Page 12 of Reanimated Ruin (Hearts In Horror #1)

CHAPTER TWELVE

Cat

I TOOK A seat, staring out at the stadium once we got up there. Jules joined me but left an empty seat between us as a buffer. Whether it was because he was afraid of how I’d react or couldn’t bear the thought of accidentally brushing up against me, I wasn’t sure.

“I’m surprised your bodyguard let me go off alone with you after this morning. Dom’s been whining about his chest hurting all day,” he started.

He stole a peek out of the corner of his eye at me, attempting to read me.

“Her name is Sadie, and she’s not my bodyguard. She’s my friend,” I snapped back, a bit more defensive than I intended.

I could tell he was trying to be playful with me to break the tension, but his mood swings were giving me whiplash. I’d been stewing over his words to me all day, and now he was acting like he hadn’t come for my throat earlier.

“Look, I know you’re mad at me. I’m not going to try and pretend like I’m not absolutely furious with you either,” I went to interrupt him but he kept going. “Just hear me out, please. I only need you to listen for a minute, there’s so many things I’ve wanted to say to you if I ever got the chance and I won’t be able to live with myself if I just let this one slip through my fingers.”

Staying silent and holding off on my rebuttal, I gave him permission to say all he needed to say without trying to interrupt him again. I couldn’t say no when he was looking at me the way he was. Also, I didn’t want to be a hypocrite. So often I’d wished they’d stopped and listened to me, so I wanted to give him the same grace. He gazed meaningfully at me, nodded, then moved to the empty seat between us.

His hand lifted off his leg for a second like he was going to grab mine, but it settled back down, as if he was debating it for a split second, then deciding against it. Or maybe it was just second nature to him, a ghost of the past and he’d had to stop himself, just like how I’d had from leaping into his arms.

“First of all, I miss you,” he said softly, looking down at his hands. “Never thought it’d come to this, us being strangers. I want you to know I meant everything I said back then, well, the good stuff, not what I said when I was mad. I’m sorry for everything I said then and I’m sorry about this morning. It’s just I’ve spent such a long time being so damn angry. I mean, you were my best fucking friend. When you moved away without saying anything at all, you took a part of me with you. I know our fight that night was bad, but I thought we were stronger than that. When I saw you yesterday, everything I shoved down deep over the years came rushing back up to the surface.

“I don’t think you know how many nights of sleep I’ve lost just asking myself the same questions over and over. What if we never went to the party?” He stopped looking down at his hands, then shifted his view to my face and our eyes connected. “What if I never stopped us that night in my room? Why him, not me? It’s not like I felt entitled to you, it’s not that. Even though I do wish you could have, I don’t know, let me know you didn’t feel the same first or something, maybe. I just don’t understand why.”

He stopped talking and broke eye contact once again to look out over the stadium. I could tell he wanted me to answer the question, preparing himself to hear the answer to a question he’s wondered for ages. I’d never wanted to tell him more than I did at this very moment, but I just couldn’t.

There was too much on the line. I could deal with the consequences if it was just me they’d be effecting, but after everything I’d done to get the money back with only one goal in mind, I couldn’t. Jules and Dom used to be my reason for waking up every day, but now that was Rhiannon. She didn’t have anyone else looking out for her. She needed me.

“I can’t tell you why, Jules. You have no idea how badly I wish I could, but I just can’t. You have to believe me, please. I did feel the same way about you,” I begged, acknowledging how desperate I sounded and not caring.

“Really? That’s what you’re going to go with,” he said, then sighed dejectedly, looking up at the ceiling. “You know, Alicia told me how you came back outside from using the bathroom and saw Mallory and me talking. Said you got all jealous then stormed back into the house, kind of suspicious you then get caught sleeping with her boyfriend right after. People do stupid stuff when they’re drunk and upset, but what’s fucked up is to try to deny your reasoning behind it. I can’t believe you can sit there and try to say you felt the same way about me but went and slept with someone else.”

I couldn’t believe what he was accusing me of. Did he truly think that’s the kind of person I was? I stared at him in horror while he couldn’t even look me in the eye after spitting that vile assertion at me. Then I realized Mallory’s plan had been even more evil than I initially realized.

It was perfectly orchestrated down to the minute detail. Any angle you looked at the situation besides the truth that had been sealed away. I was the bad guy. And there was nothing I could possibly say to defend myself without getting myself into major legal trouble. Yeah, my reputation would be restored, but at what cost?

