34 - "Because your actions spoke the real truth."

Background color
Font
Font size
Line height

"Oh my god."

I make it outside just in time to throw up all over the grass. It had clearly been mowed today, the gardeners shearing the green hedges and landscaping the flower gardens that line the driveway.

I don't think I'm breathing. I know I'm still alive because I can feel my heart thumping in my chest, breaking in half and fighting to rip through my flesh. I may as well have left it back in the lounge room, along with Dale's words.

The note found in your mum's case file.

I sway down the driveway, my legs shaking so badly that I have to place my hands on my knees. I watch the concrete below me, my mouth wide open as I gasp for air.

The one Rhys wrote.

"No," my voice breaks with realisation. Realisation that I had let myself fall for another boy who had promised he wouldn't hurt me. Yet he's broken me more than anyone ever has.

The one Rhys wrote.

Rhys.

I reach again, the last of the contents of my stomach emptying onto the driveway.

The note found in your mum's case file.

The note.

The note.

Rhys had written the note we had found in mum's file. He had gone to the effort of staging the picture in someone's car, printing it off and sticking it in my mother's file before bringing me to the police station and pretending it had been there all along. Pretending that he hadn't written it.

And that day at Rebecca's office. Oh my god. He had asked who had written it like he didn't already know. Like he hadn't been in her office that very day, taking calls for her. Like he hadn't written it himself.

Why? Why would he do this to me?

I wipe my mouth with the back of my shaky hand, standing up straight. I walk numbly down the driveway, my eyes trained straight ahead on the house opposite. I won't allow myself to cry yet. I won't allow myself to break.

What does this mean for my mum's file? Has he planted other fake evidence as a joke too?

Do I even know what is real anymore? Or has it all been fabricated for his own monstrous pleasure? Am I just a joke to him too? Is my mother's life a joke?

Everything he has ever said, ever done, begins ricocheting through my brain. Lies, lies, lies. All of it.

Our relationship; all lies. His words; all lies.

I squeeze my eyes shut, pushing my palm against my chest to stop the undeniable pain. It hurts so bad. I've never experienced something like this before. Is it ripping itself apart from the inside? Breaking every artery and imploding on itself?

The one Rhys wrote.

An inaudible cry sounds from my throat but I push away the tears, gasping as my chest tightens.

This was proof enough that I was never really in love with Ryan. Because it hadn't felt like this. Like my body couldn't comprehend what was happening to me, that it couldn't fight to help me anymore. Like I was losing my soul.

They'd all warned me. Warned me what he was like, his capabilities. How he was friends with people like Lucas Winter. That they really believed they ruled New River.

I've played right into Rhys's hands and he's scooped me up, playing on my vulnerability. Pretending he understands my pain.

He's been someone I once considered my enemy and I've still let him in. But the saddest thing about betrayal is that it never comes from your enemies. Because I've fallen so hard for Rhys that I don't know my way back.

I want to erase this summer and start all over. Make sure I don't fall for Rhys, make sure that I listen to my friends because they are the people I've known my whole life. The people who I should have trusted from the beginning.

"Cora!"

His voice makes me falter, as my dying heart thumps louder in my chest. I suddenly wish that it could be possible to stop feeling any emotion. Because it certainly would be easier than this.

I'm almost through the gate when he grips my arm, whirling me.

His face says it all. He knows what has happened whilst he had been gone. He knows I found the truth.

"Cora," he says. hoarse. "Let me explain before—"

"There is nothing to explain," the monotonous tone of my voice surprises me. I can't describe the emptiness that I'm feeling, but it echoes in my breath, in the way Rhys is watching me, his face crumpling.

Fake. It's all fake.

"You have to listen to me, I—"

"I trusted you," I whisper. "I trusted you with my secrets. My life. My mother's case. And what have you done? You've thrown it all back at me. Like it's nothing."

I can tell it frightening him how stealthy quiet I'm being. How I'm not screaming or shouting. Because for once, that is exactly what he wants. For me to show that I care enough to raise my voice at him.

But I have nothing left in me. I have nothing left to give him. Because he's taken everything from me already.

"I did it— I did it before I knew you, Cora. The boys— they thought," his voice breaks and I try to step away from him but he doesn't let go of my wrist. "They told me to put the note in there. I didn't really want to do it. I've regretted it every day since."

Rhys was no more than a follower, just like I had believed in the beginning. He doesn't let himself breathe without his friends and family allowing it. He won't ever tell his dad that he wants to be a mechanic. He won't stand up for someone when he knows that what his friends are doing is wrong.

The worst part is, I had wanted to be wrong. But instead, all I've ever been is right.

"It's too late," I say dimly. "It's too late for you supposed regret."

"Cora, I wanted to tell you. I tried to tell you. But I selfishly didn't want to lose you. I never knew that I was going to fall in love with you. I'm so sorry."

Love. I had once thought that love would be this special, magical power than encompassed your heart and made you feel light. I had once wished more than anything that someone would love me the way I wanted to be loved. But I had been wrong. Love broke your heart into millions of pieces and left you all alone, trying to put them back together.

