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“Oh my god.” Here I was, falling for him and this was all a game. A joke.
“I’m…fuck, Jude. This wasn’t supposed to happen. You just turned out to be fucking wonderful, and the more I got to know you, the more I wanted you, and the more I realized I was an asshole. You weren’t supposed to be so fuckingamazing.”
But my mind is stuck on the word revenge. It’s fuckingstuck.“Alec, did you get me to admit to being gay to get back at me? Was that your plan all along? Oh my god…”
He reaches out to me, and when I back away, his hands fall to his sides. “No, baby. No.”
But I can’t hear it. I can’t fucking hear anything but the ringing in my ears.
A single tear tracks down my cheek, and I swipe at it, trying to swallow back the sobs. I want to howl and claw at the walls. I want to escape and never see him again.
I want him to hold me and tell me it’s okay.
Even still, I want him.
“I deserve all of this. I know that. I was awful back then. I was so afraid and cruel. I deserve this,” I whisper, my voice cracking, and Alec shakes his head.
“No…it’s not…it’s not like that. Jude, it’s not what you think.”
He says those words, but I don’t believe him. I can’t even look at him. I just need to get out of here. I can’t let him see me like this, broken and torn. Miserable and disgusting.
How could he kiss me like that, like I was his world when I did awful things to him years ago? How could he?
But then I remember that it was all a game, a ploy. I was nothing more than a sad revenge plot. It’s what I deserve, but still, it hurts so fucking bad.
I can’t stand it, can’t handle any more of this, so I push past him, moving to the front door in a hurry, not even making eye contact with Helen or George before barreling outside. Alec is behind me, chasing me once more. But this time, I don’t want to be caught. This time I need space to think. To sit in the karma of my own making and fuckingbe.
“Please, Jude. I…I didn’t realize how much I’d come to care for you after I got to know you. It was stupid. This whole thing was immature and vile, and I’m so sorry. But I do like you. I really fucking like you.”
His words travel past me as I start to jog down the sidewalk, but I have a cramp in my side from all the food and the heaving and gasping, so I don’t make it far. Just come to a pathetic stumbling stop, allowing Alec to catch up to me. His handreaches out and grabs on to my shoulder, forcing me to stay, to face this.
And I do face it, with a running nose and leaking eyes. I swipe the wetness away, only succeeding in smearing it across my flushed face. I’m sure I look like a wreck. I’m sure he likes seeing me like this, probably reveling in it. I was terrible to him in high school, mean to someone just because I could be, because he was an easy target, small and different.
And here I am. Crushed. Utterly broken from it.
“Does this make you feel better?” I ask, and he shakes his head, looking absolutely broken. But is that a game too? Is he going to laugh about this with his friends? Am I going to be the joke for years to come?
“No. I didn’t want this to happen. I never wanted you to find out. That wasn’t the plan.”
“Well, I did. I found out.” I wrench my arm from his grasp and cradle myself, hugging the pain away. “Is this why you didn’t want to fuck me? Because you hate me?”
He shakes his head once more, running his fingers roughly through his dark hair, pulling at the strands. “No. I don’t hate you. I lo— I don’t hate you. I wanted to, just… Fuck, I wanted to tell you the truth before we did that, but I didn’t know how. I fucked it all up. I should have never done this. It was stupid and awful and mean. I made a mess of things…”
“You did, but I did too by being a terrible person in the past. Karma and all that. It’s what I deserve.”
He reaches out to me, but I step back, tumbling off the curb just as a horn honks. I let out a shaky breath, realizing I could have just been hit by a car.
Perhaps death would be more peaceful than this. It would be faster, for sure. Right now, I feel like I’m being pulled apart, piece by piece.
“Please let me drive you home and then can we talk?” Alec begs, but I shake my head in response.
“We can talk, but not yet. I need…I can’t breathe, Alec.”
I press my hand against my chest. It hurts. It hurts so fucking bad. It was all a game. It was just a game. I’m a joke, a laughingstock.
Fumbling with my phone, I manage to call Ollie and then Lucas, hoping someone will come get me, come save me, and when neither answer, I call Jai. The entire time the phone rings, Alec is pleading with me, but I can’t. I can’t talk right now. I can’t think.
Jai answers almost immediately, his voice slightly breathless. “Hey, you okay?” he asks softly, and I let out a sob as I say his name, unable to control it.
