Page 88 of Break Away
I knew that.
I hated knowing it.
“Good,” I said, and meant it. “She didn’t deserve that.”
Cade’s mouth tightened, but his voice remained even. “No, she didn’t.”
My whole body reacted before I could stop it.
Ryan’s eyes sharpened. “This is bad, East.”
I laughed and looked away. “Relax. I already gave the monster speech downstairs.”
Briggs stepped forward. “East.”
“Don’t ‘East’ me.”
He stopped.
That was how I knew it was bad. Briggs stopped moving because I told him to. There was no dramatic hand to his chest, no whining about my tone violating friendship law, no joke about my tragic hallway era.
He simply stopped and looked at me like he was scared of how close I was to the edge.
Ryan’s gaze dropped toward my hand. “You hit the wall?”
“No. Wall hit me.”
“Funny.”
“I’m hilarious.”
“You’re bleeding.”
“Theme of the year.”
Cade stepped closer, his eyes on my knuckles. “This can’t keep happening.”
I looked at him, and something mean moved through me because mean was easier than whatever lived beneath it. “Which part? Her? Me? The part where everyone looks at me like I’m the problem because I finally stopped letting her make me one?”
Rider’s voice stayed quiet. “Nobody said you’re the problem.”
“No?” I pushed away from the wall, anger rising fast enough to give me somewhere to put my hands. “It sure as fuck feels like it.”
Ryan’s jaw worked. “You use these girls to hurt Aura, and tonight it backfired.”
“Yeah, well, Aura used everything to hurt me.”
Cade shook his head. “I don’t think she was trying to hurt you at first.”
I laughed, sharp and ugly. “That makes it better? Calling me pathetic and a beggar?”
“No,” he said. “It makes it complicated.”
“Right. Her damage is complicated. Mine is inconvenient.”
Briggs’s jaw flexed. “Fuck that. She was trying to hurt him tonight.”
Cade looked at him. “That doesn’t make what East has done clean.”
