Chapter 28

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Kathryn


I felt dizzy, my vision blurring as I struggled to breathe normally. Suddenly everything felt so unreal. Sydney, the park, the tennis court, Samson and the other girl all just disappeared from my eyes and my mind flashed back in time, back to that fateful night last summer. I was back in Lyla's house, living that horrible night all over again.

I could smell the sweat and the perfume, the alcohol and the vomit; all those four smells always present in teenage house parties. I could hear the music pumping from the stereos and the people shouting and laughing. Shouting and laughing until they all went silent at the same time, silenced by shock.

I could feel the burning in my stomach and taste the alcohol on my tongue. The alcohol I had been drinking to make myself tipsy, to fill the void caused by Mikey's absence.

And I could see him. Him who had been meant to be absent from the party. Him who had been supposed to be with his grandma. But he hadn't been. He was here, standing in Lyla's living room, holding hands with another girl. A beautiful, attractive, ginger haired and green eyed girl.

I tried to push it away, push the memories away, to shake the past off my shoulders. That had all happened last year. It had happened in LA. And I was in Sydney now. All of that which had happened in Lyla's party was history now and it had nothing to do with my present reality.

But when I looked at Samson and that girl sitting together on the bench, I didn't see them. I didn't see the girl's straight, hazel hair, the happy, playful glint in her eyes and the dimples on her cheeks as she smiled at Samson. I didn't see Samson's messy blonde hair, his playful smirk and calm, soothing eyes. Instead, I saw Ruby's ginger curls and plump, curvy lips. Lips Mikey had kissed. And I saw Mikey's intense green eyes flashing at me. Eyes which had charmed me, misled me, deceived me.

But I was way too far away from the bench to see the eyes, let alone the eye color, of the people sitting there.

I tried to shake them off, to come back to reality, back to Tuesday evening in a park near my school in Sydney. A park where the grass was green and people played tennis outside even if it was winter. A park where there were cute dogs walking with their owners in the dusk of the evening. But my mind didn't see any of that. My mind had lost contact with reality, lost contact with Sydney, the park, the tennis court, Samson and the girl. My mind refused to see anything but Mikey and Ruby.

"I love you," I heard Mikey whisper to Ruby on the bench. "You are so special. So unique. You are nothing like all the other girls. Nothing like Kathryn."

"Yes, that brat who thinks she's your girlfriend. Who thinks she's special in your eyes," Ruby giggled, throwing her ginger curls off her shoulders with real diva gestures. "She's so ridiculously blind."

But I was way too far away from the bench to hear what they were talking.

And the people sitting on the bench were not Mikey and Ruby. They were Samson and some random Australian girl who was currently laughing at something. I hoped she wasn't laughing at me.

The girl kept laughing and I kept staring. They looked so happy together. And I felt so nauseous.

This couldn't be happening again. It couldn't be happening again that the guy who had led me to believe he liked me, loved me, wanted me, had someone else. Someone he told me nothing about.

But why couldn't it? Why had I ever, even for a moment, thought it wouldn't? I'd had a clear rule: no guys, no trusting anyone, no letting anyone close. And there had been a clear reason for that rule: guys always hurt you, betrayed you, used you and deceived you.

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