Storm Front (The Charistown Series) (Volume 2) (14 page)

“You’re right about one thing, Ryan Baker, you are an
asshole.” She watched his back as he froze for a moment and then continued to
walk out the door of the school leaving her standing in the hallway alone.
Well, alone with Scott James.

Her sobs echoed through the hallway. Hot tears ran down her
face. Pain shot through her as she wrapped her arms around herself tightly in
the vain hope that it would keep her heart from falling out of her chest.

“Sweetheart, come here. I’ll take care of you.” Scott leaned
in to touch her but the growl akin to that of a rabid animal tore from her
throat as she screamed.

“Don’t you
ever
fucking touch me again, you piece of
shit.” She knew she was hysterical. She knew that when she cried it was ugly
crying with snot and all but she didn’t care.

“Tell me this, Scott,” she asked in a voice that she had
never heard come from her mouth, “did you know he was there?”

Scott didn’t answer. While he was obviously trying to
project having some sort of pity for her, the victorious gleam in his eyes was
all the answer she needed. “Goddamn you, Scott.”

It was official. She had used more swear words in the last
twenty-four hours than ever before. But it was also true that they felt great
rolling off her tongue.

“Yes, sweetheart, I did know and aren’t you glad you saw
what you saw? He isn’t good enough for you. He’s a Neanderthal with jealousy
issues.” Scott’s smarmy smile made her blood boil. “Come on, Ashley, let me
take you home. It’s raining pretty hard. Let me show you how a gentleman treats
a lady.”

She didn’t know that she had it in her—then again she’d
never ever felt that angry before—but when her fist hit Scott’s nose the only
person more surprised than him by the left-hook and the resulting
crunch
was Ashley herself.

“Fuck, Ashley, I think you broke my nose,” he muffled with a
nasally voice and tear filled eyes.

However, Ashley was too far gone in her own angst and agony
to hear his complaint. “No real gentleman would ever hurt a lady on purpose.
And just so we’re clear, I would’ve chosen a Neanderthal dressed in animal skin
and carrying a club over an easy-going, snake in the grass, any day of the
week. You wanna know why? Because that snake sheds his skin when he’s done
using it. Just leaves it to rot while he moves on with his life. You’re a
snake, Scott, and a piece of shit!”

She bent down and with trembling hands, hefted her backpack
up onto her shoulder before walking down the hallway and out of the double
doors. The fierce rain mingled with her tears and the wind absorbed her sobs as
she walked to her car.

“Ryan,” she spoke to his voicemail, “please call me. It’s
not what you think.” She sat in her car for a moment, replaying the scenario
over and over in her head. As she drove home she told herself she hadn’t done
anything wrong. Why would he assume that she would cheat on him? Why couldn’t
he trust her the way she trusted him. She’d watched his concerts on YouTube—she
knew women ogled him—but he’d promised nothing happened between them. Was she
being naïve? Was he jealous because he was cheating on her?

Ashley wasn’t sure how she managed to get herself home. All
she knew was that she made it there safely, despite the heavy winds and driving
rain. The weather outside mirrored the pain that was pummeling her body.

She ran upstairs on trembling legs to Leo’s room and felt
disappointment crash into her like waves hitting the shore line, when she
realized that he must still be at the girl’s house he had gone to see earlier
that afternoon. Tori something or another. Normally, she’d never bothered him
during a booty call
,
but she needed him home. He’d come home to be with
her and just because the worst of the storm hadn’t yet hit didn’t mean that she
didn’t need him.

Clumsily reaching into her purse for her cell phone, she
pounded in her brother’s phone number. “Please pick-up, Leo, please,” she
prayed out loud.

“Hey, sis.”

The familiar greeting was a balm to her battered heart and
all the permission she needed to let go. Unable to form words, Ashley sobbed
into the phone.

“Ash? Oh my God, what’s wrong? Are you hurt? Where’s Ryan?”
Ashley could hear the fear in Leo’s voice and tried to calm herself down enough
to speak.

