Blindsided (41 page)

“Psssh! Broken heart my left vagina lip.” Macey leans forward. “Your heart is just fine, Leah. Hearts don’t break unless the person who hurt you is worth breaking for. And Corey Jackson is definitely not worth your heart breaking.”

“I guess so.” I smile, but it’s fake.

Because she doesn’t know him like I do.

And he is worth my heart breaking.

“Did your mom tell you my dad wants to marry her?”

I look at Cole, sitting on my bed, playing with my tablet. “She did.”

“It’s fucking gross. They’re old.”

“You sound like a petulant six-year-old who doesn’t want a new mommy.”

He drops the tablet and pouts at me. “Me no want one.”

I roll my eyes. “Well, he still hasn’t asked my permission. And I’m just saying that, when he does, he should make it convincing.”

“Wait. So you’re saying you want him to propose to you so he can propose to your mom?”

“That could work.” I smile. “Come on. It wouldn’t be bad to be my brother, would it?”

“I don’t know. Now that Corey’s out of the picture, I was kind of considering seducing you. And if our parents got married, it would be kind of awkward, don’t you think?”

“Oh, yes. I mean, why wouldn’t I give in to your seductive charm?” Again, I roll my eyes. “You’re an idiot, Cole.”

“It made you smile.” He rolls onto his stomach and looks at me. “You’ve had a face like a wet cat all afternoon and you’re pissing me off now.”

“I’m sorry my heartbreak is inconvenient to you. Next time, call ahead, asshole.”

“I will.” He sighs then looks up at me, all traces of joking gone from his face. “Seriously. I hate seeing you upset like this.”

“I’m all right, okay? I have a whole bunch of work to do now. I’m a big deal now, you know?”

“Yeah, and I’m mad you didn’t tell me. ‘Writing my resume’ my fucking ass, Leah Veronica!”

I smile apologetically. “I’m sorry. I really couldn’t tell anyone. And he… Corey… He found out by accident.”

“Your mom told us.” He nods slowly, his lips pulled to one side. “What does it mean now though? You gonna keep designing or what?”

“I don’t have a choice.” I pick some lint from my jeans. “I can’t imagine doing anything else, you know? And at the end of the day, I have a job. I don’t get to work it the way I want to, and now I’m going to be even more of a media draw than before, but I still get to do it.”

“You don’t sound that bothered that you were found out.”

“No, I am. I’m really upset about it, but I can’t change it. I can’t reverse Corey’s actions. I don’t regret keeping it a secret, so I have to do all I can do—design. Quinn has already sent, like, ten million requests from people wanting me to design dresses for award ceremonies and stuff.”

“Are you gonna do it?”

“I can’t do them all. Besides, the thing I really wanna do is huddle beneath my covers, eat frozen yogurt, and cry for a bit.” I shrug. “It’s like overnight, my whole world has changed. I’m not sure how I’m supposed to deal with being this person fully in the spotlight. Every move I make is going to be tracked and I don’t know how I feel about that.”

“It’s just a step up from before.” He swings his legs around and sits up. “I’m in the same position, remember? Before I did that movie with your mom, I was just Alex Dalton’s kid, trying to make a name for myself. I was a guy to watch, sure, but they pretty much left me alone. Now, I can’t piss without some dick shoving a camera through my bathroom window.”

“I guess. How do you deal with it?”

“You don’t. You just hope it’ll get better and that they’ll eventually leave you alone.”

The doorbell rings downstairs and I get up. “True. I’ll be right back.”

I run down the stairs and through the empty house. With Mom at an audition and Ada having lunch with friends, the house is quiet. Too quiet—and that’s exactly why I called Cole.

The bell goes again.

“All right, all right,” I grumble, grabbing the handle and pulling the door open. “Corey.”

He’s right there, in front of me, his hair disheveled and his normally bright, blue-green eyes dull, shadowed by gray. He looks exhausted, completely broken… Much like I feel.

Seeing him jolts me.

“What…what are you doing here?”

“I need to talk to you.”

“You’ve said everything you need to.” I push the door shut, but he’s stronger and blocks it.

“You haven’t let me say a damn thing, Leah.”

“I don’t want to hear it!” My voice rises. “I don’t want apologies or excuses.”

“Good, because I don’t fuckin’ have them. I’m not excusing or apologizing for something that wasn’t my fault.”

“So you’ll lie instead? Awesome. Goodbye, Corey. We’re done here.”

I shove the door again, but he pushes it hard and it slams into the wall.

“No, we’re not fuckin’ done, Leah! I told you before that I’m not walking away from you. That counts for now, too.” His hands grip the doorframe, his biceps bulging.

I wrap my arms around myself. “It doesn’t,” I whisper. “We’re over, Corey. We never should have started. You know that as well as I do.”

He’s on me before I can move, his hands framing my face, his lips hot against mine. “Yeah? You think that?”

I nod, my face still held by his.

“You think wrong, darlin’,” he whispers huskily. “We’re not over. We’re not done. We’re not history. You got that, babe? No one has ever meant to me what you do, and there isn’t a chance in fuckin’ hell I’m letting you go without fighting.”

“No amount of fighting could ever get me back!” I push his hands away from me and walk backward. “Have
you
got that? Have you, Corey, huh? Have you got that there isn’t a single damn thing you could do to make me want you again? We. Are. Over. I will never forgive you for what you did.”

