2. Evie
Evie
DICKWAD
Evie come on
it doesn’t have to be like this
EVIE
stop texting me and go put your tongue down Felicity’s throat again
DICKWAD
just come upstairs and be civil
EVIE
take your civility and shove it up your ass
and while you’re at it swallow a cheese grater
Rage like I’ve never felt before consumes my very being, the hot sting of betrayal fueling my arms as I repeatedly bring the baseball bat down on Carter’s car.
I haven’t stopped screaming since I started.
I don’t even care how much trouble I get in.
Taking a bat to his car is better than running upstairs and smashing it against them.
“They fucking know!” I scream.
They know.
A growl that sounds more animal than human escapes me as I spin on my heel and swing the baseball bat back before screaming once more and bringing it down on her car. “Two-faced whore!”
My deluded, crappy, lazy, unhygienic ex? I expected this from him, a part of me waiting for him to finally cross that physical line with his coworker, the one I knew from the beginning that I had a reason to worry about despite him saying I didn’t.
That I was prepared for.
So many times, I built myself up to dump his pathetic, manipulating, gaslighting, man-child ass, but then something would happen. A birthday, a holiday, Christmas, a loved one passing. There was always fucking something tethering me to him.
The moment I saw him in our bed fucking her, the first thing I felt was relief.
Two years with someone and all I felt in that moment was liberation.
I was free. This was too big for him to try and gaslight me.
I saw with my own eyes that he was cheating.
He couldn’t spin this on me. Couldn’t hurt me and then end up manipulating me to the point where I was the one apologizing for hurting his feelings because I expressed that he had upset me.
Then I saw who he was fucking.
And everything changed.
“You fucking manipulative bitch!” I shriek as I take the bat to her headlights.
I’m lifting my arms to swing again, another string of curses at the ready, when a pair of sneakers come into my line of sight. Turning my head, I stumble, the bat still over my head as I lock on the pair of forest-green eyes I always seek in a room full of people.
The breath rushes from me. The pain coursing through me stops, the fire that was burning like an inferno evaporating.
“Matteo?”
I’m blessed with one of his rare smiles, but it’s full of sadness as he drawls, “Hi, Dove.”
“What are you doing here?”
That’s when he lifts the object in his hand. My eyes widen as his smile turns from sad to mischievous. Swinging the crowbar around his hand, he lifts his chin to the damaged cars beside me. “To help, of course.”
Sputtering out a shocked laugh, I ask, “You’re going to smash his car?”
“Gladly.” He quirks a brow, pointing to the red Honda Civic I began destroying. “I take it this is his coworker’s car?”
My head rears back. “How did you know about the coworker?”
A flash of something flickers in his eyes before the telltale Matteo Valenti wall slams up, the impenetrable fortress I’ve been trying to conquer since I met him at five years old securely clicking in place.
He waves the crowbar in the direction of the cars.
“Caleb told me. If it’s not the coworker, then who the fuck is it? ”
“Felicity,” I spit, my rage rushing back tenfold.
Matteo’s shoulders tighten, his green eyes flicking to the elevator behind me and back to the car. “Felicity? As in—”
“My supposed best friend? Yep, the one and only.” I can’t help but snort. “Honestly, who knew she had it in her? I sure as fuck didn’t.”
Matteo stares at me, clearly feeling as dumbfounded and shocked as I did when I saw her limp, dark-brown hair fanned out across my pillow.
Felicity is the type of girl you can’t disagree with.
It’s her way or the highway. She’ll ruthlessly snap at you to respect her boundaries but turn around and walk all over yours.
She’ll disregard your feelings in favor of what she wants, flinging back-handed compliments at you with a smile on her face, and yet you won’t notice until you’re seven years into a friendship and she’s fucking your boyfriend.
She’s the type of girl that’s so manipulative she has everyone wrapped around her finger.
And apparently, I was one of them.
She is many things, but I never thought she would stoop this low. If I had, I never would have told her everything I have.
Matteo shakes his head, pinching the bridge of his nose before pulling in a deep breath and rolling his shoulders back. “Fuck this.”
Before I can blink, Matteo smashes the crowbar down on the hood of Felicity’s car, leaving a much bigger dent than I ever could have accomplished. He peers at me over his shoulder. “Well, Dove, am I the only one that’s going to be arrested tonight for vandalism?”
