Kiss and Break Up (Magnolia Cove, #1)(50)

“I hate you,” I said with every ounce of ruin I felt.

“Dash …” Her voice broke. Her face, shoulders—all of her—seemed to crumple as she took an unsteady step back.

The sight of her misery was about to send me to my knees, but my revulsion kept me standing. I hit the remote for the door, my chest heaving. “I fucking hate you, Peggy.”

The door closed on her shattered expression.





Peggy



I fucking hate you, Peggy.

As if it wasn’t bad enough that rumors had spread about me throughout the entire school, the one person I needed most had believed them without even hearing me out. The look on his face, the anger wrenching his voice—it hurt worse than anything that’d transpired since homecoming.

I’d stalked through the halls silent, my head down and my heart weary as whispers and disgusting overtures found me at every turn. I wanted to scream at them, but I knew it’d only give them further ammunition to use against me. Instead, I’d spent too much time crying in the girls’ bathroom, drowning in my own reckless decisions.

Class was hardly a reprieve because even the teachers looked at me as if I’d disappointed them.

I’d wanted a boyfriend, to feel wanted, to experience what it was like to have another human being touch you and look at you in a way that painted the world in fresh color.

I never expected this to happen.

I’d made a mistake, which was evident in the way Byron so easily shared what’d happened between us. Not once did I think he’d share something personal and maybe, under different circumstances, special between us. Regardless, I couldn’t live with that kind of guilt for long. I’d sat at home all weekend, trying to devise a way to tell Dash myself. To tell him I had feelings for him too.

That was pointless now, and I wondered if Byron had somehow hoped or planned for that, or if he even cared that he’d made my life hell in the days after. Maybe I’d never know because every time I’d tried to talk to him, he’d make himself scarce and ignore my calls.

Words held too much power. It was clear he’d wielded that power for his own personal gain, uncaring of how it would affect anyone besides himself.

It wasn’t fair, and it was all I could do to drag myself out of bed Tuesday morning and throw myself to the wolves once more. I’d allowed it to happen. I’d even enjoyed it before everything I’d been smothering was brought to the surface. Complaining and playing the victim wouldn’t get me anywhere, but nevertheless, it was impossible to keep it from gnawing at every beat my heart took.

Dash was nowhere to be seen, and by lunchtime, word had spread that he’d been suspended and that Byron had received a week of detention.

Rumor was he apparently needed to see a plastic surgeon about his nose, and that was why he hadn’t shown up at school on Tuesday. I found that hard to believe, albeit not entirely impossible. I’d only caught the tail end of the fight before heading to Dash’s house to wait for him, but I’d seen enough to know Dash had given him one hell of a banged-up face.

Dash had a busted lip and some swelling beneath his right eye, but it was clear that no matter how much muscle Byron had, it was no match for the rage coursing through Dash yesterday afternoon.

Rage that I’d caused.

Rage that shouldn’t even exist because while I’d allowed things between Byron and me to go too far, I hadn’t allowed him to take our make-out session and transform it into entertainment for the masses. He’d betrayed me, and now I couldn’t even get close enough to break up with him, let alone howl my hurt at him.

It was Dash, but maybe, just maybe, he wouldn’t have been suspended, maybe he wouldn’t hate me, not entirely, if he’d found out what I’d done via me instead of the student body.

“It’ll blow over,” Daphne said as we walked to our last class for the day. “As soon as someone else does something fucked up, which, let’s face it, will be soon.”

“It wasn’t fucked up,” Willa tried to defend. “He was her boyfriend.”

I smiled at her, weak but grateful.

Daphne laughed. “No one cares about the finer details, especially not when Dash and Byron are both involved.”

That didn’t exactly make me feel better. “That’s stupid.”

“It’s hot gossip.”

“Still nothing from Dash?” Willa asked, stopping outside the door.

I squeezed my textbook to my chest. “His phone’s been off.”

They knew the score now. Well, as much as I was willing to admit, which was mostly everything except for chasing Dash’s Range Rover down his driveway like some lunatic.

But it hadn’t really hit me until I saw he was going to close those gates on me—until he’d shut the garage door and spewed those venomous words in my face—exactly what I’d done. That by trying to keep things from escalating between us, by trying to salvage our lifelong friendship, and by trying to find something I wanted from him in someone else, I’d ruined it all.

No, I hadn’t just ruined it, I’d emptied a bucket of fuel over an already burning fire and caused our entire world to explode.

“He’ll calm down. You’ll see.” Daphne tucked some glossy hair behind her ear. “I know it sounds cliché, but you do just need to give him some time. He’s a hothead, but he’s obsessed with you, so he won’t stay mad forever.”