“I know what he did to you.”
“No one knows better than me.” Her tone took on a harder edge, and I could tell the pain was still there despite all their happily ever after bullshit.
“And what about what he did to me?”
“What Keiran did was despicable, but he didn’t make you fuck Dash and he didn’t make you fall in love. You did it because you wanted to and because your heart craved Dash. The start may have been false, but the journey was real.”
I searched for a spot on the wall and fixated on it. I couldn’t stand to look in Lake’s unusual eyes and not give in.
“This great love you speak of tormented you for ten years and did unthinkable things to you for entertainment. In every war, there are casualties and people get hurt. I was one of them. It was one thing to fall in love, but it was unbearable to watch you ride off into the sunset with him. You never even thought to help me learn how to heal as I did for you. Did you forget? I dried every one of your tears and shared your pain so you could find the strength to face the next day only to be knocked down again. And now you’re actually trying to convince me that it was love? Well, I found and lost my only chance at love because of him. I won’t forgive him. Not even for me. The pain serves me much better. It reminds me I’m alive, and it’s love that destroys you.”
Lake watched me with sad eyes and then shook her head, defeated. She turned to grasp the door handle to leave but turned back at the last minute. “You didn’t lose him,” she shot back forcefully. “You let him go.”
Once she was gone, I shut the door and slid down the wooden length until I sat on the wooden floor. I never realized how long four years truly was until I saw up close how much Lake had changed. I couldn’t say if it were for better or worse, but womanhood definitely agreed with her. Maybe I was the only one holding on to my emotions from high school, but that didn’t make them any less painful.
I angrily wiped away the tears streaking down my face and composed myself. In just a few days, I could go home. Now that they knew of the threat, I would be able to leave will a full conscious. I had considered killing Keiran but now knew it wasn’t something I could ever do. Despite my feelings toward him, some people cared for him and would mourn or suffer from the loss of him, including Kennedy. Including my best friend. The first person I loved who didn’t share my blood.
I finally found the courage to leave the bathroom, and when I opened the door, I found someone waiting.
“Standing outside the door while someone uses the bathroom is a tad creepy.”
“You weren’t using the bathroom. I heard you crying.”
“Yeah, sometimes I do that when I really have to pee.”
“Willow.”
Keiran’s warning was simple but held a lot of weight. “I suppose you’re here to tell me what a bad person I am, too. Let me just save you the breath. I agreed to kill you for the sake of my family and so they wouldn’t kill me on the spot and slaughter them anyway. If I would have gone through with it to protect them is something we’ll never know, but I can say I don’t want you dead. I don’t like you, but Lake thinks she’s happy with you, and I haven’t been a model friend since I left so my opinion doesn’t really matter. I thought for someone who’s killed without reason, you’d understand my plight.”
“You thought wrong.”
“Because you’re a saint?”
“Because I’ve never killed without reason.” The underlying threat was as clear as if he had shouted it.
“I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t come back here with some vendetta against you.”
“Then why did you come back?”
“I wanted to see my mother.”
“You hate your mother.”
“What do you know about how I feel about my mother?”
“Because I know what it looks like.” He pushed off the wall and took away some of the same distance I had kept between us. “It’s written in your eyes when you talk about her.”