Breaking the Wrong (35 page)

All I hear is Wentworth girl.

Wentworth girl.

Wentworth girl.

Wentworth girl.

Shoving my face close to my old friend, I speak slowly. “I’m not just pissed about Elizabeth,” I whisper and shake my head. “No, I’m pissed because you messed with her, and you messed with Emilia—you fucked with someone I love.”

Julian’s smile wavers, but it’s still there and that makes my hands clench tightly. Before I can even think, I sucker punch him. I hear a loud crack just as his head snaps to the side.

He falls to the ground and automatically holds his nose. When his hands drop, blood trickles down his face, dripping onto his pure white dress shirt. He wipes the blood away with the back of his hand and it smears across his face. “Fuck you, Macsen,” he growls out. “I’ve been your friend for years!”

Julian steps back and shrugs off his suit jacket and angrily throws it to the ground. He gets one good punch in before he tackles me and the two of us crash to the ground, landing on broken glass.

My sleeve tears and I feel a burning sensation on my shoulder. It only lasts for a minute as I focus on Julian and roll over quickly before he can get another hit.

He stands on wobbly legs and points at me. “What’s gotten into you?” he yells.

I say nothing in response. Blood travels down my arm as I circle Julian and punch him with more force. My knuckles burn as they make contact with his cheek, but after that I become numb. And every punch after that just feels uncontrollable.

Julian is no longer fighting, his shoulders are slumped, and I’m now holding him up. His left eye is swollen and I finally stop long enough to shove him against the wall. He slumps before falling to the ground.

I kneel down and stare at him. I know he’s awake. He can hear everything. When he peels his right lid open, I finally speak. “You’re going to tell them the truth.” He makes a harsh noise and I shove my face closer. “You’re going to tell Emilia and her family that you were the one that fucking messed with Elizabeth, not me.”

“I’m not doing that,” he croaks out.

Money never fails for the rich. Julian is slumped against the filthy alley wall, and he’s still holding onto his story because the rich get away with everything. They’re invincible. When you can pay off your mistakes, it’s easy to walk around with a cocky grin on your face.

I want Julian Langley to pay for all the pain he’s put Emilia and Elizabeth through, because if I’m completely honest, I didn’t come here for myself. Emilia’s pain the night I saw her at the charity is ammunition to keep hitting Julian over and over. He hurt Elizabeth, that destroyed Emilia, and in return, she did the same to me. It’s a nasty domino effect.

I want it to stop now.

“You know there’s a journal, right? Everything that you told her is inside. And if I really wanted to be a fucking dick, I could dig deep enough and find that one friend of yours who knows what you did. We both know how you love to brag.”

Julian says nothing and leans against the wall with his eyes closed. I know he’s thinking about a way to get out of this. Kneeling close, I grab his jaw. He winces. “Stay awake. I’m not done.”

His good eye cracks open and it’s filled with hatred. 

“How good is your money to the Wentworths?” I ask. “They can buy your family and mine twice over. You can’t get out of this. ”

“I’m not doing it.”

“You will.” I give him a strong pat on the cheek and he hisses out in pain. “I’m not your fucking fall guy,” I tell him coldly. “Tell her family before I tell her brother everything. I’ve given you bruises that will heal. But Aniston won’t stop—that guy will fucking destroy you. But I think you already know that … isn’t he one of your closest friends?”

Julian’s shoulders tense slightly. He says nothing in response, but I know that my message has been received. 

I stand up and peer at my sliced shoulder before I retrieve my suit jacket from the ground. I slip it on casually and straighten out the collar. My eyes never leave Julian’s body as I fix my tie. He starts to vomit on himself and I turn around, walking away from him.

I take a sharp turn and pretend I’m just leaving the charity event and that I didn’t just almost kill someone. Fresh blood pools from my lip, I wipe it away and stare down at the sidewalk and feel a sick sense of justice. 

“Sloan!”

I turn around slowly at the sound of my name and find Aniston Wentworth standing a few steps away. He is right in front of the alleyway and when he glances over to the entry, I know he sees the silhouette of Julian.

My smile is dark and I know he can’t see it. “You want to know what happened to Elizabeth? Ask him!”

Aniston walks forward and I flip him off. “I’m fucking done!”

Tomorrow, I’m leaving this city.

I can’t get away fast enough.

EMILIA

My legs dangle over the chair as I quietly read
As I Lay Dying
. This is my third time rereading this book and every time Darl narrates a part of the story, I think of Macsen. I try to see the good that Macsen is so insistent about, but it’s hard for me to see it.

It’s only been a week since the charity event, but I know Macsen didn’t
stay too long in New York. Aniston used any chance he got to tell me that my Burn List was justified.  According to him, Macsen’s walking away from me was an example of his character.

My calls to Macsen have started to waver.

I stopped calling two days ago. I know I’ve hurt him and that thought alone makes me squeeze my eyes shut and lean my head back against the armrest.

“Rough day, Emi?”

My dad walks into the room. When I open my eyes, I see him walking to his desk, sorting through the mail in his hands.

I straighten my body in the chair and close my book. “You could say that.”

He sits down at his desk and looks over at me. “Are you doing okay?”

Not at all.
It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell him how I’m feeling, but I shrug my shoulders instead. “I’m just ready to get back to school.”

“How is everything with your classes?”

“I’m doing good.” He opens his mouth and I quickly say, “I’m even doing good in math.”

Leaning back in his chair, he observes me. “That tutor must be a great help.”

