Justin acts as though he misses me. Like our time together actually meant something. If that were true, though, he wouldn’t have thrown it all away. Now he’s back, screwing up my life two short weeks before freedom hits. And he’s discovering all my secrets.
When I don’t answer, Justin takes hold of my elbow. He tugs, and in spite of myself, I turn around. “What am I missing here?” he asks, and the question is so similar to what he asked on his first visit, the day he learned about my illness, that I laugh once and throw my head back.
Lord. Life is nothing but a string of crazy, wrapped up in a giant ball of what-the-hell.
“I got hurt riding,” I admit to the sky, knowing he won’t drop it until I do. “Years ago. I don’t do it anymore.”
Of course, I saddle up for birthday parties. During lessons, I hop on to demonstrate a particular skill, and I even get up to a trot along with the student. But I don’t ride free, I never go fast, and I refuse to go anywhere near barrels.
My cheeks flush as I remember the way my body failed me, and when I lower my head, Justin’s eyes are flared with concern.
No. He doesn’t get to look sad for me. Not when he hurt me first.
“You can take that pity in your eyes and shove it,” I bite out, poking him hard in the chest. “I don’t want it or need it. I’m doing just fine the way I am.”
Instead of looking put in his place, or hell, even guilty, the jerkoff smiles. The nerve.
“You’re right.” He folds his arms as that dang disarming grin grows. “You don’t need my pity. The girl I remember was strong and could do anything she set her mind to. A setback wouldn’t get in the way of anything she wanted. Anything she believed in.”
Damn him. He emphasized the perfect word to get under my skin, and he knows it, too. Despite my fears, I do believe in this new school, in its ability to resurrect our finances and put the ranch back in the black. But that doesn’t mean he gets the final word.
“Oh yeah? Well maybe what I want has changed since you knew me,” I say, leaning back into Cade’s chest. He tenses behind me and wraps a protective arm around my waist. My gut clenches beneath the embrace.
I. Am going. To Hell.
Picking a fight, deflecting the truth, and using Cade’s feelings for me to do it is wrong, so wrong, on so many levels. What makes it even suckier? Justin sees right through it.
Nodding slowly, he stares at the hand resting just above the snap of my jeans. “Maybe.” Then he raises his eyes to mine. “But you haven’t changed the person you are deep down inside.”
The intensity in his gaze rocks me to my soul. He’s just a guy, a jerk-face half the time, but I swear it’s like he can read every thought in my head.
Maybe I’m that transparent.
Maybe he did know me, and our relationship wasn’t a total lie.
But none of that matters. The only thing that does is how we ended.
Misreading the sudden stiffness in my arms, Cade’s grip around me tightens. “Don’t you have anyone else to annoy right now?”
Justin continues undeterred. “I get it, okay? I hurt you. I made a mistake three years ago that I desperately regret and I have to live with that. But, Peyton, I know you. Right now, you’re scared as hell. You’re telling yourself that you’re scared of the horse, of failing, or even letting down your parents, and hey, all that might be true,” he says before I can jump in. “But what you won’t admit is what really scares you.”
Showing just how weak I am, I fall right into his trap. “And what’s that?”
Justin grins like he won some kind of battle and the effect does insane things to my belly.
“What really scares you,” he says, “is the huge part of you that so badly wants to do this. Wants to push herself again and prove to everyone that she can.”
His gaze holds me entranced as breaths saw in and out of my chest. Fear pools with what dangerously feels like excitement in my core, shooting out through my body until it reaches my fingertips. My mouth tumbles open in an exhale, unable to contain it, and that wicked grin detonates into a full-on devastating smile.
Beside me, Faith whispers, “Hot damn.”
Justin releases me from his stare but he doesn’t swing it to Faith. He targets Cade as he delivers his final blow. “And I, for one, believe in you.”
Cade sucks in air, staggering a bit as if he got the wind knocked out of him, and I snap out of the trance. What in heaven’s name is happening here? Have I learned nothing from the past? Justin is persuasive and charming. He’s proven time and again that he can sweet-talk the pants off any girl he wants, flooding the school with victims of his smile. That doesn’t mean he gets to work his magic on me. Not anymore.
Standing tall, I throw my shoulders back and stare into his smug, all-knowing eyes. “Yeah, well, it’s too bad I stopped caring what you think the day you broke my heart,” I tell him with a bitter smile before turning on my heel and walking away.
FRIDAY, JANUARY 28TH
18 Weeks until Disaster
?Freshman Year
JUSTIN
JUSTIN’S HOUSE 8:49 P.M.