Free The Wrong Path_Smashwords by Vivian Marie Aubin du Paris

step, his hand holding her arm. “Really?” he persisted, his voice flat. “You really believe that?”
    She pulled her arm away. “Of course I do,” she insisted. “Everyone always gives me a hard time about being uptight. None of my friends would maliciously try to—“
    His derisive snort broke off her sentence. She scowled up at him, annoyance lighting sparks in her veins. “You can’t honestly be that naïve, Belle. They dosed you on purpose, and they did it to get in your pants.”
    She flushed and turned away. “No,” she declared shakily, though even as she spoke, she could see Parker handing over a twenty to the boy pouring her drinks almost as if it were happening right in front of her all over again. “No, you’re wrong. You don’t even know them. How would you know?” She turned back accusingly, glaring up into his carefully guarded expression. “Your friends are the ones who brought the stuff in, weren’t they? Maybe they stuck it in all of the drinks and it was an innocent exchange. You don’t know!”
    He crossed his arms and glared back at her. “Are you always this illogical?” he demanded, sounding like he was trying not to shout. “You’re like a ten year-old. You can’t think the best about everyone all the time, you know. They’re going to stab you in the back and leave you to drift down a river.” And then, as if he hadn’t driven his point home enough, he continued with a cold smirk. “Or date rape you, as the case may be.”
    “Shut up!” she shouted angrily, shoving him as hard as she could away from her. She took great satisfaction in watching him stumble backwards, his smugly crossed arms falling to his sides to help him maintain balance. “Just shut up! You stand on the edge of everything, causing pain to your brother who loves you, and trying to kill your mother, who is sick and weak enough without you coming in and making it worse! You have no right to judge anyone!”
    His eyes flashed coldly. “Since when did you learn so much about my family, Belle? You’ve been dating my brother for, what? A day? That doesn’t exactly give you the insight you need to be casting dispersions.”
    She seethed at him. “You think people don’t talk? You think your mom doesn’t talk to mine? I know all about the heartache you cause her.”
    Will’s expression was dark… almost murderous. “This song, again?” he asked quietly, his voice low and filled with fury. “Did my dearest brother ask you to talk to me about how I’m ruining the family? About how Mom’s failing health is all my fault and has nothing to do with the cancer that’s eating her from the inside out? About how everything she and Dad fight about is related to me, and how it would be easier for everyone if Mom would just let them ship me off to boarding school?”
    She felt her anger subdue, the pain under Will’s carefully disguised rage evident. He might have accused her friends of trying to drug her, but she shouldn’t have attacked his family. She knew how sick his mother was, and it was a low blow… It had been downright hateful of her.
    “Will—“ she tried, reaching for his arm.
    He yanked it away, turning away from her. “Let’s go.”
    She felt tears brimming in her eyes, but afraid of doing more damage, she followed wordlessly. Whether or not she agreed that her friends had deliberately drugged her, Will had been the one to save her. And how did she repay his warning, even if it was unfair and off-base? By accusing him of digging his own mother’s grave. She was a spiteful, evil person.
    When she climbed into the car, she tried to discreetly wipe the tears from her eyes. The music was so loud she couldn’t even hear herself sniffling. Will drove like a maniac back to the school, but even though she felt like they would inevitably crash into a tree at some point, he came to a screeching halt in front of the school. He waited with his foot on the brake, clearly not intending to get