“Real reliable source you got your information from there,” I scoffed with thick sarcasm lacing my words. “You know, even if that was the why I had sex with Scott, how is it right that a video of it got sent around to the entire school? Does everyone just forget about that part? I was a minor at the time and it quite literally ruined my fucking life. No, nobody cares about that, do they? But please tell me more about how I hurt your feelings.”

It was almost impossible not to get defensive, but it was so hard to stand by and let myself get painted as the villain. I’m sure we both entered this conversation with the intention of remaining calm, but that plan was fast derailing. I could see his face start to contort into irritation and I didn’t even care.

Good, be mad. He had no fucking idea what he’s talking about. All he could focus on was his pain and suffering. I was sick of mine being invalidated just because I was forced to hide it from the world. He may have felt as if he was owed something, but I didn’t owe him shit.

“Well, when you do shitty things to people, they tend not to care about how it all worked out for you in the end. You just hide behind your ‘I can’t tell you, I wish I could’ excuse instead of just owning up to what you did. I don’t fucking get it. It would be ten times easier to accept it if you didn’t just play this whole innocent act. You can’t play with people’s emotions, Cat. My feelings for you weren’t some game,” he said, rising to his feet, standing over me angrily.

“You really waited all this time just to pick me apart piece by piece again? Really feels like we’re beating a dead horse, don’t you think?” I said with snark, crossing my arms over my chest.

“So you’re really just fine with the way things are between us? You don’t even want to try to fix things between us?” He demanded, taking a step towards me so that now our legs were touching and he was towering over me.

“What do you want from me, Jules?” Leaning my head back, I stared up at him defiantly. “I can’t tell you the truth and you can’t accept that. I’ll never be able to tell you, and I can’t elaborate on that in the slightest. If that means I can’t have you as a friend, that’s something I just have to live with. No matter how much it kills me. I’m not the same girl you knew from before. That luxury is long gone. What I want and how I feel just aren’t important right now. Maybe someday I can work towards repairing what’s broken, but every day that goal post just gets pushed further and further back.”

“Is how I feel not important at all?” He breathed, his eyes flicking back and forth between mine. “I’m so tired of missing you. It’s driving me crazy. They say time heals all wounds, but not this one. It only gets worse and worse.”

“I just need some time to think, okay? It’s not like I can really run away from you again in here. This is all happening at a really overwhelming time, like the timing of all this seriously could not be any worse. And I’m still really mad at you. I can’t just forget everything that happened. I think right now, it’s for the best if our main concern is just staying alive and then we can go from there.”

He slowly nodded his head, digesting what I had just said. I was tired too. Tired of holding onto this rage that burned in my chest at being so horribly misunderstood by the two people I had once trusted the most in this world. If they could just move past what happened and accept the fact that they’ll never get an explanation of what truly happened that night, maybe there was hope. If they wanted me in their life, it’d just have to be something they needed to live with themselves.

“Just promise you’ll seriously think about it and maybe we can try to be friends again in the meantime. And while you do that, I’ll think about if I can deal with the fact you won’t tell me why you chose him.” He held out his pinky to me, waiting for me to do the same. “No more running.”

“Sure, I promise.” I rolled my eyes and wrapped my pinky around his.

“No more running?” He repeated with a renewed shimmer to his eyes, apparently needing to hear me say the words.

“ Yes , fuck, no more running!” I threw his words back at him with some sass.

“Come on, I’ll walk you back to your tent. I’m sure Sadie’s pacing a line into the dirt anxiously awaiting your return and I’m not trying to get my ass kicked too,” he said with a light laugh.

We walked side-by-side back to my tent, not uttering a word, too afraid to say anything that might jeopardize our freshly inked truce. It was probably in our best interest because it seemed like these days we both were quick to strike. While the two of us came to the decision not to continue to go for blood, we had acknowledged that we weren’t completely over the strife between us and were still treading in murky water. It just appeared like maybe we both had realized that this might not be the hill we both wanted to die on, weighing the pros and cons of starting the trek back down to neutral ground.

“Well, I guess that ended up going a lot better than my conversation with Dom did last night,” I stated when we got back to my tent.

“I’ll be sure to fill him in on the peace treaty when I see him,” he joked with a grin.

“Okay, good. I’m gonna head inside and start getting ready for bed. Goodnight, Jules,” I said softly.

“Goodnight, Kitty,” he replied, winked at me, then turned and began the walk back to his tent.

I went inside and Sadie was sitting in bed with a book she borrowed from Cindy. She just shot me a questioning thumbs up. I returned it to reassure her that everything’s all good then changed into some sleep clothes. As I climbed into bed myself, I considered maybe not every single thing was falling apart. Maybe at least one good thing could come out of this absolute shit show.