Page 62 of The Puck Charmer
“She meant he was in between seasons.”
“That’s not what any of you meant. You were lying to me, and they all backed you up.” A sound crawls out of her throat, a half laugh, a half groan. “I must be the laughingstock. I can’t believe this. Why would you do this?”
“I liked you, Alyssa,” I say.
She gives a humorless laugh. “You sure have a funny way of showing it.” She looks around. “What was this, Alek? Slumming for the summer, hanging out with a local for a good time?”
“It’s not like that, Alyssa. I didn’t know I was going to fall for you.”
“Fall for me. You fell for me. How can I believe anything that comes out of your mouth? Wait, so you’re telling me that you never would hav
e told me? That you would have just left here, leaving me none the wiser of who you really were?”
“I…well…” Jesus, how the fuck do I answer that, because early on, that really was my intention. I am such a fuck-up.
Guilt twists inside me as she stands there, staring at me, paralyzed by the truth.
My stomach plummets
“I messed up, Alyssa.”
“Is this what you wanted to talk to me about? Tell me you were pretending to be someone else, and that you had a career to get back to when you were done slumming.”
“I was never slumming. It wasn’t like that.”
“Oh, it was like that. Otherwise you would have been honest with me, Alek. You know honesty is important to me.” She points to the door. “Leave. I never want to see you again.”
“Can we talk? Let me explain this right, so you can understand.”
“I understand perfectly and don’t want to hear anything you have to say, now or ever. Go, go back to Seattle or wherever the hell it is you live, and tell Tyler he’s going to need to hire someone else.”
“But…the job, the money. You need—”
“Oh my God, am I some charity case to you? Is this some sort of payment for services rendered, Alek?”
“It’s not like that at all.” He clenched down on his jaw with an audible click. “If you’ll give me a minute.”
“I’ve wasted enough minutes with you,” she says. “Leave.” She shakes her head and adds, “You think I’d be used to people leaving, but I guess it never gets easier.”
“I don’t want to go.”
“Come on, Alek,” she shoots back. “You never had any intentions of staying, and I never should have thought you might.”
“You wanted me to stay, then? There was a time you wanted me to stay?” he asks a measure of hope filling his eyes.
“Wanted, as in past tense.”
I glance at Rose and Vivian, who are staring at me, their lips a thin line of white, their hands clasped together tightly.
I open my mouth, but Rose glares at me. “Leave,” she says. “You’re not welcome here.”
I take a breath and swallow it. With my heart drowning in the pit of my stomach, I turn around and walk away from the only girl I wanted to give the world to, and instead, gave her every reason in the world to hate me. Could I have fucked this up anymore?
With my head down, I walk outside, and instead of going back to the pub, I make my way home on foot, needing the air to help clear my head. By the time I make it back, Scotty is in bed, and Quinn is flicking through the stations.
“You guys are back early,” she says.
“It’s just me.”