Chapter 24
Dear me/ journal/ god.
I’m losing my mind over this project. The only time Loch Ness and I seem to be able to work together and not fight is when we’re inventing games, but it’s only BECAUSE then we can play the game against each other afterward which is a form of fighting kind of, but our parents snitched and so now we can’t do games because it would be too easy.
Ms. Rivers says it has to be an invention that helps at least one of us achieve a goal that we have, but every time I ask Loch Ness to sit down and brainstorm she calls me a nerd for wanting to start on it now instead of the night before it’s due.
I’m going to train Maxwell to poop in her cereal.
“Alice. Alice.”
I marched out of the bar without slowing down, fists tight.
“At least let me drive you home.”
“I’d rather be skinned alive than get in a car with you,” I spat, parroting the nonsense he’d decided to spew earlier instead of just fucking apologizing.
Most people would have taken the hint and backed the hell off. Dominic doubled down and picked up his pace until he’d slotted himself to my side.
“We weren’t finished talking.”
“I have nothing more to say to you right now.”
“Great, then just listen.”
I veered off to the edge of the sidewalk, searching the street for an empty cab.
“I’m sorry. For what happened in there.”
I snorted, craning my neck to peer over the thinning traffic. “And I’m the liar.”
“You don’t have to believe me, but I am. I overstepped, and I regret it.”
My teeth clenched, and I crossed my arms, pausing my search to fix him with a flat glare. “Would you do it again?” I held up a hand when his mouth opened. “If you didn’t know about him and Darius. Would you do it again?”
The split-second hesitation was all I needed. Rolling my eyes, I returned my attention to the moving row of bright headlights.
“Do you remember what you said to me after Jaxton’s party? The week before you framed my mom?”
Wow, he really was dead set on making this exponentially worse, wasn’t he? “For the last time—”
“You said, and I quote, ‘I hate you, Dominic. I hate you so much, it’s suffocating,’” he recited slowly, methodically, as though the words had been permanently seared into the very fiber of his soul.
“‘You are, without question, the worst thing about my life—the worst thing that’s ever happened to me. I wish I’d never met you.
I wish you’d fucking leave. The thought of being stuck with you for another four years makes me want to crawl out of my skin.
You keep saying the reason you’re turning down fucking Princeton and following me to UVic is because you’ve always wanted to see where your dad grew up, but we both know it’s also so you can keep torturing me, you pathetic, miserable fuck.
I don’t ever want to see or speak to you ever again, so leave me the fuck alone! ’”
Something thick and sour lodged itself in my throat, sealing it shut. I ground my teeth, keeping my attention fixed on the cars.
“Then you stormed off,” he finished with terrifying calm, as though his flawless recitation of my speech was perfectly normal. “Did I miss anything?”
Not really, no.
Other than, of course, the fact that not one hour before this, he’d humiliated me in front of almost every single one of our classmates.
The entire soccer team had laughed and jeered, and when it was my turn to spin the bottle, it’d landed on their goalie, who’d thrown one swift glance in Dominic’s direction and said, “I’ll also take the cricket. ”
They’d all snickered again. And after Jaxton had gagged through the experience and downed an entire bottle of beer, he’d glared at me and said, “Worth it.”
It was, to this day, one of the most scarring and mortifying experiences of my life.
Given that I’d been about to burst into tears, Rachel and I had gotten up, walked away, and called my driver to come pick us up. And since the party wasn’t fun if he didn’t have me to pick on, Dominic had followed.
Oh, and this was two, maybe three weeks after he’d asked me out to prom as a “prank.”
So excuse me if I, an eighteen-year-old kid whose heart had been shredded to confetti by the guy she’d been in love with since before she knew what that even meant, had finally blown up and said a thing or two she may not have meant out of sheer, gut-wrenching heartbreak.
“You couldn’t have made yourself any more clear.
” He stepped forward, crowding me. “Between that and how you reacted to my letter, you could not have possibly made your revulsion for me any more clear. You might feel some physical attraction to me now, but back then… We didn’t accidentally invent a sex game, Alice.
I came up with the initial idea because I wanted an excuse, any excuse, to kiss you, and I was too scared to voice it, or ask, because I thought you’d laugh in my face.
And the thought of you playing it with some other guy is… ”
He took another step forward. “It hasn’t stopped. I left, just like you wanted, and it still hasn’t fucking stopped. You framed my mother for theft because of how badly you wanted me gone, and it still hasn’t fucking stopped, Alice.”
My jaw was wound so tight my molars were starting to hurt. The street started blurring through the unshed tears stacking over my anger, and while I had about a million things to say, none of them were worth making a scene in public.
“Pretty?” he asked with breathless exasperation, as though the word itself was an insult.