“Leo”—she swallowed past the huge lump forming in her
throat—“you told me to believe in him. You told me he loved me and would never
hurt me. But
he
doesn’t believe in
me
, Leo.” Ashley was once
again hysterical. “He doesn’t believe in us.”

“Ash, what the fuck are you talking about? This can’t be
about Ryan. He loves you like crazy. He was dying to see you. He couldn’t wait
to get home. He was going to the school to surprise you. Did he find you?”

“Yeah, he found me. He thought he saw something that wasn’t
really happening and instead of asking me, he accused me of cheating on him. On
us! He said some horrible things to me and then, without waiting for any sort
of explanation, he left. He left me, Leo. After all this time, after all my
trust and understanding, he just left.” She felt like her heart was being
ripped out of her chest. “Oh my God, Leo, this hurts so bad.”

“Okay, sis, you sit tight. I’m about twenty minutes away.”

“I’m sorry to bother you during your time with…
Tor
i?”

Leo chuckled. “Toni. It’s okay, Ash. I’m gonna leave here
and come home to be with you. And then, I’m going to kill my ex-best friend. In
the meantime, stay on the phone with me. I don’t want you to be alone.”

“No, Le, don’t talk to me while you’re driving. It’s getting
bad out there. Just come home, please,” she finished on a whisper, “I need
you.”

“I’ll be there soon. We’ll figure this shit out. I’ll be
there in twenty.”

Feeling a sense of relief drift over her body, Ashley
finally willed the tears to stop falling. “I love you, Leo. Thank you for being
the best big brother ever.”

His deep chuckle came through the phone. “Yeah, well, I
doubt Toni is feeling the same way right now. See you soon.”

He disconnected their call and Ashley curled up on her bed
and brought her knees to her chest. How did the day go from her having such
hopeful expectations, to experiencing such pain? The guy she had spent so many
years loving had shattered her hopes without her doing anything to deserve it.

She found a little comfort in the knowledge that he was
going to realize what he’d done and would come back to her. Probably tomorrow,
but boy was she going to make him grovel.

“Has it snapped?”

“What the fuck are you talking about, Leo? I don’t have time
for this shit.” Ryan white-knuckled his phone while pacing the length of his
garage. After starting an argument with his dad as soon as he’d gotten home
he’d decided it was better for him to spend some time alone rather than cause
any more damage to the vital relationships in his life.

“You better make time,” Leo growled. “Has. It. Snapped?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about…”

“Your fucking mind? Has it finally snapped? Because that’s
the only reason why I can imagine you would ever treat Ashley—my sister, your
best friend—like a piece of shit on the bottom of your shoe. So I’ll ask you
again, you sorry son-of-a-bitch, has it snapped?”

In all of the years that the two guys had been friends Ryan
had never heard Leo’s voice so acerbic. He already knew he’d fucked up, and he
already knew the damage would be catastrophic, but listening to Leo’s voice
told him there may be a body count when this blew over. That wasn’t even the
part that scared him the most. The thought that paralyzed him was that there
was a possibility that he may have lost two of the people that meant the most
to him in the world.

His dad had been encouraging him for years to seek help in
learning how to manage his anger, a problem that had taken root deep in his gut
ever since his mother died. But the jealousy? That hadn’t been an issue until
Ashley Kynde started looking at him with those hazel eyes and that magnificent
smile. When he realized he had someone to love, he also realized he had someone
to lose. And he couldn’t lose another person that he loved with his whole
heart. He just couldn’t. Leo had been telling him to get the jealousy under
control. He’d warned him, over and over again. Nethertheless, had he listened?
No.

“Are you listening to me?” Leo’s harsh tone pulled him back
to reality. “Christ, Ryan, you broke her heart. What did you say to her? She
sounded like she was drowning—and it hasn’t got fuck to do with all the rain. I
sure as hell hope whatever she did was horrible—unforgivable even—because
whatever you said was a punishment that she’ll never forget.”

