GuiTara

🎵~41

🎶You're holding on to what you never had ~ Hailee Steinfeld feat. Alesso

●Tara Afua Henrie●

She stood at the door, her face as pale as if she had seen a ghost. 

But it wasn't a ghost. It was me. The very person who had encouraged her to confess her feelings to Jax was now kissing him.

She stood frozen on the spot, lips trembling in disbelief. Then, in a split second, pivoted on her heel.

"No, Eden wait!" With lightning speed, I hopped over the bench and ran inside, just in time to catch Eden heading towards the exit.

"Eden! Eden wait!" My hand latched onto her forearm, but she quickly yanked herself away with a snarl.

"Don't touch me!" She whipped around. The tears brimming in her eyes only increased my guilt tenfold. "So much for Jax isn't your type!"

"He's not!"

"Then why? Why the fuck was your tongue in his mouth?" She yelled, inadvertently drawing the attention of every single person in the VIP lounge. 

They all turned, their curious gaze on us, and it made my stomach churn. Shit, now everyone knows.

"Answer me, Tara!" Eden rudely shoved me. "Why the fuck were you kissing Jax?"

"I didn't kiss him! He kissed me!" I fired in return, and she let out a malicious chuckle.

"Yeah, right. A likely story."

"No, think about it, Eden. If I were interested in Jax, why would I convince you to tell him about your feelings?"

For a second, she appeared lost for words until her expression shifted to anger. "Because that's who you are, Tara Henrie. You're a manipulator! You knew Jax was into you all this time, and yet you told me to tell him about my feelings so you could make fun of me!"

"What?" I gaped at her in disbelief. "Have you lost it, Eden? Why in the world would I do that? Ever since I started working with you, I've been nothing but ni--"

"Oh you've been nice." She cut me with a sarcastic drawl. "Miss Goody-two Shoes trying to become my friend. It worked on Carlos, it worked on Jax, but it didn't work on me. I saw who you were behind it all, and because of that, you wanted to get back at me by turning me into a laughing stock!"

I shook my head. "No, listen to yourself, Eden. What you're saying makes absolutely no sense!"

"Guys, you need to stop now." Carlos shuffled in between us. "You're creating a scene." He tried pulling Eden away, but she quickly pushed him back and looked me right in the eye.

"Say whatever you want, but it doesn't change the fact that you're a hypocrite. You're the biggest hypocrite I've ever met, Tara. And I can believe I almost thought we could be good friends." Her eyes went over my frame with disdain before she added, "You disgust me."

Honestly, I wasn't expecting it to hurt because Eden and I didn't even have a good relationship to begin with. But her words did hurt. They hurt harder than I could ever imagine and I just stood there, stunned, watching as Eden stormed past Carlos and out the door.

The gap between us had now widened into a full-blown trench and it made my throat tightened. This wasn't supposed to happen. Things weren't meant to turn out this way. It was all because of...

I turned. Jax stood near the French doors, eyebrows pinched in confusion, as if he had no idea about what he had just done.

A wave of anger surged through me.

Sensing it, Carlos quickly blocked my path. "Tara, don't. You're only going to make things worse."

"They're already worse!" I shoved past him and headed towards Jax, ignoring the murmurs from the guests. They'd already witnessed the first part, so there was no point hiding this confrontation. The damage had already been done.

"Tara," Jax called out in a solemn tone, but it didn't stop me from rudely pushing him.

"Why?" I yelled. "Why the fuck did you do that?"

"Hey, don't act so clueless! You wanted it remember?" He remarked. "You were going on, and on about how I made relationships appeal to you again and I just figur--"

"You idiot!" I pushed him again. "I wasn't talking about you, I was talking about Shaun!"

Jax's face went blank. "What?"

"We've been seeing each other for weeks now! I just didn't say anything because I wanted it to be private! I wanted it to be for us, and now look at what you've done!"

Jax’s expression twisted with a mix of shock and hurt. "Shaun? You've been seeing Shaun Perez this whole fucking time, and you didn't tell me? You didn't tell anyone in the band?"

"Did you listen to anything I just said!" I shouted again, feeling my frustration mounting. "I didn't tell anyone because I wanted something real, something that wasn't mixed up in drama or... or this!" I gestured around. "Now thanks to you, everyone in this Goddamned room knows about us!"

"Wow." Jax brushed a hand over his face. "Just wow. So all that time we spent together, working on the songs, the music, the album... was that you just leading me on? Making me think there was something more just so you could push me off a cliff when I finally told you how I felt?"

"What? No!" I snapped. "I never, for once, led you on, Jax. Everything I did was for the benefit of the entire band, for all us. Not just you. Heck, it was never even about you. You're just twisting this into something that it's not!"

He ran a hand through his hair, pacing back and forth. Then all of a sudden he stopped to look me square in the eye. "Then why didn't you say something? Why didn't you stop me sooner?"

I sighed with exasperation. "Because I didn't know you felt this way about me! I never saw anything beyond friendship, Jax. When it came to you, I never did."

The words seemed to land like a punch on him because his shoulders slumped. For a second, I thought I might’ve gone too far, and hurt him more than I intended. But I had to be honest. Anything less wouldn't be fair to either of us.

"Tara, Jax. That's enough." Refugio appeared beside us, Carlos right behind her. "You both need to stop this now. You've aired out too much of your laundry in front of these people. Anymore, and you can kiss your public image goodbye."

Jax then shook his head, eyebrows pulling into frown. "I-I need to get out of here."

Without a word, he pushed past Refugio and Carlos, heading straight for the door.

The weight of the past hour and everything else pushed down on me and I sighed, running both hands through my braids.

What had started off as a super successful night for us, had ended in a total gut-wrenching unexpected manner, and internally, I wished it all never happened.

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