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However, that sense of triumph I felt, the little inkling of pride that flourished, quickly wore off when Amelia crumpled to the floor the second Dylan was out of sight. It vanished entirely when she cringed as I took her hand, and I got that same sick feeling in my stomach that I did that awful night in September.
I silently simmer as I watch my friend fall apart, taking all the blame for something that isn't remotely her fault. I watch Nick comfort her, and can't help but wonder what would have happened if she'd met Nick first, before Dylan ever existed to her.
I would do anything,anything, for the ability to turn back time. To go back to the day they met and stop it from happening.
Fingers laces with mine, stopping the fidgeting I didn't even realize I was doing. Glancing down, I find the skin beneath my ring bright red, rubbed raw from twisting too much. A little green-tinged too because the thing cost, like, two bucks from some dingy thrift store.
When I shift my gaze to the hand holding mine, I cringe. They're just bruises. The skin isn't even broken. Jackson doesn't flinch in the slightest when I run my thumb over his busted-up knuckles. He's nowhere near as bad as Nick but still, I hate it.
I hate every mark left on the people I care about by a man I despise.
I can’t let it happen again.
I don't realize I'm standing until a sea of furious words spill out of my mouth. “You can’t do this again. This is the third time he’s hurt you. You have to report him.”
A heavy silence settles in the room, tinged with disbelief and a steady thrum of ever-growing anger. Cass is the first to break it, voice a deadly kind of quiet. “The third time?”
Something in the back of my head nags at me to shut up. Insists I’m going too far. But it's drowned out by so much anger and irritation and fucking guilt that I can't hold in my angry, dry laugh. “You think that was bad? Two months ago she came home with a split lip and a concussion after he-”
Amelia cuts me off by hissing my name and my angry gaze flicks to her. Pleading eyes silently beg me to shut up but I can't, I'm too far gone, too lost in a white-hot rage.
Out of my peripheral, I see Cass looking between the two of us slowly. I can see the cogs turning in his brain, trying to piece together the small tidbits of information he's been given. “He hit you?”
Amelia promises him he didn’t. A lie of omission, a fucking technicality. After everything, she's still covering for him.
“No,” the words spill out before I can stop them, acidic and bitter and wrong, “he just slammed a car door in your face.”
My lips snap shut a second too late. Too slowly, my brain catches up with my mouth and I deflate. A wave of regret downs out my anger at the sight of Amelia's face, painted with anger, shock, betrayal.
Fuck.
Too far.
Way too fucking far.
“You have no right to tell them that,” Amelia seethes and I recoil.
I know.I know, I know, I know.
My mouth opens and closes as I search for something to say, my chest aching as Amelia turns away before I can, speaking to Cass in soft apologetic tones.
Like a scolded puppy, I retreat to the sofa, sinking onto the cushions and wishing they would envelop me entirely. Tucking my legs up to my chest and resting my chin on my knees, I cover my mouth with my hand as though that will keep anything else from flowing out.
Fuck.
* * *
The next hour passes agonizingly slowly.
Tense and weepy andawkward.
Nick fled the room halfway through the retelling of a concise version of events for Kate’s benefit—she picked a hell of a party to skip—like he couldn’t bear to relive it all. Amelia lasted a whole twenty minutes before mumbling an excuse and following him upstairs, armed with booze, a first aid kit, and a heartbreakingly guilty expression.
It’s funny, how earlier tonight, that would’ve had me cartwheeling in delight. Nick and Amelia, alone in his bedroom, shacking up for the night? Mission accomplished.
Except mission not accomplished because the whole point was to relieve some of that stress weighing Amelia down, not add more.
I stay exactly where I am. Still curled up on the sofa, still wishing it would swallow me whole. I avoid eye contact with everyone—especially Cass because he keeps sending curious, pleading glances my way, and I scared I’ll somehow spill more secrets—and selfishly wallow in how fucking awful I feel.
