Chapter 24 #2
Oli hovered behind KC, not close enough for me to touch. His lips pressed together while he hunched his shoulders. Hiding. I hated that I’d made him want to crawl back into his shell.
Now I sat here while they waited to hear excuses. No, not excuses. Truths. I scrubbed my hands over my face and winced when I accidentally bumped my nose. A sharp spike of pain zapped through me and I groaned.
“Don’t touch it,” KC ordered, a hint of authority in his voice I didn’t think I’d heard before. He was gentle. Caring. He never told people what to do. Until now, apparently. Maybe he was more dominant when he was mad. I enjoyed learning new things about him.
“I didn’t lie to Luke in the shop. At first, I wanted to use you both.
” Why did it hurt so much to tell them this?
My stomach dropped with the weight of lead and a heaviness pressed down on my chest. If I fucked up this conversation, I’d lose them.
All I had to do was talk. Why was it so hard?
I swallowed around the tightness in my throat, words catching on a lump forming there.
I thought back to my parents, to how easily Father lied to Mother, and how she’d done the same.
They lied like it was a competition, and even though they knew the other wasn’t telling the truth, they let it go.
They didn’t love each other. Their relationship was a business agreement.
A mutual understanding. I don’t care what you do, as long as you don’t get in my way.
I didn’t want what they had, but that meant opening up.
“I’m not good at this.” I groaned as KC unzipped the kit and pulled out some alcohol wipes, immediately getting to work at wiping down the skin under my nose.
He was methodical but gentle, like he didn’t want to hurt me even if he was angry, and I appreciated the sentiment despite what I’d done to them.
“You need to tell us what happened if you want us to give you a chance.” KC’s words were direct. Simple. “Or you lose us.”
And that was the ultimatum. Communicate or they’d leave me for good. I’d be nothing but a memory. A bad one.
There was no choice. I chose them. I had to.
“I only planned to be with you at first, KC. I was going to date you and then break your heart.” My voice trembled, and I took a breath to steady myself. “You heard what I said to Luke. I wanted revenge.”
“For Andrea?” KC glanced briefly at Oli, and I recognized the small gesture for what it was. He was checking in with him, making sure he was okay with this.
Oli was still, so motionless he resembled a statue. He watched KC’s fingers, but his breaths were small and unsteady. Shaky. He was waiting for me to make things worse, but I wouldn’t let that happen. I couldn’t give either of them up.
“She was my babysitter. You saw a picture of her.” My throat grew tight and I cleared it, wincing when KC touched the bridge of my nose.
“I don’t think it’s broken. You’re lucky. Pa can be lethal.” KC scrunched up his nose. “He was pulling his punches.”
“Pulling his punches?” I laughed at the absurdity, then stopped when KC gave me a serious look. Who was Quain Beaumont? I thought about asking, but I had a feeling KC wouldn’t tell me.
Weirdly, I enjoyed that there was some mystery in this situation. It gave me something to be curious about.
“Andrea,” Oli prompted, creeping closer with his arms folded over his chest. He shifted his weight between his feet nervously.
“Right.” I rubbed the back of my neck before tilting my chin to give KC room to clean me up.
“Andrea was my babysitter. She was around Luke’s age.
About sixteen or something. She liked him.
A lot. I don’t know if he realized. Anyway, she came into my room one day crying.
She knew she could hide there. I was ten and she’d been like a big sister to me.
She always protected me. Always took care of me.
I asked her what was wrong, and she said Luke called her fat.
Said she was bigger than Trisha Morgan. I don’t know.
She was a teenage girl. She took it to heart. I guess . . . .”
KC grabbed a pair of tweezers from the kit and pointed at a stool with wheels near a tool cabinet. Oli grabbed it and shifted it over, and KC gave him a smile in thanks as he sat down. Then, he slid closer and began to remove the glass from my arms.
“I guess Luke is right, though. Trisha had her own issues. She was anorexic. Fighting her own battle. But like I said, I was ten. Didn’t see it that way. Just knew Luke had insulted Andrea and made her cry—fuck!” I winced away when KC yanked out a large shard of glass.
“Sorry.” KC flinched. “Hold still. This needs to be done.”
A sound suspiciously like a chuckle spilled from Oli before he slapped a palm over his mouth and smothered it. “You can handle a body full of tattoos but not someone pulling teeny pieces of glass from your arms?”
