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What little heat was left inside me instantly evaporates, replaced with icy realization.
Waving back with my middle finger, I stomp over to my car and yank the door open.
Tossing my gun into the passenger seat like a stupid idiot, I jam the button to start the engine.
Then I peel out of the driveway, kicking gravel up everywhere.
I make it a couple of miles up the road before I have to pull over.
Hoping James can’t see me all the way out here with his scope, I stumble out of my car and drop to my knees in the grass.
Hunching over, I vomit up the lunch Oscar fed me. Painting all the green red with tomato soup and grilled cheese.
My body heaves and heaves, even when there’s nothing left in my stomach, as if it’s trying to puke out my very soul.
I almost fucking died and didn’t even know I was in danger.
The thought has me doubling over again, clenching in misery.
Tears fill my eyes as my numbed protection vanishes. My repressed emotions coming back with a vengeance now that I’m alone and no one is around me.
“What am I doing?” I groan to myself.
Repeating it over and over.
Wrapping my arms around myself, I start to rock back and forth.
Self-soothing.
It feels like the world is spinning around me, out of control, and I’m just barely hanging on.
I don’t know how to get control back.
I don’t know how to get back the dumb illusion of ever having control.
I just wish everything would stop. That I could go back to the girl I was before. The girl who was so ignorant and naïve she believed she was protected.
The girl who believed nothing truly bad would ever happen to her.
That, like in the movies, before it could someone or something would stop it.
Not this… broken bitch who has no one. Who doesn’t even have herself.
Leaning back on my heels, I throw my head back and scream, “Fuck!” at the dusky sky. Emptying my lungs.
Wishing I could empty all this hurt.
But it only throbs harder, bringing more tears to my eyes.
Reaching up, I grab at my hair, yanking on it.
The pain stinging my scalp dulls some of the pain churning inside me, and I wish for the millionth time I didn’t chop my hair so short so I could yank harder.
I don’t know how much time passes with me losing my shit but as soon as I hear the distinct sound of a car approaching it’s like a switch flips inside me.
All the turmoil instantly switches off.
I know it isn’t natural or healthy for emotions to do this, but it’s the only way I can survive right now, so I let it happen.
I may be supremely fucked up, but I’ll be damned if anyone gets to see me fall apart.
Never again will I let another person see me cry.
Unwrapping my arms from around myself, I cloak myself in my shredded pride and wipe my nose off on my sleeve.
The approaching car slows and I sense it coming to a stop behind me.
Furiously wiping at my eyes, I take a few deep breaths, pulling myself together.
A car door opens and shuts, then footsteps crunch behind me.
Muscles tensing, I glance over my shoulder and glimpse the last person I want to see right now.
“Everything alright?” James asks, sounding more curious than concerned.
Groaning inwardly, I take one last deep breath and push up from the ground. Getting my feet firmly under me, I still my features and slowly turn around.
I give James cold, unimpressed eyes and slightly lift one brow. “Everything is fine.”
James smirks at me as if he finds that amusing. “You sure? Cause I swear I heard a wounded animal screaming like they were in pain.”
I grind my teeth together, something I find myself always doing in his presence. I’m going to need a shit ton of expensive dental work done if I have to keep dealing with him more than once a month.
Out of everyone, my mom, Beth, Sophia, hell, even Oscar, James looks at me and talks to me like he sees right through my mask.
And it pisses me off.
Why him? Why is he the only one who can see me? Why is he the one that always calls my bluff?
I almost wish he would treat me like everyone else. I wish he’d be afraid of pushing me too hard.
But he’s too big of a cocky jerk.
I honestly don’t know what Sophia sees in him. He’s a full-grown manchild barely out of diapers.
She deserves someone better. Someone more mature and on her level.
I guess it must be an opposites attract thing.
“Yes, I’m sure,” I grit out between my teeth then almost crack a molar when he pointedly looks down at the grass. “No animals here. Just little ol’ me fighting with her lunch. The lunch won.”
