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Who am I trying to kid?
Jeb hasnoaffection for me. He sent the Breakers here on some kind of fucked up gangster mission knowing the deal I made with him and my brother. I’m just another pawn in his game. Collateral fucking damage.
If the Breakers don’t leave me alone, then I’ll just have to be the one to walk away.Again.
No!I mentally berate myself.
Why should I be the one to turn my back on the future I’ve worked so hard for my whole damn life?Theychose crime.Theychose Jeb and the Skins over me. They startedallof this. I might have turned my back on them that night but not for the reason they believe. They obviously didn’t think much of me if they bought into the lie and that, more than anything, hurts the most. They didn’t even try to find out why I did what I did.
They just walked.
Maybe all those years of friendship meant nothing after all, given it was so damn easy for them to let me go. It doesn’t matter now, we can never get back what we lost because the truth is, we were over long before that night. They broke my heart the second they became Jeb’s bitches, and the Breakers I knew became the Breakers for an entirely different reason.
“This is horseshit!” I shout, bashing my fist against the cubicle wall. I will not be forced out of Stardom Academy. I’ll just have to convince my brother of what I already know; that what I had with the Breakers is dead and buried. Gone.
“Pen…”
I stiffen as the door to my cubicle pushes open and Dax stands in the space, his huge frame making me feel claustrophobic all of a sudden. It’s not fair that he’s so beautiful in that deep, damaged kind of way. There’s still a huge part of me that longs for him and the way he always made me feel so protected. I push it aside. There’s no space for that in my heart anymore.
“Move!” I demand, not bothering to wait for him to step out of my way as I shove at his firm chest and squeeze between the slim gap he makes. I can’t be in a confined space with him and his muscles and that dark angel tattoo I see peeking out of the top of his vest, taunting me with past memories and promises we’d once whispered to each other in the alleyway behind Rocks nightclub when we were kids.
“Pen…” he starts again, and I cringe at the fact he doesn’t refer to me by the pet name I used to love even when I always pretended that it infuriated me. “…You need to get back to the studio.”
His voice is a low rumble that penetrates my skin and I hate myself for the way it makes me feel.
Hot. Needy.Sad. So fucking sad.
I turn on him, fury making me brave, my angry words punctuated with my finger jabbing at his chest. “You need to fuck off out of the academy, out of my life! You, Zayn, York, Xeno. Whatever bullshit you’re up to on Jeb’s behalf needs to fucking stop. I won’t let you all ruin what I’ve worked so hard for! I won’t!”
“We can’t do that, Pen,” he says.
“You can’t or youwon’t, Dax? There’s a big fucking difference.”
He sighs and for the briefest of moments I see real, deep pain flicker in his gaze. “We won’t.”
“Well, fuck you. Fuck all of you,” I seethe.
“We didn’t start this, Pen.” If I’m not mistaken I can even hear the hurt in his voice, but it’s shoved down when his voice turns icy. “You need to get back into the studio. If you don’t Tuillard will replace you, so suck it up, Pen, because the Breakers ain’t going anywhere.”
“Didn’t start this? Don’t make me laugh. You did when you became Jeb’s minions, Dax. This isbullshit,” I repeat, waving my hand in the air in frustration.
“Maybe so, but your problems are no longer mine. Fucking deal with it,” Dax retorts angrily. He gives me one last lingering look before twisting on his feet and storming out of the bathroom, leaving me reeling.