“I didn’t do it!” he shouts, clenching his jaw. “I feel sick at the thought of hurting you. Fuck!”

“What the hell?” Cole steps up behind me and puts his hand on my back. “Corey, what are you doing here?”

“Trying to make her see clearly!” Corey motions to me.

“As far as I can see, all you’re doing is hurting her more, man.” Cole glances at me.

I bite the inside of my cheek and look down. I won’t cry. Not in front of him. I won’t show him just how much I’m dying inside.

Because seeing him is more painful than I thought it’d be.

“Not listening is hurting her. Not being with me is hurtin’ her!”

Cole steps in front of me and looks at Corey straight on. “You being here is fucking hurting her. I know her better than you ever could, and my advice to you is to leave right the fuck now and wait until she’s ready to talk to you if you’re lucky enough for that.”

Tension crackles in the air around us, and I reach forward and grab the back of Cole’s shirt.

I don’t want Corey to go. I don’t want him to stay either.

I wish we’d never met each other. That I’d stayed in my room on my birthday like I’d wanted to. That he’d picked some other girl to hit on in the bar.

That I’d never let myself play his game.

Because, in the end, we’ve both lost.

“Go,” Cole says, his voice angry and protective. “That’s the best thing you can do right now.”

Corey stands there, not moving, and I glance up. My eyes meet his, and his gaze cuts right into my soul. Unwavering but weak, intense but broken, steady but shaken.

And an ounce of doubt slivers into my gut, because you don’t hurt someone so deliberately, so publicly, and feel that much pain.

“Leah?” Corey says, his voice rough and like gravel.

“Go,” I whisper, looking away from him as soon as I say the word.

I don’t want to watch him go. Not again.

There’s nothing until the door slams. It echoes through the house and I know he’s gone. Again, he’s walked away.

Again, I made him.

He’s an asshole and he betrayed me, but that doesn’t mean I don’t care about him. It doesn’t mean that I don’t love him, because I do. I just didn’t know how much until he walked away.

There’s falling and there’s
falling.
And neither of them really matters. Not a damn bit.

In the end, it doesn’t matter how far you fall or how hard and fast you give in to the inevitable rush of it. It’ll get you and it’ll hurt you. Love is a bastard that knows no boundaries. Pain or pleasure, it doesn’t care. Love will push you to the very limit and take everything you have to give, even if you don’t have very much at all. Then it’ll take some more, until you’re left feeling like you need it to live. Like the person you love is the very oxygen you need to breathe. Yeah, love will take you and it will destroy you.

And it doesn’t give a shit. It doesn’t care if you cry yourself to sleep at night while holding the covers to your chin and flicking through stupid pictures of happier times. It doesn’t care about the churning in your stomach at the thought of being without them, and it doesn’t care if the very sound of their name stabs you in the chest.

It doesn’t care because it doesn’t know. All it knows are the frantic beating of your heart when they’re around and the way you forget to breathe whenever their bare skin touches yours. Love is pure. It’s untainted by stupid words, not bothered by the curses you sling at no one when it hurts, and it’s never broken by a mere turn of your back.

All loves cares about it is simply being. It doesn’t care about how it happens, when, where, or how fast. Just that it does. Because really, who can live without love?

We all have it. That hilarious, wine, takeout, and deep-secrets love with your girlfriends. The infinite, respect-filled love for the family that have always been there. That first love that’s the greatest ever at the time but nothing compared to when you have true love.

That true love. God, that one. The one that sends your body into overdrive. The one everyone craves with every fiber of their being. The one that, when you have it, you should hold on to with everything you have.

The same one you don’t know you have. It’s there, lingering in the background with every tender touch and each playful kiss, waiting. It’s there on the tip of your tongue with every word you say, ready to jump out but never knowing quite when.

And you
never
know. You never know you have it until you don’t anymore. You can hold true love in the palm of your hand and wrap your fingers around it in a stealth grip, and you know what? It’ll still slip through.

It’s invisible yet tangible. Dreamed of yet so very real. Heart pounding yet heartbreaking.

You can turn your back on it without truly realizing what you’re doing, because the kind of love that sets your life on fire is the same one that comes crashing in when you least expect it. You realize it when it’s too late. At least you do consciously, because subconsciously, you know.

When you meet the person that sets everything you know alight and sends tingles across your skin even when you think you hate them, you know. You know through every argument and sarcastic comment and you know through every goddamn fucking toe-curling kiss.

Because that’s love. You know but you don’t. When you do, it’s too late.

Would I have let him go if I’d have known on Saturday that I loved him with everything I possibly could?

Yes.

Because respect trumps love, and I respect myself more than I love him.

That will never change.

All I’ve wanted since we met was for him to leave me alone. To get out of my life. Now, all I want is for him to throw Cole out and pin me to a wall and physically make me listen to what it is he has to say.

Because it hurts. It more than hurts. The pain has seared through my whole body from the second I sat in the car. If I wanted to, I swear I could have heard my heart break.

The best love is the one you don’t know you have.

It’s the one that creeps over you and takes hold of your heart. Your body. Your soul. It’s the one you believe in with everything you have and hold on to tighter than you’ve ever held on to anything.

But it kills you. Fuck, does it kill you.