Dare You to Hate Me by B. Celeste (classic fiction .txt) 📕

“Your apology doesn’t do me much good now, Chaos. I spent a long time feeling guilty over not convincing you to stay. I should have tried harder.”

“This is what I mean.” Her finger gestures between us. “This right here is why I don’t talk about it. We can’t change the past. You trying to get me to stay with your family until you were blue in the face wouldn’t have changed my mind. I made my choice and I have to live with it. That’s how life works.”

“If I told Mom about the situation—”

“Then what?” Ivy snaps, tossing her hands in the air like she always does when she’s angry. She talks with them, her gestures never making any sense. “I love your mom, Aiden. I’ve always been jealous mine couldn’t have been like her, but that’s not the hand I was dealt. And thinking about how much I despised my own parents enough to ruin my life has made me realize that I could have had worse. They could have hit me, and they never did. They could have pulled me into their arguments, but they didn’t. I know there are kids out there who wish they could have been in my shoes, and what does that say about me?”

I don’t reply.

She palms her face for a moment before brushing hair behind her ears. “I don’t like to talk about them because it makes me realize how good I actually had it. My life didn’t go to shit until I decided to up and leave. And Mom tried telling me that. I told her over and over that I’d run away, and she always said I’d come back because I had it better than I thought I did. But I was a prideful brat who thought I could do better for myself.”

She drops her head, her hair falling to shield her face as she takes a deep breath. “She gave me a bus ticket.”

“Who did? Your mom?”

Ivy nods slowly. “I was supposed to go to Roserio where my grandma lived. Mom told me that living with Gertie might be for the best, and I thought it was her way of getting rid of me once and for all since it seemed like I was always the problem. Mom and Dad would spend so much money on Porter like they knew he had a future, and it made me feel like I…” Her voice gets rough. “Anyway, I traded in the bus ticket for one to Ridgeway because it was the furthest I could go without having to pay for a different pass. I left a note, Aiden. I don’t know if anybody told you, but I told them I would prove to them I could make a future for myself without their help. And I knew the moment I put it under my pillow for them to find, I would never be able to show my face again if I failed.”

All I can do is blink at the girl whose eyes turn glassy the deeper her admission goes. When she lifts her gaze, her bottom lip trembles. “I’m the reason they never looked for me. I’m the reason I felt like giving up. The doctor at the hospital was right.” Her hand curves around her arm, thumb trailing up and down the scar. “It was a cry for help, but I knew…I knew they wouldn’t come.”

“Ivy,” I whisper hoarsely, shaking my head at the revelation. “They could have still looked harder. They should have. You can’t take all the blame in this.”

“I’m the one who left.”

“And you’re back.”

“But I can’t go back there.”

“You can if you wanted to.”

She won’t meet my eyes as she releases a shaky breath.

I ask, “What do you want?”

Her lips part.

Close.

Part again. “What do you mean?”

“What. Do. You. Want?” Every word is said with concise clarity as I pierce her with my gaze until she can’t look away even if she wanted to. “Because I know what I want.”

Her head tilts up, chin high and eyes full of challenge. “And what is that? What do you want that makes you so different than the other guys I’ve been with since you’re so insistent that you’re not like any of them?”

Stepping into her until she’s pinned between me and the wall, I lift my hand to her cheek and brush my fingertips against her skin. Moving a piece of fallen blue hair behind her ear, I soak in the familiar scent of my shampoo that she’s been using from my shower. I love seeing her in my clothes, smelling like me, taking over my space. I’ve never felt as territorial as I do right now. “I invited you to Thanksgiving. Can you say the same for the others?”

No reply.

“I sleep beside you in bed without touching you no matter how bad I want to. Your curves, your ass, it’s all right there every fucking night tormenting me, but I never give in because I know damn well when I get a handful it’ll be because you want me to. Have any of the others refrained? Held back? Showed you an ounce of that respect?”

My nose grazes hers until I hear her sharp exhale against my jaw.

“I’ve told my teammates to back the hell off because I may not be able to touch you, but that doesn’t mean any of them can. If the other guys gave a shit about you, they would have staked their claim. But they didn’t.”

Her hot breath caresses my parted lips as I hover mine over hers.

“I did,” I whisper, dragging my hand up the back of her neck until my fingers are tangled in her hair. “And no matter how many times you say you don’t want to be claimed by anyone, we both know that’s bullshit. You were always mine, Chaos. Five years doesn’t change the fact that it’s always been me. Nobody else had a chance. So, that’s what I want. You. Not just your body. But you.