For Angelo(10)

That he was worth no one’s love.





****





The cat-and-mouse game could have gone on endlessly.

But there was no way to know.

The rules, and the very game itself, completely changed the day he saw her kiss the convenience store boy.

Even though he had always been known to be courteous and cool-headed, the truth was that Angelo was as proud and possessive as any other hot-blooded Italian.

Her standing so close to another man who wasn’t him, her laughing in another man’s company when that sound should only have been for his ears—

All of those he could commit murder for.

But for her lips to be taken by another man—

This, he could not, would not forgive.

He didn’t give a damn if he was being sexist about it, didn’t give a damn if his feelings made no sense at all.

It didn’t matter if they had made no promises, didn’t matter that he had deliberately made no attempt to learn her name.

The moment she had stared at him like she wanted to belong to him—

A part of him had believed it.

But she had betrayed him.

And so from that moment on, she ceased to exist for him.





****





To forget her, there wasn’t a night that he went to bed alone. He would have one, two, sometimes even more girls than he had fingers in bed with him.

But while all the girls he f*cked were as experienced and skillful as he was, none of them ever proved capable of filling the growing hollowness inside of him.

It was as if her mere existence had served to underscore the emptiness of his life, and he hated her and himself even more for it.

Was he to be eternally condemned to want what could never be his?

Memories of his past answered him mockingly, and his face hardened.

Jaw clenching, he told himself that this obsession he had for the girl would soon pass. That the need to possess when he had only felt the softness of her hand would fade. Soon.

Because all of this was just sheer insanity.

And it would pass.

It had to.

But he was wrong.





****





He saw her at the bus stop on the last day of school, right before spring break. He was on his way to the parking lot when he saw her, hair pulled back in a loose ponytail, and her petite, curvy frame dwarfed by hideously serviceable clothes.

That was another thing about her, he thought broodingly. She didn’t seem the type to have such appalling taste in clothes, but she always showed up to class wearing things that could only be politely described as…unappealing.

He stopped walking even as his mind warned him it would better to pretend he hadn’t seen her…and that goddamn boy.

They were talking again, and she was smiling, too. The sight of it made him want to shake her.

Did she not know all her smiles could only be for him?

A bus slowed to a stop in front of the two.

Any moment now, the two would leave, and his body tensed at the realization. His fists clenched and unclenched, and he inhaled roughly.

Let it go, Valencia.

Let her leave.

But his feet were already moving even before he could complete the thought.

If he didn’t stop her from leaving, it wouldn’t just be her kisses that would belong to the boy, he thought savagely.

It would be her body.

And the moment he thought that, there was no turning back.





Chapter Four





Women loved chick flicks, and most of them liked the parts where the couples kissed, flirted, and made up. Some even liked the meet-cute parts best because these were the moments that gave them hope. These boy-meets-girl scenes ranged from realistic to impossible, but even so, all of them made a girl hope that one fateful day, the boy destined for her would come, however improbable.

But not all women were the same.

For women like Lane, it was the part where two people in love were hurting that they liked the most. Women like Lane saw pain as the other side of love, and it was both emotions that made their hearts beat hard and fast.

While most women hated Richard Gere for failing Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman—

While most women wanted Heath Ledger (God rest his soul) for what he did to Julia Stiles in Ten Things I Hate about You—

Women like Lane were different.

Women like Lane craved such scenes.

For them, the torment was necessary, the only way for a man to understand what he once had…and lost. For women like Lane, the storm had to come before the rainbow, and most importantly of all, women like Lane believed that being hurt was a beautiful thing, but only if they were being hurt by the right person.

Pain, not joy, was what made life real, and it was pain – not kindness – that yielded its power to love.

It was a twisted little truth that few would ever understand, a truth that would eventually open Lane’s eyes to the nature of her soul, the secret she was born with, and her destiny.

But she wasn’t to learn any of this…until the day Angelo started hurting her.

In the days that she would see her fallen angel with another girl, Lane would always end up asking herself why. Why couldn’t she start hating him? Why couldn’t she stop thinking about him? Why?