AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The doors close, and he’s right.
I’m all alone.
I drop to my knees and put my forehead on the floor and stay like that for a long time, thinking about Katherine and how I have nothing left, nothing at all.
Chapter 24
Kat
Iclutch my glass of wine like it’s the only thing keeping me from drowning.
Because it really might be.
Tina looks at me like she’s afraid I’m about to walk out into traffic. I know I’ve been a pretty pathetic sight these last few days, but no matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to forget about what happened back at the apartment. I’ve been staying with her ever since I ran out on Ford because I can’t bring myself to go back to the Stockton mansion and I have nowhere else to go. I feel like someone dipped me in acid and tried to melt off my skin. Tina’s a good person, even if she hides it under her rough no-bullshit exterior, and I appreciate her so much for letting me sleep on her couch and mope in her living room.
I’m not the easiest person to be around right now.
“We could always burn his house down, you know,” Tina says thoughtfully as she kicks her feet up on the coffee table.
“That wouldn’t work. He lives in an apartment.”
“Good point. Too much collateral damage.” She touches a finger to her lip. “Maybe we could burn down hisfamily’shouse. Don’t they have one of those fancy mansions?”
“It’s too big and they have too much security. They’d never let it burn.”
“Old-fashioned murder?”
I laugh a little and shake my head. “I appreciate the offer but I just want to forget him. If I could take a scrub-brush to my brain right now, I’d do it. Ever see that movieEternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind? It’s all about a guy and a girl going through some special memory-erasing procedure meant to erase each other from their brains. I wish I could do that to Ford right about now.”
“Oh, god, isn’t that some like early 2000s indie movie, really deep, very manic-pixie-dream-girl stuff?”
“Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet, but yeah, that’s the idea.”
She rolls her eyes. “You don’t need some sappy, sepia-toned bullshit. You needrevenge.” She slams her fist into her hand and glares at me. “No killing, but at least we can break his kneecaps. Look, I know some criminals—”
“That’s not really my style.”
Tina sighs and leans against me. “I know, sweetie, I just wish it were. I hate seeing you like this.”
“I hate feeling like this.”
We sip our wine and lapse into silence. It’s been days since I left that apartment and I still feel it all as if it just happened.Ford’s anger and pain, his grandfather’s glee and delight, the humiliation as it all sunk in.
It was a game. From the very start, it was a game. I knew it wasn’t real—he made that very clear—but I didn’t know it was all at my expense. Ford didn’t want me to help him heal our two families. He never thought his grandfather would go for that. It was always about him using me, and he didn’t seem to care that it would throw me under the bus and run me over so long as he got what he wanted.
His dream position as head of the family.
That’s all he’s ever cared about.
Even if I thought he cared about me for a second—it was all a lie.
I should’ve seen this from the start. Why would a guy like Ford ever want to be with a girl like me? Why would someone like him shower me with compliments, with desire, with all that sex? He was using me and I gave myself to him, I gave my body and mind and heart, and he stomped it out and ruined it.
I feel used and disgusting, and I hate Ford Arc more than I ever thought possible.
Except I hate myself just as much.
Now I understand why his excuses seemed flimsy at the beginning. It was only a pretext to get what he really wanted and I was desperate enough and stupid enough and so afraid for my mother that I didn’t look too closely at what he was saying. I didn’t think about it, didn’twantto think about it, and now I’m paying the real price.
