Lydia | ✔️

(23)

"How could you?!" Lydia shouted as she came to a stop at the pick up truck.

Allison and Riley broke apart and stared with guilt written all over their faces. The dozen or so people in the near vicinity were watching with interest but Lydia ignored that. All that she could see was her best friend and her ex boyfriend, their arms around each other and an obvious pash rash starting to form.

"Lyd—"

"Riley?" Lydia pierced Allison with a glare so hostile that her former best friend swallowed and stood up from the pick up tray, nudging Riley from her immediate space. "Why Riley? Why? You're supposed to be my best friend!"

"He's supposed to be mine," Riley spoke with distaste and Lydia didn't have to turn around to know that Carter stood behind her. "Yet you're here with him."

"Shut the hell up Hart."

Lydia knew that he was right. But she wasn't screaming at him. She was screaming at Allison. Carter's lack of loyalty to Riley wasn't her issue, it was theirs.

As if a new wave length of realisation started to form in her head, Lydia tilted her head as she put pieces of the puzzle together. A puzzle that still made no sense no matter how well it fit.

"It was you," she could feel tears prickle in her ducts. "At the New Year's Eve party. You slept with him."

Allison's quivering lip and silence was more admission than Lydia wanted or needed. But it confirmed her suspicions and she could feel her weight becoming hard to hold up at the earth shattering revelation.

"I'm so sorr—"

The sound of Lydia's hand connecting with Allison's cheek halted her sentence. Her head whipped to the side and she clutched her face, her mouse brown curls cascading and hiding her shock.

Riley immediately stood between them and turned his back to Lydia. His hands cupped Allison's face and he soothed her with a soft and reassuring voice. It was a sight that proved to much for Lydia. She felt as though her heart was being stomped into the concrete. Her throat tightened and she was sure that her lungs had given out. She turned around and shrugged out of Carter's arms which tried to pull her in.

She felt tears rolling down her cheeks as she walked as fast as her legs could take her. She couldn't breathe. She felt as though she was going to be sick as she gasped through the sobs. Her stomach lurched and she heaved as she barged through the swarms of people, not stopping at the sound of Carter calling for her. She was sure that he followed behind her from how close he sounded, so she sped up a little. She needed to be alone. She was about to break down into the worst state that she'd ever been in and she didn't want witnesses.

Her feet were the only objects of her focus and even those were hard to see through the blur of her tear addled orbs. She was about to give in and collapse under the pain when the sound of shouting and tyres squealing had her glance up and the last thing that she saw were headlights coming straight for her.