All My Heart (Count On Me Book 4) (24 page)

“Just what the fuck is your game, man? Get the girl alone and make her feel bad for you because you can’t fucking speak, then get her to fall for you?”

“Kay…” she starts and I just shake my head.

“How long, Belle?” I ask, turning toward her and leveling her with my glare. “How long have you been fucking Isaac behind my back? Was last weekend even your first time?”

She flinches and steps ba
ck and there’s a second where I feel like kicking myself, but as quickly as it comes, it’s gone. The way he was hugging her was intimate; the way I hug her, so what’s going on here, I’ve got every right to be upset about.

She needs to tell me the truth before I lose it.

“How long, Belle!” I shout balling my hands up into fists only this time, not pushing down the rage. This time I’m gonna let it grow. 

“It’s not what it looks like.”

“Yeah, I’m sure it’s not. That’s what they all say.”

“Kay...”

“Shut up, Belle.”

She flinches again and this time backs away from me completely and that’s when I feel it. The sta
bbing pain in my chest; one I haven’t felt since I showed up drunk on her front lawn after the dance. I’m hurting her, breaking her the same way I did then. The only difference this time is she deserves it.

She’s the guilty one.

Turning my attention back to Isaac, I move forward and shove him. Belle might be the one cheating on me, but he was the one doing the real damage. He’s trying to take the only girl I’ve ever loved from me and that just isn’t going to happen.

“She’s mine! Y
ou hear me? Not yours. She loves me!” I shove into him again and this time he stumbles on his feet and falls down to one knee. I back up a little and watch as he shakes off what I’ve done and when his head raises, I see it. His face is angry, but it’s more than that. He’s got marks on him, ones that are starting to change colors.

He’s bruised and there’s a bit of dried blood in the middle of it.

What the hell is going on here? How does he have these marks? I didn’t even touch him other than shoving my weight into him in order to take him down. Where did they come from?

“Kay, stop it! It’s not what you think! Isaac is my friend! He doesn’t wa
nt me. I was hugging him because he’s hurting!”

I hear everything she’s screaming and it stops me momentarily. I know how hard it is for her to do this kind of thing in public and there’s nowhere more public then where we’re standing now. School.

A feeling of déjà vu hits me, but before I can react to what she’s said, I’m stumbling backwards, Isaac now coming at me, attempting to take me down the same way I did with him.

“Isaac no! Don’t. Please stop! He doesn’t mean it. He’s confused!”

My Belle. Sticking up for me. Trying to get her friend to stop and getting nowhere. If this kid really wants a fight, then that’s exactly what he’s going to get.

I can feel myself being pulled back, knowing without even looking that it’s Dillon. For once he’s t
rying to diffuse the situation, but I shrug him off and move forward, keeping my eyes trained on the silent guy in front of me.

The minute his clenched up fist is about to make contac
t with my body, I reach out, block him and shove him forward, which seems to only make him angrier. He comes back again and predicting his next move, wanting to get the upper hand before he can take me down, I move forward, bringing my arm backward before swinging with every bit of strength I’ve got.

Prepared to get him before he gets me.

It’s only when I feel the punch connect and hear the cry that comes after, I realize Isaac isn’t the one I hit. It’s her.

She stumbles and as I reach out to grab her before she falls, she backs up and trips over the backpack I’d seen her drop on the gro
und from the car. Her body moving so quickly that Isaac and I both jump and reach at the same time in an effort to catch her before she hits the ground.

Before we get to her, we hear the crash as her body hits the pavement, a crack
ing sound not far behind. I freeze in place, not even sure what I’m seeing is real and it seems Isaac does the same. I hear a garbled sound come from his mouth and before I can shake off whatever’s keeping me frozen, I see Dillon.

He’s kneeling over her,
whispering words I can’t make out while he picks her up into his arms and cradles her close. His lips continue moving but no sound is coming out. It’s only when he looks up and levels me with a look of pure fear that there’s sound again, his message loud and clear.

“Kayden, call 911. Now! She’s not breathing!”

Chapter Twenty-One

Dillon

This is some kind of sick nightmare. There is no way in hell this can be real.

What happened, it’s something I can see myself going through, but definitely not something I see for him.

When we got to the college and caught sight of the two of them hugging through the windshield, I knew it set him off. It’s a natural response for us. We’re always in fight mode even where there’s no fight to be had, but I didn’t say or do anything to contain it. To stop him from what happened next.

Jealousy is a tricky bitch. I remember clearly the way it felt seeing Cadence hug Eric months ago outside her house. The struggle internally I dealt with, wanting to take him out for having his hands anywhere near my girl, but also the understanding that what the two of them shared might be what
was better for her at the time.

Doubting yourself might be an even trickier bitch than jealousy and Kayden has both.

This is one of the ways we’re similar. We’ve never had anything like we do with these girls. We’ve never had that level of love before, the closeness that comes with it and because of that, we don’t have the first clue what do with everything we’re going through. 

