Page 90 of XX Love Affair
“Oh, it’s so tough to be hated by all of those jealous of me.” Irene removed a piece of paper from her purse and handed it out to Helena. “Here, darling! It has my contact information on it, in case you lost it. Seems you’ve changed your number.”
Helena furrowed her brows in disdain but didn’t turn around. Brynn gently pushed on her back. “Come on,” she whispered. “Let’s get you inside.”
A shudder of disgust claimed Helena’s body. “I’m sorry,” she spat. “This is bullshit.”
“Come on. Inside.”
Like a child, Helena was ushered to the front porch. Every step was another second of trudging through the muck that had become Helena’s life, all of her poor, erratic decisions coming home to roost. Instead of only hurting herself, however, she had now drug innocent people like Coach Morgan into her unfortunate business. I hate this. So much. Helena didn’t often feel dirty about what she had consented to over the past few years, but this? This?
The woman stabbing daggers into her back, under the guise of love and erotic happiness?
I hate myself.
“Helena!” Brynn attempted to grab her arm, but Helena was too fast. As she sprinted from the yard, her athletic legs pounding the pavement, she finally felt free.
Even though she knew she only outran herself.
When Delia stopped her rental in the middle of the street, she came upon a helluva scene.
The only woman she recognized was Irene, who dressed much nicer than the other woman in her athletic wear and the man in jeans and a T-shirt. Yet it was clear that the man was Plummer, the one Delia hired to protect Helena until someone else could intervene. Turns out that’s me. Delia had been in Olympia for two days, balancing working completely remotely with scoping the scene. Turned out she and Irene were staying in the same hotel near the freeway, which set Delia on edge until she realized it was the perfect opportunity to keep an eye on her.
Plummer forwarded that Irene had a set stalking schedule. Sure enough, she was out in the hotel parking lot at eight in the morning and back by four in the afternoon. That evening, however, she had gone back out to her car and drove toward the address Delia had on hand for Brynn and Helena’s house.
It was time to act. Delia hadn’t spent the past few days learning everything she could about the woman for nothing.
“Hey!” Rental car left idling in the street, Delia slammed the door shut and interrupted the smarmy scene in front of her. “That’s not the woman you have a problem with. It’s me.”
Irene instantly recognized Delia. “You!”
“Yeah.” She got up in Irene’s face, fire fuming from her nostrils. “Me. The bitch who stole your woman.”
Irene was mildly amused until that moment. “Stole her from me? Whatever do you mean?” She dropped the fake smile and snarled, “She was always mine to begin with.”
“You’ve got some nerve thinking you own any girl, let alone her. Look at you! Stalking a teenager! What the hell is wrong with you?”
Plummer put a hand in their faces. “I must insist that you both stay at least six feet away from each other. For your safety.”
That was directed at Delia, but Irene was the one who responded. “Whose safety? Mine? Good call. God only knows what these women will do. This is why Helena is better off with me. Nobody knows her better than me.”
“You don’t know her at all!”
Even Delia was shocked at how her voice ricocheted through the neighborhood until it disappeared into the sunset. Rarely did she raise her voice like that. Even rarer for her to feel the flames of impassioned deceit coursing through her veins, a sensation that was only brought out because of another woman who wasn’t here to experience it.
Helena.
Yes, it was important to put Irene in her place and remove her from the situation, but Helena had run off. That much Delia had seen when she pulled up to Brynn’s house and watched Helena’s curly hair fly through the wind as her legs carried her anywhere but here. She was a young woman who had metaphorically run away from everything that haunted her thoughts, and now here she was, physically running away from the only woman who had ever gotten to her so badly that Delia once caught her ex-girlfriend crying when she thought she was alone.
What little she told me about this woman… Helena had been a frog boiling in the pot, the perfect age to be too mature for her own good while also lacking the lived experience that came from getting involved with the wrong people at the right time. Irene had taken advantage of Helena to the point that she was compelled to rush to the other side of the country to get away from them. Every time Helena told a snippet of her tale to Delia, her voice was flat. Her fingers twitched. She was more dead inside than talking about the high school pervert.
Fuck them all!
With a loud grunt and a will powered by the injustice of one girl’s life, Delia’s fist slammed right into Irene’s face, sending her down to the sidewalk with a bloody nose and a pathetic whimper of disbelief.
Brynn gasped; Plummer was speechless. Delia also took off down the sidewalk, attempting to follow Helena’s trail as the shock wiped any memory of what Delia had done. Her hand was numb, knuckles red and breath heavy as her flats clacked against the sidewalk and her instincts spun her toward the neighborhood park where Helena was likely to hide.
“Helena!” Delia cried, hands cupped around her mouth. When she lowered her right hand, everything between her fingertips and her wrist hurt enough that the knowledge of what she had done finally sank in. “Sweetie! Where are you!”
Panic drove Delia to the outskirts of the park, where joggers and dogwalkers stayed clear of the woman dashing around in her jeans and a baggy sweater. For every weird look she got, someone else ignored her, giving Delia the perfect opportunity to haul ass toward the wooded area that separated the open fields from suburban living.