Chapter 6 The Past
THE PAST
AMELIA’S brEAKING POINT
It was hard to look Lillian in the eye over the next few days. We had only exchanged a handful of words since I stumbled upon her in bed with Caiden.
She cornered me before I left for school, her expression a mix of frustration and confusion.
“You’re not going to speak to me?” Lillian asked, her voice laced with annoyance.
I let out a frustrated sigh, the sound escaping me like a breath I had been holding for far too long.
What did she expect? There was a tornado of conflict swirling inside me.
One part of me wanted to reach out, to hug her and tell her it was okay, that deep down, I wasn’t really mad at her.
Not truly.
But I couldn’t.
My pride and anger toward Caiden wouldn’t allow me to be the bigger person and let Lillian back in.
It had overtaken me at this point. My mind was a misted trench, and I couldn’t find a way out of this black swamp. Someone had to bear the brunt of my fuming scorn. Someone had to take it in so it wouldn’t consume me.
Unfortunately, my sister stood in the crossfire.
“I can’t discuss this right now. I gotta go,” I said, my voice clipped.
“Dammit, Amelia! I slept with him one time! Stop being so sensitive and move on!”
“No! If you knew what he has put me through, you wouldn’t talk about this so lightly.” Tremors shook my body as I spoke, the weight of my emotions threatening to spill over. She didn’t understand, and I could see it on her face.
Nobody could ever comprehend this situation.
“I needed someone. He was there. It’s as simple as that,” she shot back, her tone defensive.
My hand stayed clenched around the doorknob, my knuckles white with tension. “No, Lillian. It’s not simple at all. You don’t get it.”
The doorknob twisted, and I pushed it open with a harsh force, slamming it behind me.
Here I was, teetering on the edge, trying to maintain my balance. My hands quivered, a suffocating layer of hot flashes covering my skin. This was the calm before the storm.
With every second that passed, boiling anger surged within me, crashing through my body like a tumultuous wave.
One breath. Two breaths. Three breaths. Four breaths. Five breaths.
My chest heaved up and down, and I squinted to see the road through my blurry haze.
I always sensed when something, which had been building up, was about to erupt, unfurl like a poisonous creature, ready to destroy everything in its path. I could feel it in my bones, an instinctive sixth sense. It only took one or two small incidents for it to be released.
Perhaps I could swallow it down for a little longer. Perhaps it could be contained. Perhaps I could still be saved.
A small thought that felt hopeless.
Once I parked my car, I sat there for a few moments, the sun seething with heat. Everything seemed to crumble around me, as if I had been spinning too quickly in a chaotic dance.
I lingered in the parking lot, pacing around my car and wondering if I could just hop back in and drive away from all of this.
As I began walking toward the front doors, I caught sight of him. Caiden stood there with Dante, flanked by a few others near the side of the school, surrounding the courtyard where students could eat their lunches outside.
The raging beast inside me, which had kept quiet for too long, pushed me forward to where they stood.
“I bet you’re proud of yourself, Caiden,” I spat, my voice sharp.
Dante tried to signal to me that I shouldn’t be doing this, but I didn’t care at that moment.
“What are you babbling about?” Caiden replied, his tone was nonchalant, which only fueled my anger further.
The way he spoke to me, with such disdain and mockery, made me feel small, stupid, and utterly inadequate. It was a burden that pressed down, becoming increasingly difficult to bear with each passing moment.
He ought to know that a gentle soul like myself still possessed a breaking point.
When pushed past those limits, a shadowy rage erupted, a darker side unleashed.
“You slept with my sister, asshole!” I flailed my arms in the air, desperate to slap some sense into him.
“So what?” He shrugged, rolling his eyes as if my outrage were a mere annoyance.
“It’s bad enough that you torment me. But involving yourself with my family and invading my house? That’s too far.” The tension was rising like a storm that had been brewing.
“Stop being such a baby about it. Maybe you should be more attractive, and I could sleep with you too.” His words touched something rotten inside of me.
I let out a screech that sounded more wounded than I intended. That arrogant bastard thought he was God’s gift. He believed he could get away with anything, convinced he hadn’t done anything wrong.
“Fuck you, Caiden! Why can’t you just own up to something for once?” I stepped closer, pressing my face into his space, daring him to challenge me.
For a fleeting second, I saw a flicker of intimidation before it vanished, replaced by his usual bravado.
“I don’t have to explain myself to you,” he replied, dismissing me with a wave of his hand.
“Well, you need to! You owe me some explanations, dammit!”
“Leave me the fuck alone.” He turned to walk away, his back a wall I couldn’t penetrate.
“Amelia, it’ll be okay. You just need to leave him alone before this situation gets out of hand,” Dante said, but I glared at him, my heart pounding.
“You’re going to defend this piece of shit? Really?”
He sighed, his expression turning sad. “No. I just don’t want him to hurt you.”
“It’ll be the other way around,” I shot back, yelling after Caiden. I snatched a pebble from the ground and threw it toward him, missing him by inches.
Caiden turned to look at me, and for a moment, I stood there, heaving and feeling like a wild animal, red-faced and vibrating with fury.
An expression I couldn’t quite read flickered across his face before he turned again, disappearing into the throng of students roaming the walkway.
“You are such a coward!” I screamed, tears streaming down my face. It was impossible to explain to these people why I was exploding so badly.
“C’mon, Amelia. Let’s take a walk,” Dante suggested, dragging me away before I could unleash my fury again.
My energy drained suddenly, and I leaned into him, feeling completely spent. Caiden had exhausted every fiber within me.
“Why is he so cruel?” I whispered, defeated.
“Lots of reasons,” Dante replied, always so vague about it.
“Whatever. I hope he rots in hell one day,” I said, disdain lacing my tone.
We arrived at Dante’s car, a run-down vehicle like mine. “I think we can afford to skip one day. You shouldn’t be going into class like this,” he said, looking at me carefully, as if afraid I might snap at him too.
“Yeah, I can’t be here right now. Just take me somewhere else.” I exhausted all my fight, and now I wanted to decay.
“I’ll drop you back off later so you can get your car.”
I nodded, settling into the cushioned seat of the car, grateful for the momentary escape.
“Nice ride,” I said, trying to make some sort of normal conversation.
He chuckled, starting the engine and giving it a pat on the wheel. “Not really, but it’ll work for now. I bought it for three thousand dollars. Thankfully, I’m good with cars, so I was able to fix it up.”
I stared at the dashboard, at the way the speedometer needle trembled with every pothole, the way Dante’s hands stayed ten-and-two, white-knuckled even when the road was empty.
We drove in silence until the town blurred behind us, the dense woods hemming the highway in on both sides like the world was closing its jaws around us.
My head was so full of static, the only thing I could do was watch the trees streak by and try not to let the pressure inside me blow out the windows.