The One Who Shot Me - Sequel To Bulletproof Love

Prologue

I pulled up in front of my house and looked at the front door with dread. I remembered barely having anything to say just a half hour ago at Jaime’s house, and I wished I could’ve gone back to that moment. I just couldn’t believe that I was feeling virtually nothing then, because of all the crazy things I was feeling now. 

First off – I was nervous as all hell. I had no fucking idea where Tony was, or what he was thinking. If he didn’t know about what happened, why didn’t he come to get me? Did he ever go home? If he did, how? Who gave him a ride? I was left with the car. And even if he did know, he still should’ve came and got me. If I found out he was cheating on me, I’d march my behind over to wherever he was and curse him out!

Second of all – The uncertainty of the situation was too much for me to handle. I hated not knowing what was going on; I needed to know at all times that I was in control. But this was a situation I had absolutely no control over. I tried to think back roughly twelve hours. I tried to figure out what I was thinking. I certainly wasn’t intoxicated – I’d only been at the party for barely even an hour. Especially after the amazing sex I’d had with Tony before we left our house. I’d sworn then that I wanted no other man, so what the hell happened?

What the hell did I do?

With a final sigh, I turned my key in the ignition and turned off the car. I grabbed my purse that was sitting on the passenger seat and got out of the car. I stood at the end of the pathway leading up to the front door for a minute before I finally decided to walk up to the house. My heart was pounding so hard it could probably be heard from miles away. Just to give myself a little bit of closure, I put my hand into the brown pot in which my ficus plant was to see if our spare key was there. Sure enough, it was, and I let out a sigh of relief. This meant that Tony wasn’t home, and I had some more time to think. 

After unlocking the door, I stepped into the house casually with a sigh of relief. However, that sigh of relief was soon replaced with a breath of confusion as I heard that the living room television was on. I didn’t leave that on last night, did I? I thought to myself. I cautiously placed my keys and purse on the small table beside the front door and rounded the corner, stepping into the living room.

There, the television sure enough was on. There was a preview on for an upcoming movie. Seeing no sign of anyone in the room, I exhaled and walked across the living room floor, and manually turned of the large, flat screen television with a button that was behind the screen. With the television being the only source of light in the room, with the exception of the small beams of sunlight peaking through the closed vertical blinds on the windows, without the light of the motion pictures the living room was nearly dark.

I took a step back from the mantle on which the flat screen was sitting and then turned around, only to be startled by an attention-seeking “ahem.” I looked at the couch and saw none other than Tony lounging there. He was wearing basketball shorts, a white t-shirt, and some Adidas slippers. He looked pretty comfortable, but his eyes were red and had dark circles around them. I was staring at him wide-eyed, and once he saw this, he sat up straighter and stared at me with nearly the same intensity as I stared at him. 

“So, Dylan,” he began, clearing his throat. “Did you have fun at the party last night?" 

I felt like a teenage girl who’d snuck out to go to a party, then got caught sneaking back in. “Why’d you leave without me?” I responded tentatively, dodging Tony’s question with one of my own.

“Answer my question first,” he said sternly. 

I gulped. “The party was fine. Now why did you leave without me?” I asked once again, this time making sure to annunciate each word of the question clearly.

“Why don’t you ask your friend Jaime?” Tony raised a knowing eyebrow.

“Wh-what does Jaime have to do with anything?”

“He’s the reason I left without you.” He stood up and took a step closer to me.

“Tony-“ 

“Now, riddle me this,” he said with a scoff. “What do they call it when a girl sleeps with her boyfriend’s best friend?” I looked at him with guilt causing my heart to pound. “They call that cheating.” He spoke to me as though I was a child, and it was beginning to make me angry. “And what do they call girls who cheat? Well, it varies. Some people call them whores, sluts, you know.”

“Wait a minute. You have no right to call me those things.” I spoke through gritted teeth.

“You fucked my best friend, Dylan! What the fuck should I call you?!”

“I am not having this argument.” I began to walk away to the bedroom, but in order to do so I’d have to walk past Tony. This was a risk I was willing to take.

However, when I tired to walk past him, he grabbed my wrist and pulled me back, closer to him than I was before. “Are you fucking crazy?” I yelled at him. “Let me go!"

“Dylan, you are going to talk to me! Why do you keep running away from me? Are you even sorry?”

“Of course I’m sorry! I just – I don’t wanna talk about it, okay?”

“No. Not okay. You cheated on me. I saw you guys. In the bed. Together. I saw with my own fucking eyes. Do you know how much that hurt me?”

All I could do was look at him.

“No, you don’t. You clearly don’t know how it feels to love someone so much that it physically hurts. Dylan, you’ve been mine ever since I first saw you at the concert; since then there hasn’t been a day I haven’t thought about you. But now every time I look at you, all I’ll be able to see is you with Jaime wrapped around you. That used to be me. Do you even love me anymore?”

I just looked in his eyes. Of course I love you, Tony. I do, I really do. All I want is for you to hold me, and for us to kiss and make up. Tony, I need you. But I couldn’t bring myself to say it out loud. I just couldn’t.

“Just what I thought. You know what? I know what to call you now. Ex-girlfriend.” He let go of my wrist quickly. His eyes were moistening, and that was enough to knock down my pride. He pushed past me and started toward the front door.

“Tony, wait!” I called after him. I tried to grab his arm to keep him with me, anything to hold on to what we had, but he shook his arm out of my grasp. “Tony, I love you,” I whimpered, just as he’d opened the door.

“It’s too late for that now.” He spoke quietly, then walked off to his car, that was parked in our driveway.

I held onto the doorframe as my legs felt as though they were buckling underneath me. I could barely support my own weight as my tears fell faster than the waters at Niagara Falls. “Tony!” I yelled as he sped away, the tires on his car burning out as he rushed down the street.

It took all of my physical strength to pull myself back into my house, but when I did, I sulked over to the couch and threw myself onto it, inhaling Tony’s scent, and trying to fathom the fact that I’d never experience his scent, or his arms, or his love, first hand, ever again.