Page 32 of The Ring
He nods. “I’ll be in my room if you need anything,” he says to me, giving TJ a warning glance before heading out.
“What do you want to talk about?” I ask as I put the matcha on the coffee table and stand up—because like hell I’ll be looking up at him and him down at me during this conversation.
“About what happened at Red Lips,” he answers.
I cross my arms. “Are you going to apologise?”
He lets out a mocking laugh. “Me? Shouldn’t that be you?”
“Me?Why should I apologise?” I say, astonished that he’s trying to turn this around. “I wasn’t the one who got into a fight and put us on blast.”
“You slept with Nate. Nate. Of all the people you could have chosen, you had to choose my cousin? How could you?” he asks, and I can hear the pain in his voice.
It breaks my heart to think he’s hurting because of me. When you love someone, the last thing you want to do is hurt them, but it seems like that’s all we’re good at lately.
“No, you don’t get to play the victim.” I uncross my arms, pointing a finger at him. “You slept with my mother.” And, as always, saying those words aloud rips open a wound I doubt will ever completely heal.
“That’s… different.”
“Yes, because in my book, mother trumps cousinevery single time,” I say, almost yelling.
His jaw tightens. “At least I apologised for it.”
“You gave me a half-arsed apology,” I retort, my voice sharp. “I didn’t mean to,” I mimic in a mocking tone, what he told me in Paris. “Well, I can’t say the same because I did mean to sleep with Nate.” I say it with the intention of hurting him like he hurt me.
I never thought I slept with Nate intending to hurt TJ, but now, in retrospect, maybe unconsciously, a small part of me did.
I can see I’ve gotten the reaction I wanted.
He looks hurt, turns away, and lets out a frustrated sigh.
“You’re incredible,” he says bitterly. It’s funny how the same exact words, spoken in a different tone, once gave me butterflies. Now, they just make me want to find a corner and cry.
“No, you’re acting like this is all my fault.”
“It is your fault,” TJ replies angrily. “You crossed the line.”
How dare he blame me when he’s the one who started all of this? Everything I’ve done has just been a reaction to it.
“No, you crossed it first. I didn’t break us, you did.” My voice breaks at the end. “How could you? I forgave you once, and you had to do it again. Was I just a game to you?”
That’s what I kick myself for the most—my mother wasn’t the first time he did something like this.
He looks astonished that I brought it up. I didn’t even mention it during our fight in Paris. A while ago, after one argument, we agreed not to bring itup again.
“That time wasn’t the same, and you know it,” he retorts.
I do know, but it hurts the same.
When he was a senior and I was a junior, there was an incident that made Anthony pull me out of school for two months. At the time, I blamed TJ for it, but it wasn’t his fault. It was completely mine. I didn’t talk to him during that time, even though he repeatedly tried to reach out. He thought this meant we were broken up. I thought it meant we were on a break.
When I came back, he told me he’d hooked up with Rebecca, one of his classmates whom I disliked because I knew she had a big crush on him. He said he was drunk, that he regretted it instantly, that he thought we were broken up but still felt horrible for it. I forgave him because, even though it hurt, I had put him through a lot during those months. Maybe I shouldn’t.
They say, once a cheater, always a cheater.
I take a deep breath to compose myself. I’m on the verge of crying, but I don’t want to cry in front of him.
I don’t want to cry because of him. I’ve already shed more tears over him than he deserves.
