Page 168 of Make Me Mean It

Good.

He’s fucked up.

Fantastic.

That makes two of us.

“You fucking used him,” Marcus spits behind me, and my stomach twists. “And tossed him aside like another one of your fucking whores.”

I stop.

Completely.

For a second, I don’t even turn around. I just stand there staring at the ice, listening to my pulse hammer in my ears while the words sink in.

Used him.

Something hot and vicious tears through my chest.

I turn slowly.

“You have no idea what you’re fucking talking about.”

My voice comes out low, forced through teeth clenched hard enough to hurt, but Marcus doesn’t even fucking hesitate.

“I know enough.”

He closes the distance between us and jams a finger into my chest.

“I know my brother’s a mess because of you,” he says, every word low and vicious. “And I know he’s better off without you.

I hate the way something in my chest seems to hollow out at that, because I’ve already thought the exact same fucking thing more times than I can count.

Connor is better off without me.

He probably always was.

Doesn’t mean Marcus gets to fucking say it.

I smack his hand away from my chest, harder this time. “You think you’re so much better, huh?”

A dark laugh drags out of me as I shake my head, because this is fucking rich coming from him. Marcus, who thinks being Connor’s older brother means he gets to decide what’s good for him. What he should want. Who he should fucking be.

Marcus’s jaw tightens, his eyes narrowing.

“What did you fucking do, Theo?”

I scoff and roll my eyes, already opening my mouth to tell him exactly where he can shove the question.

The rink doors slam open again.

I know those footsteps before I even look.

Fast. Uneven. Fucking panicked.

Connor.

Of course he followed Marcus here.