Chapter 27 Vale #2
He lowers the Blow Pop, his mouth parting as his steps slow. Whether or not his new little family notices and hangs back, I couldn’t say. I only have eyes for him.
“Vale?”
I tell myself to look away. To get in my car and get the fuck out of here. But something glues me to the spot.
What happened? I think stupidly, as if he could read my mind.
And yet, I still find myself scanning his face—what little I can make out from all the way over here—observing his demeanor…looking for some sign, anything, to indicate what happened with Headmaster Locke and the cops.
He’s leaving with his family, and not cuffed in a patrol car, so that’s a good sign. He’s eighteen after all. It’s not just expulsion from school he’d be facing.
The kid—Eden—having realized Aston stopped, backtracks, and grabs his arm to drag him along. Again, there’s this…flare of senseless rage I feel squeezing my chest and darkening the edges of my vision.
Eden, having noticed the direction of Aston’s stare, frowns when he spots me. No, scowls like he’s pissed.
Did Aston tell him about me? About us…about last week, what I did…
“Vale.” This time, my name is bitten out with a snap of fingers and impatient stomp.
Right. Seth…
Fuck me.
Remembering why he came over here, I’m not really thinking things through when I snap, “Fine. Just…get in the car.”
Glancing at Seth, I don’t miss the way he perks up, a satisfied smirk twisting his lips as he rounds the car. Nor do I miss the smug look he shoots across the hood and past me, over to where Aston was standing just a moment ago.
Obviously, he wasn’t oblivious to Aston’s arrival…to our little stand-off. If anything, now Seth just looks all the more determined to chat and…prove something.
Aston allows Eden to drag him away, but his face is twisted over his shoulder. I can’t read his expression from here, but it doesn’t feel quite so much as the vicious glare I’ve come to associate with him anytime Seth is involved…
But something darker.
Something that looks a lot like betrayal.
Maybe even…hurt.
It’s for the best, a voice tells me, and despite how furious I still am—for no other reason than I just…don’t know what the fuck to do, and I feel more out of control than I have in years…
I also realize maybe this is for the best. One last nail in the coffin that was this brief interlude of insanity, where I let desire rule over logic and risked burning down everything I’d built. Especially if he was kicked out, and this is the last we see each other…
Though I’m not so sure that’s the case given how happy he seemed before he spotted me, all but skipping out of the school.
Either way…letting him believe this is something it’s not might go a long way in getting him to move on. And this time…this time…
The passenger door slams shut, yanking me from my thoughts with a teeth-grinding grimace. Petty asshole. I spare the station wagon Aston disappeared into one last look before turning away and climbing behind the wheel.
I forgo turning on the radio, leaving Seth and I with just the low hum of the engine to fill the tense silence as we race down the backroads of Crowley toward both our houses.
Seth allows a minute and thirty-eight seconds—I counted—before shattering the quiet.
“What is it about him?”
I’m not sure what I expected him to say, but I can’t say I’m surprised. I can only imagine how that scene looked from his perspective. Whatever initially had him stalking me across the lot, and begging me to talk, seems to have taken a backseat.
Though I can’t imagine it wouldn’t have circled back to Aston eventually. Given the circumstances leading up to our break-up.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say calmly.
“Yes. You do.” He pauses. “You can lie and pretend all you want that what happened the night of the party didn’t—”
“I told you…” I say warningly.
“No. I know what I saw. What I remem—”
Slapping the steering wheel, I cut Seth a harsh look. “What you remember? Do you remember throwing up all over the bathroom floor? Do you remember me pulling over on the way home so you could throw up some more on the side of the road?”
He opens his mouth. Closes it.
Only one of those scenarios is true but fuck if I’m about to backtrack and admit everything now. No, far from it.
He was right earlier, when he said we barely got a chance to talk before the bell rang the morning I ended things.
I figured that would be the end of it. He seemed convinced at the time…
but I clearly underestimated just how tightly Seth would cling to that night…
and how necessary it is now, maybe more than ever, that I set him straight.
“He texted you from my phone,” he says slowly, in a dangerous tone I’m not accustomed to hearing from him.
Frowning, I mentally replay that night. How after pulling into his driveway, I didn’t immediately get out and gather his unconscious body from the backseat—even I knew how crucial it was to maintain the air of giving a damn.
Especially after what happened, and what I knew I’d be doing the next time I saw Seth.
I made sure, before leaving him, to check his phone for any evidence Aston tampered with it. But he was smart enough to not only delete the texts he sent, but the photo he took of them.
“That’s impossible,” I finally say.
Seth lifts his chin. “I spoke with the phone company. Got them to recover anything that might’ve been deleted. Aston might think he’s so smart,”—Seth’s lip curls cruelly—“but let’s face it. He’s not only developmentally stunted, he’s a complete and total retar—”
I crank the wheel, whipping the car off to the side, and slam on the brake. Faster than Seth can process what’s happened, I’ve shifted into Park, have the seatbelt off, and am lunging across the seats to fist his collar and slam him against the window.
Eyes wide, he drops his jaw to gape at me.
“I’d be very, very fucking careful how you finish that sentence.”
His throat dips with a swallow.
I tilt my head. “You have no idea who you’re fucking with.”
“Aston doesn’t scare me,” he sneers, trying and failing to hide the quiver in his voice that tells me otherwise.
My mouth twitches, and I stroke my thumb over his hammering pulse, adding just enough pressure to be uncomfortable and make his eyes flutter wide. “Who said I was talking about him?”
He swallows tightly.
“You don’t want to do this,” I tell him. “Trust me. Just drop it and walk away before someone gets hurt.”
His lips purse, jaw quivering.
“What we had…it was good.” And the thing is, it’s not even a lie. Being in a relationship with Seth was easy. Until it wasn’t. It was good…until I got bored.
“Then why couldn’t you stick it out for the year?” he utters quietly.
Ah. And there it is again.
See, here’s the thing about Seth. After what happened, he was…upset, understandably so, despite my insistences that nothing in fact happened at the party.
But it wasn’t so much that he wanted the truth, so that he could come out of this as the good guy… No, he just wanted something to hold over me. Something to blackmail me with.
Because he spent the rest of that weekend convincing himself that I’d be the one begging for another chance. Not because I have real feelings for him…but because he genuinely believed I needed him more than he needed me.
Correction: this relationship.
“Why else would you stick with me for this long, if not because it benefited you somehow?” That’s what he said the morning I told him I didn’t want to work things out. It didn’t matter to me that he could “forgive me” if I was just honest with him.
He had no fucking clue just how much I not only don’t give a damn about him, or keeping up pretenses—pretenses he’d started to catch on to, unbeknownst to me—but just how far I’m willing to go—to lie—to protect myself.
And like that fateful night years ago, once again, Aston’s at the center of it all.
“Because, Seth,” I finally respond, “I told you. I don’t want to.”
He scowls. “Did you even care for me at all?”
“Sure. But that doesn’t mean I owe you anything.”
Something flickers in his gaze, sharpening it.
“Just like you don’t owe me anything.” I arch a brow. “But that isn’t to say, actions don’t have consequences.”
“Are you threatening me?”
I paste on a smile. “No. I’m just stating facts. If you know what’s good for you, for the sake of your future at Columbia, you’ll drop it. Walk away. Forget all about us.”
His eyes widen in understanding, jaw growing hard. “This is his fault,” he whispers. “We’d still be together if not for—”
“No. That’s where you’re wrong, Seth.” Releasing him, I smooth his collar, and fix his hair, before returning to my seat.
It’s not until after I’m buckled and pulling back onto the road leading to his development that I finish simply, “I used him as much as I used you.”