Fake Dating My Ex’s Favourite Hockey yer

    bChapter /bb141 /b

    My voice is ice. “And you would’ve fucked him too, wouldn’t you? Just to feel like you’d won. Because you don’t want them. You just want whatever I have.”

    Céline doesn’t hesitate. Doesn’t blink.

    “Yes.”

    The silence that follows is violent.

    And I think that hurts more than anything she’s ever said.

    Because there it is. No excuses. No denial. Just the raw, ugly truth.

    She never wanted them.

    She just wanted to ruin me.

    “You always thought you were better than me,” she spits. “That’s what you think now, right? That I’m pathetic. Trash. Gum under your fucking designer shoe. But I don’t care anymore, Lacey. You took everything. And then you made me say thank you for it.”

    I blink. My brain stutters over her words like they don’t make sense.

    “Is that really what you believe?” My voicees out low. Dangerous. “That I got here because life just handed me everything on a silver tter? That I haven’t scraped and wed for every inch of peace I’ve ever had?”

    She falters but not for long.

    —

    Myugh cuts through the air like broken ss. Even I flinch at how cruel it sounds.

    “I’ve never been a natural. Not once. I’ve failed more times than you’ve bothered to try. But I got up. Over and over. While you were too busy sniffing around my exes or stealing opportunities like a goddamn parasite. Maybe if you’d spent half as much time building something of your own as you did tearing down what was mine, you’d have something left to

    stand on now.”

    bHer /bbface /btightensb, /bbut I’m not done.

    “You told me you were getting a part–time job,” I say, voice cracking. “Turns out it was aiding a sexual predator and leaking lies to the press. That’s not survival, Céline. That’s

    betrayal. That’s being a coward.”

    bI /btake a step forward.

    “And what was all that money for, huh? Were you going to buy a statue of me and piss on it to prove you finally won?”

    She doesn’t answer. Doesn’t move. Just stares at me like she doesn’t know me anymore.

    “I loved you,” I say, and the words burn all the way up. “I loved you, Céline. Do you understand what that means? Do you have any idea what it cost me to let you in?”

    My voice breaks.

    “God, I loved you.”

    “No,” she says, like she’s correcting a child. “You pitied me.”

    Itnds like a p. A final one. The kind that doesn’t sting so much as hollow you out.

    But I’m done clinging to ghosts. My baby. Eric. Now Céline.

    Everything I hold onto rots in my hands.

    “Fuck you,” I say, smiling like it’s the punchline to a long, cruel joke. “You want money,

    right? Hundred thousand? Fifty?” I close the distance, until I can smell her perfume

    the one

    she let me borrow just days ago. Apricot, almost. Sweet with something sour beneath. Like her.

    —

    I grab her cor and yank her close. There’s fire in my veins now. It burns hotter than

    tequ, purer than rage.

    “Let’s do this the old way, shall we?”

    Her eyes flicker – recognition, then fear. She remembers. Our favourite little game. It was

    never serious, not really. Not when we were younger. Not when I had something to lose.

    But my father didn’t teach me for fun. He taught me how to survive. How to end a life if I

    had to.

    And I think, maybe for the first time… I want to.

    “Russian roulette,” I sayb, /bcalm as ice. “If you’re lucky, you take Stone and leave this ship. I’ll wire fifteen million to a Swiss ount of your choosing. More than enough for stic surgery,

    a new passport, a new face- so I never have to see your rotting soul behind those pretty eyes

    again.”

    Céline exhales, sharp and shallow. “And if I’m not lucky?”

    I smile.

    Madness curls at the edges of my mind like smoke, sweet and slow.

    “Then I put a bullet between your eyes,” I say. “And for the first time in your miserable life,

    you won’t

    won’t be able to lie your way out of it.” [1

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    Julie Boy

    Envy, one of the 7 Deadly Sins

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