Ours To Be (All Ours, #1)

Chapter 24

Guilt is a very nasty thing.

It can swallow you whole, drown you in its essence.

It sort of consumes you, like this really bad itch. The lingering kind that has you cringing and squirming on the spot. There's shit going on around you, but all you can emphasis is this hankering taking over your body in surfs of discomfort.

That's what guilt is.

There's usually two things you can do to evaporate that ache out of your system.

Either you clear your conscience by doing what you think is the right thing to do in your particular circumstances, or you take the easy route and block it all out.

Now, I'm an whiz in blocking shit out. I bury it someplace so deep you'd need to excavate to even get there.

Although I think I'm pretty good with confrontation. I will always speak my mind and tell you exactly how it is. I'm not one to hold back. It's the future lawyer in me.

This case is different though.

It always is when the vile aura of shame's enmeshed.

Nara just left and I think she took all my vitality with her. I'm still in bed, staring up at my sleek, white cathedral ceilings, trying to remember where it went wrong.

When you exploded on him when he was just trying to help you, maybe?

Maybe I did need his help, but that doesn't matter when you don't want it. Of course that didn't mean I had to lash all the magnified frustration this day had brought me out on him.

He probably thinks I'm a coldhearted bitch now, just like my entire high school did.

Ice-queen, they called me.

No feelings, I had.

And callous, I was.

I'm the furthest thing from callous.

If anything I feel too much.

Of course they didn't have to know that. So they didn't. I let them view me as whatever they had made me out to be. Just because I didn't feel the desire to kiss the popular kids' ass to get me in with them had made them perceive me inversely. Like some easy target.

I never understood how or why I couldn't just go to a normal, public high school like the one all my friends were attending.

You can already guess who was responsible for that.

Daddy dearest.

He contended his only daughter couldn't have an average education.

I personally don't think a preppy private school would've been the way to go, but okay.

God, I'm so conflicted. I could just groan and bury my head in pillows.

Do I call him and apologize? Send him a quick text?

Fucking hell, I'm not mentally stable enough for this type of shit.

But I do know someone that is.

I'm scrolling through my contacts not even a second later and finally find the number I was looking for.

She picks up on the third ring. ''Hello, darling.''

''Grams, hey...'' just hearing her soft, grandmotherly voice she always uses with us makes my gastric cut. After everything she's done for me and my brother... and I've barely talked to her or grandpa all summer.