Sure, ta
lking about it would seem like the right thing, but there aren’t many instances in our lives where we’ve done that. Kayden and me, we’re notorious for doing the wrong thing and with what just happened in front of the school and the aftermath we’re dealing with now, it’s the wrong thing pushed to the extreme.

He screwed up.

We both did.

I know the way Kayden’s mind works almost as well as Belle does, so I knew the second he jumped from the car that the shit was about to hit the fan. He wasn’t going to go up to them and be nice. He was looking for a fight because just like I told him in the car weeks ago, he’s deathly afraid of this girl leaving him even though she’s given him no reason to think she ever would. His mind is making him see things that aren’t there.

It’s what brings us here now. Standing in the emergency room, pacing back and forth, desperate for word on exactly how bad what happened to Belle is. If what Kayden did is as bad as it looked when it happened.

It’s all clear
in my mind but it seems to be moving in slow motion.

Kayden booking it from the car, making his way across the lawn faster than I’ve ever seen him move and shoving himself into the autistic
guy Belle’s been trying to help.

The rage filled reaction on both of their faces as the guy got to his feet and went back at him without a care in the world. Belle’s face as she realized what was happening, her eyes wide, tears stre
aming down and the cry she let escape as the guy hit Kayden.

The sound of her voice as she
screamed at them both to stop and the shiver it sent down my spine. I know that sound. I’ve heard it from my own girlfriend before and it never means anything good. I might not have seen what happened next coming, but the sick feeling in my stomach watching them fight as I finally reached where they were, it was enough to tell me that something bad was gonna go down.

I did what I cou
ld, trying to pull Kayden away and calm him the fuck down before he did something he would regret, there was no stopping him. In a matter of seconds he was too far gone.

Kayden swung forward and instead of h
itting Isaac, Belle stepped in at the last second and took the brunt of it. All of the pent up fear, rage, anger and jealousy that’s probably been building in him since he got with her a year ago running like a freight train straight into her.

When she hit the ground, I moved first. I wanted to catch her before she fell, but I was too late. I wasn’t close enough and knowing that eats me alive.

Her head smacked off the pavement. Hard. I heard the cracking noise and fell to my knees, scooping her up without even thinking if it was right to move her or not. I just had to get her out of there.

Hearing Kayden’s strangled cry the minute I did it, turning and seeing his face twisted i
n both left over rage and hurt, I yelled at him to call 911 and just pulled her closer.

She’s not my girlfriend, but with as tightly as I held onto her, it was almost like this was Caddy after the horror she went through with Amelia and I just needed to do the right thing by her. This was my chance to make things right, especially with Kayden so stunned by what happened that he seemed to have completely checked out.

I needed to do for her what he couldn’t.

By the time the ambulance cam
e, I saw the crack in her head and the blood that was pooling there. It didn’t look deep, but it was enough for me to worry that this might be something Belle might not recover from.

It was scary as hell.

Kayden hasn’t said a word since we got here, but the looks he’s been giving me tell me a lot. He’s as scared as I am, but there’s also something else going on. Every few minutes when I feel his eyes on me and look up to catch him staring, I see the same look he had for Isaac.

He’s pissed and he’s directing it at me.

After pacing back and forth for at least fifteen minutes in silence, he finally breaks as he sighs loudly.

“When the fuck are they gonna come out here and tell us what’s going on?”

“I don’t know,” I answer honestly, thinking again about the blood I saw breaking through at the top of her head. “She was bleeding, so I guess after they stop that.”

“Why did she get in the middle?”

The way he asks me that, he’s questioning himself more than me. Like he’s trying to make sense of what possessed her to get involved when she knew where things were headed, but because I know the reason, I can’t just sit by and ignore it.

“She loves you and cares about that guy. Two people she cares about going at each other, I’m surprised she didn’t throw herself in sooner.”

He turns to me scowling and I resist the urge to tell him off. It’s obvious he’s got something he wants to say. I wish he’d just spit it out already because nothing is going to get better until he does.

“You gonna spit out the shit going through your head or just keep throwing me death glares?”

“You lied to me.”

I know that everything that happe
ned has put us on edge, but he’s making no sense right now. How the hell he figures I lied to him is beyond me and it just doesn’t seem like the conversation to be having after what happened to Belle.

“Not the time, man. Whatever you think I lied about has nothing to do with this.”

“It does. You fucking lied to me. You have a thing for my girlfriend.”

Yep, I was right. He’s lost his fucking mind.

“You wanna tell me why you think that?”

“Whose idea was it to surprise her on campus today? It sure as hell wasn’t mine. I was content waiting until she got home from class, but no, you said it would be better this way. You wanted me to see them together.”

It’s not the time for it, but with everything he’s saying, I can’t hold back. I laugh. This isn’t the Kayden I’ve been living with for the last few months. Hell, it’s not even the one I went to high school with. This is a whole other beast. The one that jealousy took and twisted until it made him its bitch.

