Chapter 284
Just thinking about it makes bile rise in my throat.
Slowly, I reach into the drawer and pull out Chloe’s diary. I need something solid. Something real. Something to anchor me.
My fingers tremble slightly as I flip it open and turn the page.
[We all used to hang out even though it wasn’t often, but after that day, things started changing. Noah was engaging Sierra more, getting close to her and ncluding her.
Sierra loved it. She thought he was finally seeing her. Accepting her. That she finally had a chance to win him over p>
My chest tightens.
I remember it clearly. After that day when she dressed differently (Though she went back to her normal dressing soon enough) I made it my mission to make Sierra mine.
Every thought, every dream, involved her. I had fallen for her, and I knew it.
The more time I spent with her, the more certain I became that she was the one, so I couldn’t wait to make it official.
I turn the page.
[I tried getting closer to him, but he had eyes only for Sierra. Nothing I did caught his attention, and I hated it, hated how he was so wrapped around Sierra. Hated all of it because I wanted him to be mine p>
I freeze, unable to believe Chloe can be such a hateful person. The hatred pratically bleeds through the ink, I can almost feel it rising from the pages.
I swallow and force myself to keep reading.
[When my plans kept failing over and over again, I realized nothing would ever work as long as Sierra was in the picture. If I wanted Noah to myself, I had to make sure he gave up on her and what better way to do that than making him hate her p>
My heart begins to pound violently.
Every instinct screams at me to stop. To close the diary. To put it away and pretend none of this exists… But I can’t. I have to know. I need to know what she did, so I turn the page.
[I lied… I found Noah after school one day and told him I couldn’t keep quiet anymore. I said he was a great guy, and I didn’t want to see him hurt. That he deserved better.
He was curious so he listened. I told him Sierra didn’t even like him. That she’d told me she hated his fucking guts because he was a spoiled brat who thought the world revolved around him, but she still loved the attention he was giving her because it meant that even the unataniable Noah Wood could fall for her charms.
He was angry, hurt and broken but more importantly he believed me. The next day, he went back to treating Sierra like trash, and just like that I had a way in p>
The air leaves my lungs in a violent rush. I gasp, but it feels like I’m drowning instead of breathing.
The truth slams into me like an avalanche.
I believed her. Fuck! I believed her.
Memories flash; Sierra’s confusion, the hurt in her eyes, the way she tried to talk to me, the way she tried to ask what changed and what she did wrong. The way I turned cold overnight. The way I let my ego lead instead of talking to her. The way I gave Chloe a way in, by clinging to her because I saw how it hurt Sierra. I remember the way I hurt and punished her for a lie.
My grip tightens on the diary as my world tilts. Everything I believed I knew crumbles in an instant.
I chose to believe Chloe and at seventeen, I destroyed Sierra because of it.
The realization sits in my chest like a weight too heavy to carry.
If she lied about that… if she manipulated something that big just to get her way, then what else did she lie about?
What other stories did she feed me?