Damaged Love - Jaxson Kidman Page 0,18
a good friend,” Gia said. “And you would try to talk me out of it. You told me they tried to kill you. Right?”
I swallowed hard.
“Y-yeah,” I said. “But…”
“Holy shit, Winter,” she said. “You like them. You really like them. You’re getting too close. That’s why you asked if they were happy. You’re trying to justify it.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Yes, you are,” Gia said. “You’re trying to convince yourself what they did was… I don’t know… okay to do. You want them. You think it’s sexy in a way what they did.”
“I never said that,” I said.
“You asked if they were happy…”
“Because I see their lives!” I yelled. “Everything is forced. Fake. They have no way of being themselves. Seriously. All they have is their image.”
“And you don’t want to shatter that?” Gia asked.
“This is my thing, Gia. I’m making it up as I go along.”
“I know you are,” she said. “And now you have help. And I don’t even want money.”
I laughed. “Do you realize how screwed up this entire thing is?”
“Do you realize how screwed up it is that they are trying to get close to you so they could manipulate your memory?”
I walked by Gia and went to the opposite end of the deck.
I listened to the ocean for a few seconds.
Then I slowly shook my head.
“It’s all screwed up,” I said.
“For me, that’s my normal.”
“Mine too,” I said.
Gia stepped up next to me.
I looked at her.
“So… how did it feel to stab their tires?”
Gia didn’t hesitate to tell me the truth.
“It felt fucking good.”
Chapter 7
it’s yours now
“Ohmygod…. breathe!”
I stopped running and turned around. I put my hands to my hips.
“I am breathing!” I yelled at Gia.
“No, you’re not,” Gia said. “At least not the right way.”
“I’m sorry. I’m not you. Obviously.”
“Oh, are you getting snippy with me?”
“What if I am?” I asked.
Gia walked toward me. “You wanted me to teach you how to run, right?”
“I was half joking. I didn’t know it was going to become so serious here…”
I glanced back and looked at the orange cones Gia had put on the beach.
Then I looked down at what I was wearing.
Gia’s clothes.
No lie.
She gave me running shorts, which were super short. I was in some kind of special tank top that she said would help to absorb sweat and allow me to move.
Then came the shoes.
Some fancy running shoes.
I wasn’t sure what these shoes were going to do on the beach.
They were made for pavement.
Right?
Wrong.
Gia showed me the bottoms of the shoes and had an entire explanation of what kinds of shoes were used for which type of terrain.
Terrain.
She used the name terrain.
“Hey, you almost died because you tried to catch up to me,” Gia said.
I laughed. “Yeah… because you’re fast.”
“I wasn’t always fast. You have to start somewhere.”
“You’re crazy, Gia,” I said. “Like, seriously crazy.”
She pointed at me. “Don’t ever call me crazy again, got it?”
She opened her eyes wide.
I did the same back to her.
“Winter, just listen,” she said. “You have to get the breathing down. Let it sync up with the rest of your body. If you run too fast and breathe too little, you’re screwed. If you breathe too fast and run too little, you’re screwed. And it’s okay to start out slow. You work your way up to becoming faster. You feel yourself out.”
“You want me to feel myself in front of you?” I asked.
“Oh, that’s just so funny,” Gia said. “You know what, take those clothes off. And the shoes. I’m not helping you anymore.”
“If I do that, I’ll be naked on the beach.”
“And maybe Easton will be secretly watching you,” she said. “Or Noah. Or Xavier. Isn’t that what you secretly want?”
“Shut up.”
Gia backed up. “You love it. You love that they are giving you all the attention in the world. You secretly want them, right? I bet you’ve wanted them all along too. And now you have a chance… maybe…”
I lunged at Gia.
She turned and took off.
I knew what she was doing.
Getting me to run.
What a bitch.
I wasn’t sure how I did it but I managed to catch up to her. Maybe she let me catch up to her. Who knows… but I did it. I got close enough that I was able to reach out and grab her hair.
When I did, I pulled and she dug her heels into the sand and stopped.
My momentum had me running by her, so I let her hair go and started to do the whole running with my arms pinwheeling so I