“Do you hear yourself right now? You’re delusional!”

“No. For once I’m thinking pretty damn clear. I should have remembered what kind of person you were with the shit you pulled last year. You wanted her then. It wasn’t about playing a game.”

“Kayden, stop. Listen to yourself! I don’t want Belle.”

“Why not, huh? She not good enough for you or something?”

The way he switches gears from attacking me for wanting his girlfriend to thinking that I don’t want her because she’s not good enough, it’s even more proof that what happened
has broken him down. He’s not making any sense.

“Man, think about what you’re saying. You don’t wanna go down this road.”

“How long have you had a thing for Belle, Dill?”

“I don’t have a thing for your girlfriend. Fuc
k, K.” I groan before grabbing on to his shirt and shaking him. “Snap out of this. What happened to her, it’s fucking with your head. You’re seeing shit that’s not there.”

With everything I said, I expect him to finally wake the hell up and see the insanity he’s spewing, but that’s not at all what happens. His arms come up quick, shoving into me until I’m pushed completely away from him.

He’s gonna take a swing at me in the middle of a busy emergency room.

Kayden has completely lost his mind.

“You wanna take a fucking swing at me? Fight me over something that’s not even real, you’re not doing it here.” I snap lowering my voice before moving in and grabbing him by the shirt and dragging him to the door.  “You wanna hit me so bad, do it outside.”

He falls silent
as I continue to pull him along, not giving a shit anymore what he’s going to do next, but not wanting it in the middle of a hospital full of people. For whatever reason, he’s got it in his head that not only does Isaac want his girl, but so do I, and if the only way for him to get a reality check is to let him beat on me, then that’s what I’ll do.

Kayden needs to snap out of this before he ruins the very real thing he has. If he hasn’t done it already.

It’s no secret that last fall I had these momentary lapses in my plan to bring Kayden back into the group. Ones where I started to see what he saw in Belle and even liked her myself. I’ve never once lied about that when it’s been thrown in my face, but that’s all they were. Seconds in time where I was attempting to break away from the monster I had become and be something better.

A change that didn’t stick until Cadence and if Kayden would just wake up, he would see that. Belle was always meant to be his the same way Caddy was for me.

Any other way is just wrong and now, I’m gonna make him see it.

Kayden

I can’t get it out of my head.

Dillon run
ning for her the minute my fist made contact. He didn’t run forward to try and stop me, no. He ran to try and prevent Belle from falling.

Watching him hold her, pull her into him the way I’ve done so many times
when we’ve been alone together, ripped me apart.

He was doing what I needed to but couldn’t. I was locked in place wat
ching him hold her, whispering and stroking her face, trying to keep her awake. All of the things someone that’s in love does when this kind of thing happens.

Who am I kidding? This kind of thing doesn’t happen to people that are in love because they trust each other. They have enough faith in each other to know that nothing can tear them apart. I thought I had that with Belle, but seeing her arms around Isaac, something in me just snapped.

I don’t have that. For all the love I claim to have for this girl, the minute I see her interact with another guy that isn’t me, it’s like all the blood rushes to my head and all I can see is her leaving, being swept off her feet by someone much more deserving of her than I can ever be.

Belle leaving me for Isaac wa
s all I could see. The one guy she’s met since she started college that’s just like her. Someone who understands what it’s like to be her. Something that no matter how hard I try, I can never do. I can never understand autism completely because I don’t suffer with it.

The problem is, Isaac isn’t here now. Dillon is and instead of letting him be the friend I know he’s trying to be, I’m losing my shit on him because the way
he was with her is too intimate. He’s gonna try and steal Belle from me, same as he tried to do at homecoming. I can’t let him do it. She’s mine. She’s always going to be mine even after what just happened. I can’t let her go. I can’t let her leave, especially not with him.

“You want to hit somethin
g so bad, here I am! Hit me, K. Get it the fuck out!”

“You have a girlfriend. Why the fuck do you need to mess with mine?”

Asking him the question, I don’t even wait for a response. I don’t want to hear any more lies come out of his mouth. He’s the king of lies. He can make just about anyone believe in him, so chances are anything he says is just bullshit anyway.

The grin on his face the
second I’m up in it, I don’t expect. What the fuck does he have to grin about? My girlfriend is in some room unconscious with her head cracked open. There’s not a damn thing funny about this.

Dillon is a fucking asshole.

“Hit me, Kayden. Get it the fuck out.”

“You really want me to beat the shit out of you, don’t you?” I ask before pulling my arm back, more than ready to pound
on his stupid face. He’s right. I need to get this out. He deserves to be beat on for the shit he caused.

I’m so fucking tired of doing things the right way. Being the good guy. Especially when it just means I get my girlfriend stolen right out from under me.

“I want you to do whatever the hell you need to so you can get your head screwed on straight.”