Be Rude but Love Me | ✔

CHAPTER 46

I run out of the living room, ignoring Ollie's and my father's calls. I go into Lucy's room and retrieve my phone from the bedside table. I race back down the stairs and fly past Ollie who tries to grab me. I open the front door and step out into the cold of this last Thursday of November.

I pray for the biting cold to numb me, to get rid of my emotions, to extinguish this sudden fire in me. I feel like I'm burning up, like I am about to combust and it's most definitely not a good sensation. I want to swim in an ice bath or be at the bottom of a frozen lake. Anything to make numb me right now. I'd take anything.

I look down at the phone in my hands, looking at the black and unlit screen. I unlock it with rigid fingers, having to type the password three times and I curse in annoyance, in frustration, in rage. At myself, at him, at the whole world. I hate myself. I hate him. I hate the world.

Absently, I dial a number but I know I'm calling the right person. I hold the phone up to my ears, listening as it rings. Once. Twice. Three times. Four times.

"Hello?"

"Tell me you didn't know," I bite out and I'm not sure whether my voice comes out frigid because of the cold or because I am that angry.

"What?" Ellie asks again.

"Tell me," I spit again, "you didn't know Yann was going back." I almost say, tell me you didn't know Yann was the lost Badred son but I figure she already knew that. I recall Will asking me if I knew who his family was and I guess that's what he meant that day.

All those little details that got swept under the rug, discarded, forgotten and yet, they made up the story. It now makes sense why she got so worked up the last time we were watching the Badred interview, how she was so quick to defend their son, to defend Yann.

Ellie is silent on the other side of the phone so I take it as a yes. "Thank you so much for not telling me, Ellie."

"How did you know?" She asks, voice small and regretful but I could care less about her regret right now.

"It's on TV." I say then laugh bitterly. "I had to learn about it on fucking TV." I am so mad, so pissed, but mostly, so hurt. So badly hurt.

"I wanted to tell you," she says and I can tell she's about to cry.

"Oh, really? You did?" I snap.

"He told me not to tell you. He said –"

"You've been talking with him all this time, talking with him for the past three months." I start saying then I lose it. "You saw me cry myself to sleep at night, you held me as I cried, you saw how much it hurt me and all this fucking time, you were talking to him. How could you?" I scream into the phone, "How could you do this to me?"

I hear her sob into the phone but my heart doesn't break at her sorrow. It feels like it's made of steel in this moment and that nothing will break it, nothing will pierce through it and get me to feel something else than pure wrath.

"He only got in touch two months ago."

"Still," I scream at her. "You said absolutely nothing. You let me hurt for so long and you –"

"I wanted to tell you," she yells at me all of the sudden. "I told him that you were hurt, told him you were missing him but he said not to tell you anything." Then she calms down and whispers, "I'm so sorry, Trace. You have to believe me, I wanted to say something."

I believe her. She's my best friend, she wouldn't do anything to hurt me. "I'm sorry," I say. "I'm just so mad," I sigh and lift my head skyward, hoping to keep the tears at bay.