“Oh, of course. Well, you should go find her,” I said, turning to walk away.
He grasped my elbow to stop me.
I wheeled around, ready to smack that smug look off of his face. “Don’t touch me.”
“Natalie, please,” he said. His big brown eyes were pleading. He looked heartbroken. But he’d done this to himself.
“No. We’re over, Lewis. You did this.”
“It was a mistake.”
“Which part?” I asked, shaking out of his grip.
“All of it. I shouldn’t have kept the file. I shouldn’t have done any of it. I want you back. I fixed my mistake. I know that we can work this out.”
“What part of my personality makes you think that I would forgive you for what you did?”
“So you can forgive Penn for fucking over your life but not me for trying to look out for you?” he demanded.
I groaned and shook my head. “I don’t want to do this with you, Lewis. We’re over. I don’t have to justify my actions to you any longer. And you didn’t fix your mistake. All you did was try to control me again. I’m not going to be controlled ever again,” I icily told him.
“Natalie, I love you.”
“No, you don’t,” I said simply. “Please, just leave me alone.”
I tried to walk away again, but he grabbed my upper arm. Hard. Hard enough to bruise. I made a sharp noise of protest.
“Stop it, Lewis! You’re hurting me.”
“So, just like that? You’re going back to him? Even though he’s fucking toying with you? Is that why you sent him to the crew meeting? So that he could threaten me?” he growled. “I won’t be threatened.”
“Lewis, I have no idea what you’re talking about. But if you don’t let me go, I’m going to scream,” I growled. Tears stung my eyes at the pain.
He blinked as if he realized what he’d done. Then he dropped my arm as if I’d burned him. “Natalie, I’m so sorry. Oh fuck, I didn’t mean…”
“But you did,” I gasped, holding my arm.
“I don’t know what came over me.”
“You didn’t get your way,” I spat at him. “For once, there are consequences to the shit that you pulled, and you didn’t like it. Well, get fucking used to it.”
I strode away from him, keeping my head tilted high, even as it buzzed with the surprise jolt of pain and the words he’d said. At the fucking entitled bullshit.
But also…he’d thought I’d sent Penn to a crew meeting.
What crew meeting?
Harmony waved me over just as I pulled out my phone to call Penn. I ground my teeth. A call would have to wait. I still wanted to go with Harmony. I opted for a text instead.
Did you go to a crew meeting?
Penn’s message came back almost instantly.
…yes.
Motherfucker.
When exactly were you going to tell me about this?
I was livid. And I had to keep it together. Because I was supposed to leave with Harmony to go to boutique pop-ups. This whole experience was good for who I was becoming and what I wanted to accomplish. I couldn’t exactly walk away to go yell at Penn. But fuck, all the old suspicions wormed their way back into my heart. Just like that. A snap of my fingers, and it all flooded back.
Can I call you?
No, I’m with Harmony. We’re heading to a pop-up.
Fuck, Nat. I don’t want to do this through text. I could leave campus and come to you?
Don’t bother. I’ll swing by campus when we’re done. I guess this gives you time to get your story straight.
It’s not like that. At all.
I clamped down on that old familiar rage. That black pit that I’d settled into that said, Burn it. Burn it down. Burn him down. But I didn’t want that. I didn’t want to hurt him, too. It just felt like I was screwing myself already.
I’ll just talk to you later.
Please don’t worry about this all afternoon. It was harmless.
The crew is NEVER harmless.
Then I stuffed my phone back down into my purse and swore to ignore him until I was done hanging out with Harmony.
“Everything all right?” she asked when I finally reached her.
“Yeah. Fine.”
“Things looked tense with Lewis.” She arched an eyebrow as we headed out of the room.
“Oh, yeah,” I said, “he’s not happy about me and Penn.”
Harmony giggled. “I would think not. But who can resist Penn Kensington, right?”
I wanted to grumble under my breath that I certainly had when he was acting like an asshole. But that wouldn’t solve anything. I needed to talk to Penn. Not bitch about him to one of his many exes.
“Pretty much,” I finally said.
“Lewis is the jealous type anyway.”
“That I noticed.”
“I was always surprised you two ended up together,” Harmony said. “That you jumped from one to the other and back.”
“It didn’t exactly happen that way.”
“It never does.” Harmony held up her hands. “Trust me. No judgment here. Penn and I have a messed up past. I get what it’s like to do stupid things for guys. The guy I was seeing before just started dating someone else. And I want to stab him and beg him back. I hate it.”
“I’m sorry,” I said reflexively. Though my mind was only half on this conversation. The rest of me wanted to dig into my bag and see what Penn had said. But I wouldn’t. I needed to calm down before I stormed uptown and unleashed on him.
“Don’t be sorry. He was kind of a jerk anyway.” Harmony smiled at me. “Here’s the boutique. God, I’m kicking myself for wearing heels again. So much freaking walking. They always say we can dress down, but I just never do.”
I let Harmony carry on as we stepped into the first pop-up. And I tried to ignore the buzz at the bottom of my bag.
Chapter 17
Natalie
After a few hours of looking at clothes, talking to designers, and chatting it up with all the people in the know, I bowed out of the next event with Harmony. I liked her. Surprisingly so, considering that she’d grown up here. But I could only handle so much of this world when I had this shit with Penn roiled up inside of me.
I stepped into the first cab and told him to take me to Columbia. I tilted my head back on the seat and closed my eyes. My feet ached like I couldn’t believe. My head felt about the same. And as much as I was ready to get this over with, I didn’t want to walk into this confrontation. Because I knew it would be something drastic.
I was glad that I’d had a few hours to cool down so that I wouldn’t immediately combust on him, but it hadn’t made me feel better. He didn’t have to tell me everything. But his friends were our downfall. They knew how to screw us up, and he was an idiot if he didn’t see that.