The mental picture of Levi holding another girl in his arms, even if it was just for the night, just a meaningless hookup, made my stomach churn in revulsion and jealousy. I could imagine how Levi felt when I told him about what I did, and I hated that I made him feel that way. For the first time in my life, I hated the fact that I pushed him away.
If you pushed hard enough, you could eventually break even a brick wall. Levi probably thought himself a brick wall, but me? I was stubborn beyond all belief, and I wanted to prove to myself that I didn’t need anybody, that I was fine with who I was.
What a lie.
I was the biggest liar out of us all.
No, I couldn’t go inside that house. Plus, what if I ran into Dean, the fuckboy of all fuckboys? No, no. I couldn’t…but neither could I simply turn around and walk back to my dorm, either.
I ended up circling the house, gazing up through the darkness at its third level, where I knew Levi’s room was. Hugging the outer walls of the house, I planted myself in the weed-covered flowerbed. Still a bit wet from the recent rain, but I didn’t care about a wet ass. It was uncomfortable, yeah, but I deserved that and more.
“Levi,” I whispered his name as I slowly reclined my back on the house, “I’m sorry.”
But, like dream Levi said, sometimes sorry wasn’t enough.
Chapter Six – Levi
I was up for hours before I actually got up, shuffling my way across the hall and getting in the shower. Then I stood in the shower for…well, a very long time, trying to forget everything. It would be easier that way, but minds didn’t work like that. You couldn’t just snap your fingers and forget what you wanted to forget.
If only it was that simple.
After my shower, I threw on whatever clothes I got my hands on first in my room, then headed down the stairs. My intent was to grab some cereal, even though I wasn’t really hungry, but there was a pair of guys in my way. They stood near the fridge, near the cabinet where the cereal was kept, talking to each other. Tom and Grady. Tom, I saw, held onto something.
I didn’t want to look at fucking Grady, because now I knew that Kelsey had been serious that night. She would’ve hooked up with Grady in his car if I wasn’t there to stop her. She was…ugh, she drove me crazy, and I wished she didn’t hold such power over me.
Still.
She still held power over me.
When she told me she’d hooked up with a rich boy, I…I got angry. Of course I did. How could I not get enraged when I pictured Kelsey with some other guy? Knowing other hands had touched her…I almost wanted to cut them off, but that would’ve been crossing the line, I guessed.
Still, it was better to see Grady than to see Dean. The fucker had kept a low profile after our little tiff the other day. I heard from some of the other guys that his face was bruised and that his nose had to be reset. Kind of funny, but I knew he was biding his time. That was fine, because I was, too. I had a plan for him, a plan to take him down for good, but I’d only get one shot at it, so I had to be careful.
That meant no more fights, unfortunately.
Tom was a shorter guy, almost half a foot shorter than me. A lot lankier, too, which made the baggy shirts he wore almost silly. “I don’t know, man. I just heard it ringing outside. Over and over again, woke me up, so I had to go out and see what the hell was going on.”
I was about to push past them to reach for the cereal cabinet, but Tom’s words stopped me. My eyes focused on what he held in his hands, and I immediately recognized the plain, worn case and smartphone that was a few years old.
That was Kelsey’s phone.
“I found it outside, sitting in the flowerbed,” Tom was busy saying, while Grady was nodding, practically sleeping with his eyes open. “I—” Before Tom could say anything else, I snatched the phone out of his hands, causing him to say, “Hey, man! What the hell?”
Grady, however, knew better than to say anything to me. I was pretty sure he’d been scared of me ever since that night. And he should be. That fucking mouth had been on Kelsey.
“Shut the fuck up,” I muttered, not saying anything else as I left the kitchen. Neither Tom nor Grady tried to go after me, which was good. It was too early to explain to them why I wasn’t going to let anyone else touch this phone.
Didn’t want anyone touching the phone, didn’t want anyone else touching Kelsey. That wasn’t wrong of me, was it? I knew I didn’t own her, but…still. I couldn’t help the possessiveness that came over me when it came to that girl.
Once I was in my room with the door firmly shut, I moved to sit on my bed. With my back hunched over, I stared down at the phone in my hands, flipping it over to study the case. Yep. It was hers. Had to be. It was an older model, and a simple case, buffed and scratched in places, worn down over years of use.
My hand gripped its case, my thumb finding the lone button on its one side. When I hit it,
