Beauty and the Beat

Beauty and the Beat (40)

My whole life felt like it was falling apart. It was such a depressing, crushing feeling that I just couldn't stand. I felt like I had a giant hole in my chest.

Things had basically gone back to normal in my house after a while. My mother stopped acting like she hated me, my parents stopped fighting, and Riley was preparing to move out of the house and into an apartment with Anna. Now there was only one week of school left.

I hadn't talked to Maxxon since his fight with Ethan. I would avoid him at school and he didn't try to talk to me. Whatever we had seemed to have together was seemingly over.

I couldn't wait to graduate. I couldn't wait to get out of high school. I'd come to hate this place more than anything. I didn't think I would keep in contact with anyone in from high school except for Bennett. And that was a depressing thought, considering I had once been so close to both Freya and Maxxon. But things change.

Change. Change sucks. Everything can change so quickly and I absolutely hated it. At one point in time I thought I hated Ethan, and then those feelings changed into love, and even though those feelings had yet to change, and I doubted they ever would, our relationship sure had changed. From bratty kids to lovers, so many things had changed for us.

I was graduating. That was just something else that was a big change in my life. Life after high school would be so different and I wasn't so sure I was ready for that change just yet. But just like all the other changes in my life, I wasn't going to have a choice.

"Stop looking so depressed!" Riley groaned one morning as I stared down at my cereal lifelessly. "It's making me feel down and I hate that!"

I glared at him. "You don't have any reason to be depressed," I snapped. "You're about to move in with your fiancée. You're engaged. You don't understand how I feel."

"Maybe I don't understand how you feel now," Riley shrugged, and I really wasn't in the mood to discuss my feelings with him. "But I had to deal with seeing the girl I was in love with be with my best friend all my life. I had to see them get engaged. I had to see them both go through pain when they broke up. I never thought I would ever get to be with her."

I hated that he reminded me that he was with Anna. I still hated the fact that the two of them were going to get married and Anna was going to be a part of our family. Now I was going to have to deal with her for the rest of my life and that was one of the last things I wanted.

I still found it strange that he was going to marry his best friend's ex-fiancée. But I guess maybe that wasn't that strange if he was in love with her all his life. It must have sucked to see her with his best friend, but I didn't get why he was comparing my situation with his. He was engaged to Anna and I wasn't with Ethan.

"But you're with her now." I looked down at my cereal, my appetite completely gone now. "You didn't have to go through what I had to go through with Ethan."

"Will you stop acting like you're the only person in the world with problems?" he suddenly shouted at me, making me jump in surprise in my seat. "Stop acting like your problems are the worst! They're not! If you really wanted to solve them, you would!"

Riley usually never yelled at me. When he did, it meant he was ridiculously mad, and it honestly was a little scary to see him like this. But that didn't mean I was just going to let him yell at me.

"Do you think it's really that easy?" I screamed at him. "There is nothing I can do about it! Ethan's in New York and he doesn't want to be with me! There's nothing I can do about that!"

Riley shook his head. "You really are stupid," he told me. "Do you really think Ethan doesn't want to be with you? He loves you, Sadie. He loves you so much that it hurts him. He loves you so much more than he ever loved Anna. And you really think he doesn't want to be with you?"