Sucker Punched (34 page)

I slam the passenger door shut, cutting him off. 

Fuck Declan. Fuck him for feeling sorry for me. And fuck him for not being surprised that I fucked everything up once again.

Declan can take his advice and shove it. He didn’t fuck up this bad with Savannah. I took a sledgehammer to my shot with Macy and
demolished
it. Worst he did to Savannah was mouth off to her. 

Only one of those fuck-ups is fixable, and just like usual, it’s not mine. There’s not enough glue in the world to try and fix my mistakes.

Declan drives off as I climb the stairs to my front porch. 

I don’t have my keys with me, but it’s just as well, since my door doesn’t lock anymore. Christ, my door doesn’t even
close
anymore. It’s pulled shut as much as it can be, considering the cops busted it to shit last night when they kicked it in.

Whatever. Having to buy a new door is the least of my worries.

I push it open and walk inside, surveying the damage in the living room. Shards of the broken bowl Macy chucked at me litter the carpet, making it sparkle. Books are askew on the shelf and several lay on the floor.

At least nobody robbed me.

Standing in my living room, I feel hollow. I knew Macy wouldn’t be here, but I didn’t expect it to feel so. . .empty. It didn’t feel like this before she moved in.

Silence surrounds me as I head up the stairs. My feet make their way down the hall, stopping at her open doorway. 

Her bed’s stripped down to the mattress. The top of her dresser’s clear of any personal items. Everything looks neat and tidy, like it’s just a run of the mill guest room.

I step inside and run a hand over the dark wood of her dresser, the one that used to be mine, and then open the top drawer. It’s empty, just like I knew it would be. 

So why does it hurt so much to see it firsthand?

Flicking on the closet light, I see rows of empty hangers. Her ghost lingers here. I see it in the bed we spent countless hours on. I see it in the dresser that’s supposed to have girly shit scattered across the top, but instead is cold and barren.

Bitterly, I realize she left it in exactly the same shape it was when I gave it to her.

Why couldn’t she extend
me
the same courtesy? She left me completely trashed and in ruins. 

An ugly, mutated form of anger burns through me as my eyes dart around the room. Why does everything I touch have to turn to shit? What is
wrong
with me?

Yanking out the top drawer of her dresser, I throw it across the room. It splinters apart, gouging a hole in the wall as I pull out the next drawer and smash it on the floor, stomping on it repeatedly until it’s nothing but a pile of fragmented wood and nails. 

My fist smashes into the mirror, creating millions of spider-webbed fissures. Shards go flying and I barely register the sting across my knuckles. Screaming, I flip the mattress off the boxspring, breaking the lamp on the nightstand in the process. 

Blood drips down my fingers, warm, thick, and slow, as I sink to the floor with my back against the wall. My chest heaves as I stare at the destruction, but I don’t think my lungs are actually getting any air. It feels like I’m suffocating. 

It feels like I’m dying. 

Turns out it’s pretty easy to break your own heart. All you have to do is betray the one you gave it to.

The curtains are drawn as I lie in my childhood bed, absently fiddling with my crown necklace. My pillow is soaked from my tears, but I’m not crying anymore. I think I’m all cried out. Everything feels numb, like I’m in some kind of weird, suspended state. Not dead, but not quite alive either.

I wish I could sleep, just to have a break from simply
existing
, but I’m afraid of what lurks in my subconscious. Every time I close my eyes I see them, and a little part of me dies.

In its place grows an ugly, selfish hope that Blake is just as miserable as I am. I don’t know what that says about me, but one thing’s for certain: love is bullshit.

Definitely 0/10, would not recommend.

I roll over, trying to find a dry spot on my pillow, when shouts break out from downstairs.

“Macy!”

Blake?

Jumping out of bed, the hallway flies past me as I run to the top of the stairs. I watch in embarrassed horror as my mom struggles to shut the front door in Blake’s face, but his stubborn ass is holding it open with his foot.

“You need to leave or I’m calling the police,” she warns, sounding panicked. 

Uh-oh. This is not good. My mom doesn’t do well under pressure.

She slams the door against his foot repeatedly, making him wince. “With all due respect, ma’am, I’m not leaving until I talk to her.”

Okay. Time to break this up before one of them kills the other.

They both look at me as I bound down the stairs. “Mom, it’s fine. Let him in.” 

Between all the sobbing, snot, and practically zero sleep, I’m sure I look like something out of
Night of the Living Dead
. 

My only consolation is that Blake looks just as bad. His eyes are bloodshot and rimmed with dark circles.

She looks absolutely beside herself as she glances between the two of us. “Are you sure?” she whispers, hesitant to step out of the way. 

I would be too if some crazed ex showed up to my daughter’s house and demanded to speak with her.

“He’s harmless. Annoying, but harmless.” I glare at him as I open the door and let him in.

My mom excuses herself, but not before she shoots Blake a withering look. 

She’s not exactly a fan of his, not after learning the whole sordid story early this morning. I kind of
had
to fill her in, since I called my dad in the middle of the night, hysterical, because the cops had carted Blake off to jail. After I got off the phone with him, she came over to Blake’s and helped me pack my things. 

I told her everything—how he slowly turned into my best friend and how we fought against becoming more, to how we used other people to forget each other, ultimately at the cost of our relationship. I told her about every painful, ugly low and every beautiful, breathtaking high. 

I even told her that I love him.

My soul felt lighter after confessing everything, and it wasn’t until then that I realized how much I’d needed to talk to someone about it. I broke down several times while I filled my mom in, and she lent me a sympathetic shoulder to cry on.

My dad was not so sympathetic. Saying he was “irate” to learn his baby girl had been living with a boy would be putting it mildly. I could visualize the bulging vein in his forehead so clearly as he yelled at me on the phone that I might as well have been FaceTiming him. Needless to say, he wasn’t leaping at the chance to get Blake out of jail, so I used the only leverage I had. 

