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Blind, fear-induced, debilitating hatred that never let me see past the moment to the big picture.
She was a threat, my gut told me now.
My gut had been telling me this since I was fourteen.
She needed to be eliminated—was all my mind could ever seem to process when it came to her, because one undeniable truth had always resonated through me—her existence meant the end of mine.
The end of everything I cared about. The end of the only thing I used to care about.
Still, I’d been so shocked when I’d been proven right.
A part of me, some pathetic thing deep down in my soul, still couldn’t believe it.
I gave her a lie of a smile. “Tiffany,” I said in greeting, my voice fake friendly.
“Scarlett,” she returned; her soft voice even and unaffected. She must have known I was at the house. She’d had warning.
I hadn’t been given the same courtesy. It was an effort not to glare at Dante for that.
“How’ve you been?” she asked, sounding like she actually cared.
Perhaps she did. If I was doing terribly, I knew she’d love to hear about it.
I studied her for a time, not answering. I hadn’t seen her in years, but she hadn’t changed much. She was still beautiful. It was an icy blonde, wintry blue-eyed beauty that appealed to men with a taste for the unattainable.
She was slight, rail thin, and petite, but somehow all the more intimidating for it, a delicate princess of a woman.
She, like Dante, was raised with money, and it had always been apparent in the way she dressed, wearing designer clothes even as a teenager. It was no different now. Her elegant black dress undoubtedly cost a small fortune, and her lavender stilettos were on point.
I hated her for it. And I hated that I was still wearing the comfortable, torn-up, old jeans, plain white tank, and worn to death gray Toms I’d traveled in.
I hated that her hair and makeup were done so heavily and precisely that I knew she’d had a stylist do it for the occasion.
I hated that my hair was a messy mane down my back, and my makeup was minimal and what there was likely smeared from travel.
Basically when it came to Tiffany, there was no end to things I found to hate. About her and myself.
The most toxic relationships in life are defined by the way they make us feel about ourselves. She and I were the worst of that. Whatever I was, always felt diminished by what she was.
“Just peachy,” I finally answered. “You?”
She smiled wistfully, like the question brought her joy, and turned to glance up, up, up at a much taller Dante.
Seeing them next to each other, especially standing so close, made me want to wretch.
It brought out the worst in me, seeing him with the woman he’d thrown me away for.
It made me feel, yet again—story of my life—like trash.
“I can’t complain, can I, Dante?” she asked him.
My eyes shot to him. I didn’t bother to hide the hate in them from him.
He was still staring at me. As far as I could tell, he hadn’t so much as twitched since he saw me enter the room.
I almost smiled, not a happy smile, more of a you made your bed now die in it, you fucker smile, because this had to be even more uncomfortable for him than it was for us, and that didn’t make me sad for him.
I almost felt a twinge of pity for him though.
