“You heard me.” Venom coated my words, but I was tired, so freaking tired of everything.
“Birdie, I don’t—”
“Don’t call me that,” I shrieked. “Don’t ever call me that. I’m not yours, Nix. I never was.”
He stalked toward me and dropped to his knees. “You’re so fucking righteous, acting like I’m the only one who fucked up. But what about you, huh? You chose this, B. And I get it, I do. Why would you possibly want to stay in The Row when you can have all… all this.” His eyes turned darker, anger swirling in their depths as his chest heaved.
“Y-you think I chose this?” My voice was quiet, thick with disbelief.
“You told me to stay away. You told me to give you space. And then you fucking left without so much as a trace. So if anyone should be feeling screwed over here, it’s me.”
“What?” My blood ran cold.
He stared at me, eyes clouding with confusion. His mouth twisted. “You heard me, B. I fucked up; I get it. You needed me and I wasn’t there. But you left me. You walked away. You decided I wasn’t—”
No.
No.
That’s not how it happened. That’s not—
I searched my mind for the memories, trying to sort through what was the truth and what was lies. But I couldn’t do it, everything was too hazy.
Nix stood, taking the air with him. My lungs smarted, barely recovered from my panic attack in Nate’s bathroom.
“You know, I always imagined it would be you and me until the end. That nothing, no one, would ever come between us. It was you, Wren. It was always fucking you.”
“Lies,” I spat. “Stop lying to me. It isn’t fair,” I screeched, hands fisting the couch.
“Fair?” He seethed, his face red with anger. “I’ll tell you what’s not fair, B. Realizing you have everything you ever wanted and knowing you’re a selfish son of a bitch if you take it. I wanted you that night. I wanted you so fucking much, but things were moving too fast. I wanted you to be sure. I didn’t want you to hate me. So I let you walk away. I let you walk away angry at me and everything went to shit… and you left me.”
“Stop saying I left you.” My hands balled into fists as frustration welled inside me, tears leaking down my face. “I didn’t leave you; I didn’t have a choice.”
Nix ripped his cell phone out of his pocket and ran his thumb over the screen. “Just stop with the lies. It’s done. You chose this life and maybe it’s for the best.” He looked right 1through me. “Maybe it was always supposed to be this way.”
Nix
“Y-you think I chose this?” Utter disbelief shined in her eyes. “I would never…”
The fuck?
She was staring at me with those big green eyes, nothing but truth and certainty glittering there.
She believed it.
Every word that had come out of her mouth, Harleigh believed them.
But it made no sense, she’d left. She’d told me to leave her alone.
She’d abandoned me.
“Nix… say something.” Her voice cracked.
“I don’t know what the fuck you want me to say, B. I saw the text message. I spoke to your father.”
Her eyes almost bugged out. “Y-you spoke to him?”
“Yeah.” I ran a hand down my face, releasing a thin breath. “About a month after you left. I couldn’t do it, B. I couldn’t stay away. I was going out of my fucking mind, wondering why you hadn’t gotten in touch. So I called in a favor and found out where he lived. But he caught me snooping around before I could pluck up the courage to ring the buzzer.”
I’d been so terrified of seeing her again. Wondering what the fuck I would say after everything. But her father had caught me pacing outside the gates before I could even work up the courage to do it.
“He said you’d left. Gone to stay with relatives to get some space from everything. Gone. Just like that.”
“I don’t understand. What message? What are you talking about?”
Harleigh was either a good fucking liar or she genuinely had no clue what I was talking about because her eyes turned cloudy.
“Here, see for yourself.” I pulled up our chat history and thrust my cell at her. It was kind of fucked up keeping the messages. I knew that. But I hadn’t been able to delete them.
Her slender fingers brushed mine as she took the phone from me and ran her eyes over the final message she’d sent me later that day.
* * *
B: It’s me. I just wanted you to know I’m safe with my father and his family and that they’re going to take care of me. I need some time, Phoenix. Some space to deal with everything. I think some time away from The Row will be good for me. If you care about me at all, you’ll let me go. I’ll be in touch soon, okay. B xo
* * *
“I… I didn’t send this.”
“Come on, B. It’s right there in black and white. I know you were freaking out, not thinking straight. Maybe you don’t remember?”
“No,” she whispered, flicking her broken expression to mine. “I didn’t … this wasn’t me.”
“What are you saying?” I began to tremble, the floor falling out from beneath me.
“I didn’t send that text message, Nix. I was a mess that day. After my father took me back to his house, I waited and waited for you to call. I was so hysterical that his wife Sabrina took my phone off me and gave me something to calm me down. I was out most of the day. When I woke up, the first thing I did was ask them if you’d been in touch… if you’d… No.” She clapped a hand over her mouth as realization slammed into me. “He wouldn’t. There’s no way he would…”
Her father.
Michael Rowe.
That smug piece of shit had played me. It all fell into place like a bad movie. He’d texted me posing as Harleigh, trying to sever all ties to her old life. But something else occurred to me, and I almost didn’t want to ask the question.
“Where were you, B?”
“W-what?”
“For the last eight months? Where. Were. You?”
“That’s none of your business.”
Like fuck it wasn’t.
“He told me you were staying with relatives. That you needed time to grieve, to heal. But you weren’t staying with relatives, were you?” A lead balloon sank in my stomach.
“I… I don’t want to talk about it.”
The panic attacks.
Her strange outbursts.
The skittish behavior.
“He sent you away.” Anger rose up inside of me like an unrelenting wave. Higher and higher, it swelled and swelled, swallowing me whole. “He kept you from me. He fucking kept you—”
“STOP.” She yelled. “Just stop.”
“Birdie?” I blinked, inhaling a ragged breath.
“I was sick, Nix. I… I tried to hurt myself.”
The world went from under me. “You tried…” Fuck, I was going to puke all over Miller’s plush carpet. “Why, B? Why the fuck would you do that?”