Aiden
I’m a coward.
It’s been almost a week and I still haven’t seen Leila.
Any time she texts, my chest hurts. I want to race to her apartment and wrap my arms around her. I don’t want this to end. I don’t want to give up on her, I just don’t know how to get out of this situation.
The pictures of my brother and mom constantly replay in my mind. There’s none of Brendan because he’s good at not getting caught. He’s also good at beating my ass until I’m black and blue. I remember the first and last time I tried to tell a teacher about what was happening at home when I walked in with a split lip. It resulted in the police getting involved and me ending up in a foster home. I stayed there for a few weeks before my mom appealed to get us back.
I never knew why she bothered. She didn’t care about me and my brothers. But that day when she showed up, she looked like a new person. She had to get clean before she could have us back and when I saw her standing at the door smiling at me my heart hurt.
She had never smiled at me before. This time, I thought to myself, this time will be different. She looked good. Healthy. I was so excited to go home and live my new life, but as soon as we got in the car, I realized that it was a ruse. She wasn’t happy to see me, she backhanded me and called me a snitch.
I never opened my mouth about it again. I was so scared of getting hit again, it never really left me.
But seeing Leila sitting on the doorstep outside of my house makes this fear take precedence. The fear of losing her. Of hurting her.
I can’t do it. I can’t. All I want to do is pick her up in my arms and kiss the fuck out of her. If I have to give up my future to do so, then so be it.
“Leila.” I take a step closer to my girl.
When she looks up, my heart breaks.
She knows.
Her eyes are rimmed with tears, and her lips are red and blotchy, and every part of me knows without a doubt that Jordan told her.
I stop in my tracks, looking down at her, my chest caves in. This is it. It’s fucking over.
She stands up, anger in her eyes. “I can’t believe I let myself fall for your lies.”
“Leila—”
“I don’t want to hear it,” she bellows. “I just had to see if it was true.”
“Leila.” I take two steps forward, grabbing her arm but she flinches.
“Don’t touch me,” she growls, looking at me with such disgust I feel it all over my skin. “You don’t get to touch me ever again.”
“Let me explain, please, gorgeous.”
“Don’t!” she yells, closing her eyes as tears fall down her face. Fuck, I can’t lose her. Please. Please. “Don’t call me that.”
“How did you find out?” I drop my hands, tears fighting to rise. I can feel my heart breaking. It hurts so bad.
She shakes her head, a bitter laugh coming out of her. “Not from you.” She glances over at me, hatred in her eyes. “Jordan told me everything. How he told you to get my number, how he told you to kiss me. All of it.”
The fact that she thinks I did all of this for fun breaks me in half. “I didn’t kiss you because he told me to do it. I kissed you because I wanted to.” Jordan might have told me to get her number but that first kiss was because she turned me the fuck on, because she liked teasing me and I liked teasing her right back. It had nothing to do with him and everything to do with us.
“Stop lying to me.” She sounds like she’s given up. On me. On us. She looks so tired, so exhausted over this. “I know everything, Aiden. I know it all.”
“No, you don’t.” If she thinks I’m with her because Jordan told me to, she’s fucking wrong. She has to know how much she means to me. I see the pain in her eyes, and I shake my head, trying to get her to believe me. “I am not him.” I know exactly what she’s thinking. I know she’s comparing me to her shit of an ex, but that is not what happened. Not even close.
Her eyes cut through my chest. “You’re worse. At least with him it was quick, he didn’t drag it out like you,” she cries out, tears falling down her face. “I told you what he did to me, and little did I know, you were doing the same thing. Playing me just like he did.”
“No.” Fuck no. That is not what happened. “Leila, Jordan blackmailed me. He had pictures of my mom, my brothers. He threatened to expose them, expose me. You know what that would do to my career.”
“So, you played me.”
I shake my head. “He just wanted your number. That was it. In the beginning, I knew nothing about you, I didn’t know, Leila.” She shakes her head, not looking at me. “When I first met you, I didn’t know you were going to be this important to me.” I stare into those lime green eyes that I love so much filled with tears. I did that. I hurt her. “You’ve got to know I would never hurt you.”
“You hurt me more than anyone else,” she says, slicing through my heart. “I trusted you with every part of me. God, I’m such an idiot.” She closes her eyes, placing her fingers to her forehead. “I can’t believe it happened again.”
“No.” I grab her hand in mine. “I didn’t play you, Leila. It was real. All of it was real to me. How do you not see that? I told you about my family. I told you about everything. You are the only person I trust in this whole damn world. How would you ever think I would do something like that?”
“Because you did!” she yells, ripping her hand from mine and taking a step back. “You went along with it. You pursued me, chased me. I blatantly asked you what you got out of it and you said nothing.” She laughs, more tears spilling out. “And I believed you. I genuinely believed you liked me.”
“I do!” I yell throwing up my arms. “Jordan told me to get your number. That’s it. That’s all I was supposed to do. He didn’t tell me to kiss you, or to sleep with you, or to fucking fall in love with you!”
“Don’t,” she warns, her voice cracking. “Don’t you dare say that to me. You have no right to say those words.”
“I love you, Leila. I am so in love with you. How do you not see that?”
“I don’t believe you.” She glares at me. “I don’t trust you anymore, Aiden. Why would I ever believe you?”
“Because I’m telling the truth. You’re the only person I have ever loved, the only one who has made me feel safe.” I watch as her breathing quickens. “I love you.”
She shakes her head. “No, you don’t. You’re just trying to save your ass.” She walks past me, and I try to reach for her, but she moves out of the way, not bothering to look at me as she walks off.
She stops and looks back over her shoulder. “You are the worst mistake I have ever made.”
Those words hit me like a knife as I watch her walk out of my life. But not out of my heart.
