14. Knee-Jerk #2
His face changes from one of feigned charm to reveal the disdainful monster underneath that he hides so well.
“Breathe a word of our history, and I’ll destroy this cozy little existence you’ve managed to build for yourself over the years. I’ll take you, your little brother, and your whole goddamned family down, so keep your catty little mouth shut,” he growls.
I’m so vividly thrown back in time that my brain glitches out for a moment, trapped between the past and the present, and if it weren’t for the wall behind me, I probably would have ended up in the ground.
“Trust me, the last thing I want anyone here to know is that I ever had anything to do with you. Stay the fuck away from me.”
I somehow manage to pull every fiber of fight left in my body to keep myself standing with my head held high, even though everything in me is screaming to run.
A flash of something that looks like lust passes through his eyes, and my stomach twists as his lips curl into an unfriendly smile.
“Such a shame,” he drawls, lifting his hand to caress the edge of my mouth.
I wrench my head out of his grasp quickly, and he chuckles with dark amusement.
“You’ve got more fight in you now than you did back then. Sure, you don’t want me to tame you?” he purrs suggestively before leaning in like he’s going to kiss me.
My brain screeches to a complete halt with the most resounding ‘NO’ it’s ever cried, and before I even make the conscious decision to do so, my knee is coming up fast and hard. A swift knee to the groin and Kingston falls to the ground in pain.
My lips curl up in a snarl as I step back out of his grasp. “You have no idea who you’re dealing with anymore. You couldn’t tame me if you tried. Touch me again, and I’ll detach your balls from your body,” I growl before getting as far away from him as possible.
Idon’t know how I managed to square off with Kingston as well as I did, but all the reserves I had built up were completely depleted the moment I was out of his line of sight. I barely made it to the nearest restroom before emptying the contents of my stomach.
Why here? Why now?
For the most part, I thought I’d moved on from this.
I rarely ever think about it anymore at all, except on the rare occasions I get a little too chummy with my hook-ups, a little too enamored, or shy around them.
And even aside from the first time the memories tried to resurface with Marcus, they’ve stayed mostly silent since then, even though I’ve been feeling more for him than I ever have for anyone else.
If I hadn’t been over it, they would have been kicking and screaming with full force because of Marcus.
Setting aside all the stupid excuses I've been using to deny that I have feelings for Marcus, there’s no denying, even now, while completely spiraling from all of this shit, that I’m falling harder for him than I ever have for anyone.
I’ve only been denying it tooth and nail because I’m drop-dead terrified that he’ll turn out the same as Kingston, or that he’ll get too close and lose interest, and my heart will shatter all over again.
While I’ve spent way too long imagining the million different ways of letting Marcus in and then having it all fall apart and break me all over again, it never crossed my mind that instead of those completely feasible scenarios, the universe would align to bring my worst nightmare back in the flesh to remind me of the price of letting someone in.
My stomach churns sickeningly, and I desperately need to get out of here and get home.
I don’t know if I can get off this floor, though.
My head is spinning, and my knees are weak.
It took every bit of physical strength I had to uphold the mental toll of maintaining a resting bitch face until I could get away from him.
Newsflash: when you’re facing down your past demons, maintaining a resting bitch face isn’t very restful.
Qi, Tristan, and Marcus are all in practice by now.
Not that any of them wouldn’t come running if they knew I needed them, just that their phones are in lockers and not with them, so I have no way to reach them.
I lean my head back in defeat for a moment and think of what I would have done last year, before they were all here with me, and Natasha’s face pops up into my mind.
She’s the closest friend that I’ve made since starting at ISU.
We met at the beginning of our first year here, when we almost hooked up at a party and realized our instant chemistry was definitely not sexual.
However, she became my first friend and sounding board.
She’s the only person here, aside from Qi, Tristan, and Marcus, who knows anything about Kingston at all.
If anyone is gonna understand me right now, it’s gonna be her.
She picks up on the second ring. “Well, hello, Sugarplum. I was starting to think you’d forgotten me. I haven’t heard from you since last semester,” she answers with a playful pout in her voice.