My fingernails dig into the armrest painfully as I nod my head slowly. “He is,” I agree. 

My dad gives me a smile and turns on his computer. “Well, I’m glad. I know how hard you work and it’s good to hear your classes are
going well.”

“They
’re going better than I thought,” I admit.

“I have to be honest Emi, I thought you would want to transfer back to NYU,” he confesses.

NYU was never my dream. It was simply a school that was close to home for me.  “Why does everyone keep saying that?”

“Because you’ve be
en so close to Eden and Aniston,” my dad explains. “I didn’t know how you would handle being away from everything.”

I knew what
everything
meant.
Everything
was Elizabeth.

“I really like it there,” I confess.
Shifting closer to his mahogany desk, I swipe a finger over the wood. My finger is dust free but I keep my head down because if I look up my dad will see the emotions in my eyes. “I can be my own person there.”

My dad’s brows slant low. “You ar
e your own person here too.”

I glance at him skeptically.
“No, I’m not. I have a last name that scares everyone. In Kentucky, people know nothing and it’s amazing to have a fresh start.” My dad nods his head in understanding. “I just like it there,” I say with a sigh.

“I’m glad. I know the last few years have been rough for you,
and it’s good to see you happy again.”

I
was happy with Macsen but that happiness is gone. It was once within my reach and now it seems irrevocably gone. 

“You are happy, right?” my dad asks.

I’m slow to nod because I don’t want to lie to my dad, but I can’t tell him how I’m really feeling. I settle in the middle. “I’m getting there.”

“Your mom told me you went to the church with her?
”

In our house, ‘the church
’ is a place that we all try to avoid. But that day with my mom cleaned a few of my wounds. It felt good to cry and it felt good to see my mom express her feelings. I’ve seen her as my plastic, smiling mother, the one that never allows a crack to appear on her armor. That day brought us closer, in a way. It showed me that there is still a piece of my old mom in there, just buried deep.

“She tricked me into going
, if that’s what you’re trying to say.”

He gives me a sympathetic smile before he takes of
f his glasses and rubs the bridge of his nose. I take a good look at him and really see my dad. And it hits me just how worn down he looks.

“Your mom really needed that,” he explains. “Spending time with you
that day really made her happy.” He smiles sadly at me. “No matter how depressing it was for you.”

“I know,” I admit quietly.
“I needed it too.”

“I know that
it seems your mom has it together but something she’s barely hanging on. Any time she can get with you guys, she’ll take.”

“I know,” I repeat.

My dad takes my response in stride and changes the subject. “When are you leaving for campus?”

“In a few days.
”

“You know I’ll miss you and your random books laying around, right?”

I nod my head and smile faintly. “Yes.”

He smiles back and looks down at his work
, and for the next few minutes, I read my book while he quietly reads through the papers in front of him.

The doorbell rings and I faintly hear my mom’s heel clicking against the floor and glance back down at my book.

“Oh no!” my mom exclaims loudly.

I look at my dad and stand up to go to the door. We stand in the middle of the doorway with wide eyes. Julian Langley stands in the en
tryway, looking almost unrecognizable. His left eye is swollen shut, a splint is on his nose, and half of his cheek is swollen in shades of plum and blue.

“Can I come in?”
he asks.

My mom’s manners are instinctive. She quickly steps back. “Of course!”

As he walks into the foyer, he looks over at me like he can feel my gaze, and his eyes instantly veer to the ground. Julian is afraid.

“What happened to you?” my mom asks with concern.

“Just a fight,” he mumbles to the ground.

“With who?” Aniston asks. My brother sits on the bottom step of the staircase. His lips are drawn in a tight line as he looks at Julian. Not an ounce of concern is in my brother’s eyes and that makes me lift a brow.

“With some guy,” Julian replies evasively.

Aniston tilts his head to the side like Julian is something he wants to dissect.
“Looks like he beat the hell out of you.”

“Ethaniel Aniston!” my mom admonishes quickly.

My brother says nothing and keeps his cold eyes on Julian. Something feels bad about this conversation. Aniston stares at Julian with hatred, and Julian will hardly look up at any of us. It creates a whole new level of tension that everyone in the room can feel.

“Can I talk to
all of you?” Julian finally asks.

“
Absolutely,” my mom wraps an arm around Julian. He winces but walks into the living room. “Emilia, can you shut the door, please?” my mom says over her shoulder.

Quietly, I move toward the door and briefly stare outside. A few people are braving the cold weather and walking on the sidewalks. They huddle the
ir faces deeper into their scarves and coats as they walk briskly against the strong winds.

Mostly everyone. E
xcept for one guy across the street.

He towers over
most of the people around him and has a baseball cap on his head. My back straightens and without thinking, I grab my shoes and awkwardly put them on as I hurry out the door and down the stairs.

He looks behind him and when he sees me, his steps quicken.

“Macsen!” I shout out.

A few people stop and look at me, but Macsen keeps walking. I cross the street without looking and ignore the blaring sound of cars honking. My eyes are glued to Macsen’s back as he tries to run away from me.

When my feet step onto the sidewalk, I speed up and dodge people, move around them and even bump into them. I don’t care. I’m practically running and when I’m a few steps away, I call out his name.

“Macsen Sloan!”

He stops walking and his head tilts up toward the sky. I stand there, catching my breath and when he turns around, I gasp. His cheek is swollen in nasty colors—just like Julian’s.

“What happened?” I step forward
with my hand outstretched. I can’t help it—it’s a knee-jerk reaction to want to help him.