Chapter 98 Miserable
Verena
Everyone looked from me to her, then her to me as my chest tightened from that stupid smile that she had plastered on her face. “Did I say something I shouldn’t have said? I thought we were all reminiscing?”
She forced out a laugh. “Guys, come on. Why are you being so oversensitive,” No one laughed.
Enough.
I had had enough.
This time, I finally yanked my hand free from his grip—glaring daggers at her. “I’ve always known there was something off about you—” I rose to my feet, grabbing my purse. “—I just couldn't understand it. But now I know what you are. A bitter and childish woman with a lot of hate in her heart who can’t stand seeing her ex best-friend, ex fuck-buddies, or whatever with someone else,”
Daxton was already standing to his feet, annoyance in his voice as his fingers curled around the car keys, hard. “If this is your cheap attempt at humiliating my woman and me, then jokes on you. You have just proved how small and miserable you are,”
The smile on Ashley’s face cracked. “Excuse me?”
“I didn’t choose you then. Still won’t choose you now because you mean absolutely nothing to me,” Despite the burning anger towards him, I allowed him to take my hands and raise them.
“We are going to last forever. Your plan to tear us apart or make her leave will never happen,”
Ashley scoffed. “Please don’t misconstrue my words. I’m just saying things as they are. Did we not have sex multiple times, Daxton Cooper?”
Someone was tugging at her dress, whispering. “Enough,”
She shrugged the man off, still bent on not dropping this. “No. I’m going to say whatever I feel like. I was just trying to make her understand that what we shared was deeper than the status he reduced us to—best friends. I’m not going to let everyone treat me as the villain that I’m not,”
My blood boiled as she continued. “I don’t care for Daxton. I’m happily married with a wonderful husband and a beautiful daughter who…”
I cut in, shaking my head. “No. You’re not happily married. You don’t live in Paris. You live in Seattle and that’s because you keep moving states because you are running from your abusive husband,”
Her face blanched.
“Ashley, you couldn’t even afford a birthday cake for your daughter—” Since she wanted to play dirty, I would gladly roll in the mud with her. “If it weren’t for my brother and Lisa, your daughter wouldn’t have celebrated her birthday party,”
She started this first and I would gladly finish this for her.
Gasps echoed simultaneously as everyone turned their eyes to her while she swallowed and hid her face.
“Let’s go, Daxton,”
Daxton followed after me and the moment I got inside the car with him—I turned to him with eyes ready for answers that I didn’t even need to open my mouth to ask.
He closed his eyes briefly, attempted to touch my arm but I shifted. “I am sorry about everything that happened back there. I didn’t plan for any of this…”
I interrupted, impatience tugging at me. “I know. I want answers to why she is acting like that,”
Daxton’s eyes lingered on mine, jaw tight. “…Ashley”
“We were friends with benefits and on my end, it was strictly sex without romance or commitment. I mean that was what we agreed on before we started,” He paused for a second, to be sure that I was still listening.
“Go on,” I probed.
“Then she started getting possessive around me. Attacking girls just for talking to me, standing next to me and even going as far as beating up those who made eye contact with me. When I got to know her feelings for me, I put a stop to the situation immediately,”
“She’d cried, accused me of leading her on and using her for her body, which was laughable to me because we both benefited the same way. She also used me for my money and body,”
I nodded, prompting him to go further.
“So, when she got unbearable, I ended the whole friendship thing. Then we lost contact for years and after I returned from Moscow, I saw her clubbing. We started talking again—without the sex part this time around,”
He leaned back in his seat, tearing his gaze from me. “Since the first fallout happened as teenagers, I thought she had changed plus she apologized. So, I gave her access back to my life. She had the keys to my house, visited when she wanted and things were going great between us until she confessed her feelings for me again,”
“I turned her down and then the attacks resumed on any girl I tried to hook up with…”
“She is one crazy woman,” I said.
“That isn’t even all. Like I said, she had access to my house so one time, she came when I wasn’t home and met someone sleeping in my bed. But who she met was Riley, my half-sister,”
“Riley?”
He turned to look at me. “Hmmm. Laufey’s mum. My niece who crashed the car I made Kian buy,”
“I think I remember,”
“Yeah. Her. She thought she was one of those girls and in a fit of rage, she grabbed the lamp-stand and smashed it on her head,”
My jaw dropped.
Daxton laughed at the shock on my face. “What the fuck,” I said.
“That was the last straw so we got into this messy fight where she had slit her wrist, injuring me in the process because I wanted to end the friendship with her. Mind you, she was in a throuple with two other people,”
I couldn’t close my mouth.
“She got mad when I cut her off completely and swore that she wouldn’t let me be happy with anyone that wasn’t her so everything she did back there was to get under your skin and at the same time, mess with me,”
I ran a hand through my hair. “But it’s been so many years,”
“Ashley didn’t change then. She wouldn’t change now. Some souls are just damned to live miserably forever.”