The door flew open as Gemma was about to slam her fist again. Gemma fell forward, stumbling and almost falling on white marble just as Abigail walked out.
“There are other bathrooms,” Abigail snapped.
“This is my part of the plane,” Gemma huffed, fixing her blonde waves.
Abigail walked by me like I was nothing more than a painting or the on-plane fireplace they lit during the winter.
“Abigail—”
“It’s in the past. It’s over. Stop bringing it up.”
“God fucking dammit, just stay still.” I slammed my hands, bracketing her. Next to us, a vase of freshly cut flowers shook. Too hard. Too loud. Gray shot us a barely curious look, and the girl he was with did too, but she quickly averted her eyes.
I lifted my hands.
“I saw you with her,” she said. “After I kissed you, you told Gemma you loved her, just like everyone else.”
She saw that?
But I didn’t have time to dwell, because Abigail was on the move again, determined to walk all six thousand square feet of this fucking plane.
I caught up to her, whispering low as we passed Gray, “It’s not what you think.”
“I heard you say I love you!” she yelled, spinning on me. “You can’t trick me on this, Theo.”
So fuck being private?
Gray threw his remote to the side, crossing his arms overhead. “Okay, this is way more interesting than demolishing eleven-year-olds.”
Abigail shot Gray a look, then kept walking, picking up the pace.
“Stop, no, come back,” Gray said without any vehemence, grabbing the controller out of the girl’s lap.
“I wasn’t saying that to her. I was saying that about you.”
Abigail stopped in her tracks and I nearly ran into her shoulder. I thought I was about to get through to her, but then she steeled herself again, shooting me a glare.
“How dumb do you think I am?”
“Abigail—”
“Tea?” A stewardess appeared with a plate of small, steaming cups and rolled white cotton. “Or towel?”
Are you fucking kidding me? I nearly dragged my hands down my face.
Abigail affected a smile. “Thank you.”
She took a cup of tea and headed back over to the couch Gray was sitting on. Gray eyed Abigail before going back to his video game. There was an unwritten rule on the Crowne jet: all of the Crownes kept to their own section of the plane.
I stood between the fully stocked bar and a couch, watching Abigail just a few feet away. I was at an impasse. All this time, all this trauma and trouble, was because she’d overheard that night I went to Gemma?
There was a part of me, a very ugly, jagged, and calcified part, that said to ignore it, to continue on as I had. It didn’t erase the years of heartbreak. It didn’t erase what she’d done—she’d sent me away without bothering to ask my side of the story.
But I also couldn’t ignore what it did do.
It gave me a reason. All this time I thought she’d abandoned me for nothing.
Abigail used Gray as a shield. It was already hard enough ripping my heart out of the concrete vines it grew. If there was one person in this world I didn’t want to watch, it was Gray fucking Crowne. The guy thought I was worse than gum beneath his shoe.