My Fault - Adrienette FF

The Photo

MARINETTE

My mind was cloudy.

The only thing that mattered to me was payback.

Major payback.

I kept thinking over and over about Jake's and Isa's lips touching.

It was disgusting.

Just imagining it made me want to throw up.

I saw everything in red. I was blinded by hatred, pain, and a profound need for revenge.

I was in my closet taking off my clothes, and on the other side of the wall was a boy I'd just met two hours ago who was patiently waiting on my bed for me to finish. I couldn't show up at the races in a ball gown, let alone in stiletto heels. I put on a pair of jean shorts, a blue tank top, and some ordinary sandals.

You couldn't look like a Goody Two-shoes in a place like that, so I was happy to have on all that makeup, even if it wasn't my usual thing.

I pulled the goddamn bobby pins out of my hair—I must have had a hundred in—let my hair down, and then pulled it back in a ponytail.

I had exactly one thought in my head: hooking up with the hottest and baddest guy there.

That would make me feel satisfied, less used, less deceived, and like less of an idiot, even if deep down I knew none of that could erase reality: I was destroyed and struggling to hold my heart together.

Had Isabella told Jake everything I'd confessed to her?

Had they laughed at me while I was still trying to give it my all in my first and only relationship? Had they planned this?

I took a deep breath and tried to swallow the pain.

When I stepped out, Luka, the bartender I'd just met, stared at me admiringly, and I knew I'd achieved the effect I was going for.

"You look good," he said. He smiled, and I responded in kind but unenthusiastically. I wasn't in the mood for stupid compliments.

"Thanks," I said, grabbing my bag off the bed and heading for the door. "Shall we?"

Luka stood up and followed me, and soon, we were climbing into his car.

—

Half an hour later, Luka turned off onto a secondary road surrounded by dry fields and red-and-orange dust. As we drove on, I could no longer hear the cars on the freeway. Instead it was just repetitive music getting louder and louder.

"You ever done something like this before?" Luka asked, one hand on the wheel and the other resting on the back of my seat.

"I've been in quite a few races, yeah," I said in a surly tone.

He looked over and then back at the road.

Then I saw tons of people in the distance and neon lights around a deserted area full of badly parked cars.

The music was deafening. The people there were between twenty and thirty. Everyone was drinking, dancing, and partying like this was the last day of their lives. Luka stopped close to where most of them were and got out, waiting for me to do the same.

"What is this place?" I asked him, and he chuckled.

"Don't worry, these are the spectators. The important people are the ones over there," he said, pointing to the left, where a big group of guys and girls were lying on the hoods of fancy souped-up cars with god-awful music blasting from their trunks.

I saw fluorescent fabrics all around, and beneath the headlights-which were the main source of light out there-they glowed brightly. Many of the girls had painted their bodies and even their faces in fluorescent paint.