Experiment in Terror 06.5 And With Madness Comes the Light Read Online Free Page B

dearest
friends,” she told me, tilting my head down so she could look me
square in the eye. “I have a pretty good idea of what you can
handle. You’ll get over this, Dex. Perry will too. Whether that
means you’ll be back in each other’s lives, if that’s even what
you’d both want, I don’t know. But she hurt you. And you hurt her.
Even though you’re apart, you’re in this together. You’ll get out
of it together.”
    She gave my cheek a light slap. “So buck up.
Put on your big boy knickers and deal with it like everyone else
has to when they get their heart broken. People lie and they hurt
you and they betray you. But they also make mistakes. You haven’t
been the perfect guy with her, Dex. Apart from the way things
ended, she had to be only your friend the whole time you were with
Jenn. She had to love you and suffer because you were too scared to
move on and make her yours. Does it make you feel better to know
that she was probably dying slowly inside, that you were breaking
her heart bit by bit?”
    I swallowed hard. I felt better—for one
second. Then it passed, my anger going with it.
    “No,” I admitted softly. “It doesn’t.”
    Because even after all of this, I still
loved her. Love and hate were two sides of the same coin, and my
coin was destined to land with love facing up. And the minute I
made peace with those odds was the minute I’d start winning.
    “Come on.” Em gave me a little tug. “You’re
in our hands now. You’ll be back to your obnoxious old self in no
time.”
    I was looking forward to it. My old self
didn’t have permanently orange-stained palms from an excessive
Doritos consumption.
     
     
    ***
     
     
    Originally, Emily and Rebecca thought they’d
just show up at my place (I’d given my extra key to Rebecca now
that Jenn was out of the picture) and drag me out to a holiday
party. Once they saw my trailer trash state of affairs, however,
their plans changed. I did go and live with them for about a week,
and it was the best thing that could have happened to me. After
falling one too many times, both of them made sure I was up again
and that I stayed up.
    That was the ball-sucking thing about
heartache. It didn’t follow logic or physics or any sort of rules.
It wasn’t that you started off in absolute grief and then slowly
got better. It was a rollercoaster of emotions, from hate to love
and back again. Each day was different. It was a roll of the dice,
a turn of the cards.
    Some days I’d feel fine. I had started
eating better thanks to the girls and their new vegan lifestyle.
Unfortunately, because I was spending Christmas with them now, it
meant eating something called Tofurkey. Still, my body and mind
were responding to the weird tasteless veggie loaf, rejoicing that
I was filling up on healthy foods, and I felt like I could handle
anything life threw at me.
    But on other days, when I’d see a girl with
a fantastic, excessive ass, or hear Slayer on the radio, I was
plunged into turmoil. I’d be reminded of Perry, of what she was to
me, and I wished I could have realized how I felt sooner. I wished
I could have told her how I really felt, that she was more than a
friend and a partner, that she was my everything. The only person
who really understood—who really loved me for me. But if wishes
were fishes, this whole place would really stink.
    A few days after New Year’s, when I was back
at my apartment with Fat Rabbit, trying to piece my life back
together, I got a call from my friend Dean. Dean was a good guy,
dependable and funny, and the co-host of Gamers with our friend
Seb. I guessed that even though Dean had a good physique and slim
build, he’d yielded to one too many video games lately and was
looking to get back in shape. I had a feeling that Rebecca had
probably let him know that I’d devolved from a dick-grabbing monkey
to a defecating parasite (which, by the way, is much worse), and I
needed help.
    Dean had the goal of entering a