I told him I knew about him and his secretary.

To his credit, he sounded remorseful. And embarrassed. Blackmailing my dad wasn’t my finest moment, but it did the trick. He asked for Blake’s info, said he’d take care of it, and then cryptically told me we’d talk later.

I certainly don’t think I owe Blake anything after what he did, but that doesn’t mean I want bad things to happen to him either. Rotting in jail for up to two and a half years would definitely be considered “bad.” One drunken punch shouldn’t cost him his future, so I did what I could.

However, having him show up like this is making me feel less than generous. In fact, it’s making me feel kind of stabby.

Blake opens his mouth to speak, but I hold up my hand, cutting him off. 

Not here. This is bound to get ugly and I don’t want my mom listening in from the kitchen. I’d just take him outside, but a passerby would probably call the cops when we eventually got into a screaming match on the sidewalk.

I motion for him to follow me upstairs and lead him into my room.

His eyes bounce from my rumpled bed to the posters lining my walls. I never thought my room was too girly or childish before, but the way he’s dissecting it makes me blush.

“Shut up,” I mumble, closing the door behind him.

“I didn’t say anything.”

No, he didn’t, but the sudden curve of his mouth said plenty.

The smile he puts on my face is second nature. I don’t even realize I’m doing it at first, but when I do, it hurts. 

Oh man, does it hurt. 

I don’t want a reminder of what we had. What we lost.

“Why are you here?” I ask, absently rubbing my aching chest.

“You won’t answer my calls or my texts—” 

“So you just show up at my house like some kind of stalker?” I’m getting annoyed now. Blake’s inability to stay within societal norms isn’t so cute anymore. “If I’m ignoring you, that means I don’t want to talk to you. Take the hint and leave me alone or I’ll file a restraining order.” 

Not that it would matter. He’s too stubborn. Getting arrested isn’t much of a deterrent for him.

Blake’s anger turns to desperation in the blink of an eye. “You can’t just cut me out of your life.”

“Watch me.”

He runs a hand over his hair, growing agitated. “I know I’m not perfect, okay? I’ll be the first person to admit I’m a fuck-up, and I take full responsibility for what happened last night.” He steps forward, his eyes pleading with me. “I know I don’t deserve your forgiveness. I don’t even deserve
you
, but I want to. I want to be the kind of guy who deserves you so fucking bad.” His voice breaks, and I break with it. “Give me a chance to be that guy, Duchess.”

I shake my head as tears stream down my face. Apparently I’m
not
all cried out.

Moving closer, he reaches up and cups my cheeks, his thumbs swiping away my tears. I want to hate him. I want to slap his hands away and tell him to go fuck himself.

But the heart’s a finicky bastard that wants what it wants. It’s resolute and unapologetic in its tyranny. There’s no reasoning with it, no negotiating. And my stupid, masochistic heart still wants Blake, even though he ripped it to shreds.

I turn my head as he leans in, touching his forehead to my temple. “What we have is too good to just throw away. You
know
it is,” he says painfully, like the words are being ripped from him. “I love you, Duchess. I love you so fucking much. And I’m so goddamn sorry it took me this long to realize what this feeling is.”

His confession knocks the breath from me, making my eyes squeeze shut. It feels like I’ve just been sucker punched. “That’s not fair,” I whisper, feeling my bruised heart flutter.

“None of this is fair.”

No, it’s really fucking not.

I finally find the strength to push him away. He can’t get out of this that easily. He can’t say a few nice words and expect me to swoon. “You bailed at the first sign of trouble, Blake.”

Exasperated, he pinches the bridge of his nose. “I didn’t know there was anything to bail
on.
 As far as I knew, you fucked me and then went right back to him.”

“I wouldn’t do that to you!” My throat feels raw from shouting as more tears slip free.

How could he think so little of me? How could he think I’d do something so awful?

“
You did it every goddamn day!”
He tugs at his hair, pacing around my room as he tries to calm down. Pointing at me, he steps closer. “You slept in
my
arms every night, but you couldn’t wait to run into his the next day.”

I swallow. “You’re right. We shouldn’t have blurred the lines like that—”

“There shouldn’t have been any fucking lines.”

I was just trying to get him to stick to the boundaries
he
established. He didn’t want to be in a relationship? Fine. But he can’t fuck them
and
me, too.

It’s either/or.

My scowl is immediate. “You set up the lines, not me. You’re the one who pushed me away by fucking other girls and acting like you didn’t want to be tied down.”

“Yeah, because I don’t know how to deal with my feelings like a normal fucking person! I bottle everything up and then I drink my weight to forget how goddamn miserable I am.”

“And yet you think you’re capable of having a real relationship?”

His jaw clenches. “Maybe. I want to at least fucking try.”

I shake my head vehemently. “Maybe’s not good enough. I don’t want to be your relationship training wheels. I don’t want you to figure out six months from now that you can’t do it and have you break my heart all over again.” My face crumples at just the thought. I’m suddenly having a hard time breathing. “I wouldn’t survive it.”

He rubs his jaw, deep in thought. “Then I’ll get help.” My eyes meet his. “I’ll see a therapist. Go to rehab. AA. I’ll do whatever it fucking takes. Just don’t give up on me.”

I bite my lip, trying not to get my hopes up. “You should do that anyway. Regardless of what happens between us.”

Blake nods, clearing his throat. “I will, I promise.” He moves closer, until he’s standing in front of me. Taking my hand in his, he murmurs, “Tell me it’s not over.
Please
.”

“I don’t know, okay? What I do know is that it’s not going to be decided today, or tomorrow, or even the day after that. You broke my trust and it’ll take time to rebuild it—if it’s even possible.”