Bleeding Hearts

eighteen

for rayna, because she's HILARIOUS and adorable and just lights up my entire world <33

EIGHTEEN

Sweet dreams could not have been made of this, this horribly electrifying and painfully tingling feeling that runs through my veins and leaves every joint sore. It feels like my body is begging me to let it shut down but my brain won't allow it, and that's where I'm left—this horribly in-between stage. But I have to stay strong and hold my ground.

Ford takes a shaking step forward, just as I grab onto a broom for protection. "What do you want Ford?" I press the broom in front of my body. "And stay back." I warn him.

Ford laughs mockingly, pointing at my broom. "You think that's going to hold me back?"

"I think that this up your ass will." I step back, making sure to keep my distance. If my memory serves me right, drunk Ford is no one to mess with. 

Ford puts his hands up in surrender, still laughing. "All I want is to talk. Is that so bad? Just a little platicar?"

"I have nothing to say to you." That's not true. I have a lot to say, perhaps too much, but now isn't the time. In fact, the time to talk to him is never. I love Brady, and that's never going to change. Ford is my weakness, my drug—he gets me hooked and then completely destroys me. Even now, staring into his eyes for the time that I have been is causing my hands to shake while they hold the broom.

"Then let me do the talking." He offers, walking even closer to me. "I've been doing a lot of thinking since our last talk." Ford begins, running a hand over his face. "And I've come to a decision—I hate you."

"You hate me?" I couldn't help it—a barking laugh escapes my mouth. This all sounds too good to be true.

"Yes." Ford keeps his composure, his face hard and firm. "I hate you and everything that you've ever done to me, Leah."

I grip on tighter to the broom. "What the hell have I done to you Ford?"

Fords lips form a smile, and before he speaks I can tell that this one isn't like his normal ones. It's sad, weak, frail—absolutely nothing like the Ford I knew.

"You broke my heart."

His words are a machete to my heart, ripping through sloppily and aggressively until all that's left is a marked and chewed up mess of what it used to be. Slowly, I set down the broom on the side of the wall, not daring to look at him. "You're lying." I whisper.

"Why would I be?" His voice cracks, a broken laugh splitting through the tense air. "We broke up and you completely isolated me, letting your friends tell you lies about me until you could hardly even look at me. All of those times that I'd try to talk to you, to fix what I broke, you looked the other way. You didn't even give me a chance, Leah, not once." Then he smiles, that same sad, broken smile. "And then you started dating Brady. I should've known that it would've only gotten worse from there."

Ford reaches his lean hand towards my face, and just when it's about to brush my cheek I smack it right back down. "Don't touch me." I hiss, angrily swatting at the fallen tears running down my cheeks out of pure frustration. "You don't have the fucking right to touch me."