She bit down on her lip and her eyes widened. My question was direct and strong. She reacted; she shrank back in the bed but determination flashed over her face, and she straightened back up, sitting tall. “Nothing.”
“Why am I here? I know you love Mason, but he’s mine. I won’t give him up without a damn good fight.”
“No, I know.” She rolled her eyes to the ceiling and muttered to herself, “This is so hard.”
A bitter laugh wrung from me. She stiffened, looking back to me. I leaned forward in my seat. “This is hard for you? This is hard for me. Here you are, beaten up because you literally got hit by a car so my boyfriend didn’t. Whether that was by accident or not, it doesn’t matter. I should be grateful to you. You should be my best friend, but it’s you. You’ve been in my life for over a year, but I don’t know you. I know of you. Mason’s told me about you, and about how he regrets not helping you. Then you go to that lunch and just stare at him. Then at his house? I mean, was that by accident? I don’t believe you were that drunk. I think you manipulated that whole thing and were going to try and sleep with him. Now I’m summoned by you and what? I’m being put in a place where I should like you, I should be kissing your ass, and giving you hugs or balloons. But all I want is for you to say what the hell you need to get off your chest so I can leave and you can stay out of Mason’s life.” The word flashed in my mind, and I snapped my fingers at her. “You’re being passive aggressive. You’re controlling this whole thing. I should be yelling at you, but I’m not, well, I kinda am, but I’m just frustrated. Don’t spin a pretty story, just spit it out.”
She didn’t shirk from me. She didn’t look away. She held my gaze the entire time I spoke, and when I was done, she said, without blinking, “Tate lied to you.”
I sat there for a second. I heard her say those words. For one split second, I wondered what she was talking about, but it clicked. Surging to my feet, I exploded. I yelled, “WHAT?!”
Again, she didn’t cower from me. Marissa just watched me. “Tate made it all up. She laughed about it, said it could actually be true, but she doubted it. She was going to try anyway.”
Oh my god.
Tate had lied. Tate had lied. Those words were repeating in my head, laughing at me. I couldn’t stand still so I started to pace. As I did, she kept going, “Logan doesn’t love you like that. Well, he might, but as for Tate knowing about it, that was a lie. She said that was her graduation gift to me.”
This had to be a joke. It had to be.
“Tate knows how I feel about Mason. She’s always known. It’s why she bullied me in the first place, but she said she wanted to make it up to me somehow. I told her that I got into Cain University, and that I was excited. I didn’t go to Cain U on purpose, because of Mason. I applied to a lot of schools, but when I got in, in my mind, it was like my fairytale was coming true. I always thought Mason was going to be my husband. We were going to be together, and I was no longer going to be that invisible girl that I had always been.” She broke off and looked away. When she started again, the pain that came from her struck deep in me. It mirrored pain that I had gone through myself. She continued, so quietly, “She said the lie was going to eat you up inside. She told me that you wouldn’t tell them, that you’d be too scared of losing them, so it would send you into a tailspin where you’d destroy yourself.”
Each word she said was a blow to me. Tate had assumed right. I’d been manipulated and the end result was just pain, all around pain. All because of one lie.
“I didn’t ask her to do that, but I didn’t stop her either. I’m sorry. I realized this whole thing was wrong when I was standing in the rain, professing my love to Mason, and all he seemed was irritated. I don’t know why, but I had this grand idea in my head that it would work. I would proclaim my love. We would have this fairytale scene, and he’d tell me he felt the same. I don’t know what I actually expected. I wasn’t thinking about you or what I was doing to Mason and his relationship with you. I was just thinking about myself.” Her voice was so quiet again, it was barely a whisper. “I just wanted to be loved.”
“No.” I cursed, shaking my head. “You wanted Mason to love you. You’re making it sound like you were nothing and he was going to make you someone. If you just wanted to be loved, you would’ve been loved. You’re pretty, you might seem normal outside of this? I’m sure there are other guys who have liked you. You wanted Mason. You allowed Tate to lie to me, to make us all suffer. It was because you wanted one particular guy. Be honest about that.”