Page 45 of Dirty Roulette
Chapter thirty
Ryder
Acid sloshes a blistering trail up my throat, as I can’t peel my eyes off Payton’s pictures. They are trending on Brody’s website. My stomach churns like spoiled meat. Her phone number. A map to her dorm room. Where she lives off campus. All of it is there.
I dump myself in the driver’s seat of my Jeep.
My hands turn clammy as I scroll through the comments of thirsty guys.
There’s not a damn thing I can do. I can’t stop anyone from blowing up her phone.
It’s a done deal. I want nothing more than to spare her the agony of playing Dirty Roulette.
But I’m reliving my own nightmare from freshman year thinking I was done with this drama.
Fear coiled itself around my skin like the devil finally had me by the neck. I’m losing my mind and the rage building in my blood leaves me unable to think straight.
Before I can switch on the engine, Brittni comes storming down the stairs from the house party clenching a hand over the strap of her purse. As I close the door, she snatches and pries it open.
“See what you make me do!” She spits out and shakes with a tattered breath.
“I just walked in on you again. You’re sleeping with some other dude!” I pitch the phone to the passenger seat and climb out of the Jeep.
Brittni’s eyes drill into my gaze. “You made me this way!” Her fingers coil into tight balls at her sides.
“I didn’t make you do anything. This is all you.” I hold up my hands.
Tears gather in her lashes. “I had a miscarriage!” She pulls the purse from her shoulder and thrusts it into my chest. It falls to the asphalt, her things spilling out everywhere.
“Wait what?” I ask, my heart gunned into overdrive.
“You don’t believe me!”
“You didn’t even give me a second to process what you just said!” I shrug, my body sinking like an iron block she threw in the ocean.
“I got pregnant and lost it, okay!”
“When?”
“This summer.”
“Then go talk to Brody about it.”
“What the hell! Fight for me back!” Her nails comb through the long, pretty blonde hair. “I’m throwing myself at you, and it’s like you never gave two shits about me to begin with.” The pain on her face rains knives into my skin.
The bulge in my throat wrenches up and down.
“I did care about you.” I slump back and lean against the Jeep, refusing to cave into looking at the tears rolling down her cheeks.
“I don’t want to be with you anymore. Not after all this drama.
My sister was dating Brody and you... you.
.. slept with him. Then you expect me to apologize for apparently hurting you when you put a hole in me. ”
“I gave you everything, and you filmed it when you fucked me!” She scrapes up the purse from the ground, throwing it at me again.
I yank the strap out of her grip. “Stop it!” I chuck the purse into the grass. She will need to walk several feet away in order to grab it. If she turns her back, I’m getting in the Jeep, locking the damn doors and driving off.
“You wanted to play football so badly you didn’t care what happened to me.” She takes her tiny fists, pounding them into my chest. Hitting as hard as she could. All the pain she bottled up was spilling out.
I grab her wrist, but she’s fighting against me with her hot, mad tears. “I wasn’t the only one who wanted something out of it! You’re the captain of the squad. I bet you anything you have your eyes set on Dallas! Quit acting like I’m the only selfish one.”
“So, you admit it. You used me!”
“For fuck’s sake, I stayed with you for three years.
” I release her hands, hoping she would back off for one second.
At this rate, if a police officer drives by, it’s going to be a fucking fantastic time chatting with them.
She’s loud enough to grab people’s attention, and it’s late. “I stayed with you.”
“Out of pity that you raped me.” Rage flares through the disgusted look she lashes me with.
My heart drops. “I what?” I rake a hand in my hair, and I can’t help but pace back and forth. “Is that how you really feel?” I stop and look at her, and the haunting tears and pain tell me that’s honestly the subconscious feeling buried deep inside her. A thought she only told God.
“You truly believe I did something that cruel when I was a virgin, too? You knew I came from a Christian family! I wanted to wait.” I pound a fist into my chest, sucking in all my emotions.
Men don’t cry, but it's brimming, and I have to swallow it. She doesn’t deserve the gratification of pulling me down that deep.
“You know that’s what it was.” She folds her arms over her chest.
“You agreed to it,” I argue, and barrel back to the driver’s side of the Jeep. Everything inside me screams at me to leave – to end the conversation and go.
“No one agrees to the game,” she says and torpedoes behind me.
“You played the game and knew the conditions of it as much as I did.” I drop down to the driver’s seat and hold on to the door handle.
“You’re so blind.”
“I asked you a million times if this was okay. You said yes, you can’t sit here and change your mind three years later.
This is why I will never be with you again.
You’re angry I’m moving on, but you keep being a complete bitch.
If you wanted me so badly, you wouldn’t be sleeping around with other guys, you wouldn’t be fighting with me constantly, and you certainly wouldn’t be falsely accusing me of rape!
At some point, you would have been able to communicate with me and express all of this. ”
“You never listened to me!”
“I’m listening right now, but you can’t put your emotions first and not look at the reality of it. You keep trying to blame me for your actions. We are not good for each other, and we never were.”
“So, you really want to be with Trash?” She asks.
“The only trash I see is you...”
“Screw you!”
“I want her!” Like grains of sand in the ocean, the feelings are surfacing with the waves crashing in my chest. “I love Payton. I always have.”
She backs away from the Jeep’s driver’s side door, and I slam it shut, jamming the keys in the ignition. Brittni storms up, slamming a fist on the window. “I hope she rots in the dirt like everyone else in your damn family.”
The engine ignites and I flip her the finger. I put the car in drive, watching her take a step back as I spin the wheel and peel out.