Chapter 29
After finishing my strength training, I grab the towel and dab the sweat away from my forehead. My plan to depletemy energy and drain my mind of thoughts of Abigail has failed. I’m still pumped up, and I’m still obsessively thinking of her.
My phone rings, and when I see who it is, I grumble yet pick up.
“Dane, my friend. I thought you should know that I put a ring on it. You see, Abi would always pick me.”
Kaden’s words detonate in my ears, blasting away my rationality. My worst nightmare just became my reality. Before my eyes, my world burns to a crisp, leaving behind ashes while I stand there in the middle of the wasteland, and I can’t do a thing but watch the carnage. That dark desire to destroy resurrects from the pits of hell I fought hard to keep buried and under control. The news shreds my sanity into pieces, and I don’t fucking care about anything but appeasing the anger.
An outlet. I need an outlet before I implode.
Fuck.
Putting on a hoodie, I run toward their college house, cloaked by the night. Slipping inside, I turn on the gas stove, leaving the burner on. Lighting up the decorative candle on the kitchen island, I slip out, making sure no one sees me coming or going.
Waiting behind a tree from a safe distance, I watch the flames flick to life, engulfing the kitchen and spreading throughout the house.
When the windows shatter, I walk away, letting this shit burn down like she burned me down with her decision. But I don’t feel calmer—on the contrary.
I get in my red sports car and drive toward the cliff. I sit at the edge of the cliff when a car stops, taking me from my mental warfare. Slipping out of her car, Celine approaches me, carrying a shadow of misery.
“Dane.”
“Celine.”
“You have a short fuse.”
I look over the cliffs, fisting my hands at my sides.
“An engagement present for those two. Yet, I’m still not fucking feeling better. Why did you come here?”
“It looks peacefully dangerous, and I am in desperate need of…”
“Of forgetting? I have the perfect idea.”
If putting things on fire can’t calm me, maybe racing will. I jerk my chin toward my car, and for a moment, Celine’s face lights up as she accompanies me toward it.
“Buckle up.”
I start the engine, and with my foot on the accelerator, I take off. Speeding as fast as I can, I hope the adrenaline kicks in so I can forget this fucking night and focus on something else.
I watch the speedometer hit the maximum limit. The ocean passes me by in a blur as I complete another lap. Pulling at my gear stick and flooring the gas at the same time, I end up doing a donut. Tires screeching, dust swirls around us.
“Wow. Can we do that again?” she asks.
I continue speeding, doing one lap after another until I am exhausted and finally park the car.
“This night turned from shitty to bearable,” she says through a yawn.
“Same.”
“Give me your phone number.”
I type my number into her phone. “Wanna do this again?”
“Yes.”
Celine hugs me and then leaves.
Afraid I will drive myself off the cliff, I drive back home. Parking the car, I throw my head back against the headrest. There’s nothing left of me but desolation.
My phone keeps ringing. It’s Abigail. Glad she insists when she wants something. Well, I fucking refuse to give her anything more. Even though I knew this day would come, I didn’t want to accept it. Like the stupid idiot I am, I let myself believe.
A tap on the window pulls me from my train of thought, and I get out. My father and I both lean against the side of my car.
The wind ruffles the leaves in the trees, accompanying the owls hooting. I close my eyes for a second, inhaling the fresh forest’s scent into my lungs, wishing for quiet and peace.
“I was getting worried,” my father says.
“I’m fine, Dad.” I’m just numb now.
“Were you with Abigail?”
I shake my head, and he must see the sadness I’m not even trying to cover up. I feel beaten to a bloody pulp. Abigail is getting married and knowing her and Kaden, they will even play a happy family.
I lost her. I lost. I…
“What has you so sad, son?”
“I have never been afraid of anything, but I’m scared shitless of what I feel for her, the power she has over me.”
“That’s love.”
“It’s a disease, and I want it gone.”
“Did you get into a fight?”
If I could burn a building down in anger, I’m pretty sure I’d end up killing him. So I’m staying away until I can control my emotions.
“Not with the one I want. And Abigail and I always fight.”
“Then find a common language and understanding. Learn to communicate and don’t cross the other’s boundaries. Once you figure it out, it will get easier.”
“Dad, I don’t want to hear how you and Mom got together and make love seem so damn effortless. You’re not standing on moral high ground here; you took her from him.”
He’s the other guy. Just like me.
“I know you’re hurting, but that doesn’t give you the right to make something ugly out of our love story. You want the truth? Elena and I were friends who loved your father deeply. Seeing Bobby self-destruct was bad enough… She deserved more than someone who cheated all the damn time only to say it was the last time. To drink and take drugs and come back to her, begging her for another chance.”
My biological father, the legend. No wonder I’m the way I am. At least my stepfather didn’t sugarcoat his image in front of me again. Maybe I need to hear some fucking ugly truths.
“It happened, son, and I’m never going to regret that. When you love someone, you’d do anything to keep that person. She loved both of us, but in the end, she chose me. Do you want to know why?”
I have a feeling, but hearing it might just deliver the last blow to my already shredded being.
“Elena could rely on me. I won her trust, then her heart.”
Good to know. Abigail will choose Kaden—not that I didn’t know that. She’s fucking engaged to him.
“Yeah, well, you’re looking at the other guy here.”
“It didn’t appear like that to me.”
“I don’t say this often, but thank you for not giving up on me.”
He clasps my shoulder. “I’d never give up on you. There is one thing you don’t want or are not ready to admit: if we don’t want to get help, let ourselves be helped, then all the love or the help of others is null. It breaks my heart to see you like this, but look at you all grown up, and not giving in to the impulses.”
My father must trust me more than I do because I don’t know what I will do if I see them together.
He goes back inside, but restlessness buzzes inside of me, keeping sleep out of reach. I do the next best thing that could drain me of my anger: go to the track.