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Alex tipped her chin up, the pride covering up the pain from a few moments ago. “Life goes on,” she said, “and my bed wasn’t cold. I wanted him to know he didn’t matter, and I wasn’t ashamed of anything I’d done. He didn’t exist.”
And Aydin couldn’t look at her, but he didn’t want his fiancée anymore, either. He got sent to Blackchurch over it.
She looked over at Will. “Everyone looked at me. Your hands on me.”
“And then everyone else got naked in the pool,” Will continued.
Alex’s gaze drifted off. “And he watched me look at you and you look at me and knew that he’d lost.”
“And what did you win?” I asked.
Believe me, I knew something about staying on your feet and not letting anyone get the better of you, but she’d been hiding behind Will to fend off the loneliness and despair.
Because when they enabled each other in their vices, they felt accepted and didn’t have to face the harder road ahead.
That road was inevitable.
“Not everyone is born knowing their path is from point A to point B, Alex,” I bit out. “You and Will are the same. You sit up there on your high horse, all ‘love conquers all’ and shit, and refuse to understand that there are impossible choices others have to make, but it doesn’t mean we don’t love.”
My voice grew harder, and I glanced around the room and then back to Alex.
“Does it suck? Yes!” I yelled, feeling Will’s eyes on me. “But do you understand it? I know you do. Sometimes the uncertainty seems like more of a risk than just staying with what’s familiar. It takes time to grow that courage. Don’t you understand that?”
They could all do whatever they wanted in high school, and now years later in Thunder Bay, because Damon was right. The villain was just a matter of perspective. It was as easy as pie for them to judge me, because on the rare occasion they weren’t doing fucked-up shit themselves, they got these splendid little attacks of sanctimony when it came to anyone outside their little group.
“You’re so self-righteous,” I snarled, looking around the room. “All of you.”
I lashed out and kicked the table so that the vase sitting on it toppled over. Alex tensed, a fire lighting in her eyes.
Will sat there like ice.
“You’re not good enough for me,” I told them and spun around, heading out of the room.
But then I heard a chair creak and Alex’s voice behind me. “I want my shirt,” she blurted out. “Now.”
I twisted around, seeing her standing and challenging me with her hand out.
“And my sneakers,” she said.
“Get fucked, Alex Palmer!” I bellowed, flipping her both of my middle fingers.
She started for me, but just then the lights went out, the train lurched, and the wheels underneath us screamed as I flew back into the wall and crashed to my ass.
I winced. What the hell?
Moonlight cast a soft glow in the car, and I saw Will jostle in his seat. Alex flew forward, landing on her hands and knees in front of me. One of the guys cursed, and a woman cried out.
I gasped, looking around the dark compartment, seeing Will still seated and righting himself, while Michael pushed himself to his feet and took out his phone.
“What was that?” Kai snapped.
“Everyone okay?” Erika asked.
The train had stopped, but I just looked up and met Alex’s glare in the darkness as she looked at me like she wanted to kill me.
Right there in the darkness with everyone distracted.
Will’s body ten feet away warmed my skin. Feeling his eyes suddenly on us, my heart beat so hard in my chest I could hear it in my ears.
