The Illusion

Fourteen

I was out of bed and dressed before he even woke up again. Needing to get out of bed as soon as I'd woken up because I was just getting angrier and angrier.

I wasn't even mad that he kissed me. That kiss was the most normal I'd felt in weeks. It was so short I didn't have time to show him I wanted him to do it. That it was okay. And then he just turns over and tells me to go to sleep? Did he really do it just to get me to shut up? Because he could have easily just, I don't know, told me to shut up, hit me with his pillow, flicked me, slapped a hand over my mouth. Literally any fucking thing else.

I dropped the weights back into their holder, pulling my hair out of its loose pony tail and re-doing it, pulling it up tighter. This was the most awkward work out I'd ever had in my entire life. The radio playing was the only bit of noise in the entire space. That and the heavy breathing between the two of us and his counting as he spotted me.

I hadn't muttered a single word to him today. When he'd asked if I was ready to come down here, I'd simply stood up from the sofa and walked down. The girls had snickered, already being able to tall he'd pissed me off before I'd even sat down at the table with my cereal. I don't know when them having breakfast with me had become the new norm but I'd barely seen Isla and Lili before. Now I felt like I'd been accepted into the mean girl group in high school and I could sit with the cool kids.

"Okay. What's wrong?" My heart clenched with the anger coursing through my blood. "Because you haven't said a single word to me all day and normally you're nonstop." Yeah, you made that perfectly apparent. I didn't respond. God how I wanted to. I wanted to scream at him. Yell about him being an ass and kissing me just so I'd be quiet and not kissing me because he wanted to. Scream at him for turning his back on me after something that could have been really intense for me. I could have been freaking out and he wouldn't have cared. "Fine, you don't want to talk, let's go." He grabbed my wrist, holding tight as I fought in his grip. His quick steps dragged me into the boxing ring in the room next to the little home gym. Only when we were in there did he drop my hand. "You're mad." Mad? No. No. I'm not mad Leo. I'm vexed, irate, fuming. Straight up pissed the fuck off. "Hit me."

"You're insane."

"She speaks!" Never mind hitting him. I might just strangle him. I'm sure I could manage it. He's taught me how to take down guys bigger than him. "Hit me."

"I'm not hitting you Leo."

"Why not? I don't know what I've done but I've pissed you off somehow. 5 weeks I've known you Freya and you're quiet but not whatever the fuck this morning has been. You're mad. so, channel it. Hit me." I crossed my arms. "Hit me." He moved closer again. Stupid perfect eyes and stupid perfect face. God he was making me madder. "Hit me Freya."

"Not a chance."

"Why are you mad?"

"I'm not mad."

"I simply don't believe you."

"Well, that's your problem, not mine." I shrugged. He tipped his head down, eyes getting darker under the shadow he'd created.

"You're mad."

"I'm not fucking mad Leo." Oh, he was pressing my fucking buttons. He stepped forward. Each one getting quicker until the ropes reminded me this space didn't go on forever. I stood up, pulling my shoulders back.

"Yeah you are Freya. I just don't get why you've suddenly stopped telling me about it? You were fine yesterday." It really mattered that little to him that he couldn't even remember? Of course. How could I really think he kissed me last night because he thought there was something there. Maybe I was crazy. I'd lost the plot somewhere along the line. "Hit me."

"Fuck off."

"Hit me."

"Leo-"

"Hit me Rey." I balled my fists at my side. "Come on. What are you waiting for? HIT ME." I smacked my fist into the middle of his face, smiling as he stumbled backwards. He looked at me in utter shock. Like he wasn't expecting me to actually do it. Maybe I was supposed to crumble. To fall to the floor and cry and he was supposed to sit there and laugh or tell me I needed to be stronger. That people were going to be shouting at me and I needed to learn to stop taking it.

But I didn't. Leo was stood there, blood dripping from his nose and I didn't have a single ounce of regret in me. My first was pulsating and I was filled with an urge to keep going. Watching him be the first man I'd made bleed, especially right now, filled me with a little too much happiness. I was officially mental. A psychopath in the making right here.

"Maybe that'll teach you to kiss a girl and then turn over and tell her to go to sleep." His head shot up from looking at the blood pooling in his hands. I ducked under the ropes, leaving him stood there. He could sort out his broken nose alone as far as I care. I was pissed off right now.

"FREYA. No- wai-" I slammed the door, marching out of the gym and down the hall back into the living room.

"Milo?"

"Mhm."

"Want to hang out today?" He scowled, pausing the game the 3 boys had on the big TV. They all turned and looked up at me. I shook my hand out, trying to shift the tingling that was making me mad. "Like now."

"Where's Leo?"

"Busy sorting a broken nose." No sooner than the words had left my mouth the 2 girls were pushing him up out of his seat.

"Don't you want to-"

"Ask me if I want to change and he won't be the only person bleeding right now." I grabbed one of the hoodies hung up in the closet by the front door, not even caring that it was definitely James' because it wasn't just a little too big, it was 4 sizes passed baggy.

"Where we going princess?"

"Fucking anywhere that's not here."