Masked Facade

Chapter 31: Sneak Peek

Ryan's POV

Six years ago...

The thumb rule of never fucking up your life is to follow the golden rules. One of them is Think before you say or do anything. When it was just me, I didn't give a flying damn about those bullshits. But when there were people at stake, relationships that I'd treasured were at stake, it mattered to me like anything and nothing in my life.

For all I knew, Alice Collins had only one baggage that weighed down her shoulders though my instincts always pointed out there was more to her than she led me to believe. I had been meaning to find a way to right my wrongs, but Alice had totally closed off. Pretention was her strong suit.

It never occurred to me how she was influencing me. For one, I cared. I motherfucking started caring about others than my selfish messed up existence and my lonely father. I wanted to put myself in her shoes, but I have no clue whatsoever on where to start with. I contemplated the idea of involving Zach, but it was too much of a risk since we have been hanging by a thread with our friendship. I didn't trust Thea to spare me with some truth as she'd rather chop my balls than spilling her friend's beans. The only option I was left with was to seek Alice who's been avoiding me at all costs. Her texts were vague and out of topic rather than letting me have a sneak peek.

And then there was my nightmare. The way his smug smile made me almost rip his head off was more than enough to justify the crazy shit I was indulged in. I didn't want to. Okay, at first, I thrived for it. But now... it'd just get me bad enough to come clean about my intentions.

"Are you still gonna deny that you are a good-for-nothing-son-of-a-bitch?" Matt's shit-eating grin didn't fade the satisfaction he got in his eyes from aggravating me. From where I was sitting on the lawn bench, I had all the intention of shredding him into the piece by fucking piece.

"You can't ruin me." It was more of a statement to keep me afloat rather than feel insecure. Because for some strange reason, it seemed as if Matt knew about last night. It was as if he sensed beforehand that I was pretty much going out of my goddamn mind.

"Oh, that's what you think I am capable of doing?" His smug reply feigned something that I couldn't put my finger onto, but he was successfully getting under my skin if that was what he was desiring to do.

"What was that, huh? Are you threatening me?" I was step by step losing my shit and it was evident to both, Matt and Jeremy.

"No, not at all. At least, not intentionally." At that, I gave him an incredulous look. When he was certain that he had my undivided attention, he continued, "The thing is, you've been up my ass for as long as I can remember since the moment, I stepped foot in the field. And did it ever cross your incompetent mind that how you suppressed me at every fucking turn I took?"

He bit out the last statement and that's when it struck me. He was complaining about my asshole version before I laid my eyes on Alice. I did some nasty stuff to him which he didn't deserve then. It was a bad coincident that I've been giving him shit when he was already going through one with his folks. I was unaware and Matt didn't get to hear my version of the sob story even if it'd have made no difference to him as he had so little faith in me, let alone the words coming out my mouth. And when it dawned on me, I didn't try to play my card. Little did I know, it'd come and bite me in the ass soon. I made fun of his capability to be in the team when he decided to take a break from everything due to his sister's medical condition. As mentioned earlier, I didn't know until it was too late.

"I did what the team needed. I never favored nor did I discriminate anyone ever." I was trying to play the responsible card when, in reality, I was making excuses for my actions.