Breaking Her (Love is War #2) (2 page)

"It's a coincidence," I told her.
 
"I bake all the time."
 
That was a lie, but she was eight.
 

If you couldn't lie to an eight-year-old, who could you lie to?

She beamed at me.
 
"You like me.
 
I knew it."

I curled my lip at her and she giggled.
 
"You're alright," I allowed.
 

"I like
you
," she offered.
 
"You're really pretty, and you smell nice."
 

Dammit.
 
Damn Demi and her incorrigible, likable niece.
 
"You're really pretty, too," I begrudgingly returned.
 

She acted like I'd made her day with that, doing an enthusiastic happy dance that involved a lot of twirling and hand waving.

Was she trying to win me over, or was she really this freaking adorable?
 

I didn't know, but in spite of myself, I was charmed.
 

Still, I'd never let her close, never let myself get attached to a kid like that.
 
Even the thought of it spun my mind into dark, fathomless places that I knew well to steer clear of.
 

Luckily, they all left for a day at the zoo soon after that, and I was spared much more of Olivia's infectious charm.
 

And dammit, she almost convinced me to come with them.
 
If I had been about two shots more sober or three more drunk, she'd have had me.
   

Nearly as bad, I packed them a cute little care package full of brownies like I was Betty fucking Crocker.

Of course Anton gave me shit for it.
 
I couldn't blame him.
   

I shut his teasing up with another shot.
 
It was a sore spot, but in all fairness, lately every damn spot on me was sore.
 

It was some time later that my phone rang.
 
I was at functioning, non-slurring levels, my day drink game strong.
 
Anton was putting up a good fight, the only signs of how messed up he was, was that he was over-enunciating, and his comeback time was slowing from whip-fast to slightly below average.
 

I glanced at my lit phone face and grinned wickedly.
 

It was bloodthirsty, so much so, Anton, even slowed Anton, caught on fast.
 

"It's him, isn't it?"
 

I chewed my lip and nodded.
 

He meant Dante.
 
Of course.
 
Since the funeral and the disaster that followed, he called often, and sometimes I'd answer.
 
It was a toss-up with me whether I'd chew him out or just hang up.
 

Sometimes he called to discuss what Gram had left me in her will, but I'd have none of it.
 
"I told you, give it to one of her charities.
 
I don't want anything.
 
I won't
take
anything."
 
I'd never once let him finish his sentence when he brought this up.
 
I'd been called a Durant charity case my whole life, but I'd be
damned
before I'd become one.

Sometimes he just asked me how I was.
 
Like he just wanted to talk, to check up on me.
 
As if he had that right.
 
The bastard.
 

Those calls ended nearly as quickly as the first kind.
 

The worst shame of all this was the angry five minutes I spent getting myself off afterwards.
 

I wasn't sure if it was a comfort or a curse that I was absolutely sure the bastard was doing exactly the same.
 

Sometimes he didn't even speak.
 
Sometimes he just listened on the other end.
 
This call started as one of those.
   

"If it isn't my heavy breather again," I said lightly into the phone.
 
"Is there some particular word you're looking for, to get off faster?"
 

It was a joke, at his expense, but he seemed to take it seriously.
 

"Say Dante," he told me gruffly.
 

"Dante," I said gamely.
 
Because tequila.
 
"You're the bane of my existence.
 
Stop calling me."
 

There was nothing but his disturbed breath on the other end.
 

"Even that did it for you, huh?" I took the dig at him with relish.
 
"You dirty, old pervert."
 

"You're in a mood," he finally noted.
 
He sounded rough.
 
Rough as in terrible.
 
I wasn't the only one drowning my sorrows with a bottle.
   

But he was right.
 
I was in a mood.
 
And it didn't bode well for him.
 
"Why are you doing this?" I asked him, keeping my tone level.
 
Mellow, even.
   

There was a long pause on the other end, but he surprised me by finally answering, "You keep answering.
 
If there's a chance you'll answer, I'll never stop calling."

He was right.
 
I'd stopped taking his calls years before our last disastrous reunion.
 
Why couldn't I seem to do that now?
 

My self-destructive meter was running at full, and I hadn't found a way to bring it down since the funeral.

Maybe a bit of revenge would help.
 

One thing was for sure.
 
It couldn't hurt.
     

I didn't really need to, we'd plotted it out several times prior, but just to be safe, I mouthed at Anton, "You ready?"

Anton grinned and gave me a thumbs up.
 

I held my hand toward him to let him know that he should wait.
 

"Okay, fine," I finally responded to Dante, my voice hardening, going from light to dark.
 
"I'll stop answering, so you stop calling.
 
This is pointless.
 
Stop wasting my time.
 
I've moved the hell on."

My nostrils flared as I pointed at Anton.

"Come back to bed, baby," his perfect actor's voice rumbled loudly at the phone, right on cue.
 
God, he was good.
 
He sounded sleepy, horny, just fucked, and ready to fuck again.
 
The man deserved an Oscar for that one little sentence.
 

On the other end Dante made a noise, something indecipherable but unmistakably, unpleasantly,
unbearably
filled with pain.
 

