“I’m gonna take Estella home. I’ll tell Tyson to come back home and keep an eye on ya. You gonna be okay ‘til then?” I asked, helping Dylan get under the covers.
“Yep.” Dylan’s eyes were already closing.
“If you need anything, call me.”
Dylan nodded once to let me know that he’d heard me, and I walked out of the room and headed outside. Estella was standing by my bike, fixated on the dirt road that turned into our property. Her body was tense, as though she was preparing herself for something.
“We need to talk.” The words were out of my mouth before I’d even reached her.
When she turned to face me, there was a crease on the center of her forehead. A frown was playing around her mouth; all traces of the smile she’d had on for Dylan had disappeared. The look made me falter and I forgot what I wanted to talk to her about.
It ate me up inside knowing that I couldn’t bring a smile to her face the way Dylan did. Sure, she’d been truly happy when I’d taken her to the creek, but that had been temporary. I could never really make her happy. There was too much wrong with me. She was a good girl, and I was from the wrong side of town.
“Yes, Vincent, we do need to talk.” Her frown deepened and anger flitted through her eyes. The sheer intensity of them made me take a step back for good measure. Estella wasn’t one to get angry. Yeah, she rose to the challenge and didn’t back down, but I had never seen her angry like this before.
“What happened today was not okay,” she pressed on, not giving me a chance to speak. “Dylan can’t be exposed to behavior like that, ever. I can’t believe the way you all speak in front of him! He’s a child!”
I opened my mouth to say something, but no words came out. No woman had ever spoken to me like that, like I was a badly behaved kid. Within five seconds, I had lost complete control of the situation. And my balls. They’d done a runner on me, too.
“Do you know what triggered Dylan’s asthma attack today?” She paused for a second. “Fear, Vincent. Anxiety. Instability. That’s why your ten-year-old brother had an asthma attack. He’s scared of you.”
That’s when I snapped.
This girl, who didn’t know a fucking thing about me, could tell me off; she could get mad at me for losing control, but there was no way in hell I was going to let her tell me that my own brother was scared of me. Not when I fucking loved that kid more than anything else on this planet.
My feet moved forward until I was inches away from Estella. Something darted across her face—fear, repulsion, wariness. I didn’t know what she was feeling, but I didn’t care. I was too angry to care.
“Don’t you dare say that to me.” My voice was low, but each word sounded dangerous as it left my mouth. “I love Dylan more than you’ll ever know. And he loves me too. I’m all he’s got. And he’s all I got. Don’t come into our lives and tell me that he’s scared of me, ‘cause that ain’t the truth. You don’t know shit about us, so fuck off to your perfect life in suburbia. We don’t need you.”
Once the words left my mouth, I felt like a complete asshole. Especially since Estella looked like she was going to start crying again. The frown had left her face; instead she looked like someone had kicked her in the gut. That would be me.
“You think I live a perfect life?”
I didn’t say anything—there was nothing left for me to say. I’d already fucked up. I knew what I’d said had hurt her, especially after she’d told me that her mother had also abandoned her.
I didn’t know how to fix the situation or how to take back my words. Being a Madden, being in a gang, you didn’t really learn to talk about your feelings.
Estella didn’t say anything else for a good minute. I didn’t say anything either. What the hell was I supposed to say? I’d just ruined any chance of Estella and me being decent towards each other. We barely spoke to each other, and the one time we’d finally communicated, I ended up being a complete douchebag.
Finally, the silence was broken as Estella glanced at my bike. “Could you please take me home now?” Her tone was polite, but I could tell that it was just a shield for the shit I’d just inflicted her with.
“Sure.”
And that’s all I said to her as I got on the bike and waited for her to climb on after me. She didn’t put her arms around me like she always did, and I didn’t bother to move them into their usual position. I felt cold, sick, as I drove her home.
When I pulled up outside her house thirty minutes later and she climbed off, I felt like she was slipping away. She didn’t even bother to say good night as she walked across her front yard and up the stairs.
I didn’t drive off right away. I sat there, watching her fish for her keys; watching the way the porch light illuminated her stony face and highlighted the light tones of her hair.
Even when she’d gone inside, I didn’t drive off. I sat there, wondering why it felt like I was struggling to breathe. Why was my chest constricting painfully? Was that guilt worming its way through me?
And that’s when I realized why all this was happening. It had taken me two weeks, but now I knew. Estella had become familiar. She had become someone I depended on. Estella had secretly crept into my life, and I hadn’t even noticed until this very second.
And I had let her fucking walk out of it.
Chapter Thirteen
Estella
School on Monday was pretty bad.
I’d had a History project to finish up over the weekend, but my mind had kept drifting to a certain tattooed jerk, and I hadn’t been able to put the finishing touches to my project that I’d wanted to.
There was no way I’d get an ‘A’ on it. I’d probably just scrape a ‘B’, and that was only because my History teacher had a soft spot for me.
Slipping grades were not something I could afford to deal with. I needed to maintain exceptional grades to get that scholarship to college; otherwise I’d have no chance to break out of the vicious cycle my father was exposing me to.
There was no alternative to it; I had to stop tutoring Dylan, and I had to stop thinking about Vin-um, the tattooed jerk!
To be fair, he didn’t really understand the impact of his words. He didn’t understand that my life was far from perfect. Just because I wore this mask—straight-A student, good girl, responsible—didn’t mean that I didn’t have problems of my own. It didn’t mean that my life wasn’t completely messed up. I was trying to deal with everything as best as I could.
Now, the only option left was to remove Vincent from the equation. If he stayed in my life, I was going to lose more than good grades; I was going to lose my darn mind.
The only thing that really bothered me was breaking my promise to Dylan. I knew our tutoring sessions had become more than just that. We’d become friends. He relied on me in his life as a constant. I think I was that maternal presence he’d lacked his entire life. It was killing me to do this to him, but I had no choice.
My promise to him had been made before Vincent had said what he’d said. It was probably for the best, anyway since Ryder seemed to hate my guts for some unknown reason. I think that entire family was a little insane.
At the end of the day, I headed to my locker and took out the text books I’d need for homework tomorrow. Since I wouldn’t have time to do any work this afternoon, I was going to get everything done tomorrow afternoon now that I’d decided not to tutor Dylan anymore.
“Estella, can I talk to you?”
Turning to the right, I found Eddie Cavallari leaning against the locker beside mine. His sandy-colored hair was spiked to the side in an interesting way. The sight of his tattoos made me want to take a step back, but I checked myself. I didn’t want Eddie to think I was being rude, so I stood my ground.