Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
J USTIN
His hand is on her shoulders. So close to her chest. Somewhere even I haven’t been. Fuck. I look at his face and imagine how I’ll break his perfect nose. Just like he did mine in high school, so we can be even.
“Jus,” Alex says calmly just as Kayla disappears in her junk box. “Man, you’re a fucking idiot.”
I let out a low growl. I need to calm the fuck down—but I’m so close to losing it. We both know what he’s been doing; it works every single time. The motherfucker knows just the right buttons to push.
“Why didn’t you come to me?” He wipes his face with his hand. “I could have helped you.”
“And how would you do that? Erase the last six years from my memory?” I snap .
“No.” He clears his throat. “But we could… you know, talk about your feelings and shit.”
“About my feelings? You mean the fucking guilt that’s eating me alive right now?” I hiss, smacking a fist over my chest.
“No, the guilt that’s been eating at you for years.” He crosses his arms.
“Yeah, and now it’s ten times worse.” I spread my arms as wide as I can.
“I know. I mean, wow. It’s all fucked up.” He whistles. He always does that when he’s overwhelmed, and it’s annoying as fuck.
“Tell me about that.” My anger deflates.
A minute ago, I wanted a fight. I was craving it.
I was craving physical pain that maybe—just maybe—would replace the emotional one.
A broken bone, a split lip—anything would do.
And Alex knew it. The fucker wanted to rile me up.
He knew what hugging Kayla would do to me.
He always knew how much I hated that I had the hots for her, and now all he had to do was to touch her and my possessive side would come out to play.
Fuck, why did he have to start talking about feelings ?
Kayla’s been causing a ruckus in my brain since the day I first noticed her.
She was eighteen, five years younger than me but looked all twenty.
I was a marine back then, in my glory years.
I couldn’t get involved with someone so much younger than me.
Back then, five years seemed like fifteen.
So I kept my distance. Even when I noticed her puppy eyes every time she looked at me.
All I had to do was walk up to her and smile, and she’d be putty in my hands. But I wasn’t that man.
I enjoyed watching her. I saw her change from a spirited girl to a highly opinionated woman who stood her ground.
A woman who kept adding art to her body no matter what the town thought of her for doing so.
And I loved what I saw. At that point, she was like a light at the end of the tunnel I was never going to reach.
I never planned on acting on my obsession with her; I just enjoyed watching one woman being so different and so…
herself . I didn’t even want to get any closer. I didn’t want to destroy her.
Until that night. That night I stopped admiring her, and the hate began.
Even through the haze of crimson in my eyes, I noticed her.
Noticed that she was there. I tend to ignore my surroundings and become a one-task man.
It happens with everything I do: working—that’s how I got my own auto shop without the help of my dad’s money, fighting—I always win, fucking—they always come back for more.
But I noticed her and heard her. I still remember what she wore: black ripped jeans and a pink flowy top with open shoulders.
Her hair had blue in it, and she had a few less tattoos than she has now.
I noticed her, saw her, and hated her on the spot.
She was protecting the other guy. It didn’t matter that I nearly beat him to death and that my girlfriend sat in the car after telling me that that asshole deserved it for forcing himself on her.
No. None of that mattered. What mattered was that she protected him . I hated her for it.
Later that night, my sister was raped, and I hated the whole world. I thought she was the one who called the cops on me, resulting in me not getting to Alicia on time; I had a valid reason to hate her. A very valid one.
Until I didn’t have it anymore.
Until I’m left to face the truth. One that I’m simply not ready to face.
I can’t hate her anymore, which means all that hatred gets redirected to myself.
I was the only one to blame. I was. Still am.
I’m not ready for that. I’m not prepared for the world as I know it to not only do a one-eighty on me but a three-sixty. All in the same week.
“So, what are you gonna do about it?” Alex rubs the nape of his neck.
“About what exactly?” I ask with a humorless laugh.
“About Kayla. Ashley. Everything, really.” He whistles again. “I don’t even know where you’d start with that.”
“I wish I knew. I want to destroy Ashley’s life.
I want to so fucking bad. For Alicia and for Kayla.
And for all the shit she’s done over the years that I closed my eyes to.
But fuck, man, someone needs to destroy me for the same thing.
” My eyes tingle, and I hate that my nonexistent allergies are coming back.
“Yeah, Ashley needs to get what she deserves,” Alex agrees instantly.
“It’s not like I can go and punch her in the face.
” I’ve thought about the many things I know and how I could use them against her, but I don’t have an actual plan on how to do so.
If she were a man, it would be a different story, but she’s not, so the task is much more difficult than I initially thought.