Agony.
 
Torture.
 

I think I had the phone to my ear, staring into nothing for at least five minutes after he hung up.
 
I wasn't sure what I was feeling.
 
Which was the problem.
 
That little stunt had been designed to torment him, but, above all, to improve my mood.
 

Why had it done the opposite?
 
Why did hurting him
always
hurt me?
   

"You know, we could just do it," Anton said sometime later.

I stared at him.
 
"What?
 
Sleep together?"
 

He shrugged.
 
"Why not?
 
What would be the harm?
 
We're so much alike, it might actually turn into something, and if it did, it might be something good.
 
And if not, no harm, no foul.
 
We'd stay friends and forget about it, end of story."

I mulled that over, but I knew myself too well to fall into that trap.
 
I decided to let him have the full, brutal truth of it, the fatal flaw in his harmless plan.
 
"Here's how that would play out:
 
the sex might be good for me, would be great for you, but the only way it's great for me is if I'm picturing you as someone else . . . Someone I hate.
 
And then, in the morning, you'd be hopelessly in love with me, and it'd get weird, because I fucking hate it when guys fall in love with me, and then I wouldn't enjoy hanging out with you anymore.
 
How sad would that be for both of us?"

"Is he really that good?"
 

"He's the best I ever had.
 
And the worst thing that ever happened to me."

True love is a bitch.

"And it's really that . . . hopeless?
 
You can't even get off without him getting in the way?"

I was well aware of how pathetic, how epically fucked up it was, and hearing it aloud hardly helped.
 

"It's hard to explain," I warned him.
 
"But, basically, yes.
 
I can't even eat a fucking apple because of him."

"What?" he asked, sounding baffled, which was understandable.
 

"He even ruined apples for me," I explained.
 

"What?" he repeated.

"I have a memory, a very clear one, of biting into an apple—we grew up surrounded by orchards—and so we got the best apples.
 
And I just have a memory of eating one fresh off the tree, sharing it with him actually, and thinking it was the best thing I'd ever tasted."

"Okaaay . . . And?" he prompted.

"It was a . . . special day, and every time I ate an apple after that it all came fresh to my mind.

So when it ended between us, horribly, I could never . . ."
 
There was nothing quite so demoralizing as recalling your sweetest memories and feeling utterly bitter.

"That blows."
 
His voice was succinct.
 
He poured us another shot.

"They were my favorite fruit," I lamented.
 
"Love sucks."
 

"And now your favorite fruit is the lime that chases our next tequila shot."

As far as pep talks went, it wasn't the worst one I'd ever had, so I toasted it.
 
"Bottoms up."
   

CHAPTER TWO

"
She burned too bright for this world."

~Emily Brontë

PAST

DANTE

I'd always had a soft spot for her.
 
Since I could remember her flashing eyes and stubborn face were dear to me.
 

Even before she'd decided we were friends, before our first fateful bonding moment outside of the vice principal's office when she first realized I was in her corner, I'd admired her.
 

Admired that she never backed down.
 
Admired that, with the way she was treated by nearly everyone around her, she never bent, not one iota, let alone came near to breaking.
 

Her strength galvanized me, made me see the world in a different way.
 

I had it so easy.
 
My mother was awful, my father dismal, but my life was pampered and I could escape any time I wanted, which was often, and visit my gram, who lived a short walk away and made up for both of my pieces of shit parents and then some.
 

I had an anger problem and a bad attitude.
 
This I knew.
 
But it was Scarlett who inspired me to give those things purpose.
 

The first time I tried to help, she didn't even notice me.
 

We were in the cafeteria at school.
 
I was in line to get lunch, stealing glances at her.
 

She was by herself.
 
She always was.
 
She was less interested in talking to other kids than any kid I'd ever seen besides myself.
 
Once, I'd even taken a seat across from her to eat, and she'd still barely said two words to me.
   

Her thick brown hair was endearingly messy.
 
She had the perfect face of a doll, but it was always set into hard lines, an incongruous, arresting look but one that I couldn't stop looking at.
 
And I looked a lot.
 
I enjoyed watching her.
 
She wasn't like anybody else, didn't react to things in the same way.
 
I got a kick out of expecting the unexpected from her.
 

Every inch of her tiny frame read:
 
This girl is tough and she does not plan to deal with your shit.
 
Do not mess with her.
 

So why was everyone
always
messing with her?

They loved to tease her about the trashcan stuff, and I thought that was about the most messed up thing ever.
 
It set my teeth on edge.
 
What an awful thing to tease someone about.
     

No part of me understood, but then, I'd never felt like someone who fit in, either.
 

They were serving cheese zombies and tomato soup for lunch, one of my favorites, and I waited in line just watching her and not particularly paying attention to anything else.
 

I couldn't help but overhear the boys in front of me, though.
 
There were two of them and they were snickering.
 
It was the type of laugh where you knew there was something bad behind it.
 
Something mean, and so I focused on them, listening as they revealed themselves to be just the kind of little shits I had no patience for.
 

"I swear to God, Jason," one said to the other.
 
"I have five dollars in my backpack, and if you do it, it's all yours."