Track 8 In The Stone #2
“You knew?” I said through gritted teeth. My voice was hoarse and jagged, like I had been screaming at a metal concert and these were my first words.
“What?” He looked confused, trying to make sense of my words, but all he could see was a broken girl in the pouring rain with mascara running down her face. “Come inside”
“You knew. And you didn’t tell me?!” I was trying my hardest not to cry, but my voice cracked, and it dawned on me that I already was.
I turned and walked out onto the deck, further into the rain. He followed me.
“What are you talking about?” The worry in his voice broke me even more—because I didn’t believe in it anymore.
“How can you care about me when you lied like that, E? How can you say the things you do when you were keeping something so big from me?” I cried. Sobbed. And I saw the pain it brought him, but I couldn’t do anything about it.
“What! What did I keep from you?!” He was frantic, his arms out as his sides, begging, pleading for me to explain.
“Kasey and Enzo. You knew they were together, and you didn’t tell me.”
Recognition swept across his face, and his shoulders fell. That’s when I knew—that’s when I knew it was true.
“I’m sorry.” He took a step toward me.
“You don’t get to say that to me. You don’t get to say you’re sorry now that you’re caught.”
“Sydney,” his voice was serious, but soft.
“I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you. I care about you, I do.
” He reached to hug me, but I couldn’t be held by him.
I moved away, my eyes firm on his as I took a step back.
His mouth tightened and his nostrils flared as he dropped his hand.
His jaw ticked as he swallowed. It pained him to witness my disdain, my revulsion to be near him.
“No, you don’t.” I snarled.
“I do.”
“No, you don’t! You’re just like everyone else!” I screamed through my tears, my voice scratchy and strained. “Just like I thought you would be. You’re a liar! I don’t mean shit to you!”
He released a breath through his nostrils. “You’re wrong.” His voice was calm. Stern. Certain of his position, and I’ll never know how.
“I’m right!”
He ran a hand through his soaking hair, frustrated but patient. “You don’t know everything, Syd.”
I scoffed. “I know enough.”
He paused, and it was silent. Nothing but my thundering heart and the sound of the heavy rain between us. Whether he was unsure what to say next, I don’t know, but when he paused, I felt the earth crack beneath me, giving way to the anger as it made room for grief.
“Do you want to be understood right now, or do you want to be right?” he asked.
“I want you to understand that I’m right.”
“Says who?”
“Says me.”
He moved closer then. Nostrils flaring, jaw clenched tight. His patience wavering. “And who are you to me?”
I was caught off guard. Suddenly nervous and lost, yet still in a world of hurt. “I’m…”
I took a step back as he continued to move slowly toward me, his eyes never leaving mine. Dark and intense. “Say it.” I swallowed hard. “Say who you are to me,” he repeated.
“I’m… no one.” It was almost a whisper. A broken, small voice that belonged to the broken, small girl that I was.
He let out a frustrated breath from his nose and shook his head. His eyes never leaving mine. “See? You don’t know everything.”
We stood there, stubbornly staring at each other in all the pain. All the hurt. All the love that never was.
“What does it matter anyway?” I challenged. “You knew about it, and you didn’t tell me. End of story.”
He let out a breath and made one final move toward me. This time, I didn’t move.
“You’re right. I didn’t tell you,” he said. He was close now. Too close. His voice was firm and dark, and he towered over me with a power I had to fight not to cower under.
“I couldn’t, and you know why. It didn’t matter, though, because you were figuring it out on your own, just like I wanted you to.
I wanted you to figure out that Enzo was a lying piece of shit all by yourself.
I didn’t want any hand in that breakup because I wanted you to do it.
For you. I wanted you to do it because you wanted to—not because I made you. ”
The intensity in his eyes was unbreakable.
I knew exactly why he couldn’t—there were rules among us.
Loyalty was defined by these rules. We made a silent commitment to remain faithful to them.
E couldn’t give up his friends, one way or the other.
He would never tell me about Enzo, just like he’d never tell Enzo about me.
It was an honor we held ourselves true to.
Although it was a legitimate defense, it held no significance.
To me, E and I were different from the others.
We had…something else. Something deeper.
And after everything that had surfaced, I no longer cared about the unspoken rules of loyalty we had set.
We were the only two following them, anyway, and even that had fallen into a gray area.
I knew why he didn’t want any part of the breakup, too.
He never wanted the end of Enzo and me to come back to him, because he saw the end of that as the start of us, and we couldn’t start on a betrayal.
Rain dripped from his furrowed brow down to his perfect lips.
My head fully grasped the position he was in—stuck between his loyalty to his friend and his friend’s girl, who’d become more when she wasn’t supposed to.
It didn’t matter what we were to each other, because on paper, in this circle, I would always be Enzo’s girl first. E knew it.
I knew it. Enzo had claimed it before it ever was.
It was something we could never get away from.
I could have chosen to understand, but I was too stubborn in my anger. Too swollen in my hurt of his betrayal to see anything outside of it clearly. I couldn’t have escaped it if I tried.
“Yeah, well. You ruined everything, so good job. You’re just like the rest of them.”
He didn’t respond, but I didn’t need him to. I saw the wound my words left on him there in his dark eyes.
I knew then that this was the end of me and E. It was written in the stone, the hurt in his heart, as was the hurt in mine, and there was nothing we could do about it.
I stormed off, and he let me. He didn’t try to grab me or hold me back. He just let me go, into the storm, and out of his life.
I got in the Jeep and pulled out of his driveway. I swore I’d never speak to him again. Swore I’d never speak to any of them again. Swore I’d forget it all—the music, the glances, the feeling of being known in a way I never asked for but secretly craved.
I drove and imagined that every mile would muffle the memory. Muffle the sound of my broken heart. Silence the love I never let myself feel.
But even as I swore him away, the depth of my heart knew I never could. He had already carved himself inside me, and as much as I wanted to scream at him more, I wanted to collapse into him and beg him to make everything okay.
But I didn’t. I couldn’t.
I drove away, heartbroken in a thousand different directions, knowing I had to leave behind the only real thing I’d ever known. Terrified I’d never find it again, or worse—
that I might.