The Bet: A Bully Romance(14)

“I didn’t lie, Jackson is dead,” she says quietly, her voice breaking at the end.

I can feel a wave of grief and sadness building up, ready to crash over me, but I push it away. Not ready to face all of that yet, I let anger overcomes me instead and I release her with a shove. She stumbles backward and I almost reach out for her again to steady her, but instead, I shove my hands into my pockets to stop myself.

“And you didn't think that I deserved to know? Why wouldn't you tell me that my best friend is dead?”

She laughs, but it’s not laughter she’s emitting, it’s pain, thick and heavy. “Oh, when would you have liked me to do that, Remington? When you ordered me to stay out of your way and you acted like we didn’t know each other or maybe when you told me not to call you by the name I’ve called you since I was five? Oooo, maybe when you had your fingers deep inside me or when you all but told me to leave you the fuck alone or face the consequences? Please, tell me, which time should I have dropped that fucking bomb on you?”

My teeth grind together, and for once in my fucking life, I don’t know what to fucking say. I’ve been beating her down with my words, trying my best to make her feel as weak as she makes me feel, and this whole time she’s been suffering the loss of her brother, my best fucking friend. Losing Jackson was almost as tough as losing Jules, she had my heart, had me wrapped around her tiny little finger.

“He was my best friend…” I say more to myself than her.

“Yeah, so was I but you seem to have forgotten that part of your life.” She shoves at my chest to get me out of the way, her touch zings through me, restarting my heart and I listen to her feet, every step, as she walks farther and farther away from me.

Her footsteps sound just like they did all those years ago when she walked away, hollow, leaving a gaping hole inside my chest.

It takes me a long moment to regain my composure. Tears sting my eyes. I look around wiping at my eyes. I don’t fucking cry, and I haven’t since the day they both left me. I think about Jules, about the pain I’m causing her, about my revenge, about my own selfish needs. I’ve only ever loved her…her and my mother, and my mother never came back for my brothers and me, she’s never even fucking called.

Jules, she’s here now…but how can I forgive her for leaving me in the first place?

I’ve never been so conflicted in my life…so out of control.

I can’t let go of the pain. I can’t be weak by giving into her touch, her tears, her angelic face. But the thought of hurting her more than she’s already been hurt sickens me.

I hate myself for doing this to her...for doing this to me but had she not left me, had she not shattered my heart, we wouldn’t be here right now.





Chapter Six




Jules





I’m so freaking tired I can barely put one foot in front of the other. I’ve never been so exhausted, mentally and physically. I didn’t sleep a wink last night and I couldn’t bring myself to eat anything this morning either. I spent most of the last twelve hours crying and I’m sure it still shows in my face now. At least that’s why I hope everybody is looking at me with a disgusted expression on their face.

I try to ignore all the stares and whispers everywhere I go, but it gets exponentially harder to do so when I get to calculus and the whispers start to sound more like screams.

“She lied about her brother being dead…who does that?”

I don’t even turn my head to see who is talking.

“I heard she did it for sympathy, so she could stay somewhere for free.”

I should have known that what happened yesterday in bio would spread through the gossip web like wildfire. And it should come as even less of a surprise that everybody thinks I’m the bad guy. Of course, Remington can do no wrong, god forbid the asshole take responsibility for his actions. I mean who calls someone out like that in front of a whole classroom full of people? A bully that’s who.

Tears prick at my eyes thinking about him.

No, I’m not going to cry again.

“I bet she didn't even have a brother…” someone whispers behind me and somehow hearing those words hurt more than any other comment I’ve heard today.

Call me a liar and a cheater. Call me a bitch or a whore, but somebody telling me that my brother never existed at all is too much. All I have left of him are memories and for someone to say that those are not real, causes the hole in my chest to ache so badly I can barely breathe. I get up from my seat and walk out of the classroom before the professor even opens his book.

I can feel eyes on me, and it literally has my stomach churning, acid rising in my throat with every step I take. I don't care if I fail every single class right now.

All I want to do is curl up in my bed and cry my eyes out. I don’t want to be around these people or listen to their pitiful rumors. It doesn’t take long for me to make my way back to the house, and the second I walk in the door, things get even worse.

“Jules, we need to talk,” Cally says while glaring at me.

“Cally, please, I can’t do this with you right now,” I choke out, pushing past her. I walk into my room hoping she doesn’t follow, but of course, I wouldn’t get that lucky.

“Listen, I think you should find a new place to stay, this isn’t working out.”