Keep From Falling (Markson Grove Series Book 1) (38 page)

“I told you that we were sharing Skylar,” he continues on, making it very clear that he has no intention of backing down either. “I guess you were late getting the memo on that one, huh? Must have been too busy fucking Daniels to notice. Thanks for that, by the way. Now I don’t have to share her with you anymore.”

I start toward him with my hand raised. I want to slap the smirk right off of his piece-of-shit face! His smirk morphs into a huge grin as I begin to swing my hand. My actions amuse him, and for whatever reason, this angers me even more.

Spencer gets up and grabs ahold of my wrist, stopping me abruptly. “Ok. No need to get physical, babe. He’s done pushing your buttons, isn’t that right, Parker?” he says, shooting Parker a warning look.

Parker looks to Skylar to see if she wants him to stop. She shrugs as if to say ‘it’s up to you’.

“Yeah, I guess I’m done.”

“Ok then,” Spencer says, motioning for me to take a seat on the couch. I shake my head. I need to be standing for this. I came here to say something, and I plan on saying it. I can’t just pretend like what Evan told me last night didn’t leave me destroyed. She needs to know that she’s just as bad as me with her dishonesty.

“We need to talk,” I say to Skylar.

“I don’t think there’s anything more to talk about.”

“Well I think there’s lots,” I return, stubbornly standing my ground.

Parker’s phone beeps and all three of us watch him pull it out of the pocket of his jeans. He hastily texts whoever it is back and looks up at Skylar, “I have to take off,” he says, getting up and moving toward her. I watch as he leans into her and kisses her softly on the lips. She kisses him back, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him even nearer. It’s painful to watch. I get why they both don’t care to hide it, but it’s weird and I hate it. I especially hate it because it’s him.

I glare at him once again and he actually chuckles, shaking his head. He brushes passed me and leaves the apartment.

The instant he’s out the door, my head snaps back to face Skylar. “How long were you with him?” I demand, my eyes narrowing in an attempt to intimidate the truth out of her.

Skylar sighs. “What do you want from me, Bree?”

“How about the truth for a change?”

“Oh, that’s rich. Like you haven’t been lying to me,” she replies with a hiss.

We are getting off on the wrong foot here and I don’t want that. I need her to tell me everything. I think I deserve that. “We both owe each other the truth,” I say calmly, taking a seat on the chair Parker was just sitting in. “I’ll answer your questions too if you want.”

Skylar looks thoughtful for a moment. She glances over at Spencer as if to ask him what he thinks. When he motions for her to go ahead and tell me, she turns back to me and in a small voice says, “I wasn’t
with
him, with him. We were friends for a long time before we even kissed, ok? Our date that night really was our first date.”

“That’s a lie again. You were
exclusively his
. At least that’s the word going around.” I try to keep my composure, but I can see myself faltering. I don’t want to cry. I can’t believe that even after confronting her head on with this question, she’s still downplaying what he is to her!

Skylar’s eyebrows rise. She’s surprised that I know so much. “Maybe I was… after a while. I don’t see why it matters, though.”

“It matters because you didn’t tell me,” I say in an unsteady voice. Great, here comes the tears. “You were in a relationship with him and you lead me to believe that he hurt you that night. But according to Evan, there’s no way in hell he would have ever done that because he was
yours
and you were
his
. So, tell me Skylar, did he rape you?”

She rolls her eyes. “What do you think?”

“Well, did he hurt you then? Because I saw you, and somebody hurt you.”

“Somebody did hurt me, but it wasn’t him. He saved me.”

He saved her.

I can’t even wrap my thoughts around this information after thinking only horrible things about him over the last year and a half. It makes no sense.

“So he’s your hero,” I spit with distaste. “Wow. Great way to treat your hero there, Skylar. Calling him a rapist and then dropping him for someone else.”

“Fuck you. You don’t know anything about it.”

“Because you won’t tell me!” I yell.

“I can’t. I can’t tell Spencer, and I can’t tell you. I can’t tell anyone. I wish you guys would just get that!”

“We just want to understand,” Spencer says, rubbing her shoulder gently. It annoys me. She doesn’t deserve the comfort.

“Understand that we are back together,” she replies, shrugging his hand off. “That’s all you need to know.”

“Does he love you?” I ask. I don’t want to know. I’m an idiot for even asking, but I ask it anyway.

“Yes,” she replies without hesitation. I inhale a sharp breath.

“Do you love him back?” I manage next.

“Why does it even matter? You and I are over now.”

“Do you love him back? It’s a simple question, and it
does
matter!
It means our entire relationship was a lie and built on a fucking rebound!” I yell. I’m having a hard time keeping my emotions in check. I don’t want to hear her answer, but I know I have to.

“I love him back,” she whispers so softly that I’m not even sure I hear her right away. But as soon as she looks up and into my eyes I know the truth.

My entire demeanor deteriorates and I crumble right there in front of her. I put my face into my hands and sob. Everything I’ve learned tonight about her past, about Parker having been with her far before I had, makes me realize that I’ve wasted a whole eighteen months of my life giving myself to a person who didn’t even deserve it. I wasn’t her first love, I wasn’t her first anything. I was something to fill up an empty place
he
left in her heart!

“A
Misfit
and a liar,” I say finally through the sobs. “I don’t even know you. I don’t think I ever did.”

“Maybe you didn’t.”

“Did you know?” I demand from Spencer. I can tell my face is a red and blotchy mess but I don’t care. I need him to see me when I say this. “Of course you knew. She’s your girl, right? I never really was, was I?”

“You’re my girl too. You know that,” Spencer says softly, getting up from the couch and starting toward me but I motion for him to stay away. I don’t want his sympathy.

