Page 84 of The Way I Hate Him
Unsure what to do, I tug on my neck and point at his coffee. “Want me to replace that?”
The man I once called my best friend scowls at me. “I don’t need your fucking charity.”
“Wasn’t offering charity.”
He transfers his to-go cup and shakes his wet hand to get the coffee off.
“Fuck,” he mutters.
“I can grab napkins . . .”
His eyes snap up to mine. “Does it look like I want your help? Jesus, read the room.”
That just makes me stuff my hands in my pockets as I let him figure it out on his own. And I don’t know what comes over me, maybe it’s the bitterness in me, or the internal burning from not being able to take what I want, or the fact that he treats me like such shit when I don’t deserve it, but I say, “I see Hattie’s in town.”
That makes him lock eyes with me again. “Why the hell would you say that?”
“Just making conversation.”
He takes a step forward, the smell of his coffee wafting between us. “Stay away from her.”
“What makes you think I’d go near her?” I ask, standing my ground.
“To fuck with me,” he replies.
“Yes, because my mission in life is to fuck with you, Ryland.”
He gets in my face now, nose to nose. This man does not resemble the Ryland Rowley I used to know. I can honestly say he does not look good. Stressed. Beyond exhausted.He was once so easygoing. He was once someone I knew better than anyone else.But this guy is beyond angry. At me.At life?“Listen carefully, Farrow. Leave my sisters and my family the fuck alone. Got it?”
“Boys, boys, boys,” Ethel O’Donnell-Kerr says as she walks up to us. “Now, now, I hope we’re not getting into anything spirited here while we have visitors in our town only a whisper away.”
Ryland stares into my eyes. “No, I was just leaving.”
“Good,” Ethel replies.
“See you around,” I say with a smirk because if anything, I thrive for trouble when I feel out of sorts. He starts to move past me, and I lean into him, bumping his shoulder with mine. He shifts backward just slightly, but his eyes remain on mine.
“Stay. Away,” he repeats and then takes off.
“Well, what a tense reunion,” Ethel says.
Tense is a nice way of putting it.
Honestly, if I had it my way, I would have loved to feel Ryland’s fist this morning. Craved it actually.
There’s nothing better than physical pain taking away the mental pain. The physical pain I can draw on—I can live off it—but the mental anguish I’m going through right now . . . it almost makes it too hard to breathe.
But if there’s one thing I learned from this interaction is that nothing has changed between me and Ryland. Backing the hell away from Hattie . . . it was a smart move.
Because he wouldn’t forgive her.And I don’t want that on my fucking conscience too.
ChapterEleven
HATTIE
“How do you feel?” Maggie asks as I drive us back to my studio apartment, sad because I have to leave my best friend after our fun weekend. A weekend when I didn’t have to worry about school, my family, or the loss of Cassidy. A weekend when we forgot, where we pushed the real world away, and now that we’ve popped our bubble of joy, all the problems in my life are resting on my shoulders again.
The weight of my lies.
