𝐫𝐢𝐩𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐞𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐜𝐭 || baxter radic

7.

There's a tap on my window the moment the statement falls past my lips. Bax was listening and now he's going to come rescue the girl who fucked him over. I feel like I should be shocked, but I'm not. 

Summer's eyes pear toward the window. It's a slow turn to see who's walked in on this awkward conversation. But her face lightens when she sees him standing there. She too knows he'll come to her rescue.

"Maybelle, I've been waiting. Come on." Bax motions toward the back of the house and walks off without waiting for any response. My mouth drops open, I'm dumbfounded. Did he seriously just shrug off Summer, for me? There is no way he was coming to my rescue. This must have been some sick plan the two of them have set up to corner me and give me some sort of intervention. 

"Belle..." Summer's voice trails off. Her shitty attempt to stop me—to fix what she's messed up—goes ignored. My feet move without thinking. It's as if I've blinked and now I'm out the sliding glass doors, waiting to see a pink mop of hair appear around the back the house.

"Thought you might want to get away from that conversation. Didn't seem like it was going anywhere healthy." Bax steps toward me, closing the distance like he's done since the party started. 

"You saving me, or her?" My eyes lock to his. Their once bright state is darkened in the night. Or maybe it's the sting of my words. My brain is still firing on all cylinders. It's set to protect myself. It's what I've learned to do to keep myself from crumbling. 

"I'm pretty sure I spent my night chasing you around, did I not?" Bax tries to use his touch to control me—to cast me under his spell—but I step back before his skin grazes mine.

"Only because Summer's head was up Ari's ass." I cross my arms tightly against my chest. All I've wanted since I got here is a little bit of Bax's attention. Now that I had it I was doing everything to push him away. Typical me, building walls so I don't end up hurt like Summer was when she saw Ari when Wren.

"Wrong." His voice is determined to win me over. He will fight at the castle wall if that means there is a means to the end. 

"What do you have planned Baxter," the corner of his lips flip up the moment his full name falls past my lips. I'm beginning to think he secretly enjoys the way his name rolls off my tongue. "Make me fall for you to break my heart? Make me jealous like you tried with Summer? I'm not here to be someone's second option. I was very happy in my own bubble." 

"Were you?" He ignores every other question, focusing on the last of my statements. He's always been the best at reading through bullshit. Why did I expect any other response?

I drop my arms, ready to use them to ramble on about how happy I was. "Y—" He cuts me off before I even get even half of the word out. 

"You weren't miserably watching me catch feelings for your best friend, knowing she'd never pick me to begin with?" Baxter steps forward, closing the distance I had created. The trance he casts has begun to seep in. His knowledge of my thoughts whacking me in the gut like a sucker punch.

I stutter. I stumble over my words. Just a mix of sounds and syllables that don't amount to anything escape. Then his finger grazes mine, tickling the surface of my skin. My eyes jump toward his touch. My focus completely enamored by the simple nature of his gesture. It's an effortless touch, but he can never stop with just that. He slithers his way in, locking his fingers between mine. He is in control now, and he knows it. 

"You were; you don't have to tell me. Believe it or not May, you aren't just Summer's shadow like you seem to think you are." My mind goes numb. A quiet hum replaces the chaos that's normally inside. No one has ever taken the time to show me any sort of compassion. No one has ever made me feel seen. Bax was right, I did feel like Summer's shadow, because I had always been Summer's shadow.

"You picked her." I force out. An exhausted frustrated tone hangs onto my words and I hate that it does. I was stuck on a loop, constantly running in circles. It felt like there was no escape, even with someone screaming and banging at the exit door trying to get me out. 

"Because I couldn't pick you." He squeezes my hand before releasing me from his grasp to run his fingers through his hair. 

I don't know what to do. I don't know what to say. He could have picked me. He didn't follow any rules. He was the token bad boy ignoring authority figures like they had the black plague. Why out of all the rules to choose to follow did he choose Summer's about me? 

"You made her a surfboard Bax. This isn't some surface level bologna." I fight off the croaking frog in my throat. I have to stop my voice from crying before I turn into a muddled mess of an incompetent human being. He doesn't need to deal with my mess. He has his family's mess to deal with. He didn't need anymore. He didn't deserve anymore.  

"I'm never going to win with you am I?" Bax's face drops. 

Honestly, probably not. He had kissed her. I watched it happen as my heart shattered into a million pieces. He picked her. I couldn't let that all go. I couldn't sit here and believe that all of a sudden he wanted me. I would always—and forever—believe that I wasn't good enough. He was settling because my best friend chose someone other than him.