tricks of time ― grayson hawthorne [the inheritance games]

019. MELTING

"You keep telling yourself that, Leah."

"It's bullshit. All of it. This 'thing' you have against me? You have no proof of any of it! Why don't you base your grudges on actual facts instead of what you think in that thick skull of yours!"

He looks at me angrily. "I never asked to be friends with you! I don't trust you either, for the record! I saved your life in that forest because it was the right thing to do. I started this because it had to be started. Don't prance into my life— my family's life like nothing's happened."

"I'm not trying to prance into your life. I'm sorry your Grandfather chose me for this! I never asked for any of this either.  Nothing about this is real to me! You know what I thought at first? That the day after, I'd go back to Connecticut, a little richer, hopefully, and with a story to tell, and I'd probably never see any you Hawthorne's again."

There's silence for a few seconds. As he begins to talk, so do I. "You have no clue what's going on in my life. So don't talk to me like we're friends."

He snorts lightly. "You're gonna find that I do whatever the hell I please, Leah."

I sit up straighter in my chair. I still have the clothes bunched up in my hands, which I'm digging my nails into, pressing crescents into the fabric. "Grayson, I never asked to be in your hair like this. You started this. And because you started this, I'm going to make your life a living hell."

"And how are you going to do that?" I can hear the smirk in his voice.

"You've seen me. I know you hate me."

"I'll believe it when I feel like I've been through hell."

"Well, you certainly look agitated almost always when I'm around." In a fit of anger, I throw the clothes in the fire. The fire leaped to life; and the flames encircled the cloth so that in a moment my clothes were blazing. I watched the smoke float up into the air and the familiar smell of burning cloth reaches my nose.

We sit there for minutes on end, smelling the bonfire as the sky grows dark. Just a few streaks of the sun are left on the horizon and are reflecting on his face.

"My mother was the one who tried to kill you," he spits out, randomly.

I look at him immediately. "What?"

He repeats himself. "My mother was the one who tried to kill you."

I shake my head. "No, I heard what you said, but, why?"

He shakes his head at me too. "Why do you think, Leah? You're a threat to her too."

I laugh a little under my breath. "Like mother, like son," I mumble to myself.

He stared at me, his eyes piercing mine. "What did you say?"

I shake it off. "Nothing. So you kicked your mother out of the house?"

That wasn't what I'd expected him to do. For better or worse, Skye was his mother. And Grayson always put family first. "Mother left of her own volition," Grayson said evenly. "After convincing her I think she realized it was the better option." He's right. Better than being reported to the police.

I remember what he'd told me just a few days before.

If I were choosing between you and any one of them, he'd told me, I would choose them, always and every time.

He stands up. "Alisa was looking for you. You should talk to her soon."

Then he's gone.

And the argument is over.