DECEIT (B723) by Hazel Grace (ebook reader for surface pro .TXT) 📕

to anything besides Kyson because he’s familiar and safe.”

She takes a deep breath, her body moving along with it as she raises a hand to her temple and begins to rub it.

“And I don’t give a fuck if you’re mad,” she continues flatly while her tone remains gentle. “I don’t give a shit if you think I’m an overbearing brat with a need to get into everyone’s business. That’s what I do. I overstep, hack and violate people’s lives. I’m good at it. It’s why I’m here.”

I stare at her, and for once, I got nothing to say.

Everything she just called me out on are facts. Brutal and ugly truths that made me into who I am today.

“She’s a problem.” I open my mouth to tell her she’d not, especially when Emmy destroyed a love that isn’t anymore between myself and my ex. That Em is all that I want, but she continues. “One that was never solved. One that you might not ever face. However…since I’m on a fucking roll here, I took the liberty of shedding some light on how badly she fucked up with you. That her still drug problem isn’t something that she needs to bring in your life, so you have to start making decisions and relive the things I can only imagine that she put you through.”

“Just stay out of it, Ems,” I say through my taut jaw. I’m not mad at her. I just don’t want her to waste her damn time as I had. “She’s nothing. And I don’t want you—“

“Too late.” My nostrils expand, but I don’t make a move to grab her.

No, I don’t trust myself enough.

“Emmy, stop. Let it go, please.”

“I wish…” Her honey irises glimmer with sadness. “I wish you would’ve told me. I wish you would’ve trusted me.”

Shame fills my brain because I do, and I don’t.

At the end of the day, I do because Emmy is my partner in B723, but I don’t because she has the power to devastate me.

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” I mutter because it’s too late. “It all comes down to the same thing.”

“As in?”

I scoff. She doesn’t want me to relive shit in the past. “Forget it.”

“And here we go—“ She folds her arms defensively over her chest. “—you wanna say something, but you’re too much of a chicken shit to tell me how you truly feel.”

“Why is that such a thing for you? Why do you always feel a need to fix me? Are you that fucking bored, Emmy? Maybe I should’ve divorced you so you could go bother someone else.”

My gut takes the punch of my words as if she delivered them to me.

The dryness in my tone portraying that I don’t need Emmy when I’m a fucking sucker for her.

I’m not entirely sure if it’s impossible to get over her because I see her almost every day or if there is a steel tether that won’t break free off either of us.

“I’ll draw the papers up tonight,” she upbraids, raising her chin higher to show that I didn’t just hurt her feelings. “This time…sign them. It’s literally the best thing you could ever do for me. The best way to show me that, at one time, you cared.”

“And just because I didn’t show it the way you wanted me to means I didn’t?”

Emmy freezes, staring at me like I’m feeding her more lies. That it’s not possible that I could be capable of such an emotion.

“You didn’t,” she mutters. “You didn’t because you didn’t fight.”

“I fought with you all the time.”

“No, you didn’t fight off the demons in your head. And now it’s too late. Though—“ A mirthless chuckle rumbles from deep in her throat. ”—you made sure that I was going to be just as miserable as you always are.”

“Well, now that you’re talking to someone else, you can easily forget me and keep me out of your overbearing ass need to administer whatever it is that makes you sleep better at night. I’m half the reason our relationship was fucked from the get. I wasn’t ready to give you up, no matter how selfish and jacked up it was.”

Emmy’s jaw slowly begins to drop, speechless to the fact that has been lingering between us for years. The one I was too proud to bring up and too fucked up to admit out loud.

Emmy takes a small step away from me, probably suffocating on my confession before I’m blasted in the face by her tiny fingers.

Ladies and gentlemen, Emmy Lou Rhodes does not slap. 

She straight-up forms five knuckles and swings as hard as she can; consequences and regret be damned.

My palm seizes her little weapon of fury, and she doesn’t fight me over it.

No, she endures my face transforming into blood-pumping fury.

“What the fuck?”

Emmy loosens her hands, careful not to overexert herself in case she needs her energy like I’m going to hurt her or something.

It comes natural but never in a million years would I ever harm a hair on Emmy’s head unless it’s through my fingers as I suck on her mouth or she bobs on my hard cock.

“You really are a stupid motherfucker,” she says as if it’s a confession. “For years, I’ve tried to figure it out. I’ve dissected all the ways of how you could turn a cold shoulder in my direction. And here we are.”

“Words, Rhodes, I need them. Explain.”

“You didn’t want anyone else to have me? Who could, you? What the fuck were you going to do to me but glower and evade me like a skin-eating plague? You would rather watch me go through life without someone so that you could sleep at night?”

She jerks her wrist, but I hold on tight, not ready to let her go yet. Not set to face the dumb as shit realization that…she might be right, and I’ve spent years hating her ass for pushing me to become someone who didn’t focus on the past but the future.

And for what exactly?

Because I was terrified that my attraction and the taut pull between us would snap me