop fighting with him.

Before he could answer, I plowed on. “It’s not like I matter, right? I’m just that kid who used to follow you around before you realized she was too annoying to keep around.”

“That’s not even close to the truth, and you know it.”

“No, Court, I don’t know it because you could never be bothered to tell me the truth about what happened that summer,” I hissed. “The only time you came close was after I found a video where Madelaine claimed she knew some big secret you’d been keeping from me, which… not surprising, considering you also kept to yourself the fact that my dad was involved in all sorts of shady shit.”

“I made mistakes, Becca,” he said. “I fully admit that, and I want us to move forward with everything out in the open.”

“Maybe I don’t want to,” I replied with a nonchalant shrug. “Maybe I want…” Shit, what did I want?

“What?” he challenged, waving his hand in a go ahead motion.

“Make it good, Bex,” Bishop whispered.

Court glared at him. “Shut the fuck up.”

“You know what?” I started, the dumbest of all dumb ideas forming in my head. “You’re right, Court.”

He gave me a wary look. “I am?”

“You have a past, and that’s fine.”

“Everyone does, Becca. Even you.” He gave me a hard look.

I frowned. “What?” Uh, unless kissing counted, I was underwhelmingly without a past.

He scoffed. “What was it you said when we were in Montana? I wasn’t your first, second or third?”

I quickly searched through my memories of the time we’d spent in Montana, hiding out from Maddie’s and Ryan’s insane fathers and creating a plan to take them down. And yes, that was when Court and I had had our most intense falling out—after I found out he’d lied about why he’d abandoned me years earlier.

---