Dove.
The name he’s called me since we were little, the one he refuses to explain and the one that, despite the current situation, my heart still skips a beat at.
“You’d willingly get arrested for me?”
In answer, Matteo also brings the crowbar down on Carter’s car.
Waving off my question, I snort. “You’re right. Fuck it.” Matteo is a big boy; he can make his own decisions. If he wants to do this with me, that’s his prerogative.
Pointing the bat at Felicity’s car, I hiss, “This is for being a controlling bitch.” I crack the headlight, the sound of shattering glass music to my ears.
“This is for betraying me at my lowest.” This hit is harder than the last, breaking the windshield into tiny spiderweb-like cracks.
“And this, my dear bestie, is for fucking my scum-of-the-earth boyfriend.” I smash the driver-side window, whooping with joy as the glass explodes, most of it covering her seat.
I sound bonkers. I can hear the hysteria in my laugh and yet I can’t find a single fuck to give about it.
“Try sitting down now, you bitch!” I declare triumphantly.
I wipe the tears that are rolling down my cheeks, expecting to find Matteo watching my breakdown, but he’s nowhere to be seen.
Frowning, I call out, “Valenti?”
A scoff has me rounding the Honda to find him at the back of Carter’s car, kneeling. “I told you to call me Matteo.”
“And I’ve told you that I like calling you Valenti.”
He lifts those gorgeous forest-green eyes to mine, the contact freezing me to the spot. “You called me Matteo earlier.”
I shrug. “I’m in clear emotional distress. I was shocked, and you caught me off guard.”
The last person I was expecting to not only come here but to join me on this vandalism escapade was Matteo, and saying his first name has always done things to my insides.
Things that I’ve had to suppress for a long twenty years, so no, I will not start calling him by his name, especially not now when I feel so emotionally raw.
Valenti is safer. Valenti is what my brother calls him. Valenti reminds me that he’s never been mine and never will be.
Careful not to stand on the glass littered between the two traitors’ cars, I peek over the back of the banged-up BMW. “What are you doing down there, by the way?”
“Shoving a potato in his exhaust pipe.”
“First of all, very imaginative, so I know you didn’t come up with that on your own. And second, where did you get said potato from?”
Valenti snorts. “I’m offended you think I lack imagination.”
“Have you met yourself?”
Matteo blinks.
Rolling my hand, I urge him to continue. “Come on, cough it up, where did you get the potato from?”
“My apartment.”
“You brought a potato with you?”
“I brought a lot of things with me.”
“Why?”
He stands, wiping his hands on his jeans, not the least bit concerned with the dirt that stains it. “For optimal damage.”
My brow quirks. “You really are trying to go to prison, aren’t you?” Narrowing my eyes, I lean forward conspiratorially. “Have you got a prison fantasy you’re trying to live out, Valenti?”
Matteo’s lip twitches before he shoves the smile down and picks up his crowbar once more. “I think I’d look good in orange.”
“You’d look good in anything. Doesn’t mean you should wear a jumpsuit to prove a point.”
“You think I look good in anything, Dove?”
“I think a raccoon would look sexy right now if it was destroying Carter’s beloved car.”
A muscle feathers in Matteo’s jaw. Turning on his heel, he walks back to his car, rummaging around in the trunk.
Huffing out a breath, I look to the elevator to my left, the only one that leads to the apartments.
My mind begins to whirl. “Son of a bitch.” I check the time on my phone and realize I’ve been down here for forty minutes.
“They didn’t stop fucking.” Indignation and another wave of madness rush through me. “They haven’t even stopped fucking!”
Matteo’s strides eat up the distance between us. He places something in my hands and by the time I realize what it is, the sound of rushing air has my eyes snapping up.
“Only slash three,” Matteo declares as he plunges the blade into another one of Felicity’s tires. “Slash all four and insurance will cover it.”
My eyes practically glow with glee. Skipping over to Carter’s car, I let out a guttural scream as I stab the blade down.
“You piece of shit man child!” I rip the blade from the tire, the whoosh of air satisfying my need for revenge.
But staring at his broken car isn’t enough.
Turning to face Matteo, I blurt out, “Did you know I had to beg him to brush his teeth?”
Matteo stops mid-strike, the blade a mere inch from one of Carter’s tires. “I’m sorry, what did you just say?”
“I had to beg him to brush his teeth. Sometimes it would be two, three o’clock in the afternoon and he still hadn’t brushed his teeth.”
Matteo isn’t an expressive person—his cards are always close to his chest. But this time, with his wide eyes and slack jaw, I know exactly what he’s thinking.
I hold up a hand. “You can judge me for my choices later. Right now, they’re still up there fucking, not caring that they got caught, so that optimal damage you spoke of, can we do that now?
” A hysterical bubble of laughter rises in my chest, but it doesn’t hold an ounce of humor.
“Honestly, I don’t think anything we do can stop the knowledge that my best friend is still—”
I’m cut off by bile, the image of Carter moving over her, my supposed best friend clawing at his back as she moaned my boyfriend’s name.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” I announce bluntly, as if discussing something as mundane as the weather.
It’s the only warning Matteo gets before I’m leaning forward and vomiting all over Carter’s car.
A gentle hand lands on my back, and then my hair is pulled back from my face. “It’s okay, Evie. Let it all out.”
His voice, his tone—it’s soft, the softest I’ve ever heard it.
I should be mortified. I’m a hot mess, and yet I can’t find a shred of dignity to feel embarrassed. All I feel is the betrayal, the knowledge that the two people in this world that I opened up to, the people I bared my soul to, just betrayed me in the most hurtful way.
Carter changed that night. It was already getting bad between us. The facade, the mask he wore to lure me in, was slowly peeling off, but after that night, he tore it from his face and showed me how ugly he is on the inside.
I confessed to Felicity after an impromptu breakdown. Both of them know how much pain I’m in right now. They know how badly I’m struggling.
For fuck’s sake, I got fired today because my head is so far up in the clouds that I’ve made too many mistakes to come back from.
I haven’t slept in months, can barely close my eyes for a second before memories flash behind my eyelids, ones so haunting I wouldn’t even wish them upon Carter or Felicity.
I am barely holding on by a thread.
I’ve lost my childhood.
I’ve lost my sanity.
My job.
My best friend.
My boyfriend.
I have lost everything.
The only person I had left to call was Caleb, and I guess, in turn, Matteo. One is never far from the other, and if they are, they’re constantly in contact. I swear, you’d think they are related, not Caleb and me.
My bile is quickly replaced by tears that won’t stop flowing. My knees give way but Matteo is there to catch me. He always has been, ever since I was a little girl.
My cries are turning hysterical I know that and I’m not even that sad over Carter, not really. He was a horrible partner, but it’s more so about who he cheated on me with. It’s the fact they both know what I’m facing and decided to pour more pain into my life.
“How could she?” I hear myself whisper. “She knows. She knows how much I’m hurting.” Clutching my chest to try and stop the ache, I beg, “Please make it stop. Just make the pain stop.”
Not needing to hear anything more, Matteo’s arms come around me, the baseball bat dropping from my hand with the movement.
It falls to the ground, hitting the shards of glass.
Laying my head on his chest, I’m too distraught to think about wiping the mascara off my face before it stains his white shirt.
I’m too far gone to notice anything besides the misery slamming into my heart like a freight train.
Why does everyone who’s meant to protect me hurt me?
I didn’t realize we were moving, Matteo scooping me up and carrying me, until he gently places me in the passenger seat of his car.
His car is a short one, a sleek Mercedes sedan, so it forces Matteo to get on his knees.
If I weren’t so fucked up in the head right now, I’d be making a joke about him getting on his knees for me, but nothing seems to penetrate through my mind but pain these days.
Tears are filling my eyes so quickly that no matter how much I blink, my vision never clears. Matteo’s beautiful face keeps smudging and blurring as he leans over and buckles me in.
“What is your apartment number?” he asks gently.
I hiccup but manage to croak out, “Thirty-four.”
His finger lifts, his thumb capturing one of my many tears as he wipes it away. “Stay here, Dove.”
The door closes and before I can register what he said, I watch out his front windshield as Matteo strides toward the elevator, murder gleaming along his features as he steps inside.