“This is different,” I grumbled. I’d grown used to the feeling of getting ink, and this pain was new. It better not ruin my tattoos. The thought made me sick. I loved my artwork.
“You were saying about Andrea,” KC said quietly, voice kinder than I’d expected.
Since I’d started, it had grown easier to tell them. Words fell from my lips, not giving me time to overthink what I was saying. It was funny how much simpler this was than lying.
“Yeah. So, Luke left LA a couple years later. Went to live with our uncle here in New Gothenburg.” I frowned, the rejection still raw despite the time that had passed.
Luke was the only sibling I liked, and he’d left me without a word to deal with our parents and robot brother and sister on my own. I hated him for abandoning me.
“Andrea spiraled. Like I said, I was a kid, so I didn’t understand.
Sometimes I heard her in the bathroom, vomiting.
I just thought she was sick. But it was constant.
I was worried about her and told my mother.
” The corner of my mouth raised in disgust. “Luke’s probably told you about our parents, but they aren’t the best people.
Mother came from money. She’s always been coldhearted.
She told me every young woman went through what Andrea was.
I believed her. I didn’t realize it was a problem. ”
KC’s mouth downturned sadly as he continued to clean me up.
He was careful, dropping the shards onto a hubcap near the first aid kit.
I didn’t know if it’d been there the whole time, but I looked at the growing amount of glass.
I was lucky the table seemed to have been made of some sort of safety glass—which meant it busted up into little pieces—or I could’ve been headed to the hospital instead of sitting here.
Oli shifted even closer, his hip bumping my shoulder.
“Another year went by, no one helped. I still thought it was normal. She was so skinny.” I ground my teeth, forcing back the anger that burned in my chest. If someone had helped her, maybe she wouldn’t be dead.
If I’d known what had been happening with her, maybe I could’ve convinced her to get help.
“She killed herself. Took too many of her absent mom’s Xanax while drinking alcohol.
I don’t know if she meant to do it, all I know is that the cops turned up at our house.
Her mom wasn’t home, they couldn’t get ahold of her, and they knew Andrea worked for us.
” I laughed, caught in the rage. “Imagine that. The only real family she had was the family she worked for, and not even my parents gave a shit. I was the only one who cared. The only one who grieved her.”
I shook my head, pressure settling heavily in my lungs.
I’d spent so many years with the festering anger and the promise for revenge.
Her mom had died a few years after Andrea from her own drug overdose, so I could never get my vengeance with her.
And the rage that boiled inside me focused on Luke.
On the words that started Andrea’s downfall.
“So yeah, I came to New Gothenburg for retribution.” I hissed when KC yanked out the last piece of glass, then grabbed an alcohol wipe to begin cleaning. The alcohol burned my cuts, but I knew they needed to be disinfected. “I had plans. First, I wanted to destroy the people around Luke.”
Oli gasped. “PD.” He pointed an accusing finger at me. “You targeted PD’s shop. That’s why yours is too close to his.”
My shoulders slumped. How the fuck was I feeling guilty about this? Okay, the answer to that one was easy. Oli and KC. They’d changed everything in ways I hadn’t predicted. “Yeah, I did.”
“You asshole.” Oli punched me on the shoulder, and while it wasn’t hard, the anger and frustration was there. And I understood. “Who else were you going to hurt?”
“It was a long-term plan. PD was the beginning. It’s easy to mess with someone’s business.
KC was the next objective.” I steeled my jaw, glad I couldn’t see the wounded expression in KC’s eyes while he cleaned me up.
“You were supposed to be later, but things changed when you showed up at PD’s. I improvised.”
“Improvised?” Oli’s voice wobbled. “Fuck.”
I tensed. Oli didn’t swear that way unless he was really upset.
He never dropped F-bombs in casual conversation.
Regret lanced through my chest as KC began placing bandages on the bigger cuts on my arms. His fingers were gentle but also firm, like he was struggling with the decision of whether to hurt me or not.
“I’d prepared to be here for years, slowly dismantling Luke’s life.
Brick by brick. But then things changed.
” I lowered my chin, studying their faces with careful consideration.
KC was better at keeping the pain hidden, but it was there under the layer of nonchalance.
Oli was more open, raw, and exposed with emotions bleeding from his gaze. “I fell in love with both of you.”