Bitter Kisses (It's Just High School #3) - Thandiwe Mpofu Page 0,43
a fucking heart attack.
“So, this is what you were thinking, huh?” Cole mutters silently, leaning back into the passenger’s seat, his gaze set on something unseen directly ahead of him.
“What the actual fuck?” I growl.
“I should be saying that to you,” he fires back coolly.
I stare at him, still standing right outside the door, feeling my jaw tick.
“We’re wasting time with you stewing over there like a fucking bull,” Cole mutters smoothly. It’s then that I noticed that he too has changed from his suit, to all black fatigues like me. He even has a fucking black beanie, for fuck’s sake.
“I do this alone,” I state seriously, staring him down.
“Like hell.”
“Cole—”
“Don’t try and insult my intelligence or the years of fucking friendship and brotherhood we have between us by spewing bullshit right now when we should be on our fucking way to get her back!”
I stare at him, only now gauging just how angry—no, livid—my best friend is.
Cole is almost always easy going. He never lets anything get to him. I’ve seen him shake off shit that would bother lesser men. He’s more in control of his emotions than anyone I know, but I know beneath all that shit is a fucking beast.
People catch glimpses of that beast on the football field when he’s playing, as if he’s trying to prove a fucking point that he matters, his life matters and no one gets to abandon him—like his asshole sperm and ovary donors did—but right now, now I see the ire in me, reflected in his eyes.
“Cole,” I start, his name said between gritted teeth. “What I’m about to do—”
“Is well fucking deserved in my ledger,” he growls back. “I’m with you.”
“You don’t know what you—”
“I’m not a fucking child and don’t try to know for me. I can do that myself now, let’s fucking go.”
I stare at him, my mind racing. He stares right back, eyebrow cocked. “Should I drive?”
“If I don’t, I’ll lose my mind.”
“Haven’t you already?”
“In a way.”
Silence.
“Well, you can’t lose it completely,” he says softly, quietly. Too quietly. “Because she’s going to need you, bro,” he mutters. “She’s going to need you in every way that counts, and you have to have together for her.”
Those fucking words kill me in ways no one will ever know. Not because he’s wrong. Cole’s absolutely right. In some way. But he’s also mistaken, but I don’t say a thing, climbing into the driver’s seat.
We’re both silent as we start up the van. Deadly still when we pull into the road, passing the sight Mia found Liam, I have no idea how I still remember that but it’s not a stretch of the fucking imagination.
I remember everything about her and lately, the lifeless look in her eyes from the picture that pig I’m going to slaughter tonight sent me.
As soon as we’re gaining speed though, the little window in the fucking middle connecting to the back of the van opens smoothly, quietly, and then, “You two are fucking stupid!”
I almost careen off the damn road when I hear his voice, my fucking heart racing.
“Liam!” Cole and I snap at the same fucking time.
“What the fucking hell are you doing back there?” I demand.
“You think you’re going without me? Hell fucking no,” Liam says tightly, barely controlled anger in his voice.
“Ah hell,” Cole whispers. “This is going fucking well.”
I right the car and keep driving, doing my best to ignore the two unwanted imposters with me. I need to ditch them.
“So, are you just going to dismiss me then? Ignoring me? Giving me the fucking proverbial cold shoulder?” Liam snaps. “‘Cause I fucking see what’s back here, you jerk. What the hell do you think you’re going to do?”
What’s supposed to be done, is what I’m going to do but I grit my teeth and say nothing. There’s some gasoline, shovels and all sorts of shit back there.
“Okay, fine, where are we going?”
“To their fucking house.”
“How do you know they’ll be there?” Liam demands as a light from a phone flickers on, illuminating in the front seats. I’m pretty sure those fucking assholes are not there, but that doesn’t matter.
“We talked.”
I feel their shocked gazes on me, but I just press my foot on the gas, daring the SUV to go faster, the thing in my chest pounding wildly with urgency, with pain, and a singular, furious need I can’t deny. To get to Mia.