She clipped my shoulder, but she couldn’t run from this. I was fucking innocent.
“Cleo, I didn’t do this. Please. Just—” Another hit to my arm. Another shove to my chest. She would have gone for my face too, but I dodged. “Cleo, I’m fucking innocent!”
“Oh, you’re beyond that,” she said, sniffling. Staring back at my friends, she cringed. “I’m sorry I ruined your party, December. I’m just…”
As if ashamed, she fled, and I made steps to move, but I was grabbed.
“Buddy, you probably shouldn’t—”
I shoved Knight off me. “Don’t get in my way. I didn’t do this shit she’s accusing me of.”
“But it looks like you’re guilty, man.” Royal, his arm around December. He squeezed her. “Until it doesn’t, you don’t have anything.”
Objective, logical. He was right, of course, always right.
I fucking roared, punching the air. I didn’t fucking have anything. I did look guilty.
And maybe my shit, shit with her was finally coming full circle. I’d done a lot to that girl in the past.
I guessed it was just catching up with me.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Jax
Cleo wasn’t hearing me out. She wasn’t hearing anything at all from me. I’d heard from everyone else, of course. My dad. Even my moms had reached out. My dad, I guessed, had called them, let them know what happened and about “my behavior.” Those had actually been his words.
And so a years-long silence between all my parents was finally broken.
I’d been the one to bring their worlds together, and though I did believe that would come eventually, not in this way. I’d wanted to screw my father, ruin his world. Crazy enough, I’d accomplished that mission. I just hadn’t thought about the collateral damage. I hadn’t thought about myself.
And I definitely hadn’t thought about her.
Cleo had completely ghosted me, and yeah, I knew her routine. I found her several times on campus, studying her feet as she always did. She hugged her books and did her thing, and every time I thought I should make my presence known, I always held back. I just let her be. I let her live her life. I was still looking very guilty in her eyes, and until I wasn’t, I really couldn’t go back to her. I couldn’t talk to her.
I did have nothing.
Time headed into midterms after weeks of hell, weeks of trying to forget that night I busted shit up with Cleo and threw a bomb into both my friends’ bachelor and bachelorette parties. Of course, both Royal and December told me it was okay, that they were only sad at how things had turned out. They had no idea about Cleo and me. None of the guys did. I’d kept it pretty quiet. They thought I’d still been trying to handle her.
Not that I’d fallen for her.
Which I had like a sick fucking puppy. I wanted that girl and was stupid for wanting that girl. She was nothing like me, fragile and just good. I wasn’t good. I was the villain. I was the head case who still wanted to destroy my father’s life, but I was in deep fucking feelings with his stepdaughter. I wanted to have my cake and eat it too. I’d destroyed that fucking cake. I put a bomb through my life. I’d gotten rid of the girl.
Only to long for her in her absence.
I decided to go home after midterms, just for the weekend because I needed a goddamn break. A break from fuck ups, a break from seeing Cleo walking campus and not being able to do anything about it. I needed to just be home so that’s what I did.
I took a break.
I’d arrived to the Midwest as the seasons started to change, the end of fall upon us and the cusp of winter threatening its chill. Maywood Heights bared naked trees, multi-colored leaves breezing about the sharply cool air. There were no beaches and absolutely no golden sand. In fact, the temperature switch had been so jarring I thought my dick would snap off the moment I left the airport. Forty degrees felt like sub below after being in constant heat and I knew it’d only get colder once I did get home.
Both my moms were home this weekend. In fact, they said they would be since I told them I’d be in for the weekend. They were busy, but made time to be home with me there.
I was greeted with disappointed faces and distant hugs when I arrived, more than one conversation had before I got there. They’d let me have it for what I did to my stepsister, my biological father’s portrayal of events the only side they had. I hadn’t heard the conversation between them, of course, but I was under the assumption he felt I’d taken advantage of my stepsister. I doubt Cleo told him that. Because that’s not how she felt.
At least, I hoped that wasn’t how she felt.
Honestly, I didn’t know her position. She hadn’t talked to me, not answering my calls or texts. I stopped after a week or so following the parties. Again, I looked guilty and hadn’t seen the point.