Page 123 of Revenge Is a Dish Best Served… Wearing Heels?

What did that mean?

Tristan cleared his throat beside me, impatience bleeding into the sound.

"This... I... well..." Sloane began, her fingers fidgeting with a sparkling ring, spinning it over and over. "We—"

"Look," Preston interrupted. "I feel like the biggest asshole in the world right now—I think we both do—and I'm embarrassed as hell that it's taken this long for us to address this whole, uh, situation."

I blinked, then blinked again, not quite sure I could believe my ears.

"Me too." Sloane shifted from one heeled foot to the other.

Were they actually apologizing?

"I'm really, really sorry that I, uh,wewere so mean and cruel to you in high school," Preston said, not meeting my eyes, his cheeks flushed.

"I'm sorry too," Sloane added. "We were both evil. And we've changed so much since then. I hope... well, I hope you can someday find it in your heart to forgive us."

Forgive them? For plastering cow posters of me on the wall? That was too much to ask for, even from a so-called "nice" person like me.

"It's not about her forgiving us. We have no right to ask for that," Preston argued. "It's about us apologizing and taking accountability for our actions."

Damn.

"Right, of course, of course. I'm... I'm..." Sloane sputtered. "I'm really terrible at this. So I'll just stick to the apology."

An apology was great and all, but there was a burning need inside me to know why, and now was my chance to ask that.

"Why? Why would you do something like that to me when it was completely unprovoked?"

Preston hissed out a breath, looking down once more, like the carpet was the most interesting thing he'd ever seen.

"The truth is..." Sloane began, "there's no great answer to that. Because we were young and dumb."

"I was young and dumb too," I countered.

"You weren't dumb," Tristan chimed in.

I appreciated that. And the way he still held onto me.

"Ah, but maybe we weretrulydumb," Preston said. "And insecure. And selfish. A toxic combination. And jealous."

"Jealous?" I asked. Why would they possibly be jealous of me? "But why?"

That weird, awkward tension stretched between us all again, the air around us weighted and heavy, my brain spinning with the significance of this conversation.

Sloane was the first to break the strained silence. "It's hard to explain. But... but you and your family were so out of reach—old money, family name, status, real influence—that I guess we wanted to knock you down a peg."

"I was hardly out of reach. Not with my thighs."

She smiled softly. "You may not have felt like it, but you were. You had everything. And everyone was so cut-throat that we'd do anything to be on top. Which doesn't excuse it," she quickly added. "Not at all. Never."

"No. Never," Preston agreed.

Tristan's thumb stroked against mine, that small gesture reassuring me once more that I wasn't alone in this.

How could I tell them that their bullying had taken years for me to come to terms with? That in some ways they'd damagedme for life, done and said things that would stay with me until I died?

There was literally no excuse good enough. Really. It was unforgivable.