“Doesn’t seem like it,” I continue. “Right from the start you were against my feelings toward Evan. You never once supported me through any of this confusion. My
legitimate
confusion! For the first time ever I was attracted to a boy and you knew that was a big and strange thing for me. But all you did was tell me that what I was feeling with him wasn’t real. Anything to protect poor, helpless Skylar, right? I needed someone to understand me, and it should have been you. You let me down! You made me feel like my feelings toward him were wrong! But the minute Skylar goes running off with a guy, a complete delinquent, by the way, you’re ready to accept him and be his friend. You’re a fucking hypocrite!”

He doesn’t know what to say. He steps back and returns to spot on the couch. His mouth agape and his eyes pained. He looks defeated and for a moment I feel bad. “I never said he was my friend and I’ve always supported you,” he replies quietly.

“You’ve always supported your
babygirl
, but not me. And tonight I finally found out why. Misfits… the both of you. I’m the odd one out on that I guess.”

“You don’t get it,” he says. “I’m stuck between you and Sky, just trying to make the best of it. I don’t want either of your guys in my life, to be perfectly honest with you, but it is what it is. Skylar says Parker is a good guy, you say you don’t want to let Evan go. And that’s where we stand.”

“That’s where we stand,” I repeat, gritting my teeth. I look out the window at the high school in the distance. I wish none of this were happening. I wish that Skylar had never kissed me that night. I wish that I had never kissed her again a week later; I wish that we had never fallen in love with each other. I wish we had just stayed best friends who love each other like sisters. Now I don’t even have a sister. I don’t even have a friend. I have nothing. The quote by the late Alfred Tennyson,
‘better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all’
, is complete bullshit. I wish I’d never fallen in love with her.

“I’m going to go,” I say finally, pulling myself out of my thoughts and getting up from the chair. “Thanks for being honest with me,” I tell her and I mean it. As much as I hated her answers, it feels good to finally not be in the dark about any of it.

Skylar nods. She looks tired and completely over all of this bickering back and forth between the two of us and to be honest, so am I. I just want to walk out of here as calmly as I walked in and never come back. I slip my sneakers on and reach for the knob of the door.

“For what it’s worth,” Skylar calls out, “I
am
sorry.”

I turn to face her and give her a slight nod. “I’m sorry, too,” I say sadly, feeling the tears emerge again. I turn around and hurry out the door.

Evan

“What do you want, Evan?” Kelsie says with a sigh the instant she opens her front door Sunday evening and sees me standing on her porch. She’s still angry and I can tell she’s considering closing the door on me, but my bruised face and swollen nose seems to be throwing her off of her game. She wants to ask what happened.

“Where’s Derrick?” I ask, deciding to open this up with a bit of small talk. I know she won’t be the one to start and I want my best friend back. I feel lost without her, but since she’s still mad at me about deciding to see Bree behind Skylar’s back, a certain amount of smooth talking will be necessary to get her to open up.

She shrugs. “He’s gone to a basketball game with his brothers. What happened to your face?”

I knew she would ask. It’s all a part of my master plan.

“Small disagreement with someone,” I reply. Keep her guessing, that’s the key to getting her to continue talking with me.

“Fine, don’t tell me. What do you want?” she asks again, this time with less patience in her tone.

“Want to go for a walk with me?” I look into her eyes and smile with as much charisma as I can possibly muster.

She hesitates, but I know that she can’t ignore the smile. She loves my smile, it’s like her
kryptonite
. She shrugs casually, attempting to appear bored with my request. “I guess. Let me get my shoes.”

She turns back into the house, grabs the ugly, clunky, black shoes she’s always wearing, and then calls out to her younger brother, “Tell mom I’m walking with Evan. I’ll be back in an hour!”

“Yeah, yeah,” her brother returns from upstairs as Kelsie slips the ugly things onto her feet.

We start down the street shortly afterward, not really walking anywhere in particular. I don’t care where we go; I just need to talk to her, and I need for her to listen. “I wanted to tell you that you were right,” I say after a few minutes of walking in silence.

“About what?” she asks coolly. She has no intention of making this easy for me at all.

“I really am no better than Tris.”

She gives me a solid nod but doesn’t say anything back. I know she wants to know more, but she’s still mad and doesn’t want to ask me to elaborate. She’s so damn stubborn.

I sigh. “I feel guilty.”

She stops walking and turns to face me. “Why are you telling me this? Do you want me to say I told you so? Because, I told you so.”

“That’s not why I’m telling you,” I say. It’s not easy for me to admit to her when she’s right and the fact that she’s making that process even more difficult makes me very frustrated. “Jeez Kels, I miss you, ok?”

She doesn’t say anything for a moment as she thinks over my confession. I know she’s still angry, but I can see that she does, in fact, want to bury the hatchet. I know my best friend. “I miss you too,” she says finally.

Good.

“Can we please get back to being friends then?” I ask. “Derrick’s just plain horrible with advice.”

Kelsie chuckles. “He is pretty horrible,” she agrees, taking my hand into hers and smiling up at me.

We’re good. This is her telling me we’re good. I’m glad.

“I’m crazy about her,” I say after a few more minutes, “I’m falling in love with her.” I want to make Kelsie understand that this isn’t just about sex for me. This girl has captivated me.

“I see,” she says with a raised brow. “And where does Skylar fit into all of this?”

“Skylar’s with someone else now,” I reply apprehensively, clearly uncertain about what exactly is going on with Skylar and Parker. Is she with him now in order to get back at Bree? Is she trying to make her jealous? Because if that’s the case, I think it might be working.

“Why do you say it like that? Who is it?” she asks, pulling her hand away and looking up into my eyes. She stops our stroll abruptly and waits for my answer.

“Doesn’t really matter, does it?”

“No, I suppose not. I’m just curious.” She faces forward and starts to walk again. I follow along next to her.