Page 123 of The Way I Hate Him
Nothing about what just happened is okay.
I feel so hopeless.That was so...brutal.
I have no idea what I would have done if Abel hadn’t shown up and pulled Ryland off Hayes.
I put a few inches between me and Hayes and look him in the face for the first time. His eye’s already swollen, and blood drips from his nose and a spot above his eye.
Tears stream down my cheeks as I run my thumb over his cheek.
“I’m fine,” he says, understanding my concern. “Promise.”
I turn toward Ryland now, his hands still clutching his head as he breathes heavily.
“Ryland . . . I—”
“Don’t,” he says as he sits up, the murder in his eyes gone, and in its place . . . emptiness. “I don’t want to hear your apologies because they’ll fall on deaf ears. Nothing you say will make this right. You’re dead to me, Hattie.” He runs the back of his hand over his nose as he bends forward, still catching his breath.
D-dead to him?
Without even letting me explain?
My lip trembles, a sob on the tip of my tongue just as Hayes says, “I did nothing to her. Nothing happened between us. I . . . I wouldn’t let anything happen.”
“I don’t fucking believe you,” Ryland snaps back, the anger pouring off him.
“Of course you wouldn’t,” Hayes says defensively. “You’ve never believed anything I’ve told you because you’ve decided to assume the worst about me instead of hearing me out.”
“Why would I hear you out when you got my girlfriend pregnant?” Ryland shouts.
Uh . . . what?
I turn to Hayes. “You got his girlfriend pregnant? You have a kid? Is that why you guys don’t talk? That’s the reason? Wait . . .” The dots start connecting as I think about when their friendship dissolved. It was a few summers after their high school graduation. Ryland was dating his longtime girlfriend and crush, Samantha Horbach, while trying to make it in the big leagues. Hayes was playing music in small bars, trying to get noticed. Both of them trying to make something of themselves. “You got Samantha pregnant?”
“He did,” Ryland says. “And then left her to fend for herself. She ended up having a miscarriage and then left town. Losing her was the downfall of my goddamn career and all because he betrayed me.”
I crawl away from Hayes just as he says, “I didn’t do it.” His eyes stay on mine the entire time, never wavering. “I didn’t fuck her. I wouldn’t do that to a friend.”
“Don’t call me your friend.” Ryland stands, and so does Hayes.
“Ryland,” Hayes says, his voice full of sincerity. “I didn’t touch her. At the summer party, she tried to make a move on me while you were in Pittsburgh for a game. I turned her down, and she was pissed about it. She ended up fucking Nick that night in the back of his Jeep. I swear on my goddamn life, it wasn’t me.”
Ryland pauses, and I can see him thinking it over, questioning himself and his assumption.
Abel steps up and places his hand on Ryland’s shoulder. “I swore I’d stay out of this, but what Hayes is saying is the truth. I spoke to Nick a few years ago, and he admitted it. I’ve wanted to tell you, Ryland. I’ve wanted to get the truth out between you for years, but then Cassidy got sick...Hayes, this should have been settled years ago. I shouldn’t have listened to you and kept quiet. I’m sorry I’ve held on to it, for both of your sakes.”
Feeling like I’ve been through a car crash with terrible whiplash, I sit down on my bed and glance between the desperate look on Hayes’s face and the confused look on Ryland’s face. I can tell by Hayes’s expression that he wants to be trusted. And Ryland? He’s believed a massive lie...for over a decade.
“But . . . she said you got her pregnant.”
“She lied,” Hayes says softly.
More confusion wraps around Ryland as he takes a few steps back, his hand on his head. “I . . . I can’t fucking deal with this right now,” he says as he wipes the back of his hand over his mouth, smearing blood across his cheek. “It’s Cassidy’s birthday, and I have a little girl wanting to celebrate.”
Hand still on his shoulder, Abel says, “Come to the office, I’ll clean you up.”
“Ryland . . . wait.”
He glances over his shoulder, not a single ounce of brotherly love directed at me. “Be at Cassidy’s grave at nine. Don’t be late.”