“You’re willing to settle for some asshole who lies and tells you you’re pretty?
You want some actual honesty? Flowers are pretty.
They’re soft, subdued, harmless. Their beauty doesn’t leave a mark, or haunt your every waking moment, or make you feel so out of control that you’d be willing to walk barefoot on broken glass for one last hit.
You’re not pretty, Alice. You’re devastating. ”
His breathing had grown labored, the air around him crackling as my own skin started to tingle.
He hadn’t noticed the small group of teenagers who’d halted in their tracks, whispering amongst themselves like they were trying to figure out whether Dominic was really Dominic or just a really convincing doppelganger.
One of them took out their phone.
I turned my face away from the lens, grabbing his arm. “We have to go.”
“I’m not done.”
I started herding him backward while simultaneously stuffing my fingers into his jacket pockets. “Where are your keys?”
He fished them out of his back pocket and unlocked the car. I ducked my head before slipping inside, using my hair as a makeshift curtain.
A major overreaction by almost any measure, especially since I wasn’t even the target of interest. Except for the part where my brother had an entire team at his PR firm dedicated to monitoring a plethora of keywords related to Dominic, gathering dirt on him for retaliatory purposes in case of another orchestrated media attack.
It would take just one of them to recognize me if a picture were posted anywhere public. My family would lose their minds.
“And smart?” Dominic continued, reaching over and pulling my seat belt over my chest while I was busy trying to hide my face.
“Smart, Alice? Not one thing in the last two weeks has gone according to plan for me because you’ve outmaneuvered me at every fucking turn.
I’m supposed to be torturing you, but somehow, you’ve managed to wrap me so tightly around your little finger—again—that I would have dropped to my knees and barked like a fucking dog if you’d asked me to in there, just so long as it meant you wouldn’t go home with someone else.
You’re not smart. My dumb ass is smart,” he practically spat.
“Stop selling yourself short. You’re fucking lethal. ”
“Watch the road, would you?” I complained.
He’d whipped past a car trying to get into his lane because he was more focused on my face than the traffic signs.
“I may have ruined your date tonight, but believe me when I say you have obliterated my life.” He was gripping the steering wheel tight enough to turn his knuckles white, his muscles bulging and agitated as he paused to work up to the next bit.
“However,” he eventually said, his tone considerably more even, almost chastised. “None of that excuses my behavior tonight. I shouldn’t have done what I did, and I am sorry. Really, I am, and I wouldn’t do it again. I… your personal life isn’t any of my business, and it’s never going to be.”
I eyed him, the sharper edges of my anger thawing a touch. “So I’m good to play our accidental sex game with whoever. You don’t care.”
His neck strained, his molars grinding. He looked ready to rip out the steering wheel. “It’s not a sex—” He cut himself off. Inhaled. “Again, none of my business.”
“What about any of the other games we invented?”
There were a few hundred of them. At least.
“That’s your prerogative,” he ground out, sounding like he was in pain.
“Hm.” Some of the tension in my upper back eased, and I sagged into my seat, turning to face the window. After a few minutes, my mouth twitched. “Devastating, huh?”
Dom huffed out a long, slow breath like I’d put the weight of the world on his shoulders with that one remark. “To put it mildly.”
I bit my cheek, reciting his declarations in my head. “And lethal.”
“Unfortunately,” he agreed, sounding subdued, like he’d finally started to run out of fuel.
“And since you were ten? Really?”
“Stop acting like any of this is news.”
Wasn’t it, though?
I toyed with the hem of my dress, thinking, trying to slot all this new information into what I already had filed away. It wasn’t a fit.
The car slowed to a stop in front of my building. This time, Dominic unlocked the door before I asked. My fingers grazed the handle, but something stopped me from pulling it straight away.
“What else?”
I cringed as soon as I said it. And again when he looked at me like he thought he’d misheard.
“Never mind.” I tugged at the handle. “Thanks for the ride.”
I was out of the car before he could see the blush invade my cheeks, my steps brisk and purposeful as I climbed the stone steps.
“You’re not funny either.”
I stopped short, turning to find him standing outside the open driver’s-side door, eyes pinned to me.
He nudged his chin at me. “And don’t let them water you down with descriptions like ‘charming,’ or ‘witty, or ‘hypnotizing.’ It’s insulting.”
I tipped my head. “Insulting to who?”
He didn’t bother with a direct answer, as though it was so obvious it didn’t need to be said. “I wouldn’t lose my mind like this over something as unexceptional as wit, Alice. You’re indescribable, and anyone who tries to make you believe otherwise is either a bigger idiot than I am or blind.”
I crossed my arms, considering this. “What else?”
In my defense for what happened next, he went on for another fifteen minutes without stopping to take a breath.