Page 104 of Broken Beauty

“Come on Ariella, I know you like this cat-and-mouse game between us.”

“Fuck you. You can’t keep doing this. You can’t keep changing your mind about wanting me or not. You constantly do this. It’s all you have done to me. Don’t you think I’m getting tired of it?”

“You don’t get it.” Ash shakes his head lightly and I can’t help but laugh.

“You’re insane.”

“You haven’t even seen insane, Ariella. You seriously don’t understand.”

“What? What don’t I understand? You’re not even making any sense. You can’t keep going back and forth.” Ash doesn't say anything which just happens to make me even more pissed off. I shake my head. “Forget it. Just get out and go.” Ash still stands in the middle of my room, waiting for something, as if it will just show itself to him. “All you do is hurt people. Can’t you see that I’m hurting because of you?” I ask but he still doesn’t say a word.

His jaw clenches before he backs away from the bed and leaves out the door.

Forty-Nine

Ariella

Summer

One of the things I've been doing this summer is hanging out with Ash at the beach.

We sit on the sand and watch the stars while talking about weird theories or our life back at home without revealing too much.

I have talked about my mom a lot more with him.

I told Ash all of the wonderful things my mother has done for me and then all of our adventures. I would also smile while talking about her and I swear I saw Ash's eyes glow when he was listening to me.

He listens like everything I'm telling him is valuable and important information that he doesn't want to miss hearing.

“What is going on in that head of yours?”

I turn my head and look at Ash. “I'm just listening to the waves. It's peaceful.”

“What do you think is out there?”

I shrug and look back at the waves. “I don't know. I definitely think mermaids are real.”

“Mermaids?” I look at Ash and see his eyebrow is raised.

“Yea.” I smile. “Only 2% of the ocean is discovered. If mermaids aren't real then something close to them are. How else would people come up with the ideas of mermaids?”

“There is only so much we know,” Ash answers.

“What do you think is out there?”

This time he shrugs. “I don't know. I'm not a marine nerd so I don't focus too much on the ocean.”

“Can you just entertain me for a minute?” I raise my eyebrow at him and his smirks before looking down at my lips for a second before meeting me eyes again.

“I can entertain you by doing something else,” he offers. I can't help but blush and turn my head away from him. How does he have the ability to make me feel so hot and happy so randomly? I've never been big on boys or focused on them too much but with Ash, all I can focus on is him. “Any good books you've read yet?” Ash asks, breaking me out of my thoughts.

“I started reading this one book about a girl who is a killer and an FBI agent. The girl is killing all of these people who ruined her life when she was seventeen and the FBI agent is investigating her case but they fall in love during that.”

“What's the twist to this story?”

I love how Ash knows all of the little details about me and what I read.

I always love reading romance books or thrillers. But whenever there is a mind-fucking twist that's when I can't stop talking about it.