Break Me (Brayshaw High #5)(116)
I look to Maddoc, and he takes a single step forward, lowering his chin at me. I turn back to Raven.
“I understand, I do.” I grab my bag off of the bench. “And I know you understand exactly why I won’t. It’s like you said, he’ll only come for me once I’m gone. So maybe I should be?” I lift a shoulder. “My brother is only a call away.”
Her eyes narrow and just like that, she leaves.
Royce
“You self-sabotaging dumbass!”
I groan, opening my eyes when the trampoline wobbles beneath me.
Raven stands over me, glare heavy and eyes heated. “How many times do you think you can push a girl before she tumbles?”
“Mac already told me fuckhead’s here now, RaeRae.” My hands lift. “It’s almost over.”
Her eyes widen. “Oh my god. You called him.” She shakes her head “Royce, what the fuck is wrong with you?!”
“What’s the big fuckin’ deal?”
Her arm flies out. “Her fucking leaving with him, that’s what!”
“I’m giving her what she’s wanted from the beginning. News flash, RaeRae. It ain’t me.”
She scoffs, her palm slapping onto her forehead. “You really are an idiot.”
My lips tip up. “Never claimed I wasn’t. At least you see it now.”
“Don’t play your word games, they don’t work with me and you know it, and I know you. She leaves, and you will crash and burn. Hard.”
“I’m good with it.”
“Well, we aren’t.” She flashes. “Something fucks up with one of us and we all fuck up. Don’t do this.”
“Says the girl who blew up our fucking world, and more than once.”
“Did you not learn from that?!” she damn near screams, throwing a phone at my head.
“Fuck, RaeRae!” I push myself up, rubbing my skull.
“You’re a dumbass. Get up. Get your head out of your ass!”
“I failed her!” I shout, falling back against the netting. “I fucking failed her when I didn’t even know her, Raven. If that’s not a sure ass sign I’ll keep doing it, like I have several times now, I don’t know what is.”
Her features pull. “Are you talking about sending her to her aunt’s? Royce, that wasn’t on you.”
“Wasn’t it?” I argue. “We take people from shitty situations and help them out, offer them more, but what happens to the ones who don’t make it here? Or the ones like Brielle, who don’t even get a chance? We sent her away because we trusted it was better for her, and yeah, she didn’t get beat on with her aunt like she did with her parents, but it wasn’t fucking good.” I point toward the front of the house. “That girl’s had no one, for almost four fuckin’ years, not a soul to trust or body to hold on to. She was alone, in her house, in the dark, in her fucking mind. No friends, no family, other than a brother who was here, protecting mine while no one was around to protect her.” A humorless laugh scrapes past my lips. “How fucked is that?”
Raven offers a tight smile and small shrug. “You ever think maybe she was strong enough to handle all that by herself? That she didn’t need a hand to hold her, that she could make it on her own until it was time for her to... fall into the arms she was meant for?”
“What, mine?” I scoff and it burns in my throat. “Please. She’s everything I am, all that I’m not, and so much more. I could never be enough to deserve someone like her, and I refuse to steal her fucking light.”
“You’re a fucking idiot.”
I whip my head around to find Maddoc standing there, and he’s pissed. Fuming and damn near foaming at the mouth. He holds my gaze.
“You’re the reason we have what we have,” he snaps angrily, growing closer. “You believed in Raven first, led us into the thought of opening up to someone new. You saw something in Victoria we refused to until you convinced us to look deeper. When we break, you step up with a bottle and break with us. You don’t judge, you don’t push, and you don’t fucking run. If there was something in this life I couldn’t give Raven, I couldn’t live with that, but you’re stronger than I am, brother. If your girl for real loses her sight, you’ll find a way to make her see. No-fucking-body else will be able to give her that. You’re not her ruin, Royce, you’re her only fuckin’ recovery.”
“Think about it, Ponyboy,” Raven whispers. “You don’t get close to people, neither does she. She’s been alone, and you feel alone even when you’re not. Maybe that’s because deep down you feel something’s missing, something we can’t give you.” She stands with a shrug. “Maybe that something is her.”
“I told you to stop trying to convince yourself of something none of us, including Brielle, will ever be convinced of. I didn’t think a single soul would ever deserve to be loved by you, Royce Brayshaw, but now it’s so obvious it’s her. I know she will never want for anything in her life, she’ll never fear a soul, and she will never look back with regret,” she whispers. “Now get your ass up and go talk to that girl before Bass does something stupid we’ll be forced to kick his ass for, like tie her up and throw her in his car.”