“Maybe you should mention it to Freya; she’d do it in a heartbeat.” Alex chuckles.
“Aren’t you worried about your girlfriend?” I raise a brow.
“Please,” he snorts. “You haven’t seen her mad. I’d like to see the poor sucker who dares to go after someone she loves.”
I chuckle, imagining Freya punching anyone. Kayla, on the other hand… A tiny Valkyrie on a war path—that I can picture vividly. Fuck, what do I do with Kayla now?
“And what about Kayla?” he asks after a pause, reading my mind .
I groan, hanging my head low. “I wish I fucking knew. I don’t know what I want to do with her.”
“I do,” he announces with a smile.
“Please, share with the class, asshole.” I wave for him to continue.
“Well,” he swaggers toward me, “I’d start by explaining the maniacal intensity you had there when we were talking. How about that, huh?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I deadpan.
“Of course,” he says with an eye roll. “You don’t have a clue why you wanted to take my head off just a moment ago?
Right. Everything was super cool. Super chill.
” His hands are on his hips, and he reminds me of a housewife chewing out her husband for coming home late.
“You’re gonna destroy her. You know how you are with women, and she’s Freya’s friend.
She’s my friend.” He shakes his head. “You’ll get her out of your system with a fuck, but where will it leave her ? ”
“I’m not planning on doing anything with her.” My hackles rise. “It was a moment of weakness, that’s all.” I wave at him and force a smile on my face.
He slowly walks as if trying to cage a wild animal. “Dude, I always suspected that you had the hots for her, but not at that level. You were ready to kill me, and for what? For comforting her when everyone’s been shitting on her?”
I feel a wave of shame shooting up my neck at his words, but I look him deep in the eyes anyway, hoping he’ll understand the gravity of my words. “I won’t hurt her.”
“Do you want me to remind you?” He raises an eyebrow. “All you’ve done is hurt her.”
“I haven’t felt… that… yet for anybody. You know I’ve been a little… obsessed with her. I mean, I know it’s not really healthy, but I can’t change the way I feel.” I lift a shoulder.
His sigh is audible and heavy. “Fuck. What are you gonna do?”
I glance in the direction Kayla disappeared. “See how I can fix this major fuck up.”
“This?” He points his finger between us.
“No.” It’s my turn to sigh. “The years that I treated her like shit.”
“Good luck with that.” His chuckle is dark, and I feel like he might know more than I do.
In fact, I’m sure he does. Kayla spends a lot of time with Freya.
Alex must know some extra info, and he better share it with me.
“But seriously though,” he grabs the front of my shirt into his fist, “don’t fuck it up more than you already have.
You hurt her, and we repeat those bleachers.
Are we clear on that?” He pulls me closer.
The bleachers. Where he punched me for talking shit to our new teacher at school. She was so young. Fresh out of college and thrown into the snake pit that was our high school. I didn’t make her life easy, and at one point, Alex had had enough.
And there’s nothing more I want right now than to punch him in the face, but I also respect him at the same time; he’s trying to protect her because God knows, nobody else does.
I sure as fuck never did; I just kept adding to her misery.
She doesn’t have it easy. Just look at her living condition, for fuck’s sake.
She lives in a trailer. One might think that when she got on her feet, she would have gotten herself a decent place.
Sure, it looks super clean, and I might even say cozy, but it’s still a trailer.
During winter in Maine, at the bottom of the mountain where she lives alone.
Fuck, I need to check if anything needs maintaining in there. Did her heating even work the past winter? It was cold. I had to unfreeze my car lock almost every single morning because it constantly got stuck.
Where does she get her water from? She’s tiny.
How does she manage to get the tank up? Does somebody come to help her?
It must be somebody big to get that shit up there.
Fuck! Who helps her? Is it Mark? Because that dude’s been sniffing around her for a few weeks, I’ve noticed.
And that strange feeling I had while I was there?
Like someone was watching me. Was it someone who lives nearby and is close to her?
“Damn, man. That look.” Alex begins laughing like a maniac.
“You got it bad . I’m not even sure who I should be scared more for, Kayla or you .
” He’s laughing so hard he has to bend over, resting his hands on his knees.
When he’s finally done, he wipes the tears from his eyes and speaks. “For real, though, don’t mess it up.”
“Why are you so concerned all of a sudden?” I fold my arms and narrow my eyes at him.
“I look out for you. Both of you. You did the same for me… us….” He’s referring to when I warned him about messing with Freya.
But I didn’t do anything special, just simply told him to pull his head out of his ass when it kept getting stuck every time Freya was around. “I’m just returning the favor.”