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God, and I was convinced T-Swift was my problem. Ivy must think I’m so fucking stupid.
My teeth crack, they’re clenched so tight. I should have listened to Rebel. Kept my fucking distance. Love is bullshit. Of course it was going to end badly. Ivy was different though… I laugh mirthlessly. Yeah, she was so fucking different. She’s the sister of a fucking piece of shit bastard. An absolute psycho.
But she was so sweet. So genuine. Her stories seemed true. Our connection felt honest. She was so easy to love. Probably because I fell for a bunch of horseshit. Was any of it real? Or was every single second we spent together orchestrated to help that abusive asshole?
The anger doesn’t keep the ache in my chest at bay. Chewing up every moment we spent together and seeing it through the new lens of her being Hawthorne’s sister isn’t enough to stop the bleed she’s caused. Because I am so deeply in love with her, I don’t see how I’ll ever climb out.
I lift the bottle to my lips and drain the last of it. I want to get so blind that I can’t feel this pain. It hurts like a motherfucker. Feels like she reached into my chest and ripped my heart clean out. Took it with her.
I pick up my phone while I wait for the alcohol to slow my thoughts and make the kind of call I hate to make. One where Rebel is right and instead of gloating, I have to eat humble pie. But he needs to know about Ivy. They all need to know what she’s been up to under our noses. This is going to suck.
“Fuck,” he says after I blurt it all out in one giant rush. I couldn’t take it slow. Couldn’t do it easy. Could feel myself cracking with every word I spoke. The burn behind my eyes has grown as my anger has banked. “She told you all that?”
“Yeah.” But it feels kind of weird to say that. I trusted her and she went behind my back to help Alec. Only she told me to my face. And it wasn’t vindictive. But fuck, it hurts all the same. I can’t trust her. I can’t believe her.
“Maybe she felt guilty,” he says.
I didn’t expect it. Probably why it rings in my ears. I fully expected him to be much more vocal about how much he didn’t like her. His gut instinct was on point, but he doesn’t bring it up. Then again, I wouldn’t bring it up either, if I were on that end of this phone call.
“Do you want me to come get you?” he asks. “I’ll pick you up. You should be here. At the house. Not alone. Are you drinking? How much have you had?”
“A bit.” I tug at the back of my head. But I’m done. Booze isn’t going to change anything. It isn’t going to make me feel better. It’s not going to change the fact that Ivy is Hawthorne’s sister. “I need some time. On my own.”
“I think you should come to the house. It’s hard…” He exhales painfully. “Summer was here when I got home. But the hours I spent in lock up. Pushing her away. Telling her it was over. Telling myself it was over. I couldn’t breathe.”
“I can’t breathe. I can’t…” My chest hurts so fucking much. I’m so angry. So gutted. Ivy Love—even her last name should have been a clue how badly this would go—screwed me in every way.
I was imagining a future with her. Daydreaming about living together and building pillow forts on the regular. She was the only girl who had ever made me feel like that. She’s the only girl who has ever managed to hurt me like this. “How do I get through this?”
“You just do,” he says. “You will. You’re so angry right now. It’ll calm and then maybe—”
“We need to organize ourselves for tomorrow night. The party. Showing up for Ro.”
“Don’t even worry about that,” he says. “It doesn’t matter right now. Summer is standing in front of me telling me to tell you that it doesn’t matter. She’s as worried about you as I am.”
Her voice pipes through the phone. “Rogue, we’re coming to get you. You should be here. With us.”
“Summer Heart.” My voice is gruff with prickly emotion. “I’m a grown ass man and I do not need you to babysit me just because Ivy and I broke up.”
“Maybe I need to know you’re okay,” she says. “That you won’t do anything… rash.”
“You’re worried I’ll what?” Hurt myself? Or… “Go after Alec?”
“The thought crossed my mind,” she says. “Rebel’s too.”
“Can’t say that I’m not thinking about it now.” In fact, the idea is pumping through my veins. I have a serious need to punch the shit out of something. His face would be optimal. I rub at my knuckles. “Do you think anything she told me was real?”
“About him?” Summer asks.
“She was so scared of him.” And I’d wanted to protect her. Would have gone after him a lot harder than just a magazine article if she’d asked me to. God, I’d wanted to put her asshole of a brother in his place. Show him he couldn’t hurt her anymore. If she’d only told me… but she didn’t. Because she was working with him. For who knows how long. Probably the whole time we were seeing each other.
“Honestly.” Summer hums for a moment as she muses over it. “Ivy always seemed genuine. And she is truly timid. I can’t imagine what it must have been like growing up with him.”
Even if that is true, she still didn’t tell me. “She could have trusted me. Could have opened up to me. She didn’t. She didn’t give us a chance. She chose to throw us away to help him.”
“I’m not saying she dealt with it in the right way,” Summer says. “Sometimes people do really shitty things for reasons that only make sense to them.”
“I’m taking your phone, kitten. I’ll be back as soon as I can,” Rebel says in the background. “I’ll bring him home with me.”