The acid that had flooded his stomach for the past two hours
rose quickly up the back of his throat. “Leo, I messed up. I saw her with
Scott, and…he was touching her. He was—” Images of Scott with his hands on
Ashley’s face, his lips close to her ear, flashed through his mind. “He was
standing so close to her, whispering in her ear, man, like he had the right to
breathe her air. He had that self-righteous look that he sports when he thinks
he’s better than someone, and he was…so fucking close to her…”

“Yeah? So fucking what?” Leo’s retort was like cold water in
Ryan’s face.

“What do you mean?” Exasperation threatened his sanity. He
knew exactly where Leo was leading this discussion but he couldn’t bear to
follow.

“You know exactly what I mean, you blind dick! What did my
sister, the supposed love of your pathetic life, do? Did she look like she gave
him an invitation to touch her? Was she kissing him? What the fuck did she do
to piss you off?”

Pulling in a lung-full of air, Ryan closed his eyes and the
sharp sting of his scalp alerted him to the fact that he was pulling hard on
his hair. “She…she was backed up against her locker—”

“What? He was hurting her? I will kill that motherfucker!”
Leo’s anger was palpable.

“No, wait, she didn’t look scared, as much as annoyed
and…defeated. I was watching through the window of the door. He had his hand
cupped over hers, pressed up against his heart. At first it looked like she was
trying to pull it away. But then he looked at the door, I thought he saw me…but
there’s no way that scrawny little punk would actually make a move on her with
me standing there, right?”

Ryan didn’t wait for an answer before he continued, talking
through what had happened for himself as much as Leo. “So, I see a small smile
creep over his nasty face and he leans in closer to her and, well, I don’t know
what he was saying. All I know was that she didn’t push him away. She stayed
there and let him talk to her. She looked calm and cozy and I lost it, man. I
just fucking lost it. I marched in the school, said shit I can’t even remember
saying and then I told her we were over.”

Saying the words out loud caused an instant physical
reaction. A sharp pain struck his chest as a memory came to the forefront of
his mind. Ashley was standing back against the metal, her eyes round like
saucers, pain as clear as her long blonde hair. He remembered her beautiful
face as she stared at him in confusion. Now, thinking back, he saw how she’d
mindlessly rubbed her thumb up and down her sternum, trying to erase the
searing ache that was probably ripping her apart. He had ripped her apart.

“Oh my God, Leo.” His voice broke and unshed tears clouded
his vision.

“Don’t, ‘Oh my God,’ me. You fucked up, Ryan. You lost your
temper and you lost your control…again. I’ve been telling you to get help. I
warned you this would happen. You promised you had it under control. But you
didn’t. Now, you’ve hurt my sister and you’ve hurt me. You’ve taken a love that
was so pure and so beautiful and you’ve crushed it. Are you happy now?” Leo’s
voice had adopted a calm tone—something that somehow made the words even more
unbearable.

“You’re right, Leo. You’re so right. What can I do to make
this better?” It wasn’t lost on him that he sounded like a walking cliché.
Every story ever told about an abusive person had them promising never to harm
their loved ones again
, but
he meant it. He would do whatever it took to
fix what he had broken.

“Please, help me. I’ll do anything to make this right for
the three of us. You guys are my family. Ashley is the love of my life. I
screwed up but I’ll get help. Look, where are you? I’ll come to your house and
maybe you can help me talk to her? I’ll go to the anger management classes Dad
suggested. I’ll—”

“No, Ryan. No. Look, I’m on my way home now. Ash was a wreck
when she called me. Honestly, I’ve never heard her this way before. Let me go
and be with her. We can ride out the storm over the next day or two and then we
can figure out what the next step is. I think—”

The distinctive sound of crunching metal had Ryan’s blood
running like ice through his veins and his next breath caught in his throat.
Pulling the phone away from his ear to look at the screen he saw that the call
was still connected but he could no longer hear Leo on the other end.