Bitter Kisses (It's Just High School #3) - Thandiwe Mpofu Page 0,27

shock but I ignore her.

“You wanted me to out the way and you got your wish!” At the expense of my own heartbreak, the void on my mind, the aches that ravage me driving back to slashing my wrists, all of that in the name of protecting him. “But that doesn’t matter right now. What fucking matters is what you’re going to do between now and five minutes.”

“Anything.”

I explain what she has to do, giving her the envelope that Cole is expecting right now.

“I should give him this?” Courtney says with a delicate frown on her pretty face. “I mean, I can go straight to the—”

“Listen lady, I don’t trust you,” I snap. “I’ve never trusted you and now, you either go meet him or the entire thing is off.”

“If you don’t trust me, what makes you think I will go straight to Cole?”

“Because he’s the only one who can open the folder in there now,” I say with a hard smile on my face, proud of the lock that’s on the inner folder of which the code I already texted to Cole. “Now be a dear, Courtney, and go run this errand for a son you don’t even respect.”

Leaving her with her jaw on the floor and my heart racing, I get in the car and I’m out the lot before either her of Nicky can say anything else, and head for school.

Only, I never really make it there.

Chapter Seven

Julian

Present time.

“Fuck!” I punch the dashboard over and over again, hardly aware of my busted-up knuckles or the deranged look on my face.

The last image was horrible but this one, this new one…

“Fuck this all to hell!”

I punch the dashboard over and over, again and again, not even bothered when blood starts trailing down my clenched fists or when the pain starts becoming too much.

Maybe I’m trying to exhaust myself but I’m really trying to punish myself the only way I can, the way I’ve been punishing myself for years… causing destruction to my own body because fuck, how could I let this happen? How could I leave her unprotected and vulnerable like that? How could I be in my feelings like that?

I thought I was punishing her for a bit before I eventually went back to her because by God, I was.

I’m too weak, too twisted up and fucking in love to stay away from Mia for long. I can admit that much.

I was just waiting to see how the charges against me and the court hearing would go before I eventually went back to her, guilty of setting me up or not, I was always going to return to her.

But now, it turns out she not only saved my fucking dumbass from an unknown fate, but she also partnered with the she-devil who’s probably the one who served her up to the fucking wolves and now, she’s been taken from me!

I punch the dashboard again, satisfied when I hear it creak and groan under the persistent abuse.

Cole is silent beside me. He doesn’t say a word, or flinch at the violence but a quick glance at him reveals he’s also brooding. He stares straight ahead, but I can feel the anger and rage radiating from him.

“I can’t believe you just took her words at fucking face value and didn’t see her for your fucking self!” I growl, stunned disbelief hanging in the air between us still.

“Me too,” he grits out. “I had a nagging suspicion at the back of my head when Courtney showed up after Mia said she’s sending someone instead without an explanation…”

“Yeah, but you didn’t fucking check on her!”

He falls silent and I realize then what I’m trying to do. I’m trying to put the blame on him for what I did, blaming him for the situation I put Mia in.

“Sorry,” I whisper, staring down at my busted knuckles, thinking of a time Mia tended to these hands, lovingly dabbing the blood away as she roped me in so many years ago. “I didn’t mean…”

“I know.”

I ragged sigh leaves me, the ire in me building, worsening like I’m a powder keg about to explode.

Cole notices, of course he does. He speeds up, weaving seamlessly through traffic like a hot knife to butter.

“I need to get to her,” I whisper.

“You will.”

“She better be—”

“She’s a fighter,” Cole murmurs. “She’ll be fine.”

I stare down at the new image on my phone, seeing that bastard, Sean fucking Matthews touching her… I see red all over again, a roar bubbling