“Wait,” he mutters as I step out of the car.
He swiftly tucks all his tech away and follows me out, but I’m done.
I’m so fucking done with liars.
“I put all those cameras in your room to protect you, Aspen.”
That’s rich since he was filming me way before that.
“Sincewhen?” I ask, glancing at him over my shoulder.
“Since you told me about your stalker,” I say, swallowing.
He’s just making up more lies.
“No,” I reply, spinning around to face him. “You have the tape of me in the auditorium. This isn’t about protecting me. This is about you and your fantasies of seeing me with another man, isn’t it?”
He licks his parted lips, but no words come out, and it makes me wonder if he’s hiding more…
“Unless …”
My eyes widen in shock.
No. He couldn’t be.
He couldn’t be my ghost, could he?
Grey
She shovesher finger into my chest. “Don’t. Lie. To. Me. Did you tape me for your own pleasure?”
I nod.
SLAP!
The palm of her hand comes down on my cheek, the sting immediately glowing, and it barely registers with me as my hand instinctively touches the mark she left.
“I trusted you,” she hisses through her tears. “Why?”
The pain of her rejection hits me so deep that the pieces of me I kept hidden for far too long begin to unravel, darkness seeping in.
“And why did you send that picture to Levi?”
“Because I wanted him to see you were mine,” I say, lowering my gaze. “Because he was always there, waiting for us, waiting for the moment when it would all fall to pieces so he could swoop in like a goddamn vulture.”
“What does that even mean?”
“Don’t you understand?” I say through gritted teeth. “He never wanted you to be with me because he’s jealous.”
Her face contorts. “What? That doesn’t make any sense. He hates me.”
I shake my head. “He’s madly protective of you, and I admit, it got to me. I wanted to prove to him that you were mine and only mine.” My fist balls. “But I understand now a heart like yours could never belong to me alone.”
“No.” She shudders and takes a step back, but her eyes still veer up to the steps behind me, toward the two shadows continuously hovering over our lives.
Apollo and Levi.
“I am not an object. No one owns me,” she hisses. “You videotaped me. You blackmailed me. And you used me.” Shepoints at each one of us like we’re monsters. “Any of you three could all be my fucking stalker.”
