Although I hated Sarah for capturing the attention of Hayden, to which he pursued with a bewildering intensity, I would have never hoped for the end she received. She may have been a bitch, but she didn’t deserve to die.
As it turned out, it wasn’t Nate, but my own brother who did the dirty deed, and only after Finn was attacked during our senior camping trip was Nate set free.
My brother earned a one-way ticket to the psych ward, and Nate emerged a shell of himself.
Maybe he can learn from these cruel lessons, for in his own way, he was no better than the other dicks playing their cruel games. To hear Finn tell it, Nate, Hayden, and Colt didn’t pursue Sarah and even Portia before her for any reason, but as a cruel competition, and the game only ended when Colt laid eyes on Finn and declared the game over.
It’s not surprising, these boys ruled our school with an iron fist and in many ways treated women as arm candy, easily discarded when the newer, sweeter version arrived. Case in point, with the exception of Sarah, who was part of their cruel game, I’ve never seen Hayden with the same girl twice, but I’m quite sure he’s fucked every one of them.
You would think this information would turn me off from Hayden, but it’s his darkness I’ve always been attracted to, and this is no different.
Of course, as I approach, Nate checks me out, he’s a dude after all, and I watch carefully, my heart clenching brutally when he sucks in a breath at the sight of the angry red scar that covers my belly from hip to hip.
This was Ben’s attempt to cut out my insides like gutting a fucking deer, and I’ll never forget the insanity of his greed as he sawed away at me and took in my pain with macabre pleasure.
Thankfully just as quickly as Nate’s horror comes, it fades, and taking a deep breath to make the ache go away, I remind myself, one down the rest of my fucking life to go.
“Hey Ramie,” he says with his cute smile, the dimple in his cheek coming out to play.
“Hey,” I rasp, ignoring my new ugly and smiling at him. “How are you?”
“Good,” he says, “thank fuck, we only have a week left, and then we can blow this shithole.”
We’re a week away from graduating, and everyone’s basically checked out of the rigamarole of homework and tests.
With a chuff, I agree, and we turn to the game.
Hayden, Dirk, and their bitches take the opposing side, and I close in with Colt, Finn, and Nate. Almost immediately, I’m bombarded by the fucking ball, and the guys shove me this way and that to hit it back over the net. They’re so fucking aggressive that I wince every time the ball flies at my face.
After one such move, where I land in the sand none too gracefully, Colt shoving me aside, I mutter as Nate gives me a hand up, “Why the fuck you guys like to play a game where balls fly at your head is beyond me.”
Nate chuckles, and my head whips around when Hayden says silkily from the other side of the net, “Aw, sugar, isn’t that what every chick dreams about?”
Narrowing my eyes, I ignore the way my heart pulses at the same endearment he called me that night so long ago, fighting the images of his expression as he surged into me brutally and took my innocence casually even as my body heats against my will, and goosebumps break out over my skin.
He may have left me without a word, beyond that was fun, but he’s still the one who played my body like a piano, and I can never forget what it felt like to come together.
Thankful he can’t see beyond my shades, I say in my sweetest raspy fucking voice, “I guess it depends on the balls.”
Turning away, I maneuver to my next position and ignore Hayden’s heated glare. He’s not so much as glanced at me since we fucked two years ago, and now he breaks his silence? Dick.
The game continues, and I continue to suck, reduced to cowering away every time the ball flies over the net, positive it’s headed for me every damn time. It’s so bad, my team has been reduced to two and a half players, and Finn’s responses are half-hearted at best.
I’m tired, my muscles, which have surely atrophied after weeks of lying low, ache like a bitch, and my frustration is at DEFCON levels when Hayden pipes up again, “Surely you know better how to handle a man’s balls, baby?”
My whole body goes rigid, my fingers spasming at my sides as Ben’s voice rolls through my brain.
You wanna make me happy, don’t you, baby?
With him, the inherent threat was always just beneath the sweet words, and everything he said was with purpose and to keep me in line. Everything.
With a whole-body shudder, I turn to Hayden fiercely and say, “Don't call me that. Don’t ever fucking call me that.”
With that, I stalk away back toward our fire, which the stragglers of our group have started in our absence. Nodding at Hanna, I pull my shirt on over my top and take off down the beach, tears pressing at my eyes.
The thing with healing is you never fucking know when something will trigger a reaction, and apparently, being called baby is that for me. I can’t control my body’s visceral response, and it frustrates me. I want to move past this, I don’t want to be held down by the memories, but I can’t fucking erase them.
Ben’s face looms over me in my nightmares, fuck even apparently in my daymares, and it’s like adding insult to injury knowing it was Hayden I exposed my pain to because he deserves nothing from me, not even a glimpse into my horror.
Hate So Sweet – Coming Soon!
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