Kiera’s jaw dropped as I unflinchingly stared at her. I saw the anger building in her eyes, and from her expression, I knew what she was going to do. I did nothing to stop her, did nothing to defend myself. I welcomed the pain. Go ahead…hit me. You’ll only prove how like them you are. Her hand started moving toward my face, but then…she stopped herself. Her fingers dropped from the air. In defeat. Because she was lying about Denny, and we both knew it.

My lips twitched into a smirk. That was the closest to an admission that I was going to get from her, and I would take it. Shaking my head, I told her, “You can leave now.”

Tears burned in her eyes again. “You’re so wrong…”

Not wanting to watch her pain again, not wanting to hear her lies again, I turned around and walked away from her. Even still, I couldn’t help but toss out a sarcastic, “Am I?”

The bitch started following me, and I cursed myself for antagonizing her. I should have left it alone. “Yes, you are completely off on this one,” she snipped. “I didn’t sleep with Denny. I didn’t sleep with anyone. I’m not the one who—”

She stopped talking when she heard an annoying, frustrating, ill-timed chirp coming from my jacket pocket—from the phone in my jacket pocket. Her eyes narrowed in anger at me, then she dashed for the phone.

Our conversation dropped from my mind the second I realized what she was going to do. Jesus fucking Christ…no. If she responded to him, if she engaged him, he’d never fucking leave me alone. I couldn’t handle that future. I could barely handle the present. “Kiera, no!” I’d never felt more desperate as I yelled at her.

She didn’t care though, and she didn’t stop. She grabbed the phone out of my pocket and was reading the message before I could get near her. Hearing her say Gavin’s words out loud hit me like a two-by-four to the stomach. “Call me. I need to see you.”

Her voice seethed with anger, but I was too shocked, stunned, and sickened to say anything. Call me…I need to see you. I’d done so much to never see his words, to never let my eyes read his messages, and here she was, ruining all of that, ripping down my walls like she’d ripped apart my heart. Goddamn it. Why the fuck was she being so cruel? She was right. I was wrong…about her.

Hoping beyond hope that she’d stop hurting me, that she wouldn’t fucking respond to him, I held out my hand for the phone; my fingers were shaking. “Please, give it back, Kiera.” Please. This isn’t about us.