Jaded (Jaded #1)(102)

“Seven years.” I acknowledged the truth in my response and knew I had kept him away for most of those years. Hindsight is crystal and bitterly true.

“Well, it’s very nice to meet you…finally.” Jefferson Scout smiled an adorable smile and I realized why AnnaBelle Scout had fallen in love in the first place. He may have been quiet, but he was gorgeous underneath his seemingly nerdy exterior. A businessman and inventor (from what Bryce had told me once), but I saw a lot of Bryce in his father.

Color me biased, but I liked the guy.

“If there’s something I’ve learned from even starting this whole ordeal, it’s not to believe what you’re told.” Jefferson nodded quickly, poured himself a cup of coffee that had slowly filtered through, and added, “Some things don’t add up and living with my wife—I pushed a lot of those nagging little things to the back of my mind, but I’ve paid the price now. She’ll take me for everything I have. I’m sure of it, but at least now I have a clear mind. And I can judge for myself what makes sense and what doesn’t. Silly, yes, I know, but…I’ve learned that I can only say what I know. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t think of saying it at all.”

It was an oddly placed speech and I knew that he spoke from his personal demons, but it jarred my own.

Everything unraveled as I heard two of his sentiments.

Bryce had lied. He wasn’t working to support the family. His father had enough money and his wife would take most of that from him.

And Bryce had talked about something that he shouldn’t have known. He had said, before the police even told me—“He moved both bodies.”

Bryce knew that Bailey hadn’t died in the school. He knew before the police told us.

He knew and he shouldn’t have known.

Jefferson left as I stood in the kitchen. As I stood there and my world had just cracked open, I was left alone and no one saw how I fell to the floor, blinded from my revelations that now screamed inside of me. I watched, suspended and paralyzed, as my hand must’ve caught and pulled the coffeepot to the ground. I saw it fall, crash into a million pieces, and I watched as the black content seeped across the floor.

The broken glass was camouflaged underneath the dark liquid.

My hand reached out to help myself stand up. I saw the shattered glass and I placed my hand there anyway. I felt none of the pain, but I stood and I gazed in horrified suspension as the blood quickly covered my hand.

That didn’t make sense. I didn’t understand where the blood came from.

And another hand was there, covering mine as they pushed against the blood, to stop the blood flow.

I looked up, numb, and saw Bryce’s ashen features.

CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

The streetlights whizzed past into a steady constant blur.

I had wished, for a moment, to forget what I realized and to pretend. I wanted to curl up with Bryce, pull his blankets over us both, and sleep, protected in his pretense.

I had almost chosen to forget and deny rather than fight and survive.

I wasn’t the innocent, sweet, and helpless princess.

Bryce would be after me. I knew it. And I think he knew it as he stepped aside and let my excuse command our actions. I had pled a headache and time to be alone and he had heeded. He chose to play the game and I bit back the tears as I stepped from his front door. I had wanted him to not play the game and strip away everything.

A big part of me wanted to turn the car, crawl back in his bed, and pretend I didn’t know what I knew. But there was another part of me that wanted to survive, that wanted to live and birth fat babies. That was the part of me that kept me driving ahead, but if it had to come to percentages—it would’ve closed at 51% to live and 49% to die in bliss.

How sick and twisted is that?

I pulled into my garage and hurried inside. Immediately, I slid the locks in place, changed the alarm system’s codes, and headed for the shower. And there I sat, naked, chilled from the cold stream, and teeth chattering in the corner. I hugged my knees to my chest.

I stared at nothing and my hair plastered against my skull, but my eyes were flat.

Dead.

I never felt the frozen water slam against my vulnerable skin.

I lost track of time and I don’t know how long I sat there, but my limbs were trembling uncontrollably when I moved out of the shower and wrapped a robe around myself.

I sat at the mirror and left my soaked hair alone.

The distant chime of my doorbell finally penetrated the haze. I wondered, briefly and faintly, how long the doorbell had sounded, but I ceased wondering when I saw Marcus Donadeli on the other side. He looked nervous and awkward.

I said nothing as I decoded the alarm system and stepped back with the door open.

“Hi, Sheldon.” He blushed as he smiled.

I’ve never blushed before. I wondered what it felt like to blush, to have the capability to blush.

“What are you doing here?”

His eyes lingered on my robe, on the naked skin that showed near my neck. I didn’t care. I didn’t pull the robe tighter, but I did ask again, “What are you doing here?”

“Oh. Um…the Party Packs.” He gestured, haltingly, inside. “I came by last night, but the party was done, huh?”

Yeah. The party was done.

“Corrigan got busted by the cops,” I remarked and walked inside with him following.