AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I pressed my hands to my stomach, feeling vaguely ill. “What a traitor,” I said to myself, unable to believe Christopher was one of my stepmother’s dreadful little moles. A shiver of revulsion consumed me. “I can’t believe I ever had a crush on that… That… Sanctimonious little turd bucket.”
Tell me how to clean my stained shirt, would he? Well, he needed to learn how to clean his stained, little double-crossing soul!
“Wait.” Ezra stopped pacing and swung to face me, his eyebrows going up. “You had a crush on Elton?”
Oh crap. Had I said that out loud? I flashed my gaze to Ezra, who was looking somewhat jealous as well as unbelievably pissed off.
“Thought you said he was gay,” he hissed.
“I, uh.” I cleared my throat and winced. “Yeah, he is… Which I found out right before I was going to flirt with him.” I tried to self-consciously laugh it off. “It was just a small, insignificant little crush. I mean, today was literally the second time I’d ever even talked to him.”
“Interesting,” he deadpanned. “Today was literally the second time you’d ever talked to me.”
My mouth fell open. “Yeah, but that’s totally not the same thing, and you know it.”
“I don’t know shit,” he admitted. “Everything I thought I knew about you on Saturday has ended up being dead wrong. For all I know, you and Elton could be—”
“We’re not!” I hissed, glancing toward the door in worry because his voice had risen enough for someone walking by in the hall to hear through the closed door—if anyone had indeed been walking by. Turning back to him, I scowled. “Christopher and I are nothing. I watched a YouTube video on the JFI page once where he was giving a presentation about a pair of pants, and I thought hey, he’s cute and amusing, so I entertained a couple daydreams about him before I learned he didn’t even date my type. So, no, we have never touched, or kissed, or any of that. Now stop acting like a jealous nitwit.”
Ezra’s eyebrows lifted. Then he scowled and opened his mouth, but I kept talking over him. “He has a boyfriend. Brick planned on introducing me to him at the Halloween party until we saw him kissing some guy on the dance floor.”
Jaw hardening, Ezra sniffed. “Oh, so you still liked him the night you met me. Minutes before you met me. Was I just some rebound hookup then? Someone to make you feel powerful again, to reassure yourself you could still get any straight guy you wanted?”
I pulled backward, startled by the venom in his voice and the harsh brutality in his words. “Wow. That was a little uncalled for.”
In answer, he withdrew a step and bowed his head, brooding. “Maybe,” he admitted quietly.
I wanted to argue more and say I couldn’t get any guy I wanted, but hell, I’d caught Ezra’s attention, hadn’t I? Maybe I was more alluring than I’d ever thought possible. Because he wasn’t just any guy. He was… He was everything.
But the expression in his eyes when he glanced up at me was heartbreaking. As mad as he’d sounded moments ago, he looked absolutely crushed, as if every expectation he’d had about me had been shattered. I had let him down in the worst way possible, by not remaining the mysterious enigma I’d been in that yellow Power Ranger costume.
Swallowing, I tried to think up some way to soften this painful blow for him, while combatting all the agony he was causing me with his biting accusations. But I must’ve taken too long to respond.
He sniffed and turned away, dismissing me. “I don’t know wh
y I was so worried and even bothered to warn you about Lana and her spies. I’m sure someone like you can handle a witch like her just fine.”
He left the office without another word. I stared after him, feeling hollow inside before I sank into my desk chair and pressed the sheet of paper I’d been holding to my chest.
Someone like you. That hurt the most. He truly, honestly thought I was like Lana: manipulative and deceitful and cruel. I’d always worked so hard to be a kind, honest, upfront person. To be considered the very opposite pinched a painful nerve, a very raw, exposed, painful nerve.
I was such a failure.
Everything I’d learned about Ezra since stepping into that garden with him had only endeared him to me more. He was witty and considerate, smart and passionate. And I had doubled my own expectations, daydreaming fifty times more about him in the past two days than I ever had about Christopher Elton in the last six months I’d crushed on him. It broke my heart to know Ezra kept meeting all the expectations I made about him and going above and beyond them, while all I’d only ever done in return was disappoint him.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I was still blue when I clocked out of work. It was the first time I actually got to use the JFI time clock to clock out, too. I should’ve been delighted about that alone. I was now a full-time employee at my father’s company. Woot-woot! It felt as if I’d already half reached my dreams. I could practically feel my father’s spirit grinning in pride. The sensation of that’s my girl seemed to shimmer through me as I left the office. I should’ve wanted to celebrate, rejoice.
But my encounters with Ezra had left me more maudlin than festive. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d really hurt him. I knew talking to someone a total of maybe an hour and a half all together didn’t make us close or anything, but there’d been something between us, something that made me feel as if I’d always known him, as if my soul had seen his and said, oh, there you are.
That was silly, I knew. But I still couldn’t shake the sense that I’d ruined everything by revealing my truth to him.
Here, I’d always thought the truth was supposed to set a person free. Yet it had seemed to make Ezra more suspicious and untrusting.
When I reached home, I slumped onto my couch after changing into my comfy yoga pants and paint-stained T-shirt from college. Then I stared at the blank screen of my television. I didn’t bother to reach for the remote to turn it on, because I didn’t particularly want to sit here alone with my thoughts. My head was currently depressing company. So I jumped up about three seconds after flopping down to change back into clothes that weren’t stained. After that, I stopped by the kitchen for the last of the chocolate chip cookies I’d made.
With the cookies in tow, I left my apartment again, locking up behind me.
