Total pages in book: 33
Estimated words: 30019 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 150(@200wpm)___ 120(@250wpm)___ 100(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 30019 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 150(@200wpm)___ 120(@250wpm)___ 100(@300wpm)
I shoot a sharp, warning glance at Victoria's friends, daring them to test me. They shrink back, just as pale as Victoria is. I don't know how many of them knew what she did before today. Honestly, I don't really care. She controls them like they're puppets on a string, and they let her do it. They can sink together for all I care.
I spin on my heel, preparing to head out, only to stop when I see Troian lingering just inside the doorway, her eyes locked on the scene before her.
Fuck. How much did she hear?
I quickly decide it doesn't matter. Everything I said was the truth. She is my heart, and I will ruin Victoria's life if she doesn't back the fuck off. Troian doesn't have to like it. I already know she won't. But she's suffered long enough. I'm not letting it continue.
Her gaze shifts from me to Victoria and then back again, nervous and full of questions, as I jog toward her. Victoria, wisely, keeps her head down, her eyes on the scuffed floor at her feet.
"You ready to go home, butterfly?" I ask, tipping my head down to look at Troian when I reach her side.
"I…" She bites her lip and then nods, allowing me to lead her from the gym. Halfway out the door, she glances over her shoulder at Victoria again, her eyes full of worry, but she doesn't ask.
She finally breaks when we're halfway to her place.
"What do you have on her?" she asks, the first words she's spoken since she climbed into the truck beside me.
"It doesn't matter."
"It matters to me," she argues softly.
I hesitate and then sigh. "Remember how she bombed her SATs last year but then did really well when she took them at the beginning of this year?"
"Yeah. So? She studied this summer."
"No, she didn't. She didn't take the test the second time, butterfly. Her older sister, Cassidy, did."
Troian blinks wide eyes at me. "How do you know?"
"I tested the same day. Victoria wasn't there. Cassidy was."
For some reason, my comment makes her flinch. She curls in on herself, hiding behind her hair, but I feel the hurt pouring off her, and I don't understand it.
What did I say?
"Talk to me," I plead quietly when she says nothing, not even when we pull in her driveway. "Tell me what I said that hurt you."
"Who says you hurt me?" she asks, her voice whisper-quiet as she reaches for her bag.
"Troian, please."
She huffs a sigh. "Why didn't you tell me about this earlier?"
"What?"
"You took the SATs in August," she whispers. "It's March."
"I…" I mutter a curse. "I didn't want to have to involve you. I figured the less you knew, the better, especially if…"
"If what?"
"If I decided to use it," I say as I meet her gaze. "I've been sitting on it all this fucking time, hoping she never pushed far enough for me to want to destroy her life because I knew what you'd say about that. I knew you'd want me to be the bigger person, so you'd try to talk me out of doing it. Maybe I didn't want to be talked out of it. Maybe, just once, I want her to live in terror the same goddamn way you have since transferring here."
"I don't live in terror."
"No? You certainly don't live in joy, either. You hate going to school. You hate going anywhere she might be. I'm fucking sick of her hurting you because she's a jealous bitch who knows she'll never be half as incredible as you are. So I sat on it, and I waited, hoping I wouldn't have to upset you by using it. But I'm done asking, butterfly. I'm done telling her off and being a dick to her when she just doesn't fucking get it. If I have to destroy her to make her back the fuck off and leave you alone, I'll do it." I blow out a sharp breath. "I should have done it as soon as I realized her sister was testing for her that day. Maybe then you'd have one decent memory of your senior year."
"I have decent memories."
"Yeah? Name one?"
She's silent for a moment, and then she just shrugs, which breaks my fucking heart because she can't think of a single day when Victoria wasn't making her miserable. Not one. "She doesn't matter, Gage."
"She made you cry today."
"That's…not important."
"It is to me." I reach across the console, brushing hair away from her face. "It breaks my heart every single time you cry."
"I doubt that."
"You think I don't care?" I ask, my goddamn stomach hurting at the thought.
"I…I don't know." Her tongue skirt nervously across her bottom lip. "Why didn't you tell me that you were auditioning for the movie last year? Or that they offered you the role?" she asks, her voice so soft I barely hear it.