I suddenly remember my mother's favourite actress, Bette Davis. The way mum would quote her all the time in the most random of situations. I'd always paid attention, but I'd never truly understood.

Pleasure of love lasts but a moment. Pain of love lasts a lifetime, mum had quoted once. Only now do I feel myself understanding the words. The weight of the truth hangs over me, like rocks pinning me to the ocean floor.

"Please say something, baby," the crack in his voice doesn't affect me anymore. I can't feel anything at this moment but an overwhelming need to cry and push against his chest, begging to know why he's done this to me.

"Don't call me baby," I look away, back towards the house. It's dark, but I'm sure the boys are waiting, ready to find out just how badly they've hurt me. And just how successful their prank was.

"You lied," I breathe, "you said you wanted to help me because of Libby."

He shakes his head vigorously, stray tendrils of brown hair framing his face. "That wasn't a lie. I agreed to the fucking prank because I did want to help you. Everything I told you was the truth. Everything."

"Not everything, because you still lied," I reply. "I trusted you, but nothing you say matters anymore. Because your actions spoke the real truth."

"Cora," tears gather in the corners of his eyes, "I never meant to hurt you."

Before I can stop it, a wretched laugh bumbles up from my throat and I snatch my hand from Rhys's hold, stepping back into the gate. The cool metal panels press against my back as I peer up at him, my calm resolve beginning to break.

"Bullshit," I laugh sadly, my voice quivering. I know it won't be long before it turns into a sob. "The entire purpose of your twisted, fucking prank was to hurt me. Why else would you have done it, huh?"

"I didn't know you then," he breaks, stepping towards me. When I hold out my hands to stop him, he wracks both his fists through his hair, tugging on the ends.

"You think that's a good enough excuse? You think that even when you didn't know me that I deserved any of this?"

"No, I—"

"What else was a lie, huh? What else did you plant in my mother's file?"

"Nothing," he swears, fists clenched. "I promise it was just the note. Everything else was real."

Somehow, despite all the lies, I know that he's telling the truth. His desperate, pained eyes spoke volumes.

"You promise, huh?" I croak, watching as his eyes hollow out. "Too bad that doesn't mean much."

"Cor—"

"You say that you wanted to help me because of Libby," I interrupt, "but if that was really true, then you would have realised how hurtful this would be for me. Because you must have thought at least once, that if I had been in your position, the one to plant fake evidence in Libby's file, you would never forgive me."

He's silent as he watches me, his face so devastatingly beautiful that it makes me sick to realise I've fallen in love with a monstrous boy who doesn't think about his actions before he acts upon them.

"I guess it's easier this way," I shrug heavily, the weight of the world shuddering down against my shoulders. "We never would have worked. You're you. I'm me.

"And you may not want to admit it, but I know you wish I was like you. Filled with money and power. That's why you took me to that restaurant last night. Why you tried so hard to show people I could be apart of your world too. But I'm not like you. I'll never be like you, Rhys.

"But you know what?" I throw up my hands. "I should have realised that it was all too good to be true anyway. Because I didn't fall in love with you," Rhys flinches when I pause, wanting him to hurt just for a second, to know how I feel. "I fell in love with the boy you pretended to be."

"None of that is true. That's just you voicing your own fears. Believing that I'd leave you one day because you're not rich. How many times do I have to tell you I don't care? I've never pretended around you," his voice carries barely above a whisper. "I've only ever been myself."

I ignore his statement about my fears, making sure I don't falter when our eyes meet.

"Yourself? So, a liar then. A monster," I fight back the tears as I walk towards him, noses so close that if it had been only hours before, I would have smiled and kissed him. "But congratulations, Rhys Laderman. You and your friends won this time. Game over."

"Cora—"

"Good luck with your miserable fucking life. I hope it was all worth it."

"Please," he grabs for my hand, entwining our fingers. "Let me fix this. Don't leave. What can I do? Tell me what to do."

I watch the hollowness in his eyes, the way he frantically searches my face for the answers he supposedly wants. And I realise, that despite all the lies, one truth rang clear. Rhys was just as lost as I was, in a world that we don't understand.

"You can leave me alone. Because I will never be able to forgive you. And you will never be able to make me feel anything but the hatred that I feel for you now."

I slip between the small gap in the fence, Rhys's fingers merely missing the fabric of my tank top as I squeeze through, leaving him trapped on the other side.

"Cora!"

I don't turn around. I keep my head level as I stride up his street, away from his house.

"Cora!"

When I know that he can't see me anymore, I let my shoulder drops and the sobs wrack my chest. I clutch at my neck, trying to keep as quiet as I can as I walk along the footpath alone, wondering why life had to keep throwing such fucking shit at my face.

The worst part is, I'd actually hoped he would come after me. Try to stop me from leaving. But he doesn't.

That is the final blow. Rhys Laderman had never loved me as much as I still love him.

You are reading the story above: TeenFic.Net