Veronica is just a regular girl. A girl with big dreams for a perfect future. A girl who craved finding true love and not just the idea of it. A girl with friends who were family to her. A girl who had nothing special to tell you about her life, unt...
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It was past nine-thirty in the morning, and Veronica was still sleeping. She had fallen asleep in my arms last night, and I had carefully carried her back to her bed, where she had snuggled in under the covers and promptly drifted off to sleep again.
Neil, Avi, and Ashley had left early in the morning and had promised to come back later. I had decided to let her sleep for some more time and had gone for a long run. But now I was back and like I had expected, she was still asleep. With nothing left to do, I decided to wake her up.
When I walked into her room I found her sprawled out on her bed like a starfish, sleeping on her stomach and I grinned. Her long dark hair was strewn across her pillow. In her sleep, all that sass and the fiery spirit that I had come to love so much was put to rest and she looked...free.
I wished she was more like that, not hiding behind the tough exterior she showed the world. She was like a damn wildfire, but there were these little moments when I had glimpsed the happy, carefree, and vulnerable version of her. Those were the moments that had consumed me.
She was a walking contradiction. Fierce yet kind. Sensual yet demure. Broken and strong, all at the same time.
Suddenly, she shifted in her sleep, kicking off the covers and my eyes fell on her left arm, which was hurt yesterday. My gut twisted at the thought of how close she had come to getting seriously hurt last night, and the fact that I was mostly the reason behind it just made it worse.
Neil had told me about everything that had happened last night, and it didn't take me long to figure out that Max was behind all of this.
For whatever reason, he had always had an underlying issue with me, and I ignored it, and him. Everything that I did, he was doing it too, always trying to be better than me. I didn't mind because I could compete – I usually just didn't care enough to bother. He wanted the prettiest girls, the flashiest car, whatever. As long as I had what I wanted, what was necessary, it was enough for me. And that bothered the shit out of Max.
I never let his antics bother me, because really, what effect did it have on me? Unfortunately for me, it wasn't that easy. He first tried to blackmail me with some pictures of my dad that he supposedly had and were bad enough to ruin my father, which would in turn ruin my mother. And I listened to his bullshit for a while, but he knew I would soon be over it, he knew his hold on me was weakening because I was going to talk to my parents and deal with it anyway. He realized it that day when I threw the first punch in the cafe, in front of Veronica.
It took him long enough but he identified another thing that would actually get under my skin. My weak spot. Veronica.
And just the thought of that made me sick to my stomach. I'd be damned if I let him hurt her again. Not on my watch.
"You know it's kinda creepy to watch someone sleep, " I heard my tiger say, her eyes still closed.
I walked up to her bed and sat down beside her. I kissed her cheek, softly and she snuggled into her pillow with a sleepy smile. "Good morning, sleepyhead."
