AllFreeNovel
Share Us
As if I can forget the innocence of a time when I thought we were the good guys.
My mind returns to this afternoon, to the boy who is blessed with the greatest gift in the world and doesn’t even know it. Of all people, it had to be Colt Darling to win the jackpot. Why does he get to forget, and I can’t?
I’ve fucking suffered.
I could tell him. I could be as petty and cruel as everyone thinks I am, and I could tell him everything he doesn’t know. I could tell him about the game of hide and seek, and the way he looked behind the wheel of my June Bug, and the moment we realized we were more than strangers who were enemies for the simple reason that we’d been picked by opposing teams.
Maybe then when he saw me smiling at Duke, he wouldn’t look at me with such judgment in his eyes that it makes me sick. Maybe he’d burn with jealousy the way I burn when he smiles at that leach Dixie like she’s the only girl he’s ever wanted. Maybe he’d call me his butterfly again and run his palms up my sides and light my whole world on fire. Maybe this time, we’d dance through the flames together, letting it all burn. Maybe he’d know that I can spot a fake from a mile away, and he’d save every genuine smile for me.
But maybe he wouldn’t.
I don’t know if I’m strong enough to lose him again.
It’s a silly fantasy anyway.
I could no more love Colt Darling than I could transform into an actual butterfly, change every villain in my story into a hero, take back every evil deed I’ve done, save my family, call myself pure, or be the girl I was before the Dolce boys destroyed me, when the only boy I thought I’d ever love was a gentle, adoring emo boy named Rylan Woods.
four
Rumor Has It… With Willow Heights’ Queen and two Princesses spoken for, the Kings remain unattached. Are they unattainable, or will someone tame the notorious bachelors at last?
Rylan Woods
Gloria steps into her bedroom and stops short, her eyes widening like she’s seen a ghost. She probably thinks she has. She’s forgotten me and moved on like I never existed, like I’m dead and buried. She tromps over my grave, the grave of our relationship, every fucking day. I bet I never even cross her mind.
“R-Rylan?” she asks, her bag dropping to the floor with a thud.
“Found you,” I say flatly.
“What… What are you doing here? How did you get here? Wh…”
“How did I find you?” I ask, acid burning in my throat at the sight of her after all this time.
She sways on her feet like she might faint. Her face has gone pale, but it looks just the same. She’s taller, probably five-five instead of the short girl I remember, and it’s all in the legs. She’s willowy and thin now, almost gaunt. Her hair is longer but just as blonde, and she sports a fresh tan, like she spent the summer at the beach the way we used to.Together.
I use my anger to fuel me, to keep me from being the simp I was when we were together. She walked away. She didn’t suffer.
Isuffered.
Now it’s her turn.
I stand and stroll around her room, touching her things. “It wasn’t hard,” I say. “See, your great-uncle who lived in this very house used to take the whole family to Savannah every summer. That’s when your mom first went there. That’s why she fell in love with the place.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” she asks, watching me warily, like she might bolt. I pick up a picture on her desk, a framed one of her and her sisters on the beach, crowded together with their brother behind them, his arms around all three of them, squishing them together. They’re all smiling. Happy to forget the past like it didn’t happen. Happy to walk away from the destruction they caused.
“It has everything to do with it,” I say, bringing the picture down on the corner of the desk.
Glass rains down on the worn hardwood floor. Gloria jumps, but she still doesn’t step into the room.
“See, I knew you couldn’t have gone anywhere with your dad, seeing as how he’s in federal prison,” I say, putting two fingers to my temple. “My dad? Dead, not that you care. Shot himself in the head.Blam!”
Gloria winces.
“Your dad, though, didn’t have any other properties,” I say, flipping my lip ring around with my tongue before going on. “We found that out. That they took everything. Just like that show your sisters used to love.Schitt’s Creek. Except you didn’t even get this shitty little down, did you? You just moved here, convinced some senile old dinosaur to give you his house. Your mother probably killed him too.”
“What?” she whispers.
I scratch at the edge of the picture with a nail sporting black polish, catching it and pulling the photo out of the frame. I crumple it in my fist, watching Gloria’s face as I crush her happy, smiling family the way she crushed mine. She flinches, but she doesn’t stop me. Maybe she’s afraid of me.