If it were any other time, I would probably feel guilty at her statement because I’ve been too preoccupied with getting into the swing of classes, spending time with Qi, and pretending this crush on Marcus doesn’t exist, that I haven’t reached out to her at all, when that’s always been the first thing I do when I get back on campus after a break.
“Natasha?” I rasp out weakly, a mixture of feeling guilty for not feeling as guilty as I should and relief at hearing her familiar, sweet cadence.
“Where are you?” Her teasing lilt switches to serious so fast I’d have whiplash if I had the energy to move my head right now.
“Are you on campus? I’m in the bathroom on the first floor of the economics hall.”
“Yeah, I just got out of a class. Are you in the guys or girls bathroom?” she asks with her breath jarring a bit, which tells me she’s moving briskly in my direction.
“I honestly don’t remember.” I close my eyes, hating myself for being this fucking weak after so many years.
I knew he still lurked in the recesses of my mind; I just never stopped to ponder what his actual presence might do to me, or that it had the power to knock my knees right out from under me. I’m so wholly ashamed to be this affected after all this time, and believing I’d mostly moved past this.
“I’m on my way,” she says breathlessly. “Just hang tight.”
It doesn’t take very long at all before the door slams and the click-clack of strappy sandals sounds on the linoleum floor.
“Qiang?” Natasha calls out tentatively, and I release the breath I was holding with relief.
Obviously, Kingston wasn’t wearing anything that would sound like strappy sandals, but my brain isn’t functioning properly right now. Maybe if it were, I would have registered the sound of the door echoing, having heard it both in the room and through the phone.
“I’m here,” I call out, reaching up to unlock the stall door that I’m in.
Natasha’s pretty face appears in the doorway as she takes me in.
Something inside my chest loosens exponentially as I take in her bouncy, chaotic curls, her facial piercings that make her look much more severe than she really is, and the eclectic layering of scarves and vintage jewelry that is so her.
“Well, for fuck’s sake, Qiang, you look unusually shitty,” she says lightly to mask the worry that is evident in her hazel eyes and the slight downturn of her glossy lips.
“There’s always room for an anomaly,” I snort weakly, going for a bit of humor.
She rolls her eyes as her frown loosens up a bit. “At least I know you’re not dying if you still have your sense of humor,” she teases a bit as she leans down to feel my forehead. “You don’t have a fever. Did you eat something bad?”
I shake my head. “No, not sick. He–” I start to say, but I choke on the words and end up huffing out some jagged mixture of something with a sardonic laugh that came out sounding more like a wounded cat sighing.
“He?” Her eyes widen, and she starts taking me in more. “Did someone hurt you?” she hisses out angrily, her eyes taking a cursory glance, probably looking for wounds now. Not that she’d find any; the wounds are internal, not external.
“No, can you just help me home, please? Do you have time? If not, I can wait for–”
She shakes her head and interrupts me before I can finish. “No need to wait, Sugarplum. What’s your personal therapist for if it isn’t to help you in times of trouble?”
I sigh in relief because I really don’t want to keep sitting in this dingy, unsanitary bathroom until Qi gets out of practice.
“You are an odd one, but I don’t know what I’d do without you,” I breathe out, and she just laughs at me.
“That’s the best compliment I think you’ve ever given me,” she says with a toss of her curls.
Once Natasha and I get to her car, I spend the fifteen-minute ride home filling her in on what happened.
Not that there was really that much to say, but more because there were so many stops and starts, tripping over words and trying to convey emotions that fought tooth and nail against me revealing them.
The more I spoke, the more I realized how much everything hurt and how completely not ready I was for this confrontation.
She takes it all in, staying quiet while I try so hard to get everything out, despite my brain’s natural reaction to keep it all in.
I’d never have been able to express this much if it had been anyone other than her or Qi, and the nasty coiling in my stomach tells me how unhappy my system is that I’ve said so much, regardless of whether I trust the company I’m in or not.
Her response was completely horrified, as it should be.
Not so much that he showed up, because as she pointed out, it is the best school on this side of the country, with the best football team, but more because he didn’t start here straight out of high school.
While the school he went to right out of high school is a huge competitor to ISU, it’s not as good, and his dad is all about Kingston doing, being, and having the best.