Dismissing Dakota | ✓

»28. River«

Silvia's P.O.V.

I started my walk, turning on the street corner, and jogging to the nearest park. At the stop light, a car cruised next to me, slowly. There was no point in checking to see who was in the car.

"This conversation isn't over, Silvia."

The nerve he had to say that ticked me off. "The conversation is over, Dakota. I've made up my mind. Let me enjoy my walk."

"Hear me out," Dakota pleaded. "If I had started this relationship for some kind of selfish reason, like for sex or something, then I could understand this much anger. But I didn't lure you in because of some stupid carnal desire. I wanted answers about my sister."

I didn't say anything. I glared at him, huffing as I picked up my step.

"Please listen to me, Silvia." He stuck his arm out of the car. "I didn't lie when I said that I love you the first time, or the other times after."

"When exactly did the lies stop, Dakota? Where did the truth start to come out?"

Massaging his jaw, Dakota pondered on my answer. "I knew when you told me Evelyn was kicking you out and you were moving back to Maine. It was then when I realized that I cared about you far more than I was letting on."

I was wrong about being kicked out. My grandma was back in town and Hunter and I went to her place for the weekend. Dakota had gone out drinking that night, thinking that he'd never see me again. When Ronnie drove me to his house, I saw Dakota begging Dion to take him to Maine, slurring each of his words. He was a complete mess that night.

"Did you stop taking orders after that point?"

He ducked his head and scratched his hair, purposely not meeting my gaze. "No, I didn't stop then. I thought that the feeling would pass. That it was just a side effect of the job. When I first started taking orders, I didn't think I would-"

"Hurt me?" I filled in, but shook his head. I stopped walking and he stopped driving, getting closer to the curb. "Then what? What didn't you think would happen?"

"You're gonna laugh."

"Unlikely," I puffed. Nothing about this ordeal seemed humorous to me.

"I didn't think that I would get feelings for you. The whole point was to get close enough to get information, but not close enough to love you. I don't know how or when it happened, but when it started, I couldn't stop it. I looked forward to seeing you at school and hopefully outside of school. But the longer I did the job, the more awful I felt. If you think that I had any enjoyment in hurting you-for even the slightest of seconds-then you're wrong Silvia. I went through hell, hating myself more than anything else. The person behind the orders saw that and practically threatened me to go on or they'd find a way to make you hate me."

"You think they might've done the whole last day of school thing as well?"

"No, there's no way they could've done that. You can't have two different operations going on in Segg. You get one person and that's it. I have another theory that they got Finn to persuade someone into making that video. Out of everyone at Crescent High, Finn would have to choose someone that he knew hated me enough to do that and wanted you as far away from me as possible."

Dakota flickered his eyes over to a couple walking by with a baby stroller then back at me. "I think we should have the rest of this conversation in the car."

Dakota got out of the car and opened the door for me. I slid into the passenger's seat. Before he closed the door, Dakota lowered his head down to my eye level, moving in to kiss my cheek, but I pushed his face away.