CHAPTER 37 #2
“Bella.” I take a step toward her, stopping when she takes one back, tears spilling down her cheeks unchecked as she looks at me like I’m scum of the earth.
She’s not wrong.
“Don’t!” Her hand comes up in front of her. “Take another fucking step.”
“Just let me explain,” I plead, not moving from the spot I’m in. My brothers, Killian and their respective partners all stand around watching silently, but I ignore them as I stare at the woman in front of me that holds my heart in her hands.
“You lied to me.” Her voice cracks and the sound is like a dagger straight through my chest. “You were the one fucking person I trusted more than anything and you fucking lied to me.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, my chest aching as I watch her eyes shut down. As if a switch flipped, her entire demeanour becomes cold, distant, as she takes another step away from me.
She laughs, the sound hollow, and shakes her head.
“You’re sorry?!” She looks away from me for a heartbeat before training those grey eyes back on me.
“Do you know how disgusting I’ve felt for the past eight years?
All this time I’ve felt like I had taken advantage of you.
I’ve racked my brain so many times, wondering how I could have possibly missed that you were drunk enough to not remember.
But all this fucking time you knew.” An empty laugh leaves her.
“You knew and you never said anything. Were you ever going to tell me?”
I open my mouth to answer her, but she cuts me off. “No. You know what? I don’t even care. It doesn’t matter now anyway. The entire fucking town knows that I’m a boring, unmemorable bitch.” She spits those last three words, repeating what Justin had called her in the bar.
I open my mouth again, ready to tell her off for talking about herself that way but I’m once again, cut off.
“That’s enough!” Killian’s hard voice cuts through the air.
“Enough?” Bella repeats sarcastically as she stares at her brother. I don’t take my eyes off her as she nods, her lips pursed. “Yeah. It’s enough.”
I watch as her shoulders slump in defeat and I know in that moment that I’ve lost her.
She blinks back to me, holding my gaze for what feels like minutes but is probably only seconds and when she speaks again, all the anger has dissolved from her voice, leaving only sadness behind in her quiet words. “I don’t ever want to see you again.”
And then she turns and walks away from me, and all I can do is stand there and watch as the love of my life climbs into the back of her brother’s truck and drives away, taking my entire fucking world with her.
My vision blurs as I stumble back a step before sinking to my ass on the step outside the bar. I clutch my head in my hands, every part of my body becoming numb as the last ten minutes sink in.
“What the fuck have I done?” I whisper, more to myself than anyone else.
Soft footsteps move in the opposite direction from where I’m sitting while two sets of cowboy boots enter my line of vision, but I don’t look up from the ground.
“Noah,” Hunter says, standing over me. “Come on, let’s go home.”
I shake my head with a scoff, glaring up at my oldest brother. “Home? That’s not my fucking home.”
Not without her.
***
My mouth is dryer than the Sahara Dessert and my brain is heavy as I roll over in bed and reach out in search of the warm body beside me only to come up empty.
Against my better judgement, I open my eyes and lift my head, scanning the room for Bella as the thumping in my skull crescendos beyond belief.
“Ahhh, fuck,” I groan, clutching at my head. “Bella?” I call out, my voice groggy and thick with sleep.
Silence.
“Bells?” I call again, confusion clouding my brain.
Where the hell is she?
I twist onto my back, prying my eyes open slowly this time and giving them the opportunity to adjust to the bright morning light.
I need some Advil and a gallon of water, stat.
“Ahh, you’re awake.” My mothers chipper voice has me jerking up into a sitting position, headache be damned.
“What the fuck?” I scan my surroundings, taking in my childhood bedroom before looking at my mom in confusion.
“Why am I here, Mom?”
“Language,” she scolds before her face turns soft, something akin to sympathy shining in her hazel eyes.
And then it all comes flooding back.
“Oh no.” I shake my head.
The bar.
Justin.
“I don’t ever want to see you again.”
“You lied to me.”
“Oh, no, no, no.” I rip the covers off me and jump out of bed, reaching for my t-shirt that’s on the floor.
“Noah,” my mom says, moving into my bedroom.
“I’ve gotta go, Mom. I need to go home and see Bella.”
Her hand lands on my shoulder. “She isn’t there.”
“What?” I frown. “Of course, she is, where else would she be?”
Bella climbing into Killian’s truck.
Grayson handing me a bottle of whiskey.
My dad carrying me to bed.
I freeze, my eyes finding my mom’s once again. “I really fucked up, Mom.”
She nods once, her face completely serious despite the show of empathy in her eyes. “I know you have, honey.”
My shoulders slump. “What am I supposed to do?”
“That’s not something for me to tell you. It’s something for you to figure out. But first,” she moves to sit beside me on my bed but just before she lowers, her hand comes down on my side of my head, partially deafening me.
“Ow, what the hell?” I bite, clutching my ear as pain sears through it.
“What the fuck were you thinking?!”
My mouth drops open, eyes widening as I gape at my mom, a woman who never cusses, as she glares at me with murder in her eyes.
My mouth opens, closes and then opens again, words not forming on my tongue.
“In what world did you think it was acceptable to defile that poor girl and then pretend like it never happened? I raised you better than that, Noah Calloway.”
“Defile her? I didn’t defile her,” I argue.
“It was her first time, yes?” She counters.
“Yes, but-”
She dips her head, cutting me off. “Then you defiled her.”
“I didn’t know,” I admit in a quiet voice. “I didn’t know until after.”
Mom scoffs, disgusted. “And you think that makes it any better? You didn’t know and even after learning about it, you still chose to lie.
You let that girl go through life believing that her first time was wasted on a man who couldn’t remember.
And not just any man.” She holds up a finger, driving the point when she points it at my chest. “But a man whom she trusted with her life.”
Fuck.
When she put it like that…
I’ve really, really fucked up.
“What am I going to do?” I ask, more to myself as I drag my hands over my face.
Mom answers me anyway. “You’re going to drag your sorry little ass out of this bed, out of my house and go and fix it.”
I peak at her through my fingers. “Why are you so mad?”
Her eyes flare and I realise instantly that that was the wrong thing to say.
“I’m mad because my son is an imbecile. Bella is like a daughter to your father and I and you broke her heart. I’m extremely disappointed in you, Noah.”
With that, she stands and leaves my bedroom, leaving me alone with the knowledge that not only have I destroyed the best thing in my life, and lost my best friend, but I’ve